Sex Gets Real 275: Abuse in feminist port, finding body trust, and love stories

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To get us started, I came across two threads all about love and the simple ways we care for each other.

I also want to take some time to share that a porn performer named Rooster has come forward about abuse they experienced on the set of an Erika Lust film by guest director Olympia de G.

I share some thoughts on how we can do better around accountability and complexity, but I think the most important thing is hearing from Rooster and centering their experience.

Read Rooster’s roll-up of LOTS of resources, screenshots, emails, and posts here.

You can also read a piece in Jezebel from last year about it all here.

On to your emails.

Kate’s boyfriend has a coworker who is pretty disrespectful with boundaries, but despite that, had an initially shitty situation turn into something super sexy and fun. Go Kate!

Next up, Elizabeth has just recently started dating a couple. Things are going great, but the woman asked Elizabeth not to wear crop tops around their daughter and Elizabeth isn’t sure if she’s being shamed or not for her clothing. What gives?

Finally, CassyBoBassy is curious about body trust. As someone who struggled with dieting and a family who vilified fat bodies, Cassy is starting to see there might be another way to experience pleasure and break-up with shame, but what does it mean to trust your body and how can she feel less lost?

I definitely recommend checking out Be Nourished’s definition of body trust here.

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.

Hey you! Welcome to Sex Gets Real. It is a beautiful sunny August day here in Vancouver, Canada, and I’m excited to get to share a little time with you, as always. I wanted to let you know, this coming Friday, August 30th of 2019, you can hear me on the Secret Feminist Agenda podcast with Hannah McGregor. We talk about so much about you – Yes, you, for much of the conversation – what it’s been like holding your stories and questions all these years, setting boundaries, being with people in these very complicated and difficult questions. If you haven’t checked out the Secret Feminist Agenda podcast yet, please do. Hannah is having some amazing conversations over there that are ultra-feminist, and so I know a lot of you will be really excited about that. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. It was a really fun conversation to have with Hannah. 

Dawn Serra: I also just wrapped up the final call for the July cohort Power in Pleasure last night. I am so overwhelmed with the feels. What an absolutely special experience. I feel like this is my life’s work, like I was meant to be doing this and I feel like it’s such a gift. So many people are already sending me feedback and I wanted to share a few with you because I like celebrating and I want to be in the celebration with all of you because you’ve been with me for so long. 

Someone named Lindsey said, “Enrolling in this course allowed me to set aside time to deeply explore pleasure within myself in ways I never expected. I loved that Dawn eases you into things in an unintimidating way that feels completely welcoming and helped give me the permission to explore things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve learned so, so much about myself and allowed more room for pleasure in so many aspects of life!” 

I also received, “This has been such a gift to myself in ways I could not have expected! I felt the pull to join even though I was nervous about it.”

Some else wrote, “My biggest takeaway is that I’ve been gaslighting myself about certain things and it’s just as bad to do it to myself as it is to have it done to me by a lover. Also, I learned permission to name what I want and to form boundaries around it knowing that I won’t go crazy and overindulge if I say yes to things. And the grounding exercises are something I will take with me and cherish forever. Thank you for all your time and this beautiful course. It’s been amazing.”

Dawn Serra: It was really extraordinary to see these people in the call last night and how radically different their questions, their responses, their ways of being were from that very first call that we had five and a half weeks ago. If you want to join me, I’m already gearing up for October’s cohort. Maybe you want to join me? Five weeks of exploring pleasure, there’s already a couple of brave souls enrolled. So, if you want to check that out, dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse. I’m really proud of this work and it fuels me, and feeds me, and teaches me, and I would love to have you be a part of it. 

Yesterday on Facebook, I saw a photo going around and it was a screen capture from Reddit, I think. The title was “Men Talking About the Women They Love.” I wanted to share a few of the posts and to say I want to hear from you. Now, this is about men talking about the women in their lives. But, what I would love is regardless of your gender, regardless of whether it’s an intimate sexual partner or a spouse or a friend or a neighbor or someone else that you love, what are the little meaningful things that this person in your life does that makes you feel loved and special and grateful? Write in and tell me info at sexgetsreal dot com. So, here is a love story fest-starter.

Dawn Serra: Okay, someone from the thread named GryzFyrFyter1 wrote: “My wife never finished a cup of coffee or a cup of tea if I didn’t make it for her. I asked about it once and her response was, “It just tastes better when you make it.” It always makes me feel better seeing an empty cup.”

The_dapper_minion wrote: “I often come to bed after her, and she’s a pretty heavy sleeper. Without fail, I’ll get settled into bed and she does what I call The Reach, where she’ll start swatting around to find me. Once any body part is located, she attempts to crawl into my skin, all while asleep. Most nights I just lay there and chuckle. It’s the little things.”

Dealthagar wrote: “I suffer from scale psoriasis pretty bad on my neck and shoulders. After a shower, she sits me down on the bed and works my medicated lotion into it. I never asked her to. I have this medicated ‘lotion wand’ that’s basically a sponge on a stick that I used to use when we first got together. After the first time she saw me struggle with a mirror to get all the spots, she just started doing it for me. I’m really super self-conscious about my psoriasis. She’s just like ‘It’s a part of you, a part of us, so let me do this for you.’ She started doing this for me when we were first dating seven years ago. We’ve been married for almost two years now. Every day, without me asking, she does this. It really speaks of her devotion to me and to us.”

Dawn Serra: I think one of the things that I really loved about so many of the things that people shared in this particular thread I saw on Facebook, and what I shared was only a few of them, is how simple a lot of the things are. This one person was writing about how whenever he and his wife go shopping to the grocery store or somewhere else, if they get separated in the store, as soon as they relocate each other she breaks into this huge smile at the sight of his face and that that’s been happening for 28 years. Another person said that his partner will scoot her chair closer to his in restaurants so they can lean on each other while they’re eating. And I just really, really loved the simplicity.

In the work that I do with people in my coaching practice, it almost always comes back to these small moments. These small moments of appreciation and reverence, they add up to so much more than I think we realize especially because there’s this fetisization of big, grand sweeping gestures of that fancy holiday present or that big getaway. But it’s so easy for us to become so distracted by our jobs, and our phones, and our Netflix shows, and social media. It’s those little, tiny, small rituals and moments that really add up to some pretty incredible feelings of love and support. 

Dawn Serra: So, I wanted to take this opportunity to share two of mine so that I could share with you a little bit about what I would like to receive from you in whatever form it is. So my first is about Alex. One of the things that make me feel just really seen and loved is when I’m working really long hours, which is somewhat often, Alex will throughout the day bring me glasses of cold water, set snacks beside me, cook dinner, do the dishes. He just helps to remember to nourish myself, tends to the house so I can be here doing things like recording podcast, and facilitating group calls, and supporting people around their trauma. I never ask. He just does and I feel really, really, really grateful for those small, but important moments.

The other one is my friend Kim. I feel so loved by Kim because she’ll send me little articles and events she thinks that I’ll like. She invites me to things all the time even though I have to say no a lot. And any time I’ve ever asked her a question, she comes back a day or two later with heaps of ideas or research or she’ll say, “Oh, you asked about these things so I called five people who I know all know about the thing. And here’s what they all said…” Alex and I were even having a problem with our landlord a couple of months ago and she went out of her way to go to a advocacy group and pick up this packet that she mailed to us. We never asked for that but it just arrived and it was all about tenants’ rights. So, I really appreciate little acts of thoughtfulness and love.

Dawn Serra: Kate Sloan of the Dildorks podcast also started a thread on Twitter asking: “If you’re in a long-term relationship and/or marriage, can you tell me about (if there is one) the specific moment you knew you wanted to be with your partner for a long time?”

And so, I really wanted to also share that here. I feel like it’s just so feel good and gives us ways to feel into gratitude with people we love and to really reflect fondly. So, a couple of the responses, there’s so many, include Allison Moon. She said, 

“I got sick with the flu during his first visit to me in Los Angeles. He sat next to the bed, stroked my hair, and read “Song of Myself” in such a gentle, calm voice, I knew I wanted him to read to me for the rest of my life.”

Someone else with a private profile said, “Honestly? When I took him to meet my friends and afterwards someone said “You’re *different* with him. I haven’t seen you calm like that in years.” I was just out of my previous abusive relationship and I cried.”

@RadioBinaries said, “My girlfriend and I actually realized it together at an Olive Garden. She was visiting over the summer and we were talking about how people should be able to live with their best friends forever. And then we realized, we could. That was over 3 years ago.”

@caseyahoolihan said, “I had several depressive and or panic episodes and he handled them like a pro. Responded in nothing but love and support and always pushes me to take a step back when I need to.”

And the last one I’ll read from the thread but it’s definitely worth checking out is @stellapurrcam wrote, “We were at the mall and my shoulder started hurting so he took my big red purse and wore it around the mall for the rest of the day. He didn’t give a fuck about the funny looks people gave him, he just wanted me to be comfortable. I knew I wanted to grow old with him after that.”

Dawn Serra: So, what are the ways the people in your life show you devotion and love? What little moment made you know you wanted this person in your life for a long time, whether it was in a romantic, sexual, a platonic way, a creative way? I would love to hear about all sorts of love. Not just men naming the things women do for them, but all genders, all relationship types – even really cool coworker experiences and neighbors. So, let’s get a love train going. Write to me with your little story or thought info at sexgetsreal dot com is my email address or you can go to sexgetsreal.com and use the contact form. 

Also, I’m about to transition the website and fold it into dawnserra.com. I’ve been working on a redesign of dawnserra.com for 2 years and we’re almost ready to launch. But, a part of that redesign is the podcast is going to get folded into dawnserra.com. So, I will have redirects so all the links from previous episodes still work. But moving ahead, very soon you’ll be going to dawnserra.com to use the contact form to write-in to me about the podcast. So, just a note. 

Dawn Serra: Before I read your emails, I also want to take a moment to discuss some allegations that have been brought to my attention about Erika Lust. A non-binary performer named Rooster came forward, I want to say last year, about being sexually assaulted by a guest director, among some other things that happened, on the set of a film that was produced by Erika Lust Films. I definitely think it’s important to read Rooster’s accounts and Rooster has a post that I’m going to link to if you go sexgetsreal.com/ep275/ for episode 275. I’m going to have several resources there but one of them includes a post that Rooster put together that’s got screenshots, email exchanges, articles, posts that all relate to this experience that Rooster had with the team at Erika Lust films and the particular guest director, Olympia de G.

Now, Erika Lust released a statement a few days ago, and unfortunately, that statement leaves a lot to be desired and while I understand the reasons that Erika released the statement and worded it the way that it was worded – it definitely demonstrates a lack of understanding of things like power dynamics and trauma. 

Dawn Serra: I’ve read a few pieces about what happened. I want to name that I am not an expert on this. I am not who need to be centered. I’m not the person to come to with questions. But I do want to amplify Rooster’s voice and I also really feel like it’s important to share a couple of other things around this just to help all of us do better. 

One, In the past, I have personally recommended Erika Lust’s work, both through Erika Lust Films and XConfessions, as a source of ethical, feminist porn. At this time, I just want to say, I am withdrawing that recommendation. At least, until Erika and her team can do better at really centering Rooster and the other performers, honestly, who have come forward about some harm they’ve experienced on Erika Lust Films’ sets. Especially the multiple complaints that have been issued around Olympia de G, in particular. I want to also say this is not a call to cancel anyone, shame anyone, attack anyone. I fundamentally believe that when we call for accountability, it has to be done with love, intention, and integrity.

Dawn Serra: Two, It is tempting to point the finger at porn and at sex work when allegations of abuse on a porn set come up or in a strip club or any of the other things. This happened, in fact, in my Explore More group. People saying “Ugh, it’s porn.” I do believe that extra care has to be taken by people doing any kind of work around sex and sexuality. If that’s you, I hope you take this very seriously. It includes not only porn but also sex education. There is such a huge danger in people engaging as leaders, educators, and influencers who don’t have a really nuanced understanding of power, privilege, trauma; and who don’t know how to engage in accountability processes. I think the unfolding stories around Franklin Veaux and Charlie Glickman are really evidence of this. 

But, when we look at the working conditions of people everywhere and the opportunity of exploitation, we have to remember that under capitalism, exploitation is the norm, not the exception. Whether it’s abuse on a porn set, in a strip club, or in a fast food restaurant – exploitation is the name of the game. 

Dawn Serra: Three, when – not if – when harm occurs, because we’re human beings and harm is inevitable – It’s our collective responsibility to center the needs of those who have been harmed and to amplify their voice. This does not mean, and you’ve heard me say this over and over and over again when we were talking about the Franklin Veaux stuff, this does not mean vilifying people who have caused harm nor is it painting them as monsters. We need to do the work to overturn the perfect survivor narrative which requires us to also paint people as monsters, and to hold that people who have been harmed can harm others. People who have caused harm can be harmed and maybe have been harmed, and can be victims, as well. It’s messy. 

It can be so tempting to want to listen to the people who have more power and influence, often because we are more familiar with them, we enjoy their work, we admire them. But, it is our responsibility – whether it’s someone we know, like or trust or someone we love, to listen and to really center those who are speaking up about harm. Especially when there’s lots of risk associated with that speaking up. In this specific dialog, we have to center Rooster by believing them and by supporting the fact that they were harmed, and that there is a really significant chance of loss in their lives.

Dawn Serra: Four, we can’t vilify or shame performers who continue to work with Erika Lust or anyone else who’s caused harm. Sex workers are highly marginalized in this world, and because of the rampant sex negativity and stigma that we collectively have against sex work, and unwillingness to hire former sex worker into corporate jobs and teaching jobs and all kinds of other jobs. Performers have to supported in the decisions they make for themselves on how to make a living. 

Five, because of #MeToo, most of us now understand that many of us survive harm through freezing or appeasing – fight, flight, freeze, appease. These are all trauma responses. They’re survival responses. So that’s to say, when harm happens, it can take time for us to understand the full extent of it, to find the language for it, especially when the potential for losing a source of income or losing access access to safety and belonging is on the line. And that’s true for Rooster. When we speak of harm, we have to move away from the need for things to be linear, neat, and to fit into a clear cut definition that’s harm or no harm. We all have to be doing the work of getting more comfortable with the uncertain, messy, ugly reality of being human especially inside of deeply broken systems.

Dawn Serra: The sixth and final thing I want to say is as we consider the ways we consume anything and the ethics of it – from our clothing and our food to our porn – I invite all of us to center the voices of those who are doing the work, who are doing the labor, and to trust their varied truths. Vex Ashley of A Four Chambered Heart was quoted in a Jezebel article, that’s part about what I’ll be linking to, about this situation. And she said, “Ethical porn is whatever porn fits your personal system of values and ethics, and they are subjective, person to person. There are no generally accepted specifics. There’s no naughty or nice list.” 

A company claiming to be an ethical, feminist company is not as meaningful to me as performers who say, “This company did these things to honor my autonomy, safety, and consent.” Which makes me think like white folks can’t label themselves as allies to people of color. White folks have to do the work of allyship and support. And it’s only people of color who can decide if that work demonstrates true allyship. So, just like that, it’s on us as consumers to take a more active role in really listening to those who are actually doing the work – the performers.

Dawn Serra: We all have to find ways to reconcile that lots of performers might have a really terrific experience with a particular director or a company, and one person might have a terrible, abusive experience and all of it is true. And that might be really uncomfortable and conflicting but it’s true. It’s the folks who are harmed that deserve our support in order to be able to process that harm so that additional harm like gaslighting and erasure doesn’t happen. 

So, around Rooster and Erika Lust Films, I encourage each of you to check out the pieces that I’ve linked to at sexgetsreal.com/ep275/ and to offer Rooster support with a comment, a share, or maybe even sending them money.

Dawn Serra: Okay, let’s move on to your epic, epic emails. The first one is Kate who wrote in with a subject line of “Unsolicited Nudes…with a happy ending” The email says, 

“My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost 2 years, and I feel like we have a very strong foundation, without much jealousy and with a LOT of communication. He has a female coworker who is very sexual, and speaks very openly and explicitly about what she wants to do to anyone at any given moment. Once, she told my boyfriend she wanted to lay on a bed with her head hanging off and let him fuck her throat until he came. He has no feelings towards her and always has no problem sharing the dirty things she says to him and others. While I always have initial jealousy when hearing these things, I am never concerned by this or even really bothered. And I know that, in the end, she does it to all of her friends, not just my man. They became friends on Snapchat and started talking every once in a while, very sporadically. Then a few days ago, while he was working and she wasn’t, she sent him a nude bath photo with her tits exposed. When he told me about it afterwards I was very upset, and he was worried that I was going to dump him. He’s never been in another serious relationship and didn’t know how something like that would be worked through.”

Once I got over the fact that it was kind of rude of her to send nudes to someone in a relationship, I decided that it wasn’t a huge deal. We’ve watched porn together and it’s not like he hasn’t seen boobs before. She had sent another picture that he didn’t open and we decided that I would be the one to look at it. Sure enough, it had been another bath photo, this time showing her boobs and her crotch, with her hand covering her vagina. I wasn’t angry that she sent a second one. Rather than block her or tell her this was inappropriate, I decided that when we got home, we should send her a picture of my tits back. My man and I have never done anything with a third person and this was a bit more kinky than anything we had done before. It was exciting! After the first boob pic that I sent her, my boyfriend and I were very turned on, and he started eating me out. While he was doing this, I took a picture of my crotch and his face buried in my mound. You can probably guess why I took this. We decided to send it to his coworker. This whole situation, sharing our sexual encounters with someone outside our relationship was so hot and kinky to us that we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Yesterday, they worked together for the first time since this all happened and she confessed that after she saw that second photo, she pleasured herself to the thought of me, which is very hot! I thought I’d share this story with you and hear your thoughts on it. I think that since both of us were very turned on by this experience, that someday I might try to take it up a notch and suggest to him that we could have someone watch us or maybe even join us! We’ve joked about it before, and I think he’d be on board! I’m so excited to hopefully explore a new side of our relationship! Thank you for letting me share my little story with you! – Kate”

Dawn Serra: Wow, Kate! Thank you for sharing this with us. I’m so glad that it ended in a fun, sexy way. Personally, I definitely think that this woman’s behavior and the lack of boundaries show a deep disrespect, both to you and to your boyfriend. I think for people who are listening to this, if this kind of behavior is something that you wouldn’t be okay with, that’s okay. I think that it has a happy ending and it sounds like, Kate, your so excited despite some questionable behavior at the beginning that’s now created a situation where you feel really excited, and hopeful, and turned on, and that there’s lots of potential down the road.

I just want to offer that someone who is going to not even consider the status of someone’s relationship, ask about what’s acceptable, have discussions around what feels okay for everybody, and to ask questions about whether or not it’s okay to send these types of things is someone who I would be deeply skeptical of doing something else with. Because the likelihood that you’ll be disrespected down the road is pretty high. But, if this experience opened a door so that you can potentially do really exciting things with other people – People who are more respectful of boundaries and who want to collaborate with you and your boyfriend in ways that everyone can feel good instead of just assuming and then you two having to deal with the fall out – I think that that’s a really exciting thing! So, thank you so much for tuning in and for sharing about your super sexy story.

Dawn Serra: Elizabeth sent a note with a subject line of “Am I being shamed for the way a dress?” Elizabeth writes,

“Hi Dawn, I love the show, and have been listening for a few months now. I recently started dating a couple. The couple has been married almost 10 years and they have two wonderful children. The 3 of us are spending a lot of time together and the sex is great. So far, everything is going well, but the other day I went over to hang out. I saw the kids and the couple. I was wearing high waisted jeans and a cropped shirt. This will be important. The next morning, their daughter, who is 7, asked her mom to cut her shirt so it was like mine. I guess this made her mother uncomfortable, so she called me to explain the situation and then she asked me to stop wearing cropped shirts around them. She told me that her daughter looks up to me, and that it was hard to explain to her that she wasn’t allowed to wear cropped shirts but that I was. This request made me uncomfortable, and it felt like the wrong way to handle the situation. I am not sure if I am overreacting. I am also not sure how to talk to her about it. Anyway, thank you for the amazing podcast, and any advice.”

Dawn Serra: Hello, Elizabeth! First off, thanks for listening and for writing in. You know I love getting your emails and I really appreciate you trusting me with this. This, I think, is a great opportunity for you and this woman that you’re dating, the kids’ mother, to have a conversation and to explore your feelings about all of this. You are allowed to wear whatever you want to wear. It’s your body. And, she’s allowed to parent in ways that feel values-aligned and important to her. That said, it sounds like she’s uncomfortable having some conversations with her daughter about bodies and values, and that that might be where the sticking point is. So, if I were you, I’d ask this woman who you’re dating, and having sex with, and building a relationship with, if the two of you could sit down and if you could learn more about her request with genuine curiosity. I’d want to know her feelings about crop tops, what it means when an adult wears one versus what it means, for her, when a 7-year-old, or a 10-year-old, or14-year-old wears one. I’d want to the stories she carries about age appropriate wear at the house versus out of the house like at school or around town because those might be different. And then, I’d see what that information that she offers you tells you about what you’d like to do next.

She can’t forbid you from wearing crop tops, but she can ask you not to come over to the house when the kids are there, if she feels it really is out of alignment with her values to have her kids around someone wearing whatever it is, whether it’s a crop top or a bikini or robe. She gets to set that boundary. But I also wonder if it’s less about values and more about not wanting to have to fight with the daughter over and over again every time she sees you wearing one. I really think this could be an opportunity for you and this woman, that you’re seeing, to have a co-conversation with the daughter around when crop tops would be more age appropriate. Maybe the mother would be okay with her daughter having a crop top as PJs that she wears around the house but not to school.

Dawn Serra: There’s so much potential here for the two of you adults to collaborate and to really use this as a way to deepen your connection to each other and to the children. But, I definitely would want to get really curious about her perspective before deciding whether or not it was shaming or maybe it came from a place of being a really exhausted mom who has 2 kids, who happens to have a 7-year-old that she knows is really stubborn. And, every time that you wear a crop top, there’s going to be some type of fight or argument or conversation that she doesn’t want to have 10 times. I mean, I think there’s a lot to learn in this situation. So, how can this be a chance for you to share your feelings while also learning more about her beliefs, her values as a parent, her hopes for her kid? And depending on what you’ll learn, it might also give you more information on whether you want to take a bigger role in their lives, perhaps down the road as a co-parent or maybe depending on what you learn, to keep this as a little bit more of a casual thing.

I hope that gives you a jumping off point for starting some conversations and definitely keep me posted. I’m so curious about where that’s coming from, what it means, and what the two of you will decide together. And in the meantime, enjoy your crop tops because it’s the end of summer, and it’s still warm, and you can!

Dawn Serra: This next email comes from CassyBoBassy, which I love. And, CassyBoBassy writes, “Hi, Dawn. I’ve long listened to podcasts, and like so many other people, I want to say your show and you are something special. I appreciate your earnestness and how much you care, it feels rare these days, which makes me have hope about a lot of things. I know you recently announced on Facebook that you completed your Body Trust Provider certification. So, first, congratulations. Second, I have really complicated feelings about my body and about food. I grew up in a household where thinness was prized, diets were normal, and being in a body that was anything but thin was seen as a tragedy or worse, a personal failure. Now that I’ve finally started to question things about diet culture thanks to people like Jes Baker and Christy Harrison, I know I don’t want to be how I was – on and off diets, feeling guilty, feeling like I had to perform being on a diet in order to be accepted by coworkers and family. But I’m also not sure how it is I want to be moving forward.

It feels scary. I’m so ashamed of getting naked during sex. I’m scared of my cravings. I don’t know what it means, like REALLY means to trust my body. Can you help? What does this Body Trust Provider process mean to you? What does body trust mean? And can learning to trust my body help with the places where I feel so unsure and scared? I just don’t know where to go now that I see where I’ve been and how hard it’s been, you know? I don’t know if I’m making sense, but thanks for all you do and if this makes it on the podcast, thanks for taking some time to read it. With lots of thanks, CassyBoBassy”

Dawn Serra: First off, thank you for the congratulations, Cassy! It is absolutely true! After 9 months of retreats, reading, writing, and reading research studies, learning, group calls, supervision calls, and a whole bunch of work – BeNourished certified me, just a week or two ago, as an official Body Trust Provider. I also want to say thank you for listening to the show and writing in with this really thoughtful email. I know you are not alone. I know you are not alone. Your questions are important and they’re huge. So, today we’ll just scratch the surface and give you some things to think about and then you can choose what you want to explore.

The place that I want to start, not only with you, Cass, but with everyone listening is I really want to hold past you with tons of tenderness and care. All of us in Western culture grow up impacted by diet culture – whether that impact is from our families or our friends, school programs, churches, or simply being in the world that has media and pop culture that surround us, diet culture has absolutely touched all of our lives. Counselor Andrea Papin, who spoke at Explore More Summit in 2019, likes to say, “Belonging trumps everything.” When our parents value thinness, we’re indoctrinated into stories that vilify certain bodies and celebrate others. In order to belong, we often find ourselves swept up inside of our parents’ stories of shame, embarrassment, fear, and body terrorism.

Dawn Serra: For me, dieting was really normal in my household growing up. Both of my parents were terrified of fatness. My dad was chubby as a kid and made fun of, and that caused him a lot of pain so he spent his entire adulthood running from that pain and wanting to be anything but that chubby kid. My mom was super thin as a teenager which gave her lots of social and sexual capital, something she looks back on fondly and was really proud of. But, her body changed after pregnancy and it became a full blown war – her against her body. I saw that. I, in no way, blame them – they were both in lots of pain because the world we live in is heinously fatphobic which has deep deep roots in white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism. But, it did impact me. I absorbed the things they said, the things they did, the things they didn’t say – just like all kids do.

One of the things that I really love about what you said, Cassy, is “I know I don’t want to be.” I think that’s a really important place to start. Sometimes we have to start with what we don’t want in order to find our way towards what we do. And you’re right, I mean, no matter what TV channel, social media feed, radio station, or magazine you consume – all of it is about selling us on ways of being that align with and support diet culture because it’s super profitable. It keeps us super distracted. Being obsessed with smallness and turning these very fleshy human bodies of ours into robots, and machines, and things that we replace parts on, and sculpt, and mold.

Dawn Serra: I love how Christy Harrison talks about diet culture as the life thief because when we’re so consumed with dieting and upholding the glossy rebrand that we know now as “Health and Wellness” – The health and wellness industry, we give up all the things we could be doing with our life like connecting with people we love, playing, campaigning for social change, toppling patriarchy, and so many other things. But there’s also genuinely a lot of safety in all the planning and measuring and restricting and monitoring. It gives us something that makes us feel like we’re doing something that makes us more worthy. That we’re doing something that makes us more lovable and more acceptable as a human being. 

When we start breaking up with diet mentality, it really can feel like we’re floating in space and there’s nothing with nothing to orient towards. There’s no gravity to stabilize us, which is why I think it takes a lot of courage to really start rooting down into the truth of who you are and what your body is communicating to you. There’s a lot of noise that wants to make you listen to things outside of yourself. But, this process also takes time which most of us are not really good at – allowing things to take time. 

Dawn Serra: Another thing that’s so seductive about diet culture is all the false promises. Everything inside of diet culture promises you that if you do this program, eat these foods, avoid this other foods, and move in certain ways, wear certain things; you will be promised health, love, sex, happiness, success, even avoiding death. Literally, there’s a new book coming out all about diets that’s actually absurdly titled “How Not To Die”.

I think one of the other things that’s really hard for people is when we start breaking up with diet culture, it means grieving. Grieving so much, grieving the violence we did to ourselves and to others, grieving the time and the money we poured into trying to force our bodies to be different, grieving the certainty we’ve been promised and force-fed and sold. It also really means grappling with deeper and more human experiences – things that are really difficult for a lot of us like uncertainty, changing bodies, aging, and even death. I mean, we’re all going to die but so many people who are chasing the health and wellness are essentially trying to chase that magical elixir of everlasting life. 

Dawn Serra: For me, to answer your question, Cassy, Body Trust is this beautiful, gentle paradigm that Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant from BeNourished created to offer us something to orient towards when we do feel lost. Dana and Hilary have some beautiful things on their website so I’ll link to that at sexgetsreal.com/ep275/. But one of the things that they write on their website is that, “Body Trust is a radical revisioning of what it means to occupy and care for your body. It is a pathway to acceptance of the body, an alternative dialogue to the conventional paradigm of food, body image, and weight concerns in our culture. Body Trust is paradigm shifting work that invites bravery and fierce body compassion.” 

They go on to say Body Trust is a healing modality, it’s weight inclusive, it’s your birthright, it is a homecoming. And they also say, “Body Trust is a reclamation. Of pleasure. Of knowing. Of wanting. Of listening. Of your own damn self. Body Trust work is a process of reclaiming our bodies after they’ve been harmed by stigma, diet culture, shame, difference, and othering, and then further distanced by our attempts to mitigate that harm by trying to control the size, shape or appearance of our body.”

Dawn Serra: I think for me, so many of the emails I’ve received over the years, the clients that I’ve worked with one-on-one – it’s revealed to me how disconnected so many of us are from our bodies. I’ve long heard the same questions repeated over and over again, “But how do I know what I want? What I need? How do I know what my limits are? What enough is? What if someone doesn’t like how I look? What if I’m afraid of my body?” All of this relates back to this lack of trust in these really wise bodies of ours that are so full of information, and pleasure, and power, but we got separated along the way. Because we’re born trusting our bodies and that got disrupted by diet cultures, by gender binaries, by racism, by capitalism, by trauma. 

Body Trust is one of many that offers us a way to really gently start coming home to ourselves so that we can show up in our life and in the world more grounded and true. And I think something really incredible happens when we break up with perfectionism, which is another symptom of neoliberalism and capitalism. When we stop forcing ourselves to push past our limits, when we really truly start listening to our body and trusting what it wants, and craves and asks for – we start to find these really deep resources of power and nourishment. I mean, it’s not only about coming home to ourselves, but it’s about opening to the erotic. Because the erotic is something that’s really, really difficult to access and to channel when we’re cut off from our bodies all the time, when we’re dissociated, when we’re so busy that we never actually just arrive. 

Dawn Serra: So, whether it’s Body Trust or something like generative somatics or somatic experiencing, or any number of modalities that invite us to come home to ourselves, to find these gentle inroads to the body – One of the biggest parts of this work is not feeling like it’s our fault, like we’re broken, like we’ve done something wrong. It’s about seeing that we never consented to this and we’ve done our best to survive to now. But, now we don’t have to do it alone any longer.

I think that’s one of the other things that I really love, not only about Body Trust but so much of the work that I’m doing these days is, it’s not just about self, it’s about being in community with others. It’s about sharing our stories and being witnessed so that we can start to really experience that process of healing through relationship.

Dawn Serra: I think one of the impact this work had on me is finding new depths of self-compassion and curiosity about my body and all the things that it does, even the stuff that pisses me off or disappoints me. I’ve started feeling in new ways, slowing down, connecting more deeply. I want all of that for all of us who feel ready for it. I don’t believe that there’s any one magical solution for all people. That’s just too utopian and unrealistic, but I do think that more presence, more connection, more compassion, more depth of feeling will lead us collectively towards a world that’s a lot less violent than the one we’re in now. 

So, that’s what it means to me and what it is, Cassy. And, if you want to learn more, definitely check out BeNourished’s work at benourished.org. The other thing that I wanted to offer is give yourself permission to go slow. It took decades and decades for most of us to get here and the process of untangling these stories we’ve been living in is a really slow one. Plus, for everything you unlearn, there’s going to be constant barrage of people around you and stories around you trying to force you back into those old systems. Because it’s going to terrify and threaten them. So, finding people who can support you and be in this process with you while you do the work is so crucial.

Dawn Serra: Anyway, I could keep going on but like I said, we’re just going to scratch the surface so I hope, Cassy, that gives you just a little bit of insight into why I chose this work, how it fits in to what I do. The more that we can hear our wants and our cravings around food, around touch, around movement, the more we can really feel into those around things like sex and the erotic. And I hope that this offers you all sorts of new, yummy places to feel into and discover about yourself so that you don’t feel quite so lost.

Thank you so much, Cassy, for listening and for tuning in. And for everybody, head to Patreon if you’d like to support the show financially. Anything from $1 a month, to $3 a month, to $5 a month would be amazing. If you support at $3 a month and above, you get bonus content every single week and there’s a huge backlog at this point so you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and I would love to see you over there. I am planning a live call later this year. So, Patrons, tune in and keep an eye out for that. Otherwise, I will be back next week and if you could use support around a place where you feel stuck, shoot me a note info at sexgetsreal dot com and head to sexgetsreal.com/ep275/ for all the resources I mentioned today. Bye.

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

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