Sex Gets Real 253: Wanting to stop squirting, condom complaints, & finding feminist community

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1. Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we’ll enroll again in June!). It’s called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I’d love to see you there.

On to your emails!

Adam wrote back after hearing his email on the show with an emotional thank you.

Beginning Gusher and Waterboarding Victim both wrote in with the same question from opposite perspectives. How can you prevent squirting?

I share some thoughts and advice from other sex educators before weighing in with my thoughts. Essentially, our bodies are going to do what our bodies are going to do, and instead of stopping something natural from happening, a better question is what ELSE can someone do that feels pleasurable and connecting that might not lead to squirting if it must be avoided.

Naive Nancy has a question about condoms. Her boyfriend claims that he can’t wear condoms because he’s circumcised. Is she being naive? Her friends think so, but they’re also having all sorts of other kinds of sex that works for them. Is it a big deal?

Maybe. Maybe not. Because male entitlement to pleasure is the gold standard right now, many dudes have internalized this sense of “I don’t want to so I won’t” when it comes to condoms. That said, all bodies are different, and one person’s experience may be different than another’s. Practicing with condoms during masturbation, trying differing amounts of lube on the inside of the condom, and eroticizing condoms can all help.

But, bottom line, as long as he’s respecting Nancy’s boundaries, he can have whatever experience he has and it doesn’t have to be about anything more.

Nic wrote in about being someone who was emotionally and sexually abused. How can Nic find feminist community? Where can Nic find folks who AREN’T invested in misogyny and sexism? Let’s talk about finding community and the ways we survive.

Among the things discussed, I mention Laura van Dernoot Lipsky’s books “Trauma Stewardship” and “The Age of Overwhelm”, “Healing Sex” by Staci Haines, as well as “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine’s books.

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 inservice 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: Hey, you. Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I took three much needed days off this week. It’s the first time I’ve taken time off without checking email and doing any kind of work at all in probably three years. It’s because I’m trying to build such amazing things out in the world and it does nourish and feed me. And I do all kinds of play and touch, and yummy foods and community stuff amongst all of it. But it’s  rare for me to say, “No. Nothing. I am not going to answer emails. I’m not going to answer social media. I am going to completely unplug and take care of me,and slow down and let things be boring or quiet or sensual.” And, man, I feel good. It’s nice to be back. But it was also really nice to do that.

Alex and I talked about trying to do that maybe every other month where even if it’s just two days, one overnight, somewhere where we just completely unplug. Luxury, it felt so good. I also just want to remind you, speaking of feeling good, that my new online course Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy, is now enrolling. It’s going to happen live starting April 22nd. Enrollment is limited. And so if you’d like to join us, we’ve already got about a dozen people signed up and I’m sure many more will be joining over the next couple of weeks. 

It’s going to be an online course and community to help you discover, befriend, and prioritize your pleasure and your body. And while we will be exploring all different kinds of pleasure, a big part of this course is going to be around shame and grief when it comes to our bodies, our food, and the ways that we experience pleasure around the things that nourish and feed us. So it’s going to be delicious and wonderful, and challenging and deeply, deeply, deeply curious. And if you’d like to join me, you can go to dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse, all one word with no dashes, pleasure course, and check out and see what it’s all about. It’s going to be five weeks with daily emails and weekly calls, and all kinds of journal prompts and articles, and videos that are going to help you to unpack some of the stories you carry about what kind of pleasure you deserve. The ways that you monitor, police, and deny your pleasure, and how you can connect with an embodied kind of pleasure that either heals something in you, reveals something to you, or connects you more deeply with yourself and those you love. A really meaningful kind of pleasure. We’re also going to be talking about how that Los Vegas consumption-based performative pleasure isn’t actually pleasure at all. More than a quest for belonging and soothing. Join me for these really rich conversations, dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse 

Dawn Serra: This week, it’s going to be you, me, and your emails. Patreon supporters, I have posted new questions from listeners. If you support at $5 a month and above, not only do you get the weekly bonus content that the folks who support at $3 a month and above get, but you can also help me answer listener questions. You can put your sex educator hat on and your relationship guru hat on, share your stories, your perspectives, and they might make it on the show. So if you go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast there, you can support the show at any level. Every single dollar counts and helps me so much. And if you support the show, you can access a huge back catalog of bonuses and questions. It’s never too late to answer a question. Even if you hear me answer one of those questions on the show, but you’ve got thoughts, you can go back many, many, many months. And if anything tickles you or piques your curiosity or even something you’ve experienced and you want to weigh in, you can do that. And then I will potentially circle back to that question and share your thoughts because I love featuring other people’s voices too. This is all about a conversation. 

Dawn Serra: Alright. This week, let’s dive in to some of your emails. Adam wrote in and I fielded his question several weeks ago, all about “Sex isn’t real.” And one of the things that Adam shared was that his wife was experiencing all kinds of chronic pain and chronic illness and that it was just really difficult for him to get his sexual needs met. And he actually followed up after hearing me read his question on the show and it says…

Hi Dawn, I just heard you read my email on the podcast last night. It moved me to tears to hear you read it out. And I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Hearing someone else read through my thoughts was useful and thank you for your ideas on things to do, as well. I’m going to have to relisten to it a few times, but I will be definitely taking onboard your thoughts and will keep you updated on how things go. So just a quick email to say thank you. Adam. 

You’re so welcome, Adam. I hope that it just opens up new avenues of curiosity and possibility. That’s really the most that any of us can hope for because there are no quote unquote answers in the messiness of what it is to be a human, human being with other humans. But if we can get curious, if we can shift our perspective a little bit to look for new possible ways to connect with ourselves and each other, I think, that’s often the best and the most that we can hope for. I appreciate you listening to the show and for writing back that meant so much to me, and thank you for trusting us with your very nuanced and complicated question.

Dawn Serra: Interestingly, in the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten two questions that essentially ask the same thing but from very different perspectives. I’m going to read both of the emails and then we’ll talk about it a little bit. So the first question is from Beginning Gusher, and the subject line is Stopping the Squirt. I just recently started masturbating and figured out I’m a squirter. I really want to not squirt because it’s such a mess. I know there are options but I can’t really deal with the hassle of cleaning up after sexy time when I’m still living with my parents. If they were to find out, I’d be mortified. How do I stop squirting all together so I can feel not afraid to cum when I please? Sincerely, anonymous. 

Now this question is very similar to another question that I received from Waterboarding Victim and the subject line is Squirter Girlfriend. I have met my sexual equal. Someone that loves sex as much as I do. Someone that loves to make love and also loves to just fuck. You name it, she’s up for it. There is one thing though that comes up every time. When I perform oral sex on her, it generally takes her a little bit long to orgasm. Before she orgasms, she begins to squirt. Very lightly, initially, but then it builds up and it literally turns into Niagara Falls. That is followed by her having a powerful orgasm shortly thereafter. I think she is mentally preoccupied with her squirting and it blocks her from having an orgasm quicker. I don’t mind the squirting, but it can be a bit much when it feels like my face just got hit with a power washer. I don’t want her to feel bad about it. I want her to enjoy oral sex without any reservation at all. While at the same time, I don’t want to experience the volume that comes out. How can I reduce that while not making her feel worse than she already does? 

So between Waterboarding Victim and Beginning Gusher, the question is essentially, how can I stop squirting? Well, I reached out to a whole bunch of my colleagues and asked them for their input just to see if anybody had any ideas that were going to be helpful to these two folks. And here’s some of the things that they said. 

Dawn Serra: The first person says, “I wish I had different options to share, but as someone who’s had her pelvic floor evaluated, hooked up to electrodes, the works. I’ve had zero success in stopping squirting despite a confirmation my pelvic floor is in perfect shape. There is a working theory with another expert pelvic physical therapist that there may be a muscle spasm disallowing me to draw in my pelvic floor while ejaculation happens. But there’s no way to know for certain. The theory is it’s caused by a laxity issue with penetration, but this is untested, as that was a professional colleague conversation, not an actual physical evaluation. And while this person did not specify, my experience is that squirting occurs, regardless of the type of stimulation.”

Someone else says, “Maybe different types of stimulation could result in different orgasms and outcome”. Another person said that, “I’m curious whether this person has explored masturbation through different methods and using hands, toys, et cetera. Sometimes one or two techniques are less likely to get us to squirt. And these can be the fail safes for folks who have times when they really don’t want to deal with the cleanup.” Somebody else suggested puppy pads or maternity pads for super easy cleanup. But for Beginning Gusher, if you’re living with your parents, then that would mean being very meticulous about your trash and getting that out of the room.

Somebody else offers, “A lot of the same techniques that work for people with penises who want to delay or avoid ejaculations can be helpful. Identifying what it feels like in their body right before they squirt, catching themselves clenching and having a muscular contraction, and then intentionally relaxing rather than bearing down and releasing that sort of thing. Nothing will be foolproof and one can definitely still squirt when fully relaxed, and letting the orgasm surprise them aka not actively trying to create a release. But it can give the asker at least a little more control over the experience while they’re working through feelings of shame or embarrassment, and while they figure out a preparation or a cleanup solution that works best for them.” And then someone weighed in and said, “I second that. From my experience, one can start to understand how it happens by slowing down and getting more of an embodied experience of what happens and what their body is doing before and during squirting. I think a lot of it is muscle memory and habitual with what’s associated with those sensations. I’ve successfully been able to redirect prior to ejaculation so that the orgasm and the energy shifts internally, relaxing and allowing sensations rather than bearing down and pushing outwards. With mindfulness practices, breath and patience, I imagine exploring different methods of pleasurable touch could really help them create more feelings of control over the experience.”

Dawn Serra: So I also did a whole bunch of other research. I checked out Scarleteen, which is always a fantastic resource for any kinds of sex related questions. I consulted Sheri Winston’s book Women’s Anatomy of Arousal. And essentially what it comes down to is some bodies just do this. There’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing unusual with it. It’s just how somebody reacts to certain kinds of situations and stimulation. And the question is, is there a different kind of stimulation that can be done that might yield a different result? Is there also something that you’d like to do around mindfulness and embodiment to just see if you can notice, what does it feel like as you’re approaching that moment of squirting? What does it feel like as you’re in the moment of squirting? Are you bearing down? Are Your relaxing? Are you breathing? If you want to do that kind of exploration, you can. It might offer more options. And I think, also, some of the other comments that were mentioning like do different toys, do different angles, do different kinds of stimulants and stimulations. Maybe handsfree and rubbing on a pillow would yield something different than whatever it is that you’re currently doing. It’s a great big experiment. 

So specifically for you, Beginning Gusher, getting really curious about the ways that you’re making yourself cum, the ways that you’re touching yourself, would standing up yield something different than laying down on your back, on your side, on your tummy? What about squatting or sitting? What types of toys are or are you not using that might change the experience? What if you used a different hand than the hand you’re currently using? Being able to really explore all of those different things while also noticing what’s happening in your body to build in some more layered nuance around that, might give you some information about your body and what’s happening as you’re approaching that point. And then there may be an opportunity for you to slow down or to reroute, maybe doing some edging before you get to that point. Then hopefully you’ll be in a living situation soon where you can just hold, let it all go and it doesn’t matter because your parents aren’t there. 

Dawn Serra: As for Waterboarding Victim, I don’t think that the thing to do is going to be to ask your girlfriend to do something different unless it just comes up and she’s curious about it. This is such, such a sensitive topic and the smallest comment can become the deepest rooted source of shame. I think one of the things that you’ll need to do is just consider, is this an activity you really want to be doing if that’s how her body responds? Maybe you do it a little bit less. Maybe you add dental dam, that helps with where the fluid is going so that you’ve got a little more control. If there’s a cover between her genitals and your mouth, then the fluid won’t go in your face. And dental dams with a little bit of lube against the body. Dental dam there still feels amazing with tongue and lips. 

I’m also wondering what are all of the other ways that you’re engaging sexually with each other? Maybe oral is something that you de prioritize for a little while, and you try hands and you try toys, and you try different positions, and give yourself a little bit of a break while still celebrating the amazingness that is your girlfriend’s body and what she can do. What I would want to do if I were you is if she’s already a little bit self conscious about it, is do whatever you can to just celebrate and normalize what her body is doing. And if that means you take it in the face a little bit, then so be it. But you can’t change her body and there isn’t anything you can do to change the way her body is reacting other than not doing that thing anymore. And that might be something that she really enjoys, that brings her a tremendous amount of pleasure. So I don’t know if taking it completely off the table is the way to go either. Maybe it’s doing it a little less, but adding lots of other fun activities. And, again, trying to find some type of barrier that you can introduce that might be helpful or even different positions. 

What happens when you give her oral, if you’re kneeling and she standing? Or if she’s riding your face or who knows? You use different pillows to get a different angle. Or maybe if she’s faced down with a whole bunch of pillows under her tummy and you’re eating her out from behind, maybe that directs the fluids somewhere else. So I would just get really curious around all of the ways that you might alter the activity and the angles. And just do whatever you can to avoid telling her that something is wrong with her body. Because what her body is doing is exactly what her body needs to do., and that’s a glorious thing. It might not be the most comfortable thing for you, but there’s ways to work around that. And we all know, if we’ve had sexual relations with another human being, sometimes the things that bring people the most pleasure are taxing. Sometimes our arms get tired, sometimes our hands get tired or our mouths get tired. But the pleasure that it offers is so worth it and we just want to keep going. 

Dawn Serra: So, Waterboarding Victim, I wish you the very best. What can you do to just change the perspective and increase more options because her body’s doing what her body’s going to do. And that’s just how it is, unless she wants to take on this project of embodiment and mindfulness and kind of noticing what’s happening. But it has to come from her. It has to come from her wanting to increase intimacy and understanding with her body, not from a place of, “I don’t like this thing my body’s doing and I really want it to stop,” because that’s just really going to teach the body that this thing is something that brings shame and I shouldn’t do it. And that creates a whole new narrative that can be so challenging to undo down the road. 

To both of you who wrote in, one, congratulations on having bodies that do miraculous, beautiful things, whether you’re a squirter or not. Our body is our body and our avenues to pleasure are the things that I want us to all be celebrating and inviting more of. And sometimes we’re in circumstances that are less than ideal, whether it’s parents or getting it in the face, and finding ways to just get really creative and spacious around that, I think, is where we want to lean rather than constricting and trying to push ourselves away from or make our bodies not do a thing. So good luck to both of you and report back.

Dawn Serra: Naive Nancy wrote in with a subject line of “Circumcision and Condom concerns. Hi, Dawn. I started really actively bingeing your podcast in November and listen to the first hundred episodes. Now, I’ve began listening to your more recent episodes. I love the growth and development of this show and your integrity and sticking to what matters and feels right to you. I also love engaging with you and the Explore More community on Facebook. I’ve had a topic I’ve been hoping to get a deeper perspective and more education around. 

Here it is. Can penis circumcision cause a drastic difference in sensitivity? And specifically in relation to condoms, would a circumcised penis experienced decreased sensation? The background to this question is that I’ve been sexually active with a cis male for about 10 months. In the beginning, he had trouble getting off with condoms. So I decided it was okay not to use them. I take birth control pills. But over time, my STI anxiety grew so we went back to using condoms. He couldn’t stay hard or orgasm. He basically says he can’t feel anything at all beyond a physical pressure or even that they pinch him. He says there isn’t enough friction because he doesn’t have enough foreskin and we’ve tried a couple of options: sampler packs from the lucky bloke without success. Now we stick to oral sex or use toys and this is all a lot of fun. I feel safe enough to not use condoms for oral sex. While there is still STI risk, it’s not nearly as high. 

When I talked to my girlfriends about his trouble with sensation while wearing condoms due to his circumcision, his explanation, they feared he was being manipulative of me. I don’t necessarily feel that’s the case because his skin does seem really tight and he does not pressure me to do anything. He has trouble staying hard or orgasming at other times too. We are fine with this as your podcast and summits have helped me learn, orgasms don’t need to be the goal of sex. And I’m glad we explore in other ways since we have forgone penetrative sex.

Dawn Serra: I always feel pleasured. We did try the internal condom as well but had trouble inserting it and all the extra material didn’t make things feel great for either of us. Anyways, I suppose I’m looking for some reassurance that his explanations around his condom issues could be genuine and something other people with circumcised penises encounter too. That I’m not just being manipulated like my friend’s fear. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my question. Naive Nancy. 

Well, first of all, Nancy, thank you so much for not only listening to the show but also for being a part of the Explore More community. To anybody who missed this year’s Explore More Summit, it was fucking amazing. 27 talks all about pleasure and you can still buy access to them. All you have to do is head to exploremoresummit.com and you can register to get a free workbook and then see all of the options for bringing the talks home. You can get audio only or video. We’re about to start our group calls this week. So if you wanted to do the group calls with us, there’s going to be six weeks of group calls starting this week and I would love for you to check that out. 

For you, Nancy, this is a tough one to tease out. There are lots of different possibilities so I’ll give you a couple of different perspectives and thoughts that I have, and then you can take what works for you and/or potentially think through and have some conversations, and then see where that takes you. So the first thing is only he can know what’s happening in his body. Perhaps his circumcision did pull the skin very tight and that’s uncomfortable for him and impacts his erections. Or maybe that’s a story that he tells himself because he doesn’t want to deal with the fact that sometimes you do have to do a little bit of practice and a little bit of work to get used to condoms. Now sex does feel different when you have a penis with a condom versus without a condom. Now the difference isn’t drastic for most people, but it’s a difference. So some people have to train themselves through practice to feel into what’s possible with condoms. If all you’ve ever been doing is tight, gripping masturbation without a condom and maybe you’ve only ever had partnered intercourse without condoms, then to introduce condoms might feel different enough that you’re like, “Whoa, this is new. This feels different.”

Dawn Serra: One of the things, if you’ve listened to Dan Savage or a number of other sex podcasts through the decades; they almost always recommend that folks with a penis masturbate with condoms as part of the repertoire of things that help bring you pleasure. So if you masturbate with condoms and without condoms, and with different amounts of lube and different types of grips and different types of toys; it just means you are inviting your body to delight in and experience pleasure and a vast array of ways. And the more options that we give ourselves, the more opportunities we have for pleasure when we’re on our own and connecting with other people. Because bodies do such different things and situations call for such different things, and context and age and all kinds of other things impact the ways that our bodies will experience pleasure, become aroused, lose their arousal. And when we give ourselves an opportunity to have lots of different pathways to getting to that place that feels delicious, and to have different kinds of pleasure available to us, then it means that we don’t feel ashamed if perhaps we can’t get an erection or our erection goes away. 

It means we’re going to feel like there’s so many other opportunities for connecting with each other the way that you have been doing with him around oral sex and sex toys. I would say add masturbation, both solo and mutual masturbation, to the mix. That can be so fun. But coming back to your specific question, we live in a culture that prioritizes male pleasure above everything else. So when we’re taught about sex, when we’re watching sex unfold on TV and in movies, the pleasure that we typically see portrayed is the pleasure that centers someone with a penis. That gets into the ways that we experience our own sexuality in our own bodies. The expectations that we have. It’s so interesting. 

Dawn Serra: I was talking to Dr. Uchenna Ossai or Dr. UC who is a pelvic floor doctor. And one of the things that she was talking about was that when– We’re just going to speak in cis hetero terms right now and in a binary– so when women who have vulvas experience pain or maybe just less pleasure than they’d like, there’s some discomfort going on. They’ll often go many months or many years before they seek medical care or they seek support around that. But in her experience, the second a man feels anything is wrong with his penis. He usually is in the doctor’s office the next day asking for help. And when she treats her patients around their pelvic floor struggles, she finds that most men that come through her practice will have only had this issue for a very short amount of time versus women will have often had this pain or this discomfort for a significant amount of time before they’ve come to see her. Often to the point where things have gotten really dire. 

When we were talking about that at the Explore More Summit this year, we were speaking about how the culture that contributes to that. Whose pleasure is taught is absolutely a given, it’s something you deserve. It’s what you are built for. This comes first versus your pleasure is a nice to have. Your pleasure is complicated. For many people in the medical community, they frame a lack of pain as being satisfactory, which means pleasure isn’t factored into a lot of the medical conversations that we have about our body. It’s just, “Are you experiencing pain?” “No.” “Good. Things are fine.” But there’s a vast difference between not experiencing pain and experiencing pleasure. 

Something else that could be impacting your boyfriend is the ways that he’s internalized messages about his pleasure. And that might also be driving some of his beliefs or some of his experiences around condoms. That condoms lessen his pleasure, which might then impact the way he feels about using condoms, which then might make his body, in turn, respond to the thoughts. And now you’ve got someone who is struggling to maintain an erection. Maybe because they’ve talked themselves out of it and it might be conscious, it might be subconscious. 

Dawn Serra: I think the most important thing about this situation is that you’ve set a boundary and as long as he’s respecting that boundary and he’s not pressuring you, he’s not bringing it up repeatedly. He’s not asking you to do something different. He’s just accepting and respecting that boundary. Then he can have whatever stories he wants to have about condoms and he can have whatever experience he wants to have about his penis and the ways that it feels with or without condoms. Because your boundary deserves to be respected. And if he is respecting that– your friends might be right. It might all be in his head. It might be something that he’s just not willing to try to get to a point where this works for him. Maybe there is something that could be eased if he sought medical attention. But the most important thing is the two of you have found all of these other ways to have sex and to engage with each other and to maximize pleasure and to feel connected. And as long as he continues to honor that, then I don’t think there’s necessarily a problem here. 

I do wonder, is he putting lube on the inside of the condom? Has he tried lots of different sized condoms because there are many sizes of condoms. Not all condoms are sides the same and there are a growing number of companies that even will give you a little measurement tool so that you can decide based on the length and the girth, which condoms would be best for your particular penis. So not all condoms are created the same. And finding ones that work for you can take multiple experiments. Trying One condoms and Sir Richard’s ultra thin condoms. And even Lola, the company who does subscription pads and tampons has now moved into the sexual health realm and makes ultra thin, lubed condoms so trying Lola Condoms. Ordering some specialty condoms off the Internet that fit his particular penis based on the measurements might be something else to do too. 

Dawn Serra: I do think there’s some opportunity there for experimentation. I also wonder does he ever use a cock ring? Using a cock ring can be an amazing way to increase pleasure and increase sensitivity to delay orgasm, to help with an erection that is maybe semi hard and you want it to be a little bit harder. So that might be something else for the two of you to play with. A cock ring might be something for him to experiment with on his own before it comes out for partnered play. Also knowing that your boundary and his body are both things that need to be respected and that might mean that partner in intercourse is just off the table for now. And it sounds like neither one of you is feeling really constricted around that. 

So many people have this, “Well, if we’re not having intercourse, we’re not really having sex.” And that is, again, a very penis centric view on what sex is and is not, which is bullshit. Sex is so many, so many other things that never have to involve a penis and it’s all legitimate and real, which you know. So I think it just comes down to there are so many factors that might be impacting his experience of the condom. And it also might be the selection of condoms that you’ve used. You just haven’t found the one. Maybe it’s not lubricated enough. And I love that you tried the internal condom. I do think that, in my experience, it takes multiple experiments within internal condom until you find the kind of magic with it. I love them. And Alex has talked about how, for him, it’s a much more pleasurable experience because he gets so much more friction because he is moving in and out of something. 

For me, it just took a couple tries until I was able to get it in easily and quickly. It was in a spot where I couldn’t really feel it. And then we went to town and it was great. But the first couple of times it was really awkward. So if there’s potential there for doing some more experimentation with positions, both internally as you’re wearing it and with your body as you have in, there might be something there too. So I hope that helps. I know that there is no real clear answer in that. It’s just bodies are complicated and unique, and situations are complicated and unique. And it sounds like the two of you are making the best of this and doing some really awesome things together. I hope that that spirit of curiosity and discovery continues because you might just find your way towards something that does work for the two of you around condoms and barriers. And if not, then keep doing what you’re doing with diversifying all of the ways that the two of you get your sexual needs met. Thank you so much, Naive Nancy. 

Dawn Serra: I did post this and Patreon. So if any Patreon supporters want to weigh in, please head over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and comment if you support at $5 and above. Nick wrote in with a subject line of “Managing Misogyny.”

Dear Dawn. First of all, I love your show and I’ve been listening since you started. I love talking all things sex, and it’s always interesting hearing about other people’s experiences. You always give sensitive advice. I was once in an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship and I am not the same person that I was before it began. I used to be very socially outgoing, but I cut a huge amount of people out of my life post relationship, which was ultimately the right choice for me. I now have a very small circle of wonderful female friends that were able to support me through the worst time in my life. These friendships are without a doubt what got me through. I still have bad PTSD and I’ve had the good fortune to be in a workplace where for the most part, I was able to avoid any interaction with men. 

In this workplace, I’ve met some great feminist women. But I’ve also been exposed to some bullying and sexual harassment from misogynist managers. I’m not sure exactly why, but sexist women seem to be particularly threatened by me and do their best to make me feel uncomfortable. I don’t feel the need to be friends with people I work with, but I do need to feel comfortable in order to do my job effectively. I’m still looking for a feminist workplace. I still experience a great deal of fear and anxiety around men and I’m particularly triggered by misogynistic behavior. It has been over three years and I would like to try and start expanding my social circle as my life has been very restricted and I’ve become socially isolated. I also have the misfortune of being heterosexual despite my best efforts not to be. And one day, I hope to have sex again, though I can’t see myself in a relationship with a man. The difficulty is I am used to being manipulated, controlled, and lied to and now I have very severe trust issues. I have only really ever known men that are sexist or abusive other than a couple of nonsexist men in my family. I am quite socially anxious and the older I get, the less tolerant I am of objectifying, belittling, and abusive attitudes towards women. 

Unfortunately, these behaviors seem to be really normalized in a lot of social circles and I always seem to be the only person willing to speak up about it. I’m wondering if you can give me some ideas about reading materials or treatment options for someone in my situation or perhaps some way I might go about safely meeting other feminists that share my values. Thank you and keep up the good work. Nick. 

Dawn Serra: Oh Nick, I just want to say, first, I am so sorry that you were in an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship. No one ever deserves that and I know you certainly didn’t. And you said something so wise of, “I’m not the same person I was before it began.” Of course, of course abuse would change you. Of course, trauma would change you. We are changed by so many things that happen to us in our life. And for me, one of the things that I’ve found was the most difficult was really coming to grips with that particular fact. That healing was not becoming someone who had not experienced trauma, that healing was being someone with trauma and finding new ways to be. To coexist with the trauma, to find ways to thrive and to feel joy and connection without denying the fact that I was changed because it is changing. So I appreciate that you just named that because I think for so many people who have survived relationships and situations like that, we spend a lot of time trying to become a person that we can never become.There’s a lot of grief work I have found that has to happen around that. Grieving who you were and knowing you can’t go back. You can only be where you are and move in the direction of what’s next, holding the truth of where you are now.

It also makes so much sense to me that you used to be socially outgoing and now you’ve made your social circle very small. Safety trumps pleasure and belonging trumps everything. And often when we are survivors of abuse, trauma, oppression, one of the ways that we can begin to feel back into safety is by making our world very small. And that makes so much sense. It’s so wise that we do that. Because it’s only when we feel safe, safer even, that we can begin to feel into the potential, to find curiosity, to connect with play and joy. It’s really difficult to be curious about something and to experiment with something, and to share ourselves and be vulnerable when we feel unsafe. Because our bodies and our minds are just trying to figure out ways to become safe. So I really appreciate that one of the ways that you survived was in making your world really small. That makes so much sense to me. 

Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky who wrote Trauma Stewardship and also The Age of Overwhelm talks about this in both of her books. So those might be worth checking out. Now, Laura specifically works with people who work with trauma. So firefighters, ambulance drivers, ER doctors and nurses, people on the front lines of war, people running shelters for abused women and kids, people working with sexual abuse survivors and children. The people who are literally exposed to other people’s trauma and witness the horrors that happen in our world. There is a different kind of trauma that happens when you’re exposed to other people’s trauma all the time. And so Laura has created this thing called Trauma Stewardship, which is how can we be better stewards around helping to not only heal trauma, but to prevent trauma in the work that we do in the ways that we show up?

Dawn Serra: One of the things that Laura sees over and over and over again is that, for so many people who are dealing with trauma and experiencing their own trauma through the trauma of others, they become very introverted where they used to be extroverted and their world’s become very, very small. And that’s a survival technique that we have. But as you’re naming and your email, trauma seeks to isolate us and connection is how we begin to heal. We really only heal in relationship and we can’t do it all alone, though we’re sold that we should be doing it alone. And that’s just a toxic byproduct of capitalism and neoliberalism and what we can do to begin to expand our worlds and to move through and into new ways of being is in being around people that we know, like, and trust. It sounds like you’ve got this beautiful small group of friends and that you’re looking for ways to expand that experience of support and safety. That’s the number one question that I saw in the Facebook group for this year’s Explore More conference was so many of the speakers talked about the importance of community, that we should have care webs, that we should have multiple sources of people being able to help us to feel supported and nourished and nurtured. Places where we can talk and grapple with big ideas and to just be held when we have a really shitty day so that we feel less alone. And people don’t know where to find community. 

So many of us are hungry for deeper relationships and more meaningful friendships, but we just don’t know where to go. All of us often find that were flailing and are grasping at what we find because it feels like we’re not going to find it. I want to start, Nick, by saying there’s lots and lots and lots and lots of people out there who I know are in very similar situations to you, that are hungry for the same things that you’re hungry for. Finding them might be a little bit tricky but it’s not to say that it’s an impossible task because you are definitely not alone in wanting to find this. A place that I have found has been really helpful for me is Facebook groups. Finding really queer, really progressive Facebook groups or super feminist Facebook groups for your location. There’s a couple of groups here in Vancouver and I haven’t met most of these people in person, but it’s sure great to be able to go into a Facebook group and to read really, really interesting articles and to rage together and to organize around campaigns together and to ask questions and have it be met with so much compassion and shared value. So Facebook groups might be a really fun place to start. Also following certain hashtags on Instagram. I have connected with so many awesome people through Instagram and being able to choose some key hashtags and follow some people there and then engage in conversation can lead to real deep friendships. So that might be something else. And then in person community, that is always the trickier piece. We’re all just so busy that it can be really difficult to get people to show up in the same place over and over and over again. Starting really small I think is important. Are there any book clubs or independent feminist bookstores in your area that might be willing to host a book club? Can you start your own? I have found book clubs is one of the best ways to connect with like minded people. I ran the pro-choice book club in DC for seven years and every month we would get together and there would be anywhere from four to 15 of us sitting around a table having yummy food and drinking tea at a Tea House while we talked about books about abortion, and choice and reproductive freedom and reproductive justice and everything adjacent to that. Adoption and the cost of motherhood. Oh, god. It was so great. So that might be a place either finding an existing book club or independent bookstores that host events and going regularly or even starting your own and then posting about it on meetup and seeing who shows up.

Dawn Serra: The other idea that I have for you, specifically around materials on treatment options, you have every right to not trust men. You have every right to take care of you and to do what you need to do to feel safe. And sometimes we constrict our lives down so tightly in our attempt to find safety that we then cut ourselves off from some really, really, really amazing people and amazing situations. There are so many men who write into the show who are wanting to do better, who are listening and learning and doing their best. There are so many men who are partnered with so many of the incredible people that I look up to that are doing real awesome work about changing the culture around misogyny, sexism, patriarchy, who are actively using their voices to dismantle toxic masculinity, and to move us towards a more non-binary and nurturing kind of a version of being, if you’re a man. 

So there are lots of men out there who are doing the work and some of them are leading and some of them are participating and learning and wanting to do better. Now it might depend on where you are. You’re probably more likely to find some men who have really been unpacking rape culture and toxic masculinity in bigger cities that are more progressive than perhaps in smaller towns or places that are more conservative. So that also might just really depending on where you live and who has access to what doing your work to really find what you need and to trust yourself, I think, is one of the best things that we can do as survivors. Healing Sex by Stacy Haines is a beautiful book that is specifically for people who have been sexually abused and finding new ways of being. There might be something in there for you. 

I also love doing any kind of research and learning I can around embodiment and trauma. So Sage Hayes is a great resource who was recently on the show. Any books by Peter Levine. The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky’s books that I mentioned. There’s so many beautiful Instagram accounts that deal with trauma, like Trauma Aware Care. All of those places might be places help to just give you more context, more tools, more ways of being so that you can feel more confident in taking up space and in setting boundaries and in acknowledging what spaces feel good for you and what don’t. And allowing that to be true. I spent a number of years in my twenties and early thirties not wanting to be in the space with men at all. And it was really hard for me to be in space with men because I just felt constantly unsafe. 

Dawn Serra: As I went places with friends and as my friend circle grew, that slowly began to shift. And now I have a very different experience of that than I did. That may or may not be your experience, but sometimes healing work takes many, many, many, many, many years. And allowing ourselves to just go as slow as we need to. So many people that do like somatic experiencing and trauma work, like Sage Hayes and Aaron Lee Kaufman who’s spoken at the summit a few times, they talk about going slow is too fast. When we’re talking about trauma or we’re talking about healing, whatever you think is slow go way down from that, glacially, glacially slow, and that’s usually the speed of our healing. And it’s not linear. Feel into what feels helpful and nurturing for you. 

For most of us, it’s not possible to be completely removed from misogyny in this world as it is. I had the most sexist gross boss just before I quit my corporate job. And he had been my boss for a number of years and it was just so known by everyone what an utter pig he was. And also how proud he was because he knew he wasn’t like that. But it was a toxic environment to be in for me. And I just had to be there for awhile and it sucked but it paid the bills and paying the bills was more important than me not paying the bills and not being around him. And so I had to find other ways to care for myself around that. Having friends that I could talk to, doing things that felt really good and really pleasurable, finding rituals that help me just shake that took “ughk” after work. Getting mad and dancing and laughing and just knowing that by me being me, it was a big giant fuck you to people like him. 

So until you can find that feminist workplace, I would also encourage you to find your way into some rituals that help you to shake and move the crap off so that it’s not something that’s clinging to you and that you’re carrying. And I know that sounds really woo, but it’s also deeply scientific. If you get a chance to read Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s new book Burnout, there is so much scientific evidence about the ways that we can move stress through our body and experiencing misogyny and sexism is deeply stressful to our systems. It’s deeply violent. And so I wonder what are some rituals that you can do that would help you to get rid of that, whether it’s shaking or dancing or journaling, or just wiping your body down whenever you leave work as kind of a symbol of, “I’m leaving all this crap behind me. This isn’t the kind of world that I want to be in and I’m going to leave here. And then being in a different kind of space where this doesn’t exist.” That can also be a really wonderful way to acknowledge, “This isn’t how I want things to be, but they are. So here is me taking care of me inside of these circumstances.”

Dawn Serra: I also just want to invite you to allow you to move at the speed of trust. Allow you to move at the speed of trust because you have trust issues, because you’ve been manipulated and abused and deeply harmed. It’s okay if it takes you a little while to even begin to think you could start trusting someone. And we often have to take a little bit of a leap at some point if we want to deepen a connection. Just tending to yourself around that, move with the speed of trust. And if that means you have fewer opportunities for connection because people want more and that’s just not where you are, then so be it. You will eventually find your way towards more and more people who are willing to move at the speed that you need. And then there will come a point when you may have to ask yourself, is this a point where I can take a little leap of faith and maybe trust just a little bit more? And if the answer is “Nope. Too scary.” That’s okay. If the answer is maybe, well then maybe you try it and you do it with a safety net. Knowing you’ve got friends who support you, knowing that you’ve survived little hurts and little just the appointments in the past. Give yourself an opportunity to be distrusting now as you really explore what your body needs, what your healing needs, what it means to be in community. And then start to feel into different ways of being without feeling ashamed of where you are. Because where you are is you’ve survived and that’s really, really important and powerful. 

So I know I threw a lot at you. Some of it might be helpful, some of it might not be, some of it might be really relevant now, some of it might be relevant on the road. But I just wanted to really affirm where you are, an honor, where you are. And also say yes to all of the things that you want. All of it is right. All of it is normal, all of it is real. And there are things that you can do to start moving into some new types of connections with people who have the same values, and it just takes some time and some dedication and a lot of trial and error and this very busy world we live in. Allow yourself to be where you are and that might not feel great sometimes and that’s okay. But pushing yourself to be something you’re not, uh, is only going to make things take longer. So thank you so much, Nick, for writing in and for asking this question. I know so many people listening are in a similar situation. There are so many things you’re doing so well and I hope that some of my thoughts maybe help you to open to a couple of new possibilities that feel yummy and safe and also interesting and pleasurable. So thank you so much for being a part of the show and for writing in. 

Dawn Serra: To all of you listening, I love your emails. Please write into me if you go to dawnserra.com there’s a contact form. I also just want to let everyone know my Dawn Serra website has been undergoing a massive, massive professional redo for the past 18 months and we are really close to launching the redesign. And when we do, Sex Gets Real is actually going to live on dawnserra.com so you’ll still be able to go to dawnserra.com but it will redirect you behind the scenes to the podcast section of dawnserra.com so there will be new ways of contacting me down the road. But for right now, depending on when you listen to this, if you go to a dawnserra.com there’s a little send a note option and I would love to know what are your questions? Where are you feeling stuck? Where are you feeling confused? Where do you have deep longing and curiosity? How can I support you? 

I love to feature your email and your question on the show at some point down the road. So please write in. If you’re a Patreon supporter, be sure you had to patreon.com/sgrpodcast because I am going to go record a delicious bonus for you next. In the meantime, thank you to all of you who listen. Thank you to all of you who wrote in, and don’t forget to go to dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse Hopefully I’ll see you in the pleasure course because it’s going to be freaking epic. Until next time, I’m Dawn Serra. Bye.

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured and 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 on old story revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?