Podcast: Play in new window | Download
NOW ENROLLING!
- Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we’ll enroll again in June!). It’s called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I’d love to see you there.
On to your emails!
Kim wrote in with a sweet note about hearing a trauma story on episode 246 and how much it reminded her that she’s not alone in her healing and trauma. Thanks for the support, Kim!
Katie has a request. As someone who is a sex researcher and who does a lot of work around sex, the thing that shocks people the most is that she didn’t have intercourse for the first time until she was 30. She’d love to hear more conversations about people who don’t have sex until later in life and the benefits and struggles that presents.
I have so many thoughts which include not only the importance of talking about this, but also how it ties to sex work and a sexually equitable future. Plus, I read from adrienne maree brown’s new book, “Pleasure Activism.”
Future Mrs. is three months from getting married but she’s never been less sure about whether this is what she wants. Her fiancé wants her to have threesomes with other women, and even though she’s tried, she just doesn’t want. But he keeps bringing it up and it’s led to arguments and a lot of conflict. What can she do?
Let’s talk about what it looks like to respect someone’s boundaries, to have the maturity to hold that our desires will be bigger than our lives can hold, and why expectations are the enemy of connection and trust.
Finally, Distraught has had a few angry outbursts recently that have been rather abusive towards their boyfriend, and while their boyfriend does have some boundary work to do to care for themselves around it, Distraught is hoping for resources to help with anger management amid a chronic illness, changing career, and shrinking financial security. Help!
My recommendations include Karla McLaren’s Gift of Anger post and her other anger post, as well as Soraya Chemaly’s “Rage Becomes Her”, Rebecca Traister’s “Good and Mad”, and Brittany Cooper’s “Eloquent Rage”. It might also be helpful for Distraught to check out Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s “Care Work” and this crip lit round up on Autostraddle around the grief and realities of a body changed by chronic illness.
I also cannot recommend Cristien Storm’s boundary book, “Living in Liberation” highly enough to everyone everywhere.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
About Host Dawn Serra:
Dawn Serra is a therapeutic Body Trust coach and pleasure advocate. As a white, cis, middle class, queer, fat, survivor, Dawn’s work is a fiercely compassionate invitation for each of us to deepen our relationships with our bodies and our pleasure as an antidote to the trauma, disconnection, and isolation so many of us feel. Your pleasure matters. Your body is wise. Dawn’s work is all about creating spaces and places for you to explore what that means on your terms. To learn more, visit dawnserra.com or follow Dawn on Instagram.
Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real
- Listen and subscribe on iTunes
- Check us out on Stitcher
- Don’t forget about I Heart Radio’s Spreaker
- Pop over to Google Play
- Use the player at the top of this page.
- Now available on Spotify. Search for “sex gets real”.
- Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.
Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra. That’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics, and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here inservice to joy, connection, healing, and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.
Dawn Serra: Hey, you. Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. Last week there was not an episode because I was eyeball deep in the amazingness that was Explore More Summit. It was one of the best. It was our fifth one and it was extraordinary. Ten days, twenty-seven conversations, all about pleasure, healing, trauma, connection, belonging. It was extraordinary. If you missed it, you can still bring all of the talks home, so details are exploremoresummit.com And if you register, you get a free copy of one of the workbooks and then you’ll see the options to bring the talks home, and trust me, these are the kinds of talks that you’ll want to listen to again and again; that will take years to really, really, really live our way into.
I’m also super excited because my new online course is now enrolling. It’s called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire and Joy. It starts April 22nd. It’s entirely online. It runs for five weeks. We are going to spend all five weeks exploring our relationship to our senses. To food, to hunger, to bodies, and how much we trust them into our sense of safety; all of the stories we carry about whether or not we’re worthy of pleasure, how we can center and experience pleasure, and deepen our understanding of pleasure in a way that heals us or reveals something to us or more deeply connects us with ourselves and each other.
If you want to join the course, we’ve already got a handful of folks signed up and I’m so excited about it. It’s at dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse The link is right at the top of the show notes this week. So check that out or head to dawnserra.com/ep252/ for episode 252. Not only is it an online course, but we’re going to be building a really intimate community that helps you to discover and befriend and prioritize your pleasure and your body. As we dive into what it means to feel satisfied and to know what enoughness is and to dive into our joy and our desire. So if you’ve got complicated feelings or you want to experience more desire and hunger and pleasure, join me for the course. I am ridiculously excited. I’ve been working on this for nine months and thinking about it and, of course, everything that happened with the summit deeply fed what’s going to end up being in this course, which is all about you in a very personal, intimate way. So I really hope you’ll join me for that.
Dawn Serra: This week’s episode is your emails. I have such a backlog of your emails. I’m going to get through a couple today, know there will be absolutely more. And I’m going to be fielding one of your super yummy emails in the Patreon bonus this week. So if you want to help support the show, if you like this show and you want it to keep happening, you can head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast for Sex Gets Real – patreon.com/sgrpodcast and support the show. If you support at $3 a month and above, you get weekly bonus content from additional listener email questions answered to exclusive bonus chats with guests, to activities and behind the scenes stuff. Really awesome. If you support at $5 a month and above, you can, not only get the bonus content, but help me to field listener questions. You can see the types of emails that come in and weigh in with your own thoughts and feelings about them. So patreon.com/sgrpodcast Alright. Let’s dive into the first email.
Kim wrote in with a subject line of “Episode 246.” H,i Dawn. I just discovered your podcast and I wanted to write and tell you how much I appreciated listening to episode 246. The brave survivor who wrote in to tell you about her experience moved me because my personal story is so similar. I survived a lot of sexual violence, much of which happened in my childhood. And the way your kind listener described her emotional running and PTSD was so familiar to me. I froze. The cyclical nature of experiencing and healing from trauma can make me feel so alone. Listening to your show and the survivor who wrote to you helps me to remember. I am far from alone. Thank you for making the space for these conversations. As a sex education teacher, I wish I’d found your podcast sooner, but now that I’ve found you, I’m looking forward to supporting your work and listening to your back catalog. Thank you, Kim. Thank you so much, Kim, for your very kind note. I appreciate it. It’s really funny.
Dawn Serra: Whenever people tell me they’re going to go back and listen from the beginning. I have this internal cringe because I have learned so much in the five years I’ve been doing this show. I have worked with so many people, hundreds and hundreds of people in my coaching practice. I’ve been through so many trainings. I’ve just grown so much and there’s a part of me that just feels a little bit embarrassed about some of the advice I gave way back in the day. But I also think it’s really important for all of us to be much more open about the processes we go through, the ways we change and learn. None of us just arrived here knowing the things that we know. None of us were born woke, as Feminista Jones says. We’re all unpacking and learning, and practicing and growing as we go. I don’t want anyone to ever listen to this show and think, one, that I have it all figured out. No. That I have all the answers, absolutely not. And that I just arrived here.
Imposter Syndrome is such a thing. I experience it all the time. And I know lots of other people who were in the fields around bodies and sex do too. It’s because this is complicated nuanced stuff and we are all practicing and learning as we go. Even though I wouldn’t give the same advice that I may have given four or five years ago now, I do appreciate that people are so excited to go back and listen to the entire arc. Also, I want people to hear the ways that I’ve changed and grown because I will continue to do that. Everyone else who’s listening to the show does as well. We are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to change our stories. We are allowed to move in new directions and it doesn’t ever invalidate where we were. So I just want to share that little bit of vulnerability that I have sometimes around like, “Oh, god. I don’t know if you should listen to you more new me.” But you know what? It’s all part of the experience of being human and being public and all that good stuff. So thank you so much for writing in, Kim. I hope you enjoy the back catalog as you listen through.
Dawn Serra: This next email is one that is going to be something I address over the course of many weeks and many episodes, but I wanted to share it just to let people hear the email itself and the request to share a couple of initial thoughts, and to let you know this will be things that will get featured on the show in the coming episodes. Katie wrote in with Delaying/Not having sexual experiences ‘till later in life and the implications beyond sexual trauma and religion.” Hi, I just discovered the pod and really appreciate your loving, equity focused, compassionate approach to bodies and sexuality. And your clear eyed orientation towards understanding people within the nested layers of context that we all live in. Also, Explore More is such a resource. Thank you. I think that it would really benefit listeners and align with your commitments of equity, inclusion, and justice to have a show focused on folks who have limited sexual experiences or didn’t start exploring sexuality until later in life, twenties and beyond.
Dawn Serra: Many sex positive podcasts and resources talk about early sexual experiences and later life consequences and experiences. That is many people’s experience and really important. And understandable given those who listen and those who produce sex positive podcasts are often femme folks and/or folks who understand the gendered norms that are playing out, which often manifests in bad, nonconsensual, regrettable, sad and confusing sexual experiences for femme folks. And it’s not everyone’s experience. Increasingly, people are naming sexual identities prior to behavior and are delaying dating, being sexual, exploring their erotic parts and not partnering for any number of reasons. Not in small part to the proliferation of ways to connect via Internet implications for in person interactions, and more public reconciliation with gendered violence. Or folks talk about being able to have intercourse but are fearful of holding hands and the intimacy and care that that implies. There’s such vulnerability.
Given that representation matters for making a more equitable world, I think, that this would be a really fruitful show and corresponding discussion following. What are the experiences of folks in this contemporary apoc with limited sexual experiences or who did not explore sexuality until later in life? What are the implications for that? What might be going on there? What are the costs and “benefits?” How might that differ by geographic locations, class status, gender identity, gender expression?
Dawn Serra: Now, the only times that I have heard discussion of this is in the context of trauma experiences or growing up religious. That is not what I’m talking about nor am I talking about folks with disabilities. However, I think that that is a very important and far less discussed experience. So thank you for your inclusion of that with Explore More nor about folks who are asexual or aromantic. Additional note of context, I am a social worker, yoga teacher and feminist gender sexuality researcher. I’m currently teaching and researching at UMN Med school. I’ve spent my whole adult life in very queer sex positive spaces, and I feel like the most controversial queer thing that I could have ever shared is that I did not have intercourse until I was 30. And I’m struggling, especially when men’s bad behavior is so ubiquitous to imagine a world where I would ever find a partner. I’m generally attracted to men who nourishes me and enriches my life. I think that this is increasingly the case with other femme folks who date men that I know.
I did not experience any sexual trauma nor grow up with religion. Also because this is how privilege works, I’m conventionally attractive and have well developed social skills. I was homecoming queen in high school, for God’s sake. Thanks for considering this request and I am happy to share my thoughts if you’re interested. I initially drafted an email three times the length including stuff from neuropsychology, trauma and attachment theories, changing sex norms, etc. Anyway, it’s all irrelevant but overkill. All the best and thank you for considering warmly, Katie.
Dawn Serra: I 100% agree, Katie. And I am so glad that you named to this. I know that we touched on this a little bit when I had Amber Keyser on the show when we talked about her book, The V Word: True stories about First Time Sex. We’ve definitely touched on it here and there, but I agree this is a much deeper conversation. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before on the show. I probably have. But I didn’t have intercourse until I was 21. Now I did have sexual experiences, in what some people would consider sex, since mouths and hands were involved when I was in high school. But I didn’t actually have intercourse until I was 21, and I had a lot of shame around that for a while. Now it’s clear that it’s just because that’s what I needed based on my experiences. But something that came up for me while I was reading your email the first time was this piece by adrienne maree brown called Sex Ed: A poem. I especially love this beginning part, but I’ll read the whole thing.
“touch yourself early and often. learn your body before you share your body. use mirrors to learn how beautiful you are. let yes come from every part of you before you share you. when your eggs drop, you are in heat. the risk is greater than the heat. use protection. if your pussy gets sick, feed yourself plain yogurt, garlic, drink primrose tea, rub her with coconut oil. when your blood comes, it’s time to rest. know that you are never unclean. never untouchable. use a cup within or a rag without. no trash needed. now you have power of life. a child is a forever decision. your pleasures will grow with you. never say never. whether veracious or sated you our whole, unbroken. your orgasms are medicine and magic. use them well. be a lifelong lover to yourself. let others join you. always, always celebrate your miraculous body.”
And then adrienne includes a note that says, “i included this as for those who identify with the words and anatomy used in this poem. it feels important for me to get to write a poem that feels accurate and powerful from my body. i invite other poems for those who need other words and or have other anatomy. what words and images bring you power? i think we need loads of experiential wisdom, sex ed poems in classes.”
Dawn Serra: One of the things that I really love about adrienne maree brown’s work around pleasure activism and the new book that just came out is this piece at the beginning around, “learn your body before you share your body and let yes come from every part of you before you share you.”
One of the things that I’ve found so interesting as I’ve read sex education research and had conversations, and done all kinds of reading is how comprehensive sex education often delays sexual intercourse. When people and places like Denmark and Sweden have comprehensive sex ed and body education from the youngest of ages, it starts in preschool and goes throughout all the years of school, that there are lower instances of unintended pregnancy, unintended STIs and abortion. There’s a lot more consent happening and much fewer of those sad, coerced, regretted sexual encounters, especially for femme folks. And I have to imagine, that as we grow as a culture into a culture based on deep consent and deep respect, where no one expects access to anyone else’s body and where all of us are raised to trust our bodies, to potentially delight in our bodies, to see self pleasure and self exploration as just as valid and important, if not more so, than partnered sex.
I suspect we’re going to see a much wider variation of when people engage in sex than we do now. The culture is so prescriptive around sex and all of these stories around people engaging in sexual encounters in high school and in teen years, the hypersexualization of girl and femme bodies and the ways that we expect access to those bodies. Even how Soraya Chemaly, who writes Rage Becomes Her, that the options for power for girls, women, femmes is so limited that often the only way a girl can experience power is by sexualizing and objectifying herself, in order to get all those likes and all those comments on social media. Soraya likes to say if you have a teen girl and she posts a picture of her just after she won the soccer game by getting the winning goal or a picture of herself in a bikini coming out of the ocean, we all know which picture is going to get a lot more attention. All of that impacts the ways that we’re approaching partnered sexual encounters when we feel we should be having them, how we should be having them, the value that we place on them, and the access to power and belonging that sex can lend us, even if we don’t really want sex.
Dawn Serra: So it’s a big, complicated topic. But I do believe that as we become more skilled at dismantling sexism and dismantling misogyny and patriarchy, as all of us of all genders learn new ways of engaging with our bodies and embodiment. As we learn deeper emotional intelligence, and new ways of feeling belonging and community, it’s going to shift the ways that we experience sex. And I imagine that when we engage in sex, as adrienne says, “learn your body before you share your body.” We’re all going to be learning at different rates depending on exactly as you mentioned: our gender, our class, our culture, our education, and so many other things.
As we learn our bodies at a variety of rates, then the ways that we engage with them will change. When I imagine that future world without oppression or sexual violence, I think about let yes come from every part of you before you share you; that’s also going to be wildly different for all of us depending on so many things. I just imagined this slinky almost that’s being stretched out where for some people, those first sexual encounters might happen around puberty. And for others, first sexual experiences might not happen until 20s, 30s, 40s beyond. I think it’s a really interesting question and I also think you’re so right that today in this culture, there is a lot of shame placed on people who haven’t engaged in certain types of sexual behaviors once they’ve passed a certain age. And I know I’ve fielded listener questions about this in the past, the shame that so many people feel about being quote unquote virgins and worried that people won’t want to have sex with them if they realize they haven’t had sex before. All of that is absolutely real and I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s poppycock.
I think the skills we need to have the kinds of sexual encounters that so many of us are dreaming about really do come with experience and age, emotional intelligence, self awareness, the ability to communicate openly, awkwardness resilience, rejection resilience. It’s really difficult to have all of those things when we’re in our teens. Our brains haven’t even fully developed until we’re in our mid twenties. I love this topic. I love this experience and I know that there are a number of people who haven’t had sex until, definitely, they’re in their 30s and 40s and then had thriving sex lives.
Dawn Serra: In fact, Elle Chase, who’s been on the show a couple of times, has talked about this. I think she talked about it the first time she was on the show. Talked about the fact that she only had sex maybe two or three times in her 20s, and then didn’t have sex again until she was in her 40s. What came with that sexual coming of age in her 40s, when she really came into herself sexually and how that changed everything. So I totally agree with you. I would love to have this conversation multiple times from many different perspectives. I think, also, you’re right. That before we reach this post-liberatory world, there is going to be this growing tension as more and more young people, especially girls, femmes, non binary folks, especially as gender violence becomes something that more and more people are talking about; as sexism and misogyny becomes something that younger and younger people are grappling with and understanding; as gender dynamics and gender spectrums continue to grow, there is going to be this increased tension between people who benefit from things staying the same and only wanting to change their behaviors in small ways. As long as it’s not too uncomfortable and/or changing behavior just enough to get the things they want, which is access to people’s body; and all of these other folks who aren’t experiencing that gender privilege, realizing they want more for themselves.
I think there’s also going to be more and more disconnection and more and more delay in being able to find people that we want to share ourselves with. I get so many emails from people, specifically women who really are struggling with dating. Because so many of the men that they’re encountering really don’t understand the types of equity that they need in order to feel safe and seen and witnessed. Dating, I think, is very complicated right now and hard for a lot of people and it’s hard for lots of different reasons. But I think it’s a fascinating conversation and one that I hope we can deepen into. So all of that is just to say I 100% agree. I have lots of thoughts. There are all kinds of people who are sharing experiences and asking these questions too. So I will be featuring that over the coming months and coming years. I want this conversation to be something we have many, many times with lots of nuance. Because you’re right. While many people do engage in certain kinds of sexual activities in their younger years, there are lots of people who delay and who don’t have sexual experiences until they’re out of college, until there are well established in their careers and even beyond.
Dawn Serra: Something else that I think is really interesting is I’m also really interested and this always brings up really intense feelings for people. But when we look at the animal kingdom, there are certain folks inside of each of the species, whether we’re talking about fish or we’re talking about ducks or we’re talking about any other kind of mammal. There are certain ones who just never mate. And for a variety of reasons. I think that it’s important for us to think about that, too, within the human context, of one of the reasons why I think decriminalizing and normalizing and de-stigmatizing sex work is so important is because I can’t and don’t want to guarantee that everyone is going to find someone. I just don’t think that that’s fair. There are so many different circumstances, so many different ways we live our lives as humans; whether we’re just jerks or a total asshole or we have so many other things that we’re doing that partnerships and/or sex just are never really high on our to do list or want list, or we maybe have very high desire for relationship and sex. And for whatever reason, we just aren’t able to find someone who’s a good match.
I don’t think we can ever guarantee that every human being is going to have access to someone else’s body and in de-stigmatizing and decriminalizing sex work. That helps to ease some of that tension where if it’s normal to hire someone to help us with tension in our body and get a massage, if it’s normal to hire someone to help us with our hair or with our mental health, then it should be normal to hire someone to help us with our sexual needs. I think there’s something in that too. People might not engage in sexual activities into their 40s, 50s and 60s. And there’s a variety of reasons for that both, wanted and unwanted. If there was more access to professionals who could help those who were feeling distress around that; to feel a sense of touch and safety, and exploration and adventure, and excitement and getting sexual needs met, I think that would be such an extraordinary contribution to this very varied human experience and conversation.
So thank you so much for writing in with this request, Katie. It is absolutely something that I am filing away and holding onto, conversations that I will be seeking out and look forward to more in the future.
Dawn Serra: This next email from Future Mrs. is rather long and I think that the backstory is important for us to hear. The subject line “Is he just open?” In three months, I’ll be getting married to the man of my dreams. The thing is I’ve never felt more doubtful and lost than I do now. This is a time when I should feel the happiest in my life and excited for our futures together. But instead, I’m anxious and overly worried about our sexual compatibility and questioning if we’re really meant to be. We met four years ago in the news business and when we first started hanging out, he once shared with me some of his past experiences. Just during casual conversation. He told me he had had a couple of threesomes with women he’s dated previously. I thought to myself, “Man, he’s freaky,” but I never thought much about it. It was something he explored and liked, and at the end of the day he’s a man. I know tons of men who wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to have a threesome with two women and many who have done it at least once.
We started dating exclusively and that’s when the conversations about threesomes came back up. He initiated the conversations by asking me about my sexual fantasies, if I was attracted to women, et cetera. It took me a while because I was very shy about this, to admit I am attracted to women and I am curious and wouldn’t mind exploring. But at the same time I was also perfectly content not acting on that attraction. Watching lesbian porn and talking dirty was enough for me. However, my fiance encouraged me to explore and said he was okay with me doing so. This was something that took me a long time to understand. I saw it as cheating. How could a man be okay with his woman messing around with other women? How was I honoring my commitment to him? Was I now in a polyamorous relationship? But he had and has no desire to do the same, just secure and open to me experimenting. And, yes, it turns him on a lot.
Just so you can get a clear picture, all of these talks surfaced before we had even build a solid foundation and real trust between one another. The relationship was so fresh. We were still getting to know one another. So while I opened up to him about my secret attraction and fantasies, something not a soul had known, the idea of him being so open to the idea of me exploring it made me feel so insecure. Just lots of feelings of, “I have to explore this because he’s in to it. If I don’t, he’ll leave. This is the way I can satisfy him.”
Dawn Serra: Fast forward, I experiment. I hang out. I tried apps. We go on apps together. I meet a few people, have one sexual experience that didn’t go anywhere and decide, “Okay, I’m good. I tried it.” I was just never fully comfortable with it all to begin with, but tried it anyway. There was a lot of shame, guilt, and confusion about why I even did these things. Was I doing it for him? For me? What did this say about me now? Truth be told, this brought a lot of turmoil into our relationship, lots of ups and downs. And long story short, my fiance has continuously expressed his desire to see me with another woman for me to get back out and explore.
It’s gotten to the point now where I feel I can’t satisfy him, that I can’t be freaky enough for him, that anything I can possibly think to do that would be sexy and wild would just be boring because of his experienced sexual past. I’m no longer sexually confident and it’s been hard for me to understand why he can’t just let it go. We’ve had so many arguments over the fact that he feels he can’t be himself and he has to suppress his desires. I try to explain to him that he can talk to me about anything, but it’s the expectation he has of me. He’s always finding a way to talk about how I’m not open to things he likes and how he’s willing to do anything I’m into, but it’s not reciprocated. The issue is not that he’s the kind of person who can just talk about a fantasy. He has to do it. And despite all the great things in our relationship, all of the amazing things that we’ve experienced, this one topic won’t die. He even had this fixation of calling me bisexual and felt I wasn’t owning it at one point. I wasn’t comfortable with that. He eventually stopped. I guess my question is, should I just let this go? I know he loves me and he tells me all the time. There’s no one else in the world for him. And if he could be single and live on the wild side like he was doing before we met, he’d choose me over and over again. But if your partner is so insistent on bringing this up and desires to do this, and thinks of this has fun and not a big deal, what do you do? I’m worried that he’ll resent me if he stays, that I’m sexually incompatible with him, that he’ll one day realize that he just would rather be with someone who’s more sexually open.
We’ve discussed seeking therapy and I would love any feedback. I’m sorry for any typos. Those turned out to be much longer than I anticipated. I hope you were able to follow. I’m open to hearing your thoughts.
Dawn Serra: Oh, Future Mrs. First, I just want to say thank you for trusting me with this, for allowing yourself an opportunity to really write it all down and to craft it into a story, and to put it out into the world. I know that that takes a lot of courage and this sounds like a really tough place to be in. And you’re not wrong. It is a tough place to be in. There’s so much in here that I wish I could spend a lot of time on. But I’ll do my best in the 5 or 10 minutes that we’ve got.
So the first thing that I want to start with is you deserve to be respected. You deserve to be believed and for your boundaries and your needs to be honored without question. You should never ever have to justify your boundaries and you should never ever have to explain them. Now, sometimes we want to explain ourselves to the people in our lives, and sometimes we don’t. But you never have to. So one of the things that I like to think about is when it comes to respecting someone’s boundary, if someone says, “I don’t really want to do that.” The response should be, “Thank you so much for telling me that and thank you so much for taking care of yourself,” and that’s it. The pushing and the revisiting of the conversations, to me, feels deeply manipulative.
Now, he is allowed, as you said, to have all of these fantasies. He’s allowed to be turned on by the thought of you being with other women. He’s allowed to want these things and to have these desires and to have these curiosities. All of those things can be true. But what he shouldn’t be doing is forcing the expectation on you, which you’re perfectly aware of. Because you even articulated that in your email, that you’ve explained to him that he can talk to you about anything, but it’s the expectation that’s hurting.
Dawn Serra: Normally, what I would say is someone who has done all kinds of things in the past and now is choosing to be with someone who maybe doesn’t share those same sexual interests. We have to be willing to trust the people we’re in relationship with when they say, “This is what I want.” And we also need to see the behaviors that are going with the words because those behaviors are deeply telling. It’s one thing for him to say, “I love you. I choose you. I want to be with you. I don’t want to go back to my wild days.” But if he continues to bring this conversation up, if he continues to try and get you to be different, then the behavior, to me, is telling a different story and that behavior for me is the more true story. He may not be aware of that, but that’s what he’s doing and that has a very real impact on you, and we’re feeling that through this email.
One of the other things that I’ve discovered personally, and this is something that I will have to continue to to work my way through for many more years. One of the deepest pains that I’ve ever experienced was betraying myself. In telling someone that I loved, I was okay with something because I desperately wanted them to stay, because I desperately wanted them to love me, and not being okay with those things. And knowing deep inside that I wasn’t okay, but trying to convince myself I was, and then when the things happened, feeling so hurt and so betrayed, not only by this other person, but more importantly by myself. That betrayal caused a deep wound. So much of what I’m hearing from you is maybe not a wounding, but this questioning that’s coming up around, “Did I really do this for me or did I do this for him?” That feels so familiar to me around doing something that I really didn’t want, but doing it for someone else. And then afterwards, just feeling, “That’s really not what I wanted. That’s not who I am.” Grappling with that, for me at least, has been complicated.
Dawn Serra: I appreciate that you’re even able to ask those questions. It took me a while to get there. So the fact that you can ask yourself that I think is really important. The thing that I just want to offer to you is at this point in your relationship with a wedding that’s just a couple months down the road, what’s something that you would like to ask of him and to let him know, “This is the last time I’m asking. I need this to be different. This is what respect would feel like for me. This is what I need in order to feel like I can be here and be respected.” And then see what happens and trust the behavior, not the words. So often, the things we say are the things that we want to be true, but the ways that we act and the things that we do are more in line with our actual truth. Just hold that gently. It’s up to you whether you wanted to decide whether there is maliciousness and selfishness behind his behavior or just a wanting and not knowing how to make it true. But you deserve to be in a relationship where when someone says, “I really, really think this thing is hot and I want to do it.” If your responses, “I don’t think that’s for me. I don’t know if I’m into that.” For your partner to reply with, “Super cool. Thank you for taking care of yourself. Now let’s find a way for both of these things to be true and for them to feel spacious.”
Something that I love that Chris Maxwell Rose from Pleasure Mechanics said during the summit was our desires are bigger than our lives can hold. I think so many people need to hear that because there’s this grasping and this scarcity that can come with wanting to try and make all of our desires come true. And if they’re not, then feeling that friction and only focusing on that friction. But there’s so many things that we might want both sexually and beyond, that we might not be able to experience in our lifetimes. The maturity that’s required in order for us to be able to hold that with grace, and to continue showing up with love and reverence and respect for the people in our lives. And then, of course, the venn diagrams of all of the ways our lives overlap. So your desires, for all kinds of things, might not fit in this one particular iteration of life and your partner’s desires might not either. Hopefully there’s some overlap where your desires can come true, where you can support each other into them, and you can find these points of connection and strengthen those and focus on those.
It’s so easy for us to focus on the things that aren’t working and to let that take up all of our attention. That’s why so many people end up in couples counseling and relationship coaching like the people that I work with. Because once we get stuck in that pattern of only noticing what’s not working, it becomes really difficult to remember and to notice into the things that are. That said, everything you’ve shared in this email is a pattern of disrespect. And that’s not to say that it can’t be changed. But I think my advice to you take it for what you will. You know your life better than I ever will, and I trust you to make the best choice for you right now is how many more times do you want to have this conversation? And what might you try to communicate in a way that makes it clear, these are your needs and, “This is what I just don’t want to tolerate anymore because it doesn’t feel good. Here’s what I want more of for us. Here’s what I want more of for me, and here’s what I’m asking from you,” and then see what he says.
Dawn Serra: I know the temptation is to do the thing that you’ve already done, which makes total sense. It makes total sense that when we’re afraid we’re going to lose someone that we love, we do things that we might not want to do. Because belonging trumps everything. And sometimes, the best way to take care of ourselves is to avoid this thing that would hurt so much. So hold that really tenderly with yourself. But just ask, how many more times can I have this conversation and what do I want? What do I need? What would bring me pleasure? What would I like to let go of? Maybe you want to let go of ever thinking about being with another woman. Or, at least, for the next couple of years. Maybe you don’t ever want to have to think about going back on apps or doing any of these things. Maybe it really is allowing him to have these fantasies and allowing yourself to have these fantasies, without either of you needing to act on them. And if he finds he really does need to act on these things or he can’t let these things go, that I think is really important information for you to have before you go into this wedding. That’s probably expensive and that will then involve lots of paperwork if it’s something that you want to not do later.
I can’t tell you what’s best but I can tell you based on this what I hear and what you deserve, and what you deserve is lots and lots of pleasure and spaciousness, and to not feel reined in by the expectations of someone else around something that you’ve repeatedly said you’re just not interested in. You’ve actually even tried. Not even being really sure that you wanted to try it and now you’ve got information that says, “Yeah, this just doesn’t feel like a good fit for me.” And then have some conversations around that and they might be awkward. It might take multiples. I also think working with a therapist would be great idea. Having a third party to help with conversations and sharing, and creating a space that’s outside the home and not charged is such a beautiful thing for so many of us. I hope that offers you just a couple of things to think about. I trust you so deeply and I hope that you’ll trust yourself in what it is that you need and what it is that you want, and then move in the direction of those things. Good luck to you and thank you so much for writing and with this. I would love to hear back from you if you’ve got updates and I wish you the very best.
Dawn Serra: Alright. There’s one more email about anger that I would love for us to roll around in. It’s another really long email, but it’s something I’m super excited about. I’m so passionate about us talking about anger. So this email came in in the middle of the summit and I did not have a chance to reply yet. So I’m hoping this arrives in time because it does say, “Help as quickly as you can.” So here’s what it says.
Hello from Ireland, Dawn. My boyfriend and I are massive fans of your show. We’ve been listening for over a year and it’s sparked more than a few wonderful and delicious conversations with each other and ourselves. Thank you for all of the wonderful work you do and for your tireless commitment to compassion and inclusivity in everything that you do. You’re a breath of fresh air and the part of my brain that deals with emotional intelligence and relationships has even started talking in your voice sometimes. I know you’re very busy, but I’m really hoping you can help me with something as soon as possible. I’ve had two episodes a month apart where I’ve gotten really angry towards my boyfriend and displayed a lack of control and level of verbal and emotional aggression that shocked me. And my question is would you have any resources, books, blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels where I might go to start leveling up around anger management. Unfortunately, I can’t afford private counseling or therapy right now. To give some more detail, during these outbursts, I can spiral out of control for 24 hours at a time and I’ve said some really spiteful and hurtful things. What triggered the anger is of no consequence really, so I won’t give much detail unless you ask. As I realized quickly both times it’s not about him, it’s about me. In any case, I’m a true believer that you cannot do something, certainly without harming or abusing somebody, that gives someone else the right to abuse you.
Dawn Serra: To give you some context of me, not in any way to excuse my behavior, but I’ve been under unusual stress in recent months due to a developing chronic illness which is left to be off work for months; and will likely limit my career options and potential in the profession in which I’m trained for nine years, and about which I am extremely passionate. As I’ve been off work, I’ve also been under financial pressure and I’m beginning to worry about paying my rent and keeping my house. On the first incident of this uncontrollable anger, I was also on medications which commonly caused depression and even suicide. I’ve had depression before and these meds caused it to resurge in a massive and dangerous degree. I stopped the meds immediately once I realized after my anger outburst how bad the depression was. And I said I’d rather be in pain and stay out of work than ruin my relationships and lose control over my mind and emotions. But I had another outburst four weeks later about something totally different to do with something as stupid and inconsequential as money.
Obviously we’ve had disagreements before. I’ve definitely never got angry with him like this. We’ve been together a year and a half. I remember feeling and displaying anger quite a lot in my early to mid teens towards my parents and the guys I was dating. But as an adult, outbursts of this magnitude are rare for me, though I honestly can’t say they don’t happen. I feel horribly guilty that I’ve heard someone I care so much about and I think his self worth really took a hit both times. He just seems to have lost confidence in himself and didn’t even get angry back at me or attempt to draw a boundary or give any ultimatum, which makes me feel even worse. I’ve been actively working to cultivate self esteem and establish boundaries for myself the last two years. And as part of that, I’ve realized not all anger is bad. Not all anger is invalid and not all anger is unwarranted. But I still believe that abusive, hurtful behavior cannot be good or valid or justified, and I feel horribly ashamed of myself for subjecting another person to that.
I have discussed this with my boyfriend, apologize profusely and suggested I’d like to do some work on my behavior and how I respond to feelings of anger, which usually relate to a fear of loss or shortage. He’s blessed with the most wonderful capacity for acceptance and compassion and says he was able to see what I was expressing through my anger, and that he sees my fears and thoughts as valid. And he’s able to do so without taking them personally and he reminds me of the hard times I’ve been going through in the context of this. That being said, I’ve also asked if he’d consider looking into doing some work around his self esteem and boundary setting. He’s had multiple sources of massive trauma in his life and such things must affect his self image, and lead to him relying more on external sources, such as me, for a sense of happiness; a perpetual amount of which I don’t think is realistic or quite fair to expect of someone.
Dawn Serra: I would love to be able to trust that whatever my behavior is like or anyone’s for that matter, he can take care of himself emotionally and will do what’s best for him even if that means leaving me should this become a pattern of behavior. I’ve suggested Susan J Elliot’s book, GPYB, as after a terrible fallout with a friend. That was the first book to really impress on me the meaning and the value of self worth and boundaries. Would you have any other resources that might be appropriate for men in their late twenties? He’s unlikely to stick with anything too woo woo, if that makes sense. Sorry for the massive essay of an email. I hope you find time to reply soon and once again, thank you for all you’ve taught me so far. Distraught.
Oh yes. Well, the first thing I want to say is thank you so much for listening to the show and I am flattered/feel like I should apologize that you have started hearing my voice sometimes when you’re thinking about emotional intelligence in relationships. Because I know when I listen to lots of me sometimes I’m like, “Well, that’s enough.” Anyway, I love this question. I have so many thoughts.
The first thing is I really appreciate that you recognize this behavior is not one that’s fair to do to someone else and you recognize the abusive tendencies in it. I think so many of us are afraid of turning that mirror on ourselves, that we completely shut down when we are being potentially abusive or actually being abusive to someone else. And that can lead to this really deep sense of righteousness and shame. That’s a really scary combination. I really appreciate that you see this is not how you want to behave and that this kind of behavior is not fair and not right, and that you’d like to do different. I also appreciate that you really want your boyfriend to be able to tend to himself, up to, and including leaving you. If at any point, he feels like this just isn’t fair. I think that shows a level of love of, “I’m going to do my best. But if my best isn’t good enough and you need more, take care of you, please.” I think that’s a really wonderful thing to offer, especially when we mean it. Here are some of the thoughts that I have.
Dawn Serra: Specifically around your anger, there’ve been so many incredible books that have been coming out around anger lately that could be a really awesome addition to your library. Most of them are super popular. You can probably get them at the library. Because I know you’re on a budget. My first thought is Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly which not only examines anger but talks about anger competence, and ways that we can begin to befriend our anger and have more competence with our anger. I think that that’s a really important thing.
Something else that I’m a huge fan of is Karla Mclaren’s work. So that’s MCLAREN. Karla Mclaren, I will link to this in the show notes, has a blog post on The Gifts of Anger and there’s another post that she’s done also about the gifts of anger that I can’t remember the name of right now. But The Gifts of Anger really talks about how when we are in healthy relationship with our anger, we almost don’t even notice that it’s there. Because our anger is really about fairness and about tending to our boundaries. So what needs attention? What needs to be shifted or changed so that I can come back into this place of fairness? And when we are out of right relationship with our anger, when we ignore it or we deny it or when we allow it to be a weapon that we use against others, then that’s when it becomes very problematic. And unfortunately, so few of us have healthy relationships with our anger that we don’t even know what it’s like to be in right relationship with anger. As you mentioned, often our anger response is really about protecting ourselves from feeling into something like fear or loss or vulnerability or shame.
Anger sometimes shows up because it realizes that we don’t have the capacity right now to feel this level of sadness or we don’t have the capacity right now to feel into this hopelessness and so instead, I’m going to get really angry because I just can’t handle feeling these other things or facing these other realities. Sometimes that’s when we become really explosive or when we even turn it on ourselves and become deeply self harming. Rage Becomes Her is a really great book to check out by Soraya Chemaly. Rebecca Traister also just had a book come out called Good and Mad. And last year, Brittney Cooper had a book come out called Eloquent Rage. All of those things really explore, specifically, women’s anger, but I think that there’s a lot there that helps people of all genders; to just explore the ways that anger gets expressed or denied, and the ways that we can have healthier relationships with our anger. Because to be in healthy relationship with our anger, to befriend it, to trust it, to allow it to flow through us rather than to explode out of us is a source of immense power.
Dawn Serra: I also think that, for you, being able to grieve some of the things that are happening right now in your life is really important. What are some rituals that maybe you can do that would help you to grieve some of these changes you’ve been experiencing? Sometimes when we take the opportunity to recognize my body is changing and it’s going to have a really big impact on my work or my life, or my finances, or my financial situation is changing and it’s going to really impact the ways that I live my life moving forward. When we can create a really intentional ritual around honoring that truth, “Here’s where I was. I needed to grieve that that’s no longer true. Here’s where I am. How can I honor that? And here’s where I would like to go considering the current reality.” To create some type of ritual around that as simple as writing a little letter or lighting a candle and saying a couple of words or all kinds of things. Having friends come over and share their own stories. The sky’s the limit. That’s the beauty of ritual. But when we do that deliberate, intentional act of honoring the truths, sometimes that really helps with our grief process.
What I imagine in reading this is that there’s a lot of grief that is present in dealing with the body, the chronic illness, the limiting of your career options in a profession that you feel deeply passionate about. And also dealing with mental health and depression, and meds that aren’t working for you. There’s a lot of grief in navigating those spaces. I wonder what does your grief need to hear and maybe what needs to be expressed there, in a way that feels safe and accessible. Small things that would allow grief to just be honored and present over the course of days and weeks and months. And what is anger trying to tell us or protect us from? And getting curious about that.
I also highly recommend, for both you, Cristien Storm’s book Living in Liberation. That is one of the best books I’ve ever encountered about boundaries. It’s a really radical reimagining of boundaries as love and how we can deal with our feelings about other people’s boundaries, and how we can deal with our feelings about other people’s feelings about our boundaries. Because it’s one thing to say, “Here’s what I want or don’t want.” But when that’s met with disappointment, when that’s met with anger, when that’s met with an attempt to change it, often we don’t set a boundary because we’re anticipating someone’s disappointment. The feelings that we have about a boundary or about somebody else’s feelings are totally separate from the boundary itself. Cristien’s book Living in Liberation really teases that out beautifully. That might be a place for the two of you to really connect to do some practicing and have some conversations about boundaries.
Dawn Serra: I’m also curious, too, if there are anything that comes up that tells you your anger is starting to become escalated. Are there things you say? Things you feel in your body? Some type of pattern of behavior or thought that might tell you, “I’m approaching this place,” so that you can care for yourself before you get there and/or so you’re a boyfriend can remove himself from the situation while you deal with it. So I think Karla Mclaren’s Gift of Anger is really beautiful. I think the three books on anger that I mentioned by Rebecca, Soraya, and Brittney could be really helpful, and then Cristien’s book about boundaries.
There’s also a book, portions of which I really like called The Relationship Skills Workbook by Julia Colwell. That has a whole bunch of communication techniques inside that might be helpful around being able to communicate with each other, especially around some of this more challenging stuff. Being able to make statements about truths from a very personal place.
Dawn Serra: I think the most important thing is your boyfriend may or may not be ready to do the boundary work. He may or may not be ready to examine that part of his life and to make changes. While I think it’s wonderful to potentially want to engage him in reading Cristien’s book or The Relationship Skills Workbook or any other book that you’re going to find around boundaries and needs, the most important thing, I think, is for you to really focus on you. What are the things that need to be felt that aren’t being felt? What are the really tiny ways that you can feel into those things without going all in? We don’t want to jump into the grief pool and then not have any kind of life preserver. What are those little rituals, those little things that you can do that would help you explore into some of these tougher emotions that your anger might be trying to protect you from or help you to express?
Also I think, it might be really helpful to look at some resources. I know you’re in Ireland, so resources might be available there that are different from here. But looking into emotional abuse support, looking at the resources around those things might be helpful to both of you. What are some of the things that are signs? What are some of the things that people can do to help keep themselves safe and to navigate those spaces? What are some of the warning signals? What are some of the things that people who are doing those things can turn to for support? Because we all need help and we all have problematic behaviors. The fact that you’re able to name that I think is really helpful. I hope that at least gives you a jumping off point.
Dawn Serra: One other thing I’d love to mention, well two things, is it might also be a really great thing to check out Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s new book, Care Work, which is all about disability justice. There’s a lot in there about neuro divergence as far as trauma and PTSD and chronic illness go, the ways that we survive. And I think that as your body navigates chronic illness, there’s probably a lot in there that would help you around feeling cared for and are being able to reach out for care. There’s also this great list on Autostraddle. It’s a couple of years old, so I’m sure there are many books that are newer, like Leah’s book Care Work. But some of these books would be fantastic to check out as well. And it says Crip Lit: Towards An Intersectional Crip Syllabus. It’s all about disability memoirs, disability justice, disability sexuality.
In so many of these books, memoirs by Audre Lorde and Frida Kahlo and so many others, plus nonfiction books all about a disability studies reader and crip theory, even some fiction books, and one of Leah’s poetry books is in here. But books that really grapple with the real anger, the real grief, the accessibility, the treatment, just the health care that we receive around chronic illness and disability. That might really help you to find some new language, some new care, some new ways of navigating this changing space. I think one of the things that’s so hard is as our bodies change, as we move from able bodiedness to disability, or from one type of disability and to another dice disability or deeper into illness, it can feel like we’re the only ones. It can feel really lonely. It can feel disorienting as our lives change and our ability to do certain kinds of work or go certain kinds of places change. Knowing that there’s all of these incredible people like Mia Mingus and Leah Lakshmi, and Bethany Stevens and Andrew Gurza, who are doing all of this work around what it means to live and to feel, and to love and to all of these places might also give you some resources that would help you to feel more expressed in a variety of ways. So there’s not only your anger that feels like it can make itself be known.
You’re allowed to be sad and you’re allowed to grieve. You’re allowed to feel scared and lost and unsure. You’re allowed to feel awkward and frustrated. All of those things are really valid part of this experience. My hope is that if you have more opportunities for feeling into some of those other things, it gives your anger an opportunity to feel like, “Okay, I am feeling more tended to and I don’t have to go on the defensive because of all these other things I’m feeling and trying not to feel.” I hope that was helpful.
Dawn Serra: If anybody listening has other resources around boundary work and anger specifically around explosive anger and changing bodies, please let me know on social media. Write into the show at dawnserra.com There’s a Contact Me form. I would love to hear from you and then I will share that on a future episode for this particular listener. Thank you so much for listening, Distraught and for writing in. I know I was busy with the summit and so this response probably wasn’t as quick as you’d hoped. But I hope that at least get you started down the path of finding all kinds of resources and support both for yourself and for your boyfriend.
Again, to everyone listening, join me for my pleasure course, Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Joy, Hunger and Desire. dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse has all the details plus my super fancy trailer video that I’m super excited about. You should check that out. It’s gorgeous and if you were taught to distrust your hunger cues, if you deny or feel shame around your desire, if you ignore or contain the things that make you feel good or if you feel like you have to earn your right to pleasure, it’s not your fault. That’s a feature, not a bug of this culture we live in. And I would love to help support you and the entire community that’s going to be a part of this, to rediscover and redefined pleasure on your terms. So join me.
Patreon supporters, pop over to Patreon. I’m going to be over there with some juicy, delicious goodness bonus for you. That’s at patreon.com/sgrpodcast and I will talk to you all next week. Bye.
Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and to get awesome weekly bonuses.
As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?