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tl;dr Bringing more racial nuance to sexual assault conversations, how to do oral sex when you struggle for breath, and how to deal with regret and hurt after a threesome.
Be sure to send in your questions! I would love to hear from you. Use the contact form at dawnserra.com.
We start with some beautiful words by Heidi Preibe about loving someone over the long term.
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
See Heidi’s post on Facebook and share it, if you love it.
I also mentioned my quarantine selfie. Here’s me this week with my fancy bumble bee mask. Ha!
On to your emails…
Scotney, a fellow sex educator, wrote in with some additional nuance around Kobe Bryant, sexual assault, and the institutional and cultural racism that we need to acknowledge when we are specifically talking about Black men and sexual violence.
Nick is preparing for a double lung transplant. He is short of breath and can’t lay on his stomach to eat out his wife. How can he engage in oral sex with his wife without struggling to breathe?
I have ideas for Nick, plus permission to expand the ways he pleases his wife. It doesn’t only have to be oral sex! Bodies change, and sometimes the ways we have sex need to change, too.
Gina Senarighi is here to help me answer the final question this week from Jealous friend and lover. JFL is feeling really hurt because her and her boyfriend were kissing and flirting with a friend of hers, but things escalated quickly and now JFL is feeling insecure, betrayed, and unsure of how to move forward.
What do you do when you open your relationship or try a threesome and things go wrong? How can you repair from a relationship oops? Gina is here to help me answer those questions with such generosity and compassion.
A huge thanks to the Vocal Few for their song in the opening and closing of the episode and to Hemlock for their awesome song “Firelight” which was used in this episode between questions.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
About Gina Senarighi:
Dr Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is an author, teacher, sexuality counselor and certified relationship coach based in the midwestern U.S. She’s been supporting clean fights and dirty sex in happy healthy relationships since 2009. Gina has written several books and currently leads couples retreats and coaches online clients all over the world.
Find Gina at heygina.com and nonmonogamous.com. Be sure to also tune into her podcast, Swoon.
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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. Here we are with another episode and in a strange but true turn of events, I am in a day-6 of a 14-day quarantine. My father-in-law spent the past 2.5 months in China on a little tropical island enjoying himself and his retirement. In the weeks before he left the island, about 50,000 folks from Wuhan came to the island to escape some of the health stuff going on there in the early stages. Of course, that turned out to be the coronavirus. Then he left the island and spent a few days in Shanghai waiting for us to get him an earlier flight back to Canada, and we didn’t want him alone at his place waiting to see if he got sick, so he has been staying with us this week which means if he was exposed, we have now been exposed. We decided to follow the responsible thing: follow the WHO’s recommendation of self-quarantining for 14-days to ensure we don’t pass it on to anyone and here we are.
Dawn Serra: It also means though that his arrival, unexpected arrival, pushed back my recording of the Patreon bonus for last week’s episode. ‘CauseI need a little time and space when I record for the podcast and that was something, with him here, I needed to wait until I had a little bit of alone time. Now that he’s been here a week and we feel confident he’s okay, he’s actually heading home, we’re going to continue to quarantine for a week. But now, I can finally record! So you’re going to get two Patreon bonuses this week.
The first bonus is an exploration of all the things that people got stuck in their vagina, penis, or rectum in 2019. We’re not only going to talk about the things that got stuck, but other things we can use for pleasure. The second bonus is all about biological sex: chromosomes and genes, and the science of all of our sexual organs and chromosomes and stuff. It’s really fun and really cool, and helps us to unpack so many of our feelings about gender and bodies and all the other things.
Dawn Serra: I’m also, next week, going to be doing a bonus of some MIV asshole questions, which I think will be super fun. If you support the show at $3 a month and above, you get weekly bonus content and two bonuses are coming up this week. I’ve got some awesome interviews lined up: Jessica Vilenti and Jaclyn Friedman are going to be coming to the show to talk about their new book “Believe Me”. We will, of course, be recording a bonus conversation that only Patreon supporters can hear. I’ve got A Andrews. We’re trying to find the time to talk about sex and disability and a whole bunch of other stuffs – patreon.com/sgrpodcast.
This week’s episode is exciting because not only am I fielding your questions, but the amazing Gina Senarighi is joining us for the last half of this week’s episode to help me field a question from one of you about some tough feelings that have come up around a threesome situation. Really good good stuff this week. Also, speaking of which, so many of you have emailed me in the past week and I love it. Your questions have been so thoughtful, vulnerable, and definitely important. Thank you for trusting me with all of that. If you could use some support, advice, resources, or you just want your story held, write to me! I would love to hear from you. You can go to dawnserra.com and click on Contact option to fill up the little option and send me your question. And there is an anonymous option.
Dawn Serra: One other little bit of news, Be Nourished just opened up applications for their next Body Trust providers certification. So, if you’d like to be a part of the next cohort, if you’d like to deepen in your work around body liberation, HAES which is Health at Every Size, Body Trust, and healing, you might want to check it out. It was a really awesome experience and the community has been everything. If you’re in the field and you think that might be helpful for you, check it out because applications are open.
Before we jump into your questions, I saved something by someone named Heidi Preibe, the other day, and I wanted to share it here. It’s, I think, a really beautiful sentiment. I shared it on Facebook and a whole bunch of people really resonated with it. So I thought we could be in it together. Here’s what Heidi wrote,
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
Dawn Serra: I loved these words from Heidi. The idea that to love someone over the course of time is to attend a thousand funerals of who they were, are, and wanted to be. And, the same is true for those who love us – each change, each question we ask leads us towards a new version of ourselves and the people who love us are also attending funerals for us, as well. And maybe some of the stories they carried about who we are or would be.
So much of the pain that I see in the work that I do stems from people clinging so tightly to old stories about their partner, about their loved ones, old patterns, clinging to nostalgia about how things used to be. When we spend so much time and energy looking back, we really can miss so much opportunity and wonder at what’s actually unfolding in the here and now. But, I do think that letting go of that comparison of looking back at what’s not here anymore, what’s changed, and to attend to what is true instead of what you wish were true – that does involve grief work. It means fostering endless curiosity. It invites us into cultivating relationships that allow for mistakes and confusion and the unknown. But when I think about that, it sounds like such a dynamic and life-filled space to attend to what’s true now and to marvel at what it means to love other humans who are eternally complex and mysterious.
So I’m just holding those words by Heidi and everything that’s wrapped up in them. And the invitation that it offers for us to find ways to start loving into what is, and finding that marvel, that curiosity about where we are and where we might go. Instead of looking back and trying to recapture something that has moved on. I’m going to post a link to Heidi’s words at dawnserra.com/ep292/ for episode 292 of the podcast. If you want to share it yourself, I’m sure a lot of folks that follow you would love to see that. Also, I’ve got a picture of me wearing my bumblebee mask up on the website for this episode, too, because of all the quarantine. So while you’re grabbing the link to Heidi’s words, you can also check out my quarantine selfie. That’s the only place that it’s posted, so check that out.
Dawn Serra: Last week, I shared some thoughts on Kobe Bryant. Since his death and his daughter’s death, and all the other people that were on the helicopter, there have been thousands of think pieces and Twitter threads. And it’s really clear that it is complicated. I received an email from Scotney, who speaks so eloquently to why it’s so complicated. A very similar conversation to what you’re about to hear unfolded in my Explore More Facebook Group and a few survivors felt deeply triggered by the nuance that we were inviting, so if you are in a place where asking complicated questions about sexual assault and believing survivors might hurt, if you’re in a place where you need things to be black and white right now as part of your healing, that’s okay. You might want to skip ahead a couple of minutes – maybe 7 or 8 minutes. So that we can be in Scotney’s email together. Here is what Scotney wrote:
“Hi Dawn, your message about Kobe Bryant really struck me and I wanted to reach out and share why. Disclaimer: my comments are based in the gender binary. I totally agree that the situations around famous men accused of sexual assault can be complicated, as they can be seen as important and inspiring people for some, yet still cause pain for others through their violent actions. There are a lot of complicated aspects of that reality, but I do think it would be remiss to not acknowledge that race is also one of those complicated aspects. You passionately and firmly declared that you believe the woman who was victimized by Kobe Bryant, and I do as well. But as a Black woman, it was an incredibly emotionally difficult position to take. America has a long and bloody history of accusing Black men of sexually assaulting white women to justify horrific violence, from Emmett Till to Claude Neal, from the Central Park 5, to Brian Banks.”
“For many Black women, we don’t have the luxury or the privilege to simply “believe survivors” when the facts are not clear and the alleged perpetrator is Black because we’ve seen how a society and a justice system based in white supremacy continuously looks for any reason to vilify and denigrate and then punish Black men, and Black people in general. Not to mention when the person is famous and a much needed role model for young Black children who struggle to see themselves represented in positive ways in the world around them, though I do agree this is all the more reason to hold people like this accountable.”
Dawn Serra: “To this day, the biggest fight I ever had with my brother was when I said I believed Kobe was guilty of sexual assault. My little brother who had grown up with posters of Kobe on his walls, who was constantly looking for people who looked like him who were successful and accomplished, who inspired him to be the same, to be a leader in whatever he chose to do, despite facing so much racism at his predominantly white high school he had to transfer out. At the crux of the intersection of my blackness and my womanhood, I felt great sorrow in facing my little brother’s anger and denial when I made it clear I believed one of his heroes had done such a terrible thing and should be held accountable.”
“I’m not at all saying black male perpetrators should not be held accountable, especially since Black women are far too often victims of sexual assault and violence, often at the hands of Black men. To be clear, I firmly believe any and every perpetrator of physical and sexual violence, especially that victimizes people from vulnerable populations, should be held accountable. But modern mainstream feminism, mostly led by white women, would say you should always believe survivors without question but this absolutist approach continues to ignore the impact of white supremacy and institutional racism in relation to these issues. I just wanted to point out that the reality is not so simple for everyone. Thank you for the amazing work you do in making accurate, compassionate, and inclusive sexual health information accessible to so many. From a huge fan and fellow sex educator, Scotney.”
Dawn Serra: Scotney, thank you so much for naming the complexities so clearly and with such clarity. There is a long legacy of Black men being killed, imprisoned, and punished at the hands of white women, and that deserves to be named continuously. The ways race, class, and gender swirl together is ugly and it’s messy and means simple answers simply are not good enough. Your email demonstrates beautifully why I believe so firmly in moving away from carceral punishment and the prison industrial complex towards community accountability and transformative justice. We need to be asking questions like: What conditions allow abuse to happen in our communities in the first place? What are we culturally valuing and romanticizing? How is power distributed? Who gets to be believed?
I know that I do not want to be defined by the worst things I do. I want a chance to grow and repair and make amends when I fuck up, when I hurt people, because I have and I will again. When I make bad decisions, when I dehumanize someone. I’m assuming others want that, too. I want to be asking questions like how do we center survivors without stripping away the humanity of those who cause harm? How can we hold each other accountable from a place of firm love and communal support so that no one is thrown out or written off? That doesn’t mean we keep folks who have caused harm in positions of power or where they can harm again, and it doesn’t mean we forget. But it does mean we allow multiple truths to be true. It does mean a chance for us to be in conversation with people who believe can do better, who want to support us as we do the repair work.
Dawn Serra: If we were to have a situation, like what happened with the Central Park 5 and Jane Doe, if we had community accountability, transformative justice, circle processes in place over the criminal industrial complex we have now which so rooted in classism, racism, ableism, and patriarchy, then Jane Doe would have had endless support around her healing. Access to everything that she needed to start feeling supported, to work into her story when it happened, and to hopefully find a way through the pain. Because what she experienced is fucking atrocious. It is. There is no erasing that. Her support needs to be centered and those children never would have been put in the situation they were in, where they were pitted against each other because everyone was eager to find “the bad guy”.
Often justice in our society, particularly here in the U.S. and in Canada, requires that someone’s the bad guy. Someone’s the bad one, so that we can feel safe – that we’ve gotten rid of that one. Instead, if we had community accountability, transformative justice, circle processes – we could believe survivors, offer support and healing for hurt that was going on and still believe in the humanity of people who do bad things. Again, that doesn’t mean that they get power or they get access to certain spaces. But they still get access to support.
Dawn Serra: As a multiple rape survivor myself, I have really complicated feelings about the men who did what they did to me, one in particular. There’s a part of me that will never forgive him because he knew exactly what he was doing, and that part of me that wants him to suffer. I get it. There is a thrum of vengeance that moves through me when I think of him. But if we had better systems in place for dealing with each other with compassion and care, with true accountability built into our relationships from the get-go, it also wouldn’t be my responsibility as a survivor to deal with him. That would be on others in the community, so that I could focus on my healing. Believing survivors and giving people a chance to do the work, to do the repair, to get support; and for us to collectively realize so much violence happens because we aren’t taking care of each other in a truly communal way, because we aren’t setting healthy boundaries and holding people accountable over small things becomes easier and easier and easier for big nasty things to happen.
I’m so glad you wrote in, Scotney, so that we can hold the complexity of this together. Nuance might not be available to us when we’re inside our trauma response, but it’s important that as many of us hold the space for that nuance, that self-reflection, that deeper analysis as we can. Because it’s the only way we can begin repairing the harm and dismantling these systems of oppression. We have to be able to name the nuance. Thank you so much, Scotney, for offering that. Naming that is a crucial part of the work and for us to feel into the messiness of that. There’s a lot more for us to learn and to feel into around that and I’m not sure that more words are necessary right now. But my hope is that we can start really looking at the systems and at the culture that continues to indoctrinate so many of us into the normalization of sexual violence, into the fetishization of youth, and to so many other things.
Dawn Serra: This next email comes from Nick about disability and going down on his wife. Nick writes:
“My wife and I have been married for 2 years. We are polyamorous. When we first met, she wasn’t that into oral so it was never really an issue because it isn’t a big deal for me either, it’s not like receiving and not giving. Shortly after getting married, I had a double lung transplant. I was feeling great. But less than two years later, I’m actually preparing from re-transplantation because of rejection. I’m short of breath easily. We still have sex regularly however, other partners of hers have been more consistent going down on her and she told me she realizes she’s started liking it a lot. When I was healthier, I would frequently go down on my partner. I would like to start again with my wife, but that’s where the problem is. I get winded. I don’t know if it’s the position, usually on my belly while she is on her back, or the action, constantly using my mouth. It’s hard for me to go down when she is on her hands and knees, too, because the leaning puts a lot of pressure on my diaphragm. I’m short, 5’4, so a lot of positions are out of reach for me, hell doggy is hard enough. I’m a pleaser. I literally get off getting people off. I can do it with no stimulation to myself. I want to add oral back to the things my wife and I do, but I can barely go five minutes. Thanks Dawn. You help me be the sexual person I want to be.”
Dawn Serra: Nick! Thank you for writing in with this question as I am sure you are NOT alone in this. I want to begin by saying I’m so sorry about the rejection post-transplant. I hope the re-transplantation you’re preparing for goes as smoothly as possible. Fingers crossed for easier breathing soon! I hope the road to recovery is full of rest, ease, and good shows and movies, and all kinds of things. Let’s get to the heart of your question in how to add oral back to the sex you’re having.
My first question for you is what if you didn’t? What if, at least for right now while you’re waiting for the re-transplatation and seeing how that goes, oral sex on your wife simply wasn’t on the menu? What if for your comfort and health, you two focused on all the other ways you can experience pleasure together that don’t involve you going down on her? Sex toys. Hands. Mutual masturbation. Teasing. Role play. Biting. Tickling. Erotic massage. I mean, the sky is the limit when it comes to offering pleasure to your wife, which you said is something you really get off on.
Dawn Serra: Our bodies change throughout our lives, and sometimes the things we used to be able to do become challenging or impossible. This ties so beautifully to those words that Heidi offered us at the top of the episode. Sometimes we cling to those past stories to the point where we really cause a lot of suffering in the present. Grieving what we used to be able to do is important and real and doesn’t make us bad lovers or damaged or bad if things change. A partner might love a certain position or a particular kind of activity and if it’s not safe, comfortable, or possible for us, both of those things can be true and everyone can still be happy, satisfied, and full of pleasurable experiences.
If I have a shoulder injury or maybe I’ve just had a joint replacement, if my partner loves being flogged or stomped on, that might not be possible for a little while or even ever again because of my body. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a thousand other ways for us to play. I think the challenge is, as human beings, we have a tendency to hyper-focus on what’s not working, what we used to be able to do but maybe it isn’t as easy or available to us anymore, which can obscure our opportunities for seeing the hundred, thousand, or countless other things that are working or might work.
Dawn Serra: My first offering to you, Nick, is simply a permission slip to not force it. Whether it’s a not now thing or a not ever thing, maybe oral isn’t the best way for you two to have delicious, pleasurable sex. It’s not a failure, it’s not anything to apologize for. Bodies do body things and sometimes that means what we want and what we can do don’t align. But that’s true for everybody at some point in time. And it’s an opportunity for different questions. Now, if you really do want to give it a go, I have a couple of ideas.
First up, what about having her lay on a dining room table, a massage table, or an exam table? If you have a chair or a stool on wheels like a doctor would, that would put your face right at crotch level without you having to lay down or have any pressure on your chest at all. You could even tie her legs open so that all you have to worry about is feasting from your seated position while she’s exposed and everything is ready for you. Another option is investing in some sex furniture like the Liberator Esse Chaise lounger or even one of their larger wedges. You can make homemade versions, too, on a sofa with lots of pillows or some yoga bolsters. But essentially, you’re looking for comfortable ways for her to recline that allow you to sit beside or at the foot of whatever she’s on so that you can eat her out. And there are some really fun shapes that Liberator Furniture and other companies, similar to that, have made.Even having her put her bum over the edge of the bed and then lying back. She can either hold her legs up or tie them and put pillows under her legs for support while you kneel on the ground with a pillow under your knees could work.
Dawn Serra: Another option might be you reclining on some pillows under your torso so you’re at an incline, maybe a hospital bed kind of thing, so that breathing is easier for you while she stands and straddles your sides and she can lower her vulva to your mouth. It’s like a modified riding of your face but without any weight on you. It would require her to hold a prolonged squat situation, so depending on her body that may or may not be an option. If you two are into bondage or know someone who is, there’s also a chance to suspend her in rope or from a door frame with a sex sling and then you can sit, kneel, or even stand and have access to her vulva without any weight being on you. And you having total freedom of movement.
The other thing that I was thinking about is what about having some oral-adjacent sex toys. That might be a fantastic addition to your play if she enjoys the sensation. Toys like the Womanizer or the Satisfyer Pro 2. They simulate suction on her clitoris and can give a sensation that’s similar to you sucking on her clit. Toys like this could fill in for you if the modifications don’t work for you, if you’re tired. There’s a tongue flicking toy by Cal Exotics that simulates a tongue flicking. So depending on the sensations she likes, there are lots of toy options out there. All of these could be fun additions and they aren’t less than, they aren’t back-ups. They’re literally designed for you to be able to give someone pleasure and you can use that skill with your wife. What could be better than that? Giving someone all of this pleasure whether it’s with your mouth, your hand or a toy – it’s still pleasure you’re giving.
Dawn Serra: All in all, I think your enthusiasm for pleasuring your wife is so awesome, Nick. If the of you could get a little creative around not only oral but pleasure in other sexual activities, I think you’re going to find you actually have endless options. Just because one person or one partner can do something, it doesn’t mean you have to as well. I mean, that goes for all things. That’s definitely one of the benefits of polyamory – if she’s super into oral and one or multiple of her partners can do that, and that just something you can do – great.
You can do all these other things and all it takes is the two of you just being a little bit creative and considering options and trying things. I mean, if one of her partners didn’t love intercourse and you do, it doesn’t mean someone is better than the other. It’s just different. So I hope that gave you some permission and some ideas, Nick. I hope that you find all kinds of fun ways to honor your body exactly as it is now and post retransplantation. Good luck!
Dawn Serra: At the top of the show, I mentioned Gina Senarighi would be joining us this week to help me field a question on some feelings that have come up around a potential threesome. Gina is one of my favorite people and her work around non-monogamy is amazing. I refer so many people her way. She’s been at Explore More Summit multiple times saying awesome things, and now she’s here with us. Let me tell you a little about Gina, and then I will start my chat with her where you will hear the question that someone wrote in, as well as our answer. That’s coming up next. Here is Gina’s bio:
Dr. Gina Senarighi, PhD, CPC is an author, teacher, sexuality counselor, and certified relationship coach based in the midwestern U.S. She’s been supporting clean fights and dirty sex in happy healthy relationships since 2009. Gina has written several books and currently leads couples retreats and coaches online clients all over the world. Also, don’t forget to write in with your questions, to reach out if you could use some coaching support, and head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast for this week’s two bonuses and loads of new listener questions for $5 supporters. Here’s me and Gina.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Gina. I am really excited to dive into this question with you today.
Gina Senarighi: Yes, thanks for sending it my way this is going to be interesting.
Dawn Serra: I know. I’m really excited. This is a kind of question that I think you and I see often in the work that we do. So, I will read the question so everyone can be inside of it with us, and then we’ll see where we go. Does that work for you?
Gina Senarighi: Perfect.
Dawn Serra: Okay, here we go. So here’s the email that I received:
“Hey, Dawn. I have been in an open relationship for about four years. My boyfriend and I had some trust issues in June. He paid for couples therapy with Gina Senarighi at your recommendation. On New Year’s Eve, my best friend, boyfriend, and I went out together. We took Molly and it was my first time rolling with my friend. She has a very loving sexually free poly person who just became single after being in an abusive controlling relationship, and I’m so happy she’s rediscovered herself. She asked if she could kiss my boyfriend. I said yes, as I had fantasized about that and it was hot. However, the night escalated really quickly. She then started grinding on him, getting really sexual.”
“The next thing I know, she comes up to me talking about how her and my boyfriend discussed her being our unicorn. Then, my boyfriend comes up to me and talks about it, too, and I just felt so overwhelmed. I wished I had known these feelings would come up. I wish I said she couldn’t kiss him. I just had no idea how sexual it would turn and I did not feel sexual at all. Now I feel super jealous, insecure, and angry at them both. Even though I know I didn’t communicate with them in the moment. I feel disgust and all these strong, yucky feelings. I’ve shared with them both how I feel. I’ve tried to process them, but I just don’t know where to go from here. I wish I could be super sexually open but now I feel closed off, jealous, rejected, insecure. Help! From jealous friend and lover.”
Gina Senarighi: So glad they wrote to you.
Dawn Serra: I am, too, because this is something that totally happens.
Gina Senarighi: Yes, yeah. I mean, I’m just imagining how many people are nodding along while you’re reading that. Really, how many listeners? Let’s get a show of hands – how many folks have been in very similar situations? Maybe not exactly the same but very similar, where there’s a friend or somebody, maybe an acquaintance, who is attractive or you’re curious about or you feel pulled towards; and/or a situation where you and your partner may have mentioned something about having a threesome or about experimenting with other people, and things escalate quickly. More quickly than we imagined. Those two elements in particular seem like– Gosh, I see folks in similar situations all the time.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think one of the more common situations that I either have people write into the show about or that comes up when I’m talking to people during coaching is this thing of in the moment, things start happening. Then things go either too quickly or too far, and then there’s all these yucky feelings that come up because of that rush. And the situations that we can end up in when things just feel different than we thought they would or when they moved faster than we were expecting, and then you end up in a place like this.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, yeah. I’m glad that they wrote to you. They mentioned that, these particular people have worked with me, but were saying… I think you and I can talk through this today without even talking about this specific set of people. Of course, because we wouldn’t share their information online with it the whole world, but that’s just not how our coaching work works. But because it’s such a good topic of conversation for so many people to either think through or consider or maybe other people are also doing some repair or cleanup work after – even even similar New Year’s Eve, right? Isn’t that what they said? Yeah, New Year’s Eve. I know, there are tons of people probably had very similar situations just 26 days ago on New Year’s Eve.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. There’s a couple of things inside this question. If we were to take a step back and say, “If we may end up in situations like this, where we’d be interested, how can we prepare ourselves and work through that ahead of time?” But then there’s the situation where maybe you either feel like you did do some preparation, but it still felt really off or kind of a surprise situation happened – You’re all in a party or you’re at an event and it feels good. Then you end up in a place like this person who wrote it, where things happened more quickly, you didn’t really know how to articulate your needs, or you did and it wasn’t quite right. And it still felt bad. So, where would you suggest people start if they’re in a situation where now they’re feeling really destabilized?
Gina Senarighi: After something has happened?
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Gina Senarighi: I mean, I just want to start… I think you and I were saying this in the beginning. But I want to start by saying that having confusing attractions arise is totally normal. Totally – that just happens. We’re friends with people usually for a reason, we have something in common or we have some attraction with them. Nothing wrong with that. Threesomes in particular, are one of the most common fantasies in all the research on fantasies. It comes up again and again, lots of folks fantasize about them. I want to start by normalizing that. When we did start that up, statistically, there’s data showing us that this is really, really common. I just named that, it doesn’t necessarily take the sting out of that destabilizing moment completely. You’re still in it.
I think knowing that it’s really common sometimes helps folks with that narrative that comes up inside that’s like, “Is there something wrong with me?” “Is my relationship broken?” Is it blah, blah, blah. To wind that down to say, “Okay, this is a really common sort of thing that can come up,” and help you start to touch down a little bit. And what I heard in this is that, the momentum of the moment, possibly amplified by substances got folks caught up in a flow of energy that picked up more quickly than they wanted.
Gina Senarighi: So to me, it would be easy to keep in that flow and be reactive and end up being either destructive or harmful or whatever. What I want to do is slow that energy flow down, so I can get back to a place of being more intentional, more connected with myself, more clear about what I want. Thinking about what will slow me down might be taking a walk so I can reflect and not being around these two folks for a minute while I do that, just to clear my head or maybe journaling. So that I have a grounding practice to clear out what’s in my head without necessarily being verbal with these folks in particular. I probably have rough drafts of things running through my head.
I’m not making promises or commitments right now, but I’m really distilling out what’s going on for me. Maybe I see my therapist or my coach to talk through, that might be a good place if I need to verbally process. But just finding a way to slow it down, so that I can stop that reactive energy flow that led me away from what I wanted or to this place of discomfort in the first place. That’s step one, as far as I’m concerned. What do you think?
Dawn Serra: I really like the suggestion of slowing down and I think that can be so difficult to do in the moment, especially if you’re drunk or if you’re taking some type of substance. But to be in a situation where energy is high, energy is intense. Things are feeling fun and you’re starting to feel that rush of adrenaline. It really does take some practice to be able to say, “Whoa, let me just check in with myself for a couple of minutes and see how this is actually feeling if I give myself a minute,” versus getting caught up and then here we are.
I love the invitation of, maybe go for a walk or phone a friend, or just ask for a couple of minutes to feel into how things are going. This could even be the kind of thing that happens in the middle of a play party. Someone comes up to you and invites you to do something and you aren’t sure or you’re really excited, but you notice everyone’s really activated like, “I really appreciate the invitation. I’m going to run to the restroom and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes and then we can talk.” And just give yourself that moment in the bathroom to breathe, check in, see what you’re noticing if there’s any hesitation. I also think it’s worth naming, sometimes we do slow down, sometimes we do reflect and we come back and we say yes and it still hurts.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, yeah. I think there is something about… I’m imagining New Year’s Eve, birthdays, certain holidays, certain anniversaries, and play parties – I noticed a lot of folks can feel a pressure to participate or to go along with like, “Oh, it’s a fun night so I don’t want to – I don’t want to slow things down. I don’t want to take a break. I don’t want to…” Or, “I feel like I don’t want to bum everyone else out.” That can also be a pressure that comes up and that is indicative of this momentum that’s pushing us in a direction. And in that sense of obligation either to other or to the celebration itself, it’s coming between you and what’s good for you or what you want for yourself in that moment.
Really taking that taking, even 30-second pause for a few good deep breaths, sometimes can help us say, “Oh, I’m feeling like I should do this because my friend has come out of a relationship and is in this really exciting place and I feel like I want to give her an opportunity to explore.” Or, “I should do this, my partner and I’ve talked about it before so now I feel like I have to follow through on this previous conversation or something.” There’s a lot of should-have to that gets us caught in doing things that aren’t in alignment with what we’re really ready for or what we really want. Then we end up in a place of regret or remorse later.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in a situation where – I mean, multiple – but one particular one where there was definitely a sense of a pressure to participate. Everyone else was doing it, not wanting to bring people down and there was definitely a sense of obligation and agreeing to something that I didn’t really feel ready to agree to. And how painful on the other side that was, not only because there was a little bit of a feeling of betrayal from the other people, but also because I felt like I had betrayed myself. That was particularly painful, the feeling of like, “I really didn’t listen and now I’m hurting.” And a big part of that is because I betrayed myself. That’s a special kind of pain.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah. I think there’s a lot of pressure to just go with the flow of things. That’s not to say – it’s not like after school special pressure, usually where everyone’s like, “Come on, just do it,” whatever. It’s not usually that overt, right? It’s like an internal sense of not wanting to stand out, not wanting to rock the boat or wanting to avoid conflict or being uncertain or confused and needing more information. But not either knowing how to ask or… There’s just a lot that can come up. When we’re talking about pleasure, things that are taboo, things that feel like there may be an edge or a new territory, and relationships that matter to us, all in one scenario. It’s so much to hold all at once.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it is. It’s so much to hold, and especially when it’s a new person or a new situation and you don’t know how it’s going to feel. That’s a big thing to be carrying and hoping turns out okay. I think like the good news is, on the other side of that, even if it does feel like something you wish hadn’t happened, if there’s regret or guilt or shame, or you feel like you did betray yourself the way that I did, repair is possible. It might be uncomfortable for a little while. But it doesn’t have to be catastrophic, even if it feels really difficult for a while.
Gina Senarighi: Repair is definitely possible and I believe that in almost any situation, which… I think what I see a lot is we really want to see things in these very black and white, all or nothing, good or evil kinds of ways – like this was a good night or a good thing to do, or a bad thing to do. Or a bad night or a bad event or bad threesome or good threesome, or a good partner, a bad partner. It’s not quite that simple. I think about partners – how we engage with each other, there are things that we do that contribute to our connection and also that are harmful to our connection with other people all the time, in big and small ways.
So it’s just so much more complex when we look at it like a probably half an hour time period, maybe our time period at a party on an event is like, “Oh, this nourish connection. I felt like you saw me. It was really hot, maybe when I watched you top that other person or in that flogging scene. Also, I was surprised to see something happened or I was confused or this thing didn’t look like it was within what we agreed.” Both things can be true. It can be really hot and connective and at the same time, it can also be confusing or hurtful.
Dawn Serra: I think this is also one of those places where I have personal experience and I know lots of people listening do, too, where we can… Some of us know we’re not the best communicators. We haven’t had a lot of practice talking about sex or talking about needs and we know our relationship is a little bit closed down around certain things. Then there’s others of us who feel like, “No, we talk about all kinds of things and we tend to be really open and we share a lot of the same values.”
So often in situations like this, when we haven’t really been super specific in our conversations about what certain things mean to each other, sometimes we discover through “Ouch.” We have different definitions of what it means to make out with someone. Like to me, it might just be we’re kissing and it’s kind of fun. To you, it might be full body grinding and hands under clothes. Or we might find we have different definitions of what it means to top someone. And sometimes we only discover that difference when we’re in the middle of realizing, “Oh, wow. We have different definitions and this is hurting.”
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that we don’t talk about enough, is how, when, and if, can I interrupt you when you’re with someone else or in a conversation or on the dance floor or in a bondage scene. It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing – how, when, and if, should I? Can I interrupt you? I think even like, “My partner’s at work right now, is it okay that I give them a call if I have this kind of question?” Or maybe if I have this other kind of question or would it be better to text? It’s really helpful to think through those things before I’m in sort of an elevated situation, where we’re all feeling the celebration, where we’re all feeling the party, or there’s a pressure that can feel like a pressure about making a decision or taking action.
So if we’ve talked a little bit about like, “Yeah, I might kiss this person and we might be dancing. We’re going to keep our clothes on. But we’ll be in the next room or maybe we’ll be in the same room,” whatever. I do. Let’s say that ouch comes up. Can I come tap you on the shoulder? Is there a hand signal that we want to use? Is there something that I can do? Can I join the three of you like… How do we want to handle that if ouch comes up?
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think like anything, there’s so many ways to be in relationship. There’s so many different contexts. I might feel the situation was really hot and I want more on one day. And on another day, if I didn’t get a lot of rest or if maybe I’m feeling a little hurt about something else, this same situation might happen and I feel a deep sense of betrayal. Being able to talk about that and do the repair, as you mentioned, is a really crucial part of all of this. Because sometimes it’s not gonna feel good and it’s not because anybody did anything wrong. But now here we are. So how do we start feeling into what it means to come back together, to feel seen and validated in our feelings, and to move ahead and learn from it?
Gina Senarighi: I have to say having now 12-years of helping folks repair after very similar situations, I can’t say, don’t ever do drugs or everyone should be sober all the time or have any hard and fast rules. It might work like that. But I will say that the cleanup work – it’s not easier, but it’s a little more straightforward. If we don’t have this second layer of guessing about like, “Am I perceiving it that way because I was high? Is that what I remember? I remember being a long period of time, but I was drunk. Was that actually 5-minutes or was it 50-minutes?” But my memory is impaired by substances and that’s not to say – I’m not saying everybody has to be sober all the time, though it is often a helpful choice if you want to be in a place of real clear intention and clear memory and an emotional regulation. All of those things get impaired by substances. And it can help then to have the pieces to put together afterward. That’s why a lot of play spaces are sober spaces.
I would just suggest – I think this case and frankly, a lot of them that I’ve worked with over the years, have been with people who are using a certain substance for the first time or are super drunk on a particular evening usually. That then decides, “Oh, tonight’s the night we’re going to try out a threesome,” or “Tonight’s the night we’re going to make out with her best friend,” or “Tonight’s the night we’re going to try and tie someone up for the very first time.” I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I would not recommend it. I just wouldn’t – first time exciting things. I think it adds a layer of complication – complexity – when it’s already a complex dynamic.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it really makes me think. I was talking to Princess Kali, a couple of years ago about humiliation and so much of the work she does as a pro dom. She was talking about how so often people will come to her or they’ll ask for advice and they have this really elaborate fantasy that they’ve been wanting to live out. Maybe it’s a whole bunch of things their partners’ never done before or that they’ve never experienced before, but they’ve been thinking about it. There’s this urgency of like, “Oh, I finally get to do this thing.” And the temptation is “Let me just go balls to the wall all in. I’m doing all the things.” And how hard it can be if you have a bad experience that’s super overwhelming to come back after that, and to really be willing to try again versus what her recommendation is, is start with the smallest and start with one thing. So if you have a bondage, hands tied, blindfolded, with someone peeing on me while they’re calling me names. I’ve never been called before in the window. Try one of those things. What’s it like to have sex in the window? What’s it like to have your hands tied and to do something sexy? What’s it like to wear a blindfold? And to feel your way into each of those things and layer on knowing you can always do it again.
I think so much of what you’re naming is when we’re coming into situations that might be very emotional or might be intense or might be super exciting, what’s that minimum that we can try where we have done something that feels really good and we’re happy, we got to try it knowing that we can try it again and can build on it as we have more experience and more knowledge. So maybe if I’m going to try a substance for the first time, we all agree that even if we start feeling really amorous towards each other, we’re just going to let this substance experience happen without the other factors. Maybe we can add the making out. But even if we really want to do these other things, we’re just going to leave it so that we can check in afterwards and calibrate.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, I like that knowing. So I’m thinking about this because I know that you really like to cook rather complex dishes. I think about how often I could throw fistfuls of ingredients into a pot, and it might end up with some of the right flavors. But I can never take – I can’t take those spices back out once it’s in there. I can always add more of something. I think about that with situations like these. It’s a complex recipe. I’m going to want to take care, maybe measure things out, probably follow a certain order of – in a measured way, building things into complexity is more likely to lead me in the direction of what I want. I can always come back to the recipe and try again. I can taste it in this form.
I think sometimes folks feel a lot of pressure of like, “Tonight’s the one night! We’re all going to be in the right place at the right time!” No, no, no, no. We can make plans, we can figure it out. We got ways we can do this. Let’s experience Molly together. Maybe we’ll all dance, maybe we’ll kiss and that’ll be the end of it. If we want to talk even more, we can talk more another night or we can talk for the next morning over brunch or we can set up another date. Let’s then – let’s do that. I see people go to their first play parties or swinger clubs for the first time and feel compelled like, “Oh, we should take advantage if we’re here tonight.” But just going to a place, just having the conversation…
Dawn Serra: It’s a big deal. For some people, that’s a huge step.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah. And that can be enough. Julie and I, on our podcast, we talked a lot about the arousal continuum and the spectrum that is… All too often we focus all our energy on a level 8 to 10 orgasm only, nearly cumming kind of arousal. We overlook all these nuances level 1 – level 2 sweet and still intense arousal are all around us all the time. So it can be, “Oh, if we’re not having sex or if one of us hasn’t cum then this hasn’t been a successful experience.”
Instead of like, “Whoo, talking about it was hot last night. Sharing that fantasy with you, whoo! It was like a level 2-3, maybe a 7. Neither of us maybe came from sharing or maybe we didn’t have penetrative sex but damn it, we can share some heat.” And that’s good. Let’s savor that. Let’s be in that – that lower grade arousal together is still so important for connectivity, for sexual health, for all of that good yummy stuff. If we can appreciate that, it will start to feel less pressure like it has to happen now and it has to happen in this prescriptive way of one of us has to cum or all of us have to cum and whatever.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. How can we leave an event or a situation wanting more and feeling excited about that versus leaving feeling regret and disappointed and disconnected and hurt?
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, yeah. And looking forward to more right with anticipation or engagement or enticement.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Like, “Oh, I wanted to kiss that person so badly.” But it’s so exciting that now, we know that I want to kiss that person so badly and that you’re feeling pretty good about it. So maybe next time we can actually make that happen.
Gina Senarighi: And how affirming it is. Having boundaries is one of the foundational elements of building trust. If our boundary is like, “Hey, we’re going to go to this party. We’re going to watch a lot of cool stuff. We’re going to check in with each other about an hour in, about if we want to stay or if we want to go, but we’re not going to physically participate today.” Let’s say that’s our kind of our set agreement. Then we go and once we’re there, I’m like, “But what about, but what about?” “What if we just, what if…” Or I don’t check in with you, I don’t follow through on the check in part. It’s not in every relationship like that’s going to make or break. We have to split up. It might not be catastrophic. But those are the ways that we build trust is we follow through on like, “Well, that was hot and I really wanted to get it on with you or with somebody else right there. But I didn’t because we had this agreement, and I know we’ll have another opportunity.” That builds trust.
Dawn Serra: Yes. A hundred percent. So if someone finds that they are in a place where they feel angry, jealous, rejected, maybe things did escalate really quickly, and then on the back end, it’s like “I really wish that hadn’t happened.” What do you think are some ways that help people to start that repair work after something like this happens?
Gina Senarighi: I think it’s really helpful to distill out behaviors from perceptions. I hear people say, “It feels like a betrayal.” That can be the perception, is betrayal. That can be the feeling – that’s totally valid. The behavior is you kissed someone. The behavior is you shared an inside joke with somebody else. I felt left out when I knew you had a secret with somebody else. It’s not, “You made me feel like I’m not special.” I hear people say that. But, when you prioritize your time with that person by choosing to stay there longer – the way that impacts me, the feeling I take away is, is that I’m not special to you.
I start to separate those out because behaviors are easier to address without defensiveness. If I want to have some kind of accountability, and if I’m a partner who has done something that impacted my sweetheart negatively, I really need to focus on addressing the impact. So it’s kind of the opposite. I want to empathize with how sad you feel that you felt left out or you feel lonely or you were afraid when that happened, I want to empathize with that. Even though odds are good, it was not my intention to feel that way or for you to experience that thing. Probably, I had no idea. I was intending something really good. If I like my partner, usually that’s my intent. And still, if I want to have connection and do a repair, I have to address with them and empathize and connect with the impact.
Dawn Serra: I think that can be particularly difficult for the person who’s done the thing that caused the hurt. Because, to really look at someone you care about and to see how hurt they are by something you’ve done, even when you really didn’t think it was going to hurt them, or you really do feel like you were doing exactly what you two had agreed with. There can be this story of like, “That means I’m bad. I’ve done something wrong.” All those stories about worthiness can get triggered which can lead to defensiveness. Being able to also notice that is such an important part of this. Because I think so often when it’s like, my feelings are hurt, that knee jerk reaction is well, “I’m not the kind of person that would do that on purpose.” So that’s what I’m focused on. Instead of, “I’m so sorry you’re hurt. That might make me feel all kinds of confusing things. But let’s talk about why you feel hurt.”
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, I mean, we could get into a whole other conversation. But I think about how often the repair work needs to center the person or people who have been violated or oppressed or hurt or felt unseen or who’ve been impacted negatively. Yeah. And all too often our response centers our intention, what we really meant, we go into explanation, which I hear people in session all the time will be like, “Yeah, you apologized, but you just talked about what you meant to do or you just justified it. You spend the whole time justifying your actions and explaining your actions and not really listening to me.” It’s really hard to accept the fact that we all make mistakes and our behaviors have impacts on other people. We don’t always have much control over the impact, honestly. We can do our best and then we can do better. And that’s about it. When we’re doing the repair work, we want to be focused on “How can I do better next time?”
Dawn Serra: I’m so glad you said that. Because I think that’s really important. Something happened last night in a group that I am in, where I did my best and someone’s still got hurt. That is a hard reality of what it means to be a grown up, to be a human, to be in relationship with other people. Sometimes we can do our very best to not cause harm or to offer help or to listen and still, someone can get really hurt or be harmed. And that’s just true. There’s no other way about it. I’ve done my best and my best wasn’t good enough. Sometimes that’s just where we find ourselves and while that hurts, how can I support you and what can we do if anything to repair? Maybe there isn’t repair to be done. It’s just now I have to sit in this place that feels kind of yucky for a little while. But I’m so glad you name that because sometimes we really are doing our best and people still get hurt or harmed or bad things happen and then we have to find a way to work with that as our truth.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah. Again, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That I broke trust and therefore, I’m untrustworthy or I’m a bad partner or I’m a bad person. I hear a lot of folks get kind of wrapped up – their self-worth is wrapped up in what their impact is on other people. And what I’m looking at is like… We have behaviors all the time and your behaviors are something you can manage. You can change.
Dawn Serra: Yes, yeah. Thank you so much for offering all of your wisdom and suggestions. I know lots of people listening were nodding as they heard that question, and are probably having all sorts of feels about all of the things that you’ve offered. So thank you so much for spending a little time with us.
Gina Senarighi: Yeah, I’m really glad that they wrote this in for you. Because I think it’s going to benefit a lot of other folks to spend a little time thinking through all of this.
Dawn Serra: If people want to stay in touch with you or maybe check out one of your upcoming workshops or retreats or even check out your podcast, how can they find you?
Gina Senarighi: My websites are heygina.com and nonmonogamous.com, and then my podcast is called Swoon.
Dawn Serra: Yay! So people should definitely check out all those things and I’ll have the links in the show notes. So that they can sign up for your newsletter because you send out so many awesome emails about connection and questions. People should definitely sign up and tune in to your podcast.
Gina Senarighi: Thanks, yeah.
Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for being here with us and to everybody who tuned in, thank you so much for being here with us, too.