Sex Gets Real 244: End of year giveaway, crossdressing neighbors, & dating a sister

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 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! This episode drops New Year’s Eve Eve 2018, so just 2 days until 2019 begins to unfold.

I went through all of my emails, social media comments, and shares, and found the five most commented on episodes of 2018. They were:

5. Cavanaugh Quick on Episode 197

4. Ev’Yan Whitney on Episode 231

3. Dr. Lori Brotto on mindfulness, libido and sex in Episode 227

2. Staci Haines on trauma, healing, and consent in Episode 235

…and the most shared, commented on, and emailed about episode was…

1. Andy Izenson on transformative justice and masculinity in Episode 221

Now, on to your amazing questions.

Curious Vanilla wants to know of any feminist sex toy shops in Canada, so I share my three favorites. Womyns Ware in Vancouver, The Traveling Tickle Trunk in Edmonton, and Come As You Are Co-Op out of Toronto. Happy shopping, Canada!

Awkward is dating her friend’s sister. The problem? She never told him and now they’ve been dating for over a year. Plus, her girlfriend recently found out that Awkward had a previous sexual relationship with this guy (the girlfriend’s brother) and feels uncomfortable with their continued friendship. What can Awkward do?

Anonymous recently learned her neighbor is secretly into crossdressing and being dominated while doing housework. Now he wants Anonymous to be his Domme. He’s so eager to come over and clean her house. The problem? She’s not a Domme and not really into the whole thing. What the heck should she do?

Lookin’ 4 Love is desperate to know when will men stop sucking!? She’s been hurt by so many men, including the men who seem less toxic and more self aware. Is she doomed? Are there ANY good men out there who aren’t steeped in toxic masculinity? She’s awesome and wants to find someone awesome to be with.

And you know what? Lookin’ 4 Love isn’t wrong. Privilege is invisible to those who possess it, and it takes a lot of CONSTANT work and checking to begin to unpack it. There are men out there who are doing this work and doing it well, like Imran Siddiquee and his colleague Jonathan MacIntosh of “Pop Culture Detective”. Also, Mike Domitrz of “Can I Kiss You?”

Finding rad dudes who are unpacking masculinity and speaking to other men about what they’re finding is super important, and the good news there are more and more men doing this work. But hurt is inevitable in love and life, so it’s not only about finding really rad men, but also building our own resilience in our own lives for being able to hold that hurt.

Finally, I end the show with deep deep gratitude for you, dear listener. It means so much to me that you listen and continue tuning in, so hear my end of the year thoughts. Then pop over to Patreon and join me in looking ahead to 2019.

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.

Dawn Serra: Happy New Year. This episode is dropping the day before New Year’s Eve 2018 so it’s going to be listener questions plus some end of the year goodness. And Patreon supporters, I have a really fun bonus for you. Some New Year’s invitations, a little ritual, some questions to help you decide where you’d like to go with your year. Plus, some super delicious, sexy poems that I recently came across, and a couple of other super fun tidbits that’ll recap where I’d like to go in 2019 and give you some prompts so that you can also do the same. If you support the show at patreon.com/sgrpodcast, you can grab that weekly bonus plus all of the others. For $3 a month you get weekly bonus content that is exclusive and you can’t find anywhere else ever. I would love to see you over there and get your support. If you support it $5 and above, you can also help me field listener questions. I post a couple a month and you are welcome to put on your sex educator and relationship expert hat and help me answer questions. So again, patreon.com/sgrpodcast. I just recently changed the URL. 

I also want to let you know two exciting things. One, I’m doing a giveaway does celebrate New Year’s as a thank you to all of you for listening. The giveaway is for two different books by Allison Moon. The first is one of my very favorite books in the Girls Sex 101. This book is full of beautiful, comprehensive, inclusive sex education. It’s got some incredible art by KD diamond, a really cute little comic book story that weaves throughout all the chapters about sex and relationships. So you can get a copy of Girls Sex 101. Plus Alison Moon’s Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories From A Queer Life. So one lucky winner is going to win both of these books. I’ll mail them to you with a little handwritten note. If you want to enter that giveaway, it’s at dawnserra.com/NY2019/ for New Year’s. So NY2019. You can put your name and your email in. I’m going to do the drawing on January 15th, 2019. If you’re hearing this before January 15th, 2019 and you want to put your name in for the book giveaway, again, that’s at dawnserra.com/NY2019/. I will be mailing it for free if the winter is in the US or Canada. If you’re outside the US or Canada, I’m going to ask that you pay for the shipping. But if you’re in the u s and Canada, you can get that plus a little handwritten thank you note from me. So I would love to see you join the giveaway.

Dawn Serra: The other thing I want to mention is the True Freedom Symposium, which is a free online symposium all about how to quit your day job and be a successful entrepreneur is re-airing January 14th through the 18th 2019 and I’m one of the speakers. So if you want to hear my story of how I quit my day job to become a full time sex coach and sex educator, there is a link in the show notes and at dawnserra.com/ep244/ for episode 244 or you can click to sign up and watch those talks for free. My talk airs on January 15th, they’re available for 24 hours each. I just want to say there’s a couple of talks that I would consider pretty problematic as part of this symposium. So if you want to know what some of my favorites are, I highly recommend, in addition to my own, that you also check out Pam Slim. You might know Pam, who’s the author of Escape From Cubicle Nation. Pam’s talk is fantastic. SARC has a beautiful talk about being an artist. Leonore Tjia is a dear friend of mine and will be on the podcast soon. Hopefully, I just sent her an invite today. She has a great talk as well. And then I also think that Carol Alan’s talk is pretty good. Ed O’neill from Modern Family and Married With Children is also one of the speakers. His talk is short and super fun, and you learn all about how he became the actor that you now know him to be. Again, that link is in the show notes or if you go to a dawnserra.com/ep244/, then you can click through and sign up. I get a little credit when you do that and you can hear my story of what it was like to quit 17 years in IT at a Fortune 150 to then branch out on my own and be who you now know me to be. So I would love to see you there. 

Dawn Serra: Let’s dive in to this week’s episode. The first thing I wanted to do was I went back through all of the emails, the comments, the shares that I had gotten throughout 2018. I wanted to share with you the five episodes that, according to you, had the most impact. So these episodes created lots of buzz, lots of questions, lots of, “oh my God, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.” So from five to one, those episodes featured Cavanaugh Quick. So Cavanaugh had an episode at the beginning of the year episode 197 . Number four is Ev’Yan Whitney who was episode 231. The next one, number three is Dr. Lori Brotto. Dr. Lori Brotto’s was episode 227. That episode got so many comments about mindfulness and libido, people sharing thoughts and Aha moments. So I really appreciated that. The second most popular episode, according to your responses was my interview with Staci Haines, which was episode 235 talking all about trauma and somatics, and body and consent and… Oh my God, was I in love with that episode. So I’m glad it resonated with you. And then the most commented on episode, the one where I’ve continue to get emails, comments, all kinds of stuff was my talk with Andy Izenson, episode 221.

If you want to listen to any of those episodes again or you haven’t heard them, there are links at dawnserra.com/ep244/ or in the show notes. You can just click through and listen to those episodes after you’re done with this one. Thank you to all of you who wrote in, who commented on social media, who shared liberally under social media. I appreciate it and I know that all of the speakers do as well. 

Dawn Serra: So it’s time for your listener questions. This first question is rather new. It just came in a couple of days ago from Curious Vanilla. The subject line is Some Questions and Praise.

Hi Dawn, as most of the people who write in I’m sure, I love your show. It is seriously changing my life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m probably as vanilla as they come, which is fine and will likely never change. But your show helps me to see everything in a new light. I have been able to become much more intimate with my husband, more massages and sensual touch, whereas before if we started to get sexy, I would feel so overwhelmed with how long it would take and how I would perform. I just couldn’t relax. Anyway, because of you, I am much more able to just appreciate these little moments for what they are rather than be disappointed in myself when it’s not like quote unquote the movies, actual movies. I have never watched porn. Anyway, I just had a couple of questions.

I live in Canada and I thought I heard you were also living here. Are you from Canada or did you move here? In your show, I hear about so many great sex stores, but they’re all in the US. Do we have any examples like those here? I live in British Columbia, but I would be happy to hear about anything. The only sex stores I ever see feel very unapproachable, so I try and shop online. But it’s not really the same. I found one store on Vancouver Island that I can barely go to. They’re good in a lot of ways, but don’t take it as far as I would like to see on the feminist spectrum. I often fantasize about opening a sex store. We need more openness in all of our lives, but I’ll have to learn how to talk about sex without feeling uncomfortable first. Listening to your show helps. I listen everyday on the way to work. Anyway, I appreciate you so much and loved the show on the sex educator from Ontario. Thank you and bye for now. 

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for writing in Curious Vanilla. To answer your question, if you’ve listened to more episodes since you wrote in, you probably know now, I am not originally from Canada. I am originally from Southern California, but I spent, god, 17 years in the Washington DC area. And when the show started with me and Dylan, we were in the Washington DC area and then I married a Canadian. So I put in my permanent residency paperwork just a few weeks before the Trump election and I have a permanent residency. So I do plan on becoming a citizen as soon as I am able. But for now, I’m a permanent resident in British Columbia as well. As for feminist sex stores, there are three that I know and highly recommend.

The first is out in Toronto and it is Come As You Are, which is this amazing co-op. They sponsor Andrew Gurza’s show Disability After Dark. Cory Silverberg used to be associated with it. It’s a fantastic online shop. They used to have a Brick and Mortar in Toronto, but I think that closed and now they’re exclusively online. So Come As You Are. The next one is The Traveling Tickle Trunk in Edmonton. That one is fantastic and then in Vancouver, Womyn’s Wear, and women is spelled with a Y. Womyn’s Wear in Vancouver is a great feminist shop as well. I will have links to all three of those shops at dawnserra.com/ep244/ for episode 244 and in the show notes. So if anyone is in Canada and wanted to do some sexy, feminist inclusive shopping, I recommend Womyn’s Wear, The Traveling Tickle Trunk, and Come As You Are.

Thank you so much for writing in Curious Vanilla. I appreciate all of the praise and the generosity. I’m so glad listening to the show has helped you have deeper intimacy with your husband and expanded your sexual options, and I hope that you do some super sexy shopping in the new year. 

Dawn Serra: Awkward wrote in with a subject line Dating His Sister. Hi Dawn. I’m a 22 year old woman and currently have a girlfriend. She’s been my friend for almost three years and we recently started dating. The year we started our friendship, we didn’t have any interest in one another romantically. It started to develop about a year later. During that first year, I met her brother and we hit it off pretty fast. We started a friendship and things got pretty sexual pretty quickly. We ended up hooking up on two occasions. I never had any romantic interest in him, but I trusted him and was sexually attracted to him.

Later, we had a big fight that ended our friendship and he ended up moving away to the States. So on to my issue, we ended up reaching out to one another some time ago after a year had already passed. And he and I have kept on talking about sexual topics. My girlfriend has since found out, and is really uncomfortable with this. To me, talking about sex is just another topic of conversation, but she feels that it’s weird that I’m talking about those topics with him, her brother, and somebody whom I’ve slept with. On top of that, he doesn’t know that we’re dating and I struggled with deep feelings of shame around the fact that I fucked her brother. I feel like a total whore for doing that even though at the time, I had no idea I would develop feelings for my now girlfriend. I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but it also seems weird to not talk about sexual subjects with him. Given that our friendship has been highly based on that. Any advice you could give, I would greatly appreciate. Thanks. 

Dawn Serra: Well I think it has to start with letting him know you’re dating his sister. My my first thought is if you really value this friendship with him, being honest is going to be a really important part of that friendship. The longer you go without disclosing that the more hurtful the betrayal could be. So I would start with thinking about what it takes to have a really healthy connected relationship. That’s with friends, colleagues, family, intimate or sexual partners. It’s usually based on honesty, transparency, openness. And I think that’s where you have to start.

I’m glad that you’ve told your girlfriend about rekindling your friendship with her brother and I think that it’s completely normal and okay for her to have feelings of being really uncomfortable. I also think that it’s okay for you to want to continue the friendship with him. The more open you can be with everyone and with yourself, the better. What is it that you get out of this friendship with him? Is it purely sexual? Is it purely an opportunity to get to say and explore sexual things? Are there other things that he offers to you like emotional support or some sense of fun? I would investigate that and then I would also give your girlfriend a chance to share why she’s feeling how she’s feeling, to ask her what you can do to help support her and answering any questions that she may have. But I think at the very base, you need to start with letting him know you’re dating his sister and then you’re going to have to figure things out from there. He might feel uncomfortable about that. He might be super okay with that. You’re going to have to decide how you want to tend to both of those relationships. It is a little bit complicated and that doesn’t mean that anything is wrong or that you’ve done anything wrong. We move in and out of relationships and feelings about the people that we’re in relationship with throughout our lives. So it makes complete sense to me that you would have started a friendship up with one person and then started a friendship up with another person; and those feelings changed and then they changed again and now you’re in a new place. 

The thing that I do think is a little bit interesting is that based on your email, you’ve been friends with your girlfriend for almost three years and that you only recently started dating. And that during that first year you met her brother and became friends with him. It sounds like way back in the beginning, you kept the relationship with her brother from her. So I think that’s another missed opportunity there. There could have been some honesty and transparency way back in the beginning around, “I super value our friendship and I’ve hit it off with your brother. He’s really rad and we’re spending some time together too.” 

Dawn Serra: There seems to be some secrecy that’s been happening in the past and that continues to happen. So that’s the place that I would recommend that you do a little bit of investigating. Why wasn’t there a disclosure way back in the beginning? Why isn’t there a disclosure now with him around the relationship that you have with his sister? Reconciling those things, I think, is going to bring you into a healthier place with both of these relationships so that you can navigate them. And then you have to decide with your girlfriend how you want to support her or not around her feelings of discomfort. If she says, “I really can’t do this,” you’re going to have to decide how do you want to respond to that. If you want to let her know this relationship with her brother is really important to you, “Here’s the things we talk about, here’s why they’re valuable to me. Here’s a boundary that I’m willing to set around this. How do you feel about that?” That open communication is going to make it much more likely that all of you can find your own way through this in a way that serves all of you in a really healthy, supported way. 

Start with doing some some reflection on the lack of transparency that seems to be happening at multiple points. Why is there a surprise for so many people that you care about? How can you reconcile those gaps and bringing them into alignment. And then really thinking about what does this relationship with the brother mean; and what kinds of conversations can you and your girlfriend have so that she feels like she’s got all the information she needs and you feel like you’ve shared everything really transparently. And then the two of you can find your way forward. We don’t know how the brother’s going to react when he finds out. You’ve been dating his sister for a while. That might lead to some other conversations. But at least start from this place of creating the most open and transparent, and supportive connections with the people in your life that you can and then go from there.

Thank you so much for listening to the show. Thank you so much for writing in. I hope that after a handful of conversations, this wonderful new world opens up to you where you can be really open about the people that you have in your life and what they mean to you, and that everyone can be supportive of each other. I wish that so much for your 2019. Thank you so much, Awkward.

Dawn Serra: Anonymous wrote in with the subject line Crossdresser Looking For A Dom And It Ain’t Me. Hey, Dawn. How the hell did I get into this mass? So a married neighbor confessed to me that he secretly loves to crossdress and be told to clean house. He also likes slight discipline and wearing a butt plug. I told him I would keep his secret because he’s married with kids. The problem now that he’s told me, he seems to expect me to help him live his fantasy. He’s told me he can’t wait for me to have an empty house so he could come clean it and be disciplined. What am I going to do? I wouldn’t mind doing it once or twice just to try but I am in no way skilled at being a dom or a master and I do not want an ongoing thing with him at all. Help.

Thank you so much for writing in, Anonymous. I appreciate everything that you shared. It sounds like your married neighbor was desperate to have someone just witness and hold his truth with him. Now that that’s happened, he is hungry for more. It can be really painful for us to keep secrets in our lives. Sometimes secrets can be fun. But when we deny our truths, especially with people that we love and care about, it can create a lot of pain and a sense of isolation. Oftentimes what that means is the first person that comes along that’s willing to really see us for who we are. We glom on and we’re desperate for more because it feels so good to not have this deep, dark secret. Often, that creates a sense of shame and like there’s something wrong with you. It makes sense that he confessed and in you being able to hold that confession and say, “I will keep this a secret.” He wants something more. 

The thing that you have to decide is how do you want to set the boundary or negotiate this relationship with him? My guess is because he’s so immediately eager to come over to your house and to crossdress and to be disciplined that once isn’t going to be enough. My guess is he’s going to do it once and then expect this to be an ongoing thing. The thing that you’re going to have to ask yourself is, do you even want to do this? Do you even want to entertain it? If you do, what are the parameters that would make this feel the most fun for you? That would make it feel like something you do want to do and then you have to negotiate that with him. If this is really something that you want to try once but you don’t really want to have an ongoing thing, you’re going to have to be really clear with him and then hold those boundaries really firmly if he pushes up against them; there might be some anger that comes from that because it might make him feel like something’s being taken away, that he’s just finally grasped. If you’re not really interested and you’re just feeling a little bit guilty or you should because he doesn’t have another place to do it. That, to me, isn’t a great reason to do this and I would recommend that he hire a professional to help him do this. 

Dawn Serra: There are all kinds of professionals who are professional doms who absolutely know so many things about discipline and house cleaning, and really making someone feel all the things that they most want to feel because they are professionals. It’s what they do all the time with many clients. So they have the skills, the boundaries, the space to be able to craft an experience like this with him. Now, he is going to have to pay for it. But at least then he knows, one, it’s a professional who knows what they’re doing. When they negotiate whatever the terms are going to be, he knows that that’s something that he can trust. And because it’s our professional, the likelihood that a next door neighbor is going to find out is much lower. 

The other thing that you need to think about is if you do indulge this thing with your neighbor and his wife and our kids find out, does that then make your living situation unbearable or toxic or really, really problematic and full of drama? I think the answer here is, unless this is something you really want to do and you’re willing to take on the potential risk of a fallout with that neighbor’s wife. Maybe this is a chance for him to work with our professional who can keep the secret, tend the boundaries, who has of experience with this and who’s being compensated for their time and their expertise. So they’re opting into this exchange in a way that would be a lot different than you doing it from a place of obligation or guilt.

The other thing that he could potentially do, though it’s a little bit more risky, is going onto Fetlife or some other type of online kinky space and trying to find someone who would do this with him. But again, when it’s not with a professional, there’s a lot more risk involved around disclosure and secrets and feelings and things getting messy really fast. If this is something that he really needs to explore, it doesn’t sound like you are the one to help him explore it. But you need to figure that out and then pass the message along to him, including that he can hire a pro. I love that he came out to you and he sees you as a beacon of permission. That must mean that you are the kind of person that people want to talk to you about this kind of stuff. So go you and thank you so much for listening to the show and for writing in with this is a really fun question. I hope that as he goes on his adventures, he shares them with you and I hope that he finds an outlet for being able to express himself in this way. Thank you so much for listening to the show and happy new year. Anonymous. 

Dawn Serra: Just a quick note. Don’t forget, if you want a copy of Alison Moon’s Girl Sex 101 and Bad Dyke: Salacious Stories From A Queer Life, you can enter the new year’s giveaway dawnserra.com/NY2019/ All it takes is a name and email address and what country you live in. You will go into a random drawing and on January 15th, I will randomly select one name and say you’re the winner and then send the books along with a handwritten note. So I would love for you to join. I’ve got many more giveaways coming up over the next couple of months: Tea and Empathy cards, a really fun consent board game, some other books, including signed copies by the authors. This is going to be an epic year and we’re starting it with Alison Moon’s fantastic books. So again, dawnserra.com/NY2019/ to enter it and put your name in the hat and hopefully you’ll be the winner. 

This next email comes from Looking for Love. The subject line, When Will Men Stop Sucking? Hey, Dawn. I love your show so much. It’s helped me make the decision to become a sexuality educator and I share it with all of my friends. I’m a 25 year old straight, cis woman. I’m in a place in my love life right now. Well, I don’t really have one. I haven’t seriously dated anyone for five years. I feel really hurt from a lot of the men I’ve been with recently. They’ve either sexually coerced me, been awful communicators or made me feel like they just wanted me for sex when I wanted more. 

What I really want is a deep, intimate, trusting relationship. I’ve spent so much time alone these past few years, both in my heart but also in general because I move around a lot for work. I feel so ready to share myself with someone because I’ve become really intimate with myself. I think I’m incredible. But also I’m scared to put myself out there because I feel so rejected, objectified, and hurt by men that part of me doesn’t even want to try anymore. I am extremely picky. The second I see a shred of toxic masculinity, I’m not interested anymore. But even the guys who make it past that, hurt me. When will it stop? How do I find men that don’t totally suck? I try to go for older men, but then I often feel uncomfortable with the power dynamics at play that are difficult for me to get past. Please help. 

Dawn Serra: Oh, Looking for Love. You are preaching the gospel. You are not alone. So many people feel that way. The good news is there are amazing men out there. It might be a little bit hard to find. The culture that we live in, as you know, is we’re in the water of toxic masculinity and patriarchy. And I would very much like to tenderly and very carefully liken this to race, right? There are so many people of color out there who are like, “Where are their non toxic white folks who have really examined the effects of white supremacy on their lives?” All white people are problematic in some way because they’re completely unable to see the privilege that they have and the ways that we’re steeped in white supremacy. And it’s true. I’m aware of that at all times. That I literally cannot extract myself from the privilege that I have in the system that we have and I will always do harm. That said, I work really hard to learn and to listen and to do better, and I’m always going to be on that journey. There are lots of men out there who are doing the same thing around gender, masculinity, patriarchy, sexism; who are aware that they simply exist with unearned privilege because of the systems and the culture that we live in. And they are confronting those things and unpacking them on a regular basis in a way that doesn’t make more emotional labor for the women and the other people in their lives. It’s rare, but they’re there.

It can be so frustrating. I’m just speaking from personal experience. It can be so frustrating and so challenging, especially when you get to a place where you can see those behaviors so easily and so clearly, and then you see them being enacted everywhere around you. It’s like there’s no escape. But there are people out there who are doing the work and who are becoming as aware as they can be of the ways that gender and privilege are impacting them. The ways that they demand emotional labor. All I can say is it’s going to take some time and I think the clearer you are on how you want to feel when you’re in relationships with people. If you were to find a man who was really unpacking masculinity, who was really confronting patriarchy, who was taking active steps to dismantle these systems and thinking about the ways that they were creating labor for those in their lives, how would you want to feel in that relationship? What kinds of conversations would you want to be able to have? How would you engage on a daily basis together? Having those feelings be something that you can really name and be aware of is going to help you find your way through the muck that is most other folks. 

I think also thinking about where would people like that exist? Imran Siddiquee is this fantastic essayist and thought leader around unpacking masculinity. I had him at Explore More Summit in 2018. He’s partnered with Melissa Fabelo who is an amazing thought leader and writer around Diet Culture. He does some really incredible work and he’s friends with Jonathan McIntosh who is the amazing creator behind pop culture detective, which I think are some of the best video essays in existence right now. Pop culture detective does these incredibly deep dives into the ways masculinity is portrayed in pop culture and some of the tropes that we see. It’s so smart. I mean, I learned so much from his video essays. He puts a lot of work. It takes multiple months for him to do one 15 minute video because he does so much research. But for people like Imran and Jonathan who have literally dedicated their lives to examining and breaking down these systems to make them more visible to other men. Where would people like that create and hang out and who are they influenced by and friends with? If you can put yourself into spaces where those kinds of conversations and thoughts are happening, with those kinds of people who are writing and who are aware that they don’t want to be put up on a pedestal and who don’t want to be preaching to women about these things. I think that’s another key. 

Dawn Serra: Anyone who exists in a privileged identity who wants to teach and preach to people from more marginalized communities, right there, is problematic. So if you’ve got men who are getting up in front of women and talking about abuse and toxic behaviors, that’s a big red flag to me. But people like Mike Domitrz who I had on the show earlier and he has this great book, Can I kiss You? Or Jonathan McIntosh from Pop Culture Detective, they’re trying to teach other men how to do better and how to engage in these conversations. Also groups like Men Can Stop Rape. Anyone who’s associated with that is going to be someone who’s really interested in dismantling rape culture and sexual violence.

I think the key is finding places where people like this are gathering, even if it’s online, and having conversations. The other thing is there’s no way to avoid hurt inside of relationship. It’s unavoidable and it’s inevitable. That’s what it means to be in relationship with other human beings. Now, the hurt can look lots of different ways. I’m in these wonderful friendships with women and we have absolutely hurt each other over the years. But that hurt might feel really different than say, if Alex did something that hurt me or if a family member did something that hurt me. Hurt is just part of being flawed individuals engaging with each other and saying the wrong thing, or having big feelings and not handling it well. 

I think one of the things that I would also encourage is what kinds of hurt would you like to develop more resilience around and what kinds of hurt can’t you tolerate? If hurt is someone’s decided to be in a relationship with you and then down the road they realize it’s not a good fit, to me, as much as that does hurt, that’s a hurt from honesty versus a hurt of, “I’ve lied, I’m coercing you. I’m betraying you,” that come from just really terrible behaviors. Also just kind of examining that. If if hurt this inevitable, what can we do to tend to ourselves and open at the same time? It’s this contradictory experience to be in relationship with other humans, to keep ourselves open, knowing we’re going to get hurt is the crux of vulnerability and why so many people love Brené Brown’s work. How can we stay open and tender knowing something’s going to hurt, something’s going to come to an end. 

Dawn Serra: So Looking for Love, I would recommend, one, thinking about where some of the types of men you’re looking for might be hanging out, talking online. Connect with people like Imran Siddiquee and Jonathan McIntosh and Mike and… There’s lots of others, actually. They’re just not coming to mind right now. Thomas Page McBee has written a couple of books all about masculinity. He’s this amazing trans man who has done a lot of work to reveal what masculinity does and how it shows up, and why we need to topple it completely. Following people like that on social media to see who their influencers are, what groups are they associated, where they speaking? What kinds of meetups do they attend, who’s reading their books? It takes a little bit of research, but when you can find some communities where those kinds of things happen regularly, it can feel so nourishing and give so much hope.

You’re not wrong. Lots and lots and lots of men aren’t investigating their privilege, aren’t looking at the ways they’re creating so much emotional labor for the women specifically in their lives. They’re not seeking affection and friendship and bonding and touch with other men and other people in their lives. They are still stuck inside of patriarchy and rape culture. That is the vast majority. If it wasn’t, then 95% of domestic violence wouldn’t be by men and rape, and sexual assault and all the other things. These systems are well fed and well entrenched and you’re not making this up. It is true. It is hard and rare, but just because something is rare doesn’t mean it’s not there. And what I don’t want you to do is to lose hope or to close yourself off, to build big, hard walls that won’t let someone come in when you do find someone who is really awesome. 

Celebrate the amazingness that is you find like minded people even if their other genders than men where you can feel seen and explore these ideas. And then maybe do a little bit of legwork to start filling some of your spheres and circles and social media feeds with all the really rad men out there who are doing this. Knowing that people who are in privileged identities are always going to cause us harm and our jobs are then to decide what kinds of harm are we resourced for? What kinds of things can we forgive? Do we have the kinds of relationships with people where we can be really honest and say, “Ouch, that hurt. I need you to do better.” There’s so much more I could say about this, but I love that you asked the question. You are so not alone. I totally feel it. You have heard me just go off on so many, so many, so many, so many tangents about this in the past. But they are out there. 

Dawn Serra: For the men who are listening, what do you have to do to start becoming the type of man that someone like Looking for Love would really want to be with? The kind of man who understands gender roles, masculinity, the harms and history of patriarchy and rape culture, who have studied black feminist thought and indigenous thought, and read feminist essays and books like Jacqueline Friedman’s who are constantly unpacking and connecting with other people around these ideas who have deep, intimate friendships with other men and people of other genders. God, this is where the world is going and it’s so exciting and I want more and more and more of us to all be doing that. Whether it’s around our gender or it’s around our race or it’s surrender our culture or it’s around our body size or our ability. It’s so rich and so exciting and so nourishing and so exciting. I already said exciting twice. To do this work is endlessly, endlessly delicious and rewarding. 

And let me tell you, the sex? Holy shit. When you find people who really get it, who really get it and who are doing this work, the sex is fucking incredible. Because of so many of the stories that you can let go of. It doesn’t have to be penis centric. It doesn’t have to be performative. It doesn’t have to be about trying to mold your body into something it doesn’t want to be or performing gender stereotypes. It can be about diving deeper and deeper and deeper into your wants and your pleasure and who you want to express yourself as an all the things you can try on without it feeling threatening. I mean, holy shit. That’s where there’s some deep transcendent ecstasy available to us when we’re not performing. We’re just rolling around in the depth of our essence without any pretense. We’re constantly going deeper at removing all of these shackles in these stories. Yes. This is where some good fucking sex happens is with people who are doing this work. 

Thank you so much for writing in, Looking for Love. You got me off in a nice 20 minute tangent and I hope that was helpful. I hope that inspired some others and I hope that you have fun connecting with the men out there who are doing this work and then it leads you towards some really, really yummy, interesting places. Keep being you out in the world. Don’t feel like you have to compromise even if that means taking some more time until you enter into some kind of intimate relationship with a man. You deserve exactly what it is that you want, which is a non toxic aware individual. They are out there and hopefully there are more and more and more of them coming along to join us on this very, very important ride. Thank you.

Dawn Serra: I just want to say thank you to all of you who are here with me right now. I know I mentioned in my chat with Cameron Glover last week that listenership for the show has dipped down a little bit and initially that caused me some distress. But where I am now is this show has never been about the money. It just hasn’t. If the show was about the money, I would’ve taken it in a super different direction. This show is about me and you and doing the things that feel really important to me and expressing myself as honestly and as transparently as I can, knowing that I’m going to change and that I hope that all of you who listen come along with me as those changes happen. 

I know that when the show started, Dylan and I were pretty much just sharing about our own sex lives and the adventures that we would go on. But for both of us, that became harder and harder as the show went on because we were living regular lives like everybody else and neither one of us was working a dungeon or doing this in a professional context. Both of us had full time jobs and partners and friends and lives. As we started doing interviews, it started really, really, really lighting me up. The amount of growth and change the I’ve experienced in the last three or four years is more than I experienced in the 36 years that led up to those three or four years. And I’m really proud and excited by that. And as I continue to change and grow and learn, I want to share those things with you as intimately and openly as I possibly can. And that means being really selective about who I’m willing to do advertisements for on the show. And that means turning most advertisers down. It also means making lots of mistakes along the way. As listenership has dipped, what I realized is the people who are staying, who is you, listener, are the people who I want here.

I don’t want to have millions and millions of people listening to me, the majority of whom don’t get it, don’t like it, don’t appreciate it, who wants something else. I want people here who enjoy having these kinds of rich discussions, who want to connect the dots, who know that their experience of sex and love, and body are deeply impacted by all of these other things that we’re experiencing in the world. Nothing is isolated. Nothing’s in a vacuum or a silo. So thank you for being here with me. It really, truly means so much. Every email that I get, every comment on social media, there’s a lot of things I could be doing better. I am terrible at managing my social media because I have so many different things going on all the time and there’s just… I’m constantly trying to do better and learn. But for those of you who are here this year on the podcast has been so meaningful to me. 

Dawn Serra: Some of the conversations I’ve had on this show have changed me to the bone of the kind of person that I am. Singular conversations are changing me in huge ways and to have you listening and especially to those of you who support on Patreon, even if it’s just a dollar, it really helps me to keep doing this because I want to keep doing this. I do this from a place of passion, not income. I spend lots of money and so much time on this. I do this because it’s important and because I love it and because I want to. And so knowing that you’re out there listening and responding and feeling things, even if they’re complicated or hard, that is what I want to hold in my heart as I close out 2018, is gratitude for you. Gratitude for you for being here with me in all of my imperfections and growing and changing and learning.

I want to do so much more in 2019 and I hope that you’ll come along with me because I think we’re going to go some really yummy, interesting places and I’m going to get things wrong and I’m going to fuck up and I’m going to make mistakes. But that’s part of what this show has become, is learning and growing together and hoping that we can trust each other generously to do better and to do more and to stay connected. So thank you for staying connected with me. 

If you have any questions or comments that you want to send in to the show, just head to dawnserra.com. Patreon supporters, head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. I’m going to go record this fun new year’s ritual self reflection to share some of my stuff, offer you some prompts to share yours, and these two really sexy poems that I recently came across that I’m looking forward to reading for you. So until next time I’m Dawn Serra, closing out 2018 on Sex Gets Real.

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 to 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?