Sex Gets Real 258: Healing from emotional abuse, a partner who doesn’t want intercourse, & swinging

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It’s time to deepen your relationship with pleasure.

1. Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 29, 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.

First, I apologize that this episode is so late. Between traveling, funerals, and getting caught up, it took a few extra days to get this uploaded and out to you.

This week, it’s your questions!

We start with an email from Violet. She was in a relationship that was committed and kinky that turned emotionally abusive. She is working with a therapist to heal, but she’s worried about getting back into the kink scene and about healing from the abuse.

What can she do to take care of herself and to stay open to honoring her kinkiness?

Then Ross sent a short email asking why his girlfriend used to have intercourse with him but now only wants to do hand sex and oral sex. Why the change?

We’ll explore the possibility of pain during intercourse, mediocre intercourse, and why folks who have a vulva often experience more pleasure from non-intercourse sexual activities. Plus, it sounds like Ross and his girlfriend are still having all kinds of awesome sex, even if intercourse isn’t happening these days, so how can that be something to celebrate?

And finally, Michael and his wife are thinking about trying swinging. What books should they read and how can they get started?

I point them to all things Cooper Beckett and Life on the Swingset, including their Desire Resort swinging retreat they do every year.

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: Welcome to this week’s episode, everyone. It’s a day late, a little bit short. Unfortunately my grandmother passed away last week, and I zipped from Hawaii on vacation down to San Diego to be with my family. The funeral was late last week. I got home after being away for 11 days yesterday afternoon. Things have been a little bit intense and chaotic and this episode just had to wait because family and funerals, and travel beckoned first. But here we are and I am ridiculously excited to be here with you.

I actually did record an interview while I was in San Diego with Samantha Manewitz but it’s part of a multi-episode series that I’m going to be doing. That also includes Aida Manduley and Eve Rickert, and I will tell you a little bit more about that as we get closer to the series airing. But it’s going to be really, really good.

I also wanted to let you know that if you didn’t tune in, if you support the show on Patreon at $3 a month and above, you get weekly bonus content you can’t get anywhere else. Last week’s bonus was a really yummy erotic story that I read. I got a couple of emails from people saying, “Oh my god. That was a really, really hot. If you could use a little audio deliciousness, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast You can hear not only last week’s erotica reading, but all of the other bonuses that we’ve had. This week’s bonus is going to be a little bit late just because of all lifey things that have happened this week. But we are going to be exploring satisfaction and enoughness, and what it means to be satisfiable. That should be really fun.

Dawn Serra: This week we’re going to do a couple of your questions and just see where we go. We’ve got things all about healing from heartbreak inside of a kink dynamic. A girlfriend that used to have intercourse with her boyfriend but doesn’t anymore. And a question about swinging. Let’s jump in. This first email comes from Violet and the subject line “Healing from heartbreak.”

Dear Dawn, I’m eager to join what has become a tradition for ringing your praise at the beginning of show letters. I’ve been following the show for about a year. I listened to it when I need a dose of positivity and wisdom. I honestly cannot thank you enough for your hard work. I participated as much as I could and they Explore More Summit between classes, and the talk about burnout really hit home for me. Several of your book recommendations are on my reading list for the summer. You’re show is a great resource and all of your listeners can’t thank you enough. I am in the process of healing and finding myself after getting out of a three year relationship that had slowly turned emotionally abusive in the last year.

After some urging from a dear friend, I am working with a therapist to help rebuild my self esteem and sense of self. I’m working through some of the anxiety and PTSD I have been experiencing from this relationship. My therapist and I are still rather new to one another. I don’t feel like I can trust her yet with my kinky side and it plays a huge part in this breakup because my partner and I had a vibrant and well developed dom sub relationship. She was my first in everything. I am deeply struggling with the emotions of not only having someone I saw as a partner and lover anymore, but someone I saw as a dominant and gave so much of myself to. To say I am heartbroken is an understatement. There were never physical breaches of trust, but there was lying, countless broken promises, gaslighting. How do I begin to heal as a sexual being after having someone so close and intimate to me break our trust? I feel like there’s a whole other layer to my breakup that I have to work through because of it being a kinky relationship. Due to my sex drive, I want to be with another partner. I’m in college and I have so much more to explore. The city I’m in has a stable kink scene, but I’m scared.

I’m scared to trust another dominant again. As a young woman, I’m wary to put myself out there in the scene. I’m scared to put my emotional baggage on someone else before I have a handle on it. I’m scared that nothing will live up to the bond that my partner and I once had. But I’m also scared I’m going to start hating my kinky side and associate it only with my bad relationship. How can I begin to sort these things out? Do you have any resources? How can I or should I communicate this with my therapist? Any advice and insight that you can give me will go a long way to help me heal. Thank you very much for your input. It’s much appreciated and, again, thank you for all that you do warmly, Violet.

Dawn Serra: Violet, first, thank you so much for your kind words and for listening to the show. I appreciate very much that you wrote in and that you’re trusting us with this small piece of your story. I am so, so, so sorry that you experienced this abuse, especially within a power dynamic that felt so important to you. There is a special kind of mind fuck that comes with lying and broken promises and gaslighting. It’s so easy to doubt ourselves and to try and justify, and rationalize what’s happening to change the story afterwards. Because it hurts so much to keep feeling into the depth of the abuse and all of those without any physical proof. Emotional abuse is nasty, ugly stuff because it’s in our heads. It’s things that we experience with our feelings and that can be so confusing.

Before I offer anything else, I just want to mention that that multi-part series I have coming out with Eve Rickert, Samantha Manewitz, and Aida Manduley in May, is in large part about exploring emotional abuse and gaslighting. I highly recommend tuning in for that next month. Here’s where I’d love to start with you. I want to start by validating your fear. Because your fear is valid and your fear is real and it’s important, and your fear wants to try and keep you safe. Something that I’ve found is that so often when we want to not be scared, to not be afraid, and we want things to be different, so we try to talk ourselves out of our fear. We try to pretend like it’s not there. We shame ourselves for feeling it. We feel other feelings about feeling the fear,. But all of that is denial and a way that we gaslight ourselves.

Where I want us to start is to honor what is true and what is true is that you’re scared. What would it mean to allow that to be true and to thank your fear for wanting to keep you safe? What would happen if you actually sat with your fear and said, “I’m here. I hear you. I feel you. You’re real. Thank you. What do you need? What would help you to feel validated and supported?” I’d be super curious to know what comes up if you were to turn towards your fear with curiosity and openness, to really validate it and to thank it, to ask it what it wants, and to let it know that you aren’t going to push it away or ignore it. Because that’s what our inner protector is really, really worried about, right? That you’re going to ignore all the little warning signals, that you’ll silence yourself, and that you’ll get hurt again.

Dawn Serra: It’s important to name that some of the stories that your fear tells you are true. As you know, there are people out there who can cause you harm. There are people out there who might disrespect you, who might hurt you, who might abuse you. Those things are real. And some of the stories that your fear tells you aren’t true. The stories are twisted or exaggerated or intensified as a way for you to try and protect yourself from further harm. One of the things that I try to do is to ask myself, “Is this true? What evidence do I have? What might be an alternative?” So if my fear is saying that going to this event is dangerous. Being able to pause and say, “I hear you. It does feel scary. That’s really real. What evidence do I have for this? Is this about protecting myself? Is there something real inside that fear? What might help me to feel relatively safe? What things can I put into place so that I can create more support?” So that my fear feels validated and heard and understood.

We aren’t always going to know the answer. But being able to really pause and feel into that helps to start to build trust. One of the things you said is “I’m scared to put my emotional baggage on someone else before I have a handle on it.” And I think that that’s a really important thing. So many of us move into relationship with trauma without realizing that we’re kind of moving into relationship with trauma. That can become a really easy way for us to cause harm. And when you think about all the people in the world who have trauma and PTSD, which is a massive number of us who are also kinky, I wonder, is that statement entirely true? Do you believe that there are self-aware, caring, resilient people in the kink scene who have the space and the skills to hold space for your healing process? Because my guess is yes, I know lots of them. So what is the fear of really wanting from you and what can you do to help ease that fear and support that fear? Should you meet someone you’re interested in. Maybe it’s in having a really open conversation about the things you’re scared of, the kinds of support you’re looking for, and giving that other person an opportunity to say, “I choose this. I choose you and I want to be here to support you through your healing process.” Because there’s lots of people out there who do have that kind of space and that resilience.

Another thing you said was, “I’m scared that nothing will live up to the bond that my partner and I once had.” I wonder, if you turn towards that with curiosity, considering how many experiences there still are to discover all the ways you are going to change in the coming months and years and decades. All of the people that you have yet to meet. What is the likelihood that you’re going to find one or two or three or many more than that? People with whom to grow and to play, and connect and to bond with. Being able to really sit there and ask, “Is this fear true or is this an attempt to keep me small and safe so that I don’t put myself back out there?” Just being really curious with the fear can help us to investigate those stories a little bit because you’re already doing some really important work. Such a big part of healing, as you mentioned, is building and/or rebuilding self trust, especially with emotional abuse.

Dawn Serra: So many of us start to doubt ourselves. We victim blame ourselves. How did I miss the warning signs? Why didn’t I leave sooner? What could I have done differently? And yes, reflection is really important for our growth. But we so often weaponize these questions and then use them as a way to further hurt ourselves and erode self-trust. Gaslighting, especially, teaches us that we can’t trust ourselves. We start to wonder if our perspective might not be true, if we even see the world in the way other people see it. We start to ignore our bodily sensations that offer us important information, and we start to trust an authority outside of ourselves. Unfortunately, as you’ll hear in my conversation with Samantha Manewitz in a few weeks, we live in a culture that gaslights us constantly. We live in a culture that teaches us that to be gaslit is normal. It’s very, very easy for all of us to be gaslit because we live inside of a culture where gas is really normalized by people with authority and power. It’s super easy for us all to fall into that.

Being able to really start finding our way back towards our own authority in our lives is a really crucial part of the healing. When you ask yourself how you can begin to heal, my first thought is how can you begin to reestablish trust and authority in yourself? How easily can you feel sensation in your body? How often do you honor your hunger when you’re hungry? How often do you honor your need to pee? How often does your body’s desire for certain kinds of movement or rest get honored? All of those things are crucial in rebuilding trust with ourselves. How can you turn towards yourself with reverence and care to really begin to strengthen that connection? If your body gives you a tiny little cue that it needs something, do you listen and take action? Or if your body gives you a super tiny little cue that something doesn’t feel quite right, do you listen and change the situation or do you override it in the interest of social norms and people pleasing, and going with the flow, being seen as chill? Those are ways that we deny and gaslight ourselves and erode trust in ourselves.

Dawn Serra: I think one of the most important things for all of us who have experienced abuse or trauma is to really start with ourselves and to find support from others in starting with ourselves. That looks like eating foods that bring you pleasure when you’re hungry. Moving in ways that bring you pleasure, surrounding yourself with people who trust you and who you trust in return. Practicing saying yes to the things you want and saying no to the things you don’t want and really low stakes situations; and finding community with others who’ve experienced emotional abuse or who are kinky and this can be online or in person. But just feeling less alone. The more that you can nourish and nurture yourself, and turn towards yourself and your feelings with as much compassion as you can, the more you’re going to start really building that trust and that foundation; that when other people come into your life, it’s much easier for you to say, “Something about this doesn’t feel right. I’m not going to put more energy into this connection” or “Something about this fields are really good and I want to trust that,” and moving in that direction.

I think something else that’s so hard about healing work is knowing that it’s nonlinear and it takes time. So many of us want to rush to healed so that we can get back to our lives and get back to the things that we loved, and to almost pretend like this thing didn’t happen. A big part of healing work is realizing we are changed and things will be different. We can never go back, but we can go forward into new futures and new possibilities that we didn’t even know were there. Through all of this healing work, something else that’s really important is all of the ways that you can really validate and honor your kinkiness without having to be with a partner. Whether it’s reading, erotica, writing erotica, delving into rich fantasies in your head, chatting in online, kinky groups, watching kinky porn. Your kinkiness is just as valid without a partner as it is with a partner. And finding really he yummy ways to continue to honor that part of you can be really rewarding and sustaining in this liminal space until you do find people that you can play with.

Another thing that I think is really, really helpful, especially for people who are survivors of abuse and trauma is exploring nonsexual kink with friends. Bex Caputo was on episode 180, I think, talking all about the power of platonic kink. That might be a really fun place to stretch into without having to go all in while you’re doing the healing work. Who are some friends you have that might be really great for doing some light play? Who are some people that you trust that you could do some nonsexual DS with? And if you don’t have friends, what might that look like down the road? How would you know someone is a good friend that you could do a little bit of this exploration with? Also, don’t rule out hiring a professional. Hiring a professional dom can be an amazing way to reconnect with your kinky dynamic within a space that’s really safe and professional, and totally customized to you with someone who really knows what they’re doing. Lots and lots of people find all kinds of healing and working with a pro dom. So I really encourage you to maybe consider that as an option as well. Being able to work with a professional to really confront some of those scary edges. Being able to really work with someone who knows what they’re doing and who’s invested in you having a good time. It’s good business if you really enjoy yourself and want to come back, can spread the word.

Dawn Serra: There’s something really, really rich and also working with a professional, especially when we’re in that space where we’re not quite ready to trust others yet. One of the other things you ask you about was your therapist. It is so wise to hold off on sharing your kink with your therapist until you’ve established some trust. Not all therapists are kink aware. Not all therapists are sex positive. Not all therapists will know how to do this work with you. There are a lot of therapists out there who are well meaning, but tend to pathologize things like dominant and submissive dynamics and kink. So trust your instincts. Let this take time if it needs to.

Your therapist can do so much important healing work with you without ever knowing about your kink dynamic. If it comes to a place where that feels like a barrier, then that’s a point, I think, to maybe ask some questions. It’s really okay and important for all of us to ask our mental health professionals what experience they have with kink to ask what they know about sex positivity. And in fact, in your case, Violet, I’d say that that’s crucial. Because your therapist’s response to those questions will be really telling if they don’t have any experience with kink, if they can’t give you any specifics, then finding a kink aware therapist might be something that you want to do down the road. That’s for you to decide how is this relationship serving me now? How might it served me down the road? Is this something that’s crucial that I need to focus on now or maybe after I’ve done some of the other work?

If they can answer your questions really openly, if they’ve had experience with other people, if they can cite some books that they’ve read, those would all be things that would help give me a little bit of confidence. They may not know all the things but they at least won’t cause harm or put the labor on you to educate them. That’s something I’m very wary of. I think that if a therapist really wants to learn something, then they have lots of colleagues and sources they can turn to and it’s their job to do that education. Of course, they don’t know about your experience. So there is going to need to be an education about your experience of the things. But we should not go into therapeutic situations and then have to train our therapist in these bigger scale things.

Dawn Serra: If you want to find kink-aware therapists, two really great places to go to are openingup.net There’s a directory there are professionals. Also, ncsfreedom.org has a big directory of kink aware therapists. Those might be things to check out. If you find your therapist really doesn’t know how to hold space for kink and kink dynamics, and what that brings into your life and your relationship and why it’s so meaningful But trust yourself. If it feels like a good fit right now, then stay with it and then you can always adjust down the road.

A really good therapist is going to want you to find people to work with that can support you. A really good therapist is going to know that if at some point you say, “I’m really looking for someone who’s deeply understanding of kink ,and I think I’ve found someone who does a lot of work in this space and I want to work with them for a little while,” A really great therapist is going to say, “Oh my gosh, yes. How can I support you in making that transition?” So that’s also a really good test for whether or not this is a good therapist.

Something else that I just want to mention is as you’ll hear in my conversation with Samantha Manewitz, when we are getting to know someone or even in already in a relationship with someone, a really good test for finding people who respect you and respect your boundaries is to say no early and often the same. No early and often, and to see how they handle it. If they respect your no, if they handle your no with grace, if they honor your no and don’t take them personally, if they celebrate that you spoke up for yourself, then that’s probably a good sign it’s someone who’s going to respect your limits and your boundaries, especially when things get more intimate around sex and kink.

Dawn Serra: What we want in our lives are people who really, really respect our no. Now people can respect our no and be disappointed. People can respect her know and be frustrated. People are allowed to have their feelings about our no. But what we don’t want as someone who then tries to talk us away from our no, give us reasons why our no might not be as valid as they think it needs to be. They try to manipulate us into a yes or they give pushback. They shame us, they make fun of us. Any of those kinds of things where you start to feel like you have to justify your no or where your no isn’t being fiercely honored, those folks are people who may find it a lot easier to manipulate you down the road. So we want people who respect and honor our no, which is why saying no early and often as something Samantha Manewitz really recommends, when we’re trying to suss out situations around an emotional abuse and gaslighting.

Violet, there are so many incredible things waiting for you down the road. And I love that you listened to your friend, you’re working with a therapist, you’re already starting to try and really build that relationship with self. Continuing to deepen and strengthen that trust is so crucial for all the things that you want for yourself. The more that you can really honor those cues from your body. Hearing those little niggling things of information, feeling those little sensations of like, “I’m not so sure about this,” and being able to turn towards our feelings with curiosity and trust; that is so important in this work of healing and being in relationship with others. I hope that this was helpful. There was so much more to say, but I really want to give us time to chew on this and to feel into it. Please do send an update. Let me know how things are going. I want to wish you the best of luck. You have so much ahead of you and so many beautiful opportunities and people to discover and I wish you all the pleasure and all the kinkiness in the world. Thanks, Violet.

Dawn Serra: This next email comes from Ross and it’s short. But it’s going to give us some good stuff to roll around in. Ross says, Hey. Basically, I’ve been with my girlfriend for a while now and we used to have sex all the time. Recently though, whenever we’re intimate, we literally do everything except full sex, like hand and oral and stuff. I asked her why and she says she doesn’t have a proper reason. She just doesn’t want to. But I’m confused because we used to. Any help or advice would be really appreciated. Thank you.

First off, Ross, thank you so much for writing in and for listening to the show. Though your email was short, I have some thoughts to offer. So here we go. The first thing that I noticed in your email is how you said everything except full sex and we used to have sex all the time. And then you go on to talk about hands and oral and stuff. It sounds like you’re still having sex. A lot of people, the best full real sex that they have is with hands is with mouths, is with toys.

Intercourse is pretty low on the list of ways that folks with vulvas can get off. And far too many folks with penises think that intercourse is the best, the bee’s knees, a sign of their masculinity, real sex. That mismatch can be really frustrating. And that’s why it’s so important for all of us to expand our understanding of what sex is. If full sex is hands, and nothing else. If full sex is mouths, and nothing else. If full sex is mutual masturbation. If we really deeply feel that to be true and enjoy everything that’s possible from those acts then the potential for sex, not only increases, but so does the potential for our pleasure. If you’re still having sex with hands, having sex with oral, having sex with toys, then you’re still having sex.

Something else that I want to offer is when you say, “She says she just doesn’t want to.” I think that’s really important information. She clearly still wants to engage with you sexually because you’re having oral sex and hand sex and other kinds of sex. My guess is intercourse maybe wasn’t that pleasurable for her and she’s finally decided to start focusing on the things that do bring her pleasure.

Dawn Serra: Longtime listeners are going to know what I’m about to say next because I say it a lot. The only person who knows the answer to your question is your girlfriend. If you’ve asked her and she hasn’t given you a satisfying answer, then it might be because she either doesn’t really know herself. She’s just following her instincts or because she doesn’t feel comfortable being honest with you. How openly do the two of you talk about her pleasure? How openly do the two of you talk about sex and fantasies, needs and wants the emotions that go with it all? How have you responded in the past when she’s asked for something different or given you feedback? If your response has been to minimize or to shut her down, then the likelihood that she’s going to stop trying is pretty high. If you two aren’t having really rich open, vulnerable discussions about sex, then she might not feel like she can tell you the answer.

Something else that could be happening is maybe she started having pain during intercourse. Unfortunately, lots of people with vulvas experience pain during intercourse. Sometimes that’s because they’re not getting fully aroused and then it’s hurt, and then they’re scared of it hurting, so then they start tightening up and closing down, and then it creates a cycle of pain. Becoming fully aroused if you’re someone with a vulva, can sometimes take 20-30, 40-50 minutes of yummy warm up and doing other things like flirting and touching, to really become fully engorged and aroused if you’re not using lube. Maybe intercourse was uncomfortable or maybe it was just… And the other things are a big yes.

My recommendation to you, Ross, is savor the sex you are having. It’s not less than sex. It’s not less than sex to have oral sex or hand sex. It’s not a measure of manhood or masculinity. It’s real, full, connecting sex. What do you need to shift in order to really embrace that? To enjoy it, to look forward to it, to want it to celebrate it. I also recommend, start opening up and talking about sex in a way that’s really fun and playful and curious. Start laying the foundation for talking about your needs and your hopes, your desires, your fantasies. What it feels like in your body when you get touched in a certain way, and inviting her to share about what it feels like in her body when she experienced a certain things.

Dawn Serra: If you can practice and build trust, then it will become easier for both of you to be able to speak those really personal truths. Trust that things did change for a reason and the only person who knows that reason right now is your girlfriend, so honor where she is. Celebrate the connection and the sex that you are having and let her know through your actions that you’re not only in this for the intercourse. Unless you are only in this for the intercourse, and then in that case my advice is to end this relationship now. She deserves to have the kind of sex she wants and you deserve to have the kind of sex you want, and just pushing her or waiting for her to be different is a pretty shitty way to be in relationship.

If she’s having any kind of pain that can be really embarrassing and awkward for people to talk about. If she wasn’t really enjoying the intercourse and she was going along with it because she thought she should or she thought you really, really liked it; that can also be really embarrassing and awkward for people to talk about. So how can you get really curious and enjoy the sex you are having because it sounds like you are having sex. How can you deepen the trust and the intimacy so that there’s more potential down the road for better conversations, more sharing, and an opportunity to really be able to investigate what sex could look like for the two of you down the road? How can you be more creative and more open? But it has to start with laying some of that foundation, and in you being able to really hold her truths with a lot of generosity and grace so that she knows. If she says to you, “Intercourse really didn’t feel that good for me,” or “I was in a lot of pain and I felt like you weren’t really listening to me when I tried to share that.” You can respond with, “Thank you so much for telling me. What can we do? What do you need? What do you want? How can we make this great for both of us?” Thank you so much for writing in Ross. Best of luck to you and enjoy the sex you’re having.

Dawn Serra: I’ve got one more question from Michael before we wrap up this week and it says, Hi. I stumbled on your podcast while finding new things to listen to for my long commutes. Thanks for the content you’re doing. It’s such a great thing for creating conversation about something we all seem to struggle with: sex. I’m writing because I’ve listened to a few podcasts and I think you’ll have a great answer for this question. My wife and I have talked about swinging and laid out rules for how we think we would both be comfy and our expectations. I’d like to know if you have any resources for me to look at around hooking up or reading other people’s experiences. We’re both really ready to act but at a total loss on how. Thanks a bunch, Michael.

Yay, Michael. I love knowing that you and your wife have talked about this and that you’re interested in exploring swinging. For all things swinging, I always start with Cooper Beckett and his podcast Life on the Swingset. Cooper has been doing that podcast with his friends for many years. You can hear quite the evolution that Cooper’s been on from swinger to all sorts of other amazing things. Cooper’s also written a couple of books all about swinging that are really fun to read. So that might be something fun for you and your wife to explore together. And then, most exciting, every fall the swingset crew does a week long getaway to the desire resort in Cancun, Mexico. It is a magical group of people who are body positive and inclusive and all about swinging.

I super recommend also Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up (Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships) for some really practical advice and lovely stories about all the different ways that people engage in non-monogamy including swinging. That’s one of my favorite resources for folks that are just getting started. But Cooper and his crew are definitely a place to start, and their trip to Cancun and gets rave reviews from several top notch sex educators that I know. And that might be the perfect place for you and your wife to meet some community and to get started with your swinging adventure. So checkout Cooper, checkout Life on the Swingset, check out Opening Up. I think those things will lead you to other yummy places to learn about swinging that’s really inclusive and body positive and wonderful. Because unfortunately a lot of swinging communities are super biphobic, they’re transphobic, they’re really heteronormative, cis normative, they are body shamey. We don’t want to support those kinds of swinging communities. We want to support the yummy, inclusive, amazing swinging communities that people like Cooper are putting out into the world and nurturing. So have fun, explore and report back.

Dawn Serra: To everyone who tuned in, thank you so much for your patience. I know this episode is a little bit short and it was late. But family duties and funerals beckoned. As I mentioned, there’s some really, really rich episodes coming up in the next couple of weeks and I’ve got a lot of other interviews that are getting scheduled and on the books. So I cannot wait for what this summer has to offer you. Thank you so much for your support. If you have any questions that you would love some help with, anything that you’re feeling really stuck about, just go to sexgetsreal.com and use the Contact Me form there to send me a note or you can email me info@sexgetsreal.com I would love to hear from you and to feature you on the show. Until next time, I am Dawn Serra. Bye.

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