This episode is sponsored by HotelsByDay. Save 5% with code SGR5off.

It’s Christmas Day! What better way to celebrate a holiday than with a sexy, fun chat with not one but TWO fellow sex educators. And from New Zealand, no less.

Kate McCombs and Louise Bourchier are here to help me answer questions from you about getting started with anal sex after a bad first experience, dealing with big emotions after losing your virginity, feeling sexually frustrated in a relationship after moving in with your boyfriend, the importance of empathy, and a whole lot more.

These two women are smart, kind, and endlessly fascinated in sexuality and communication. I adore them both.

Don’t forget to check out the details about listener confessions because I want to hear from you.

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook. It’s true. Oh! And Dawn is on Instagram.

In this episode, Louise, Kate, and I talk about:

• What professional soulmates look like and how Louise and Kate met as sex educators. Louise and her seduction worked magic, as now they co-teach around the world. Also, why would Louise be walking around with Kegel balls in her bag? She explains.
• Why teaching anatomy is so rewarding as a sex educator. For instance, a lot of people still don’t know the true size of the clitoris, and Louise loves sharing those important tidbits.
• Tea and empathy, which is a workshop Kate created on teaching and practicing empathy skills. It’s an incredible communication workshop that is invaluable to strengthening relationships.
• How Dawn uses Kate’s tea and empathy cards to practice and give herself permission around tough feelings and experiences.
• Adopting a sense of playfulness with our emotions so that instead of getting stuck or resisting, if we play and stay curious, we can find a lot more self-compassion.
• Women in Sex Tech with Cindy Gallop – Louise attended this conference about women in sexual technology and shares her experience.
• Hannah wrote in about being sexually frustrated. After moving in with her boyfriend, their sex life has been getting worse and infrequent. She needs help working through this issue because she’s so horny and lonely, she’s starting to think about going outside the relationship. Could too much intimacy be part of the issue?
• Orgasmic autonomy – what is it and why it might take the pressure of relationship sexual issues.
• Rebecca wrote in about being a virgin and a recent experience she had with a boy. She is having big feelings and needs help after having a first she wasn’t expecting. Kate talks about building resilience for tough emotions and building networks of support from lovers and also friends and family.
• The importance of discussing the terms of engagement around sexual experiences so that you can relax into the experience knowing your needs can get met and what the boundaries are that each person can offer around that sexual exchange.
• Pandoras Box has a question about butt stuff. Her boyfriend adores anal – fucking, licking, touching, giving, receiving. But her only anal experience was terrible, so she’s hesitant to get started again. How can she ease into anal sex?
• Anal anatomy – which muscles can you consciously relax and which ones are involuntary? Louise fills us in.
• Curious Kink is having a problem. His girlfriend is super into kink and she’s much older. He is wondering how to get started and how to explore this for her. How do you learn about kink? What if it scares you when you’re a newbie?
• Sex labs and how creating intentional space to practice sex skills with a partner where it’s not about being hot but about learning can be super useful and freeing. We are all fumbling as we go along, and this makes space for that.

Resources from this episode

Dawn’s online anal course is here.

“Mating in Captivity” by Esther Perel

“When Your Sex Drives Don’t Match: Discover Your Libido Types to Create a Mutually Satisfying Sex Life” by Sandra Pertot

“The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women” by Tristan Taormino

“The Ultimate Guide to Kink” by Tristan Taormino

“The New Topping Book” and “The New Bottoming Book” by Dossie Easton

“Baby Got Back: Anal Erotica” by Rachel Kramer Bussel

“Enough to Make You Blush” by Princess Kali

Kink Academy for all those kinky how-to videos

About Louise Bourchier

Louise Bourchier, MPH knows sex. She presents workshops on sexual health, sexual pleasure and communication in relationships. Her focus is on the feel‐good aspects of sex, delivered with a healthy dash of humour. Equipped with a vulva puppet and anatomy diagrams, you can guarantee this is not the sex education you received in school. As a leading sex educator, Louise has taught over one hundred workshops to diverse adult audiences. She has presented at Sexpo Australia, spoken at universities including University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, and University of Auckland, as well as working with a wide range of professional and community groups. Louise has a Masters of Public Health, specialising in sexual health, from the University of Melbourne, and lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

You can find Louise at LouiseBourchier.com, and follow her on Twitter @louiselabouche and Instagram.

About Kate McCombs

Kate McCombs, MPH is a sex & relationships educator who’s geeky about empathy and connection.

Ultimately, all of her work is about helping people feel more comfortable talking about sex and feelings. She believes that meaningful conversations and accurate information can help us create a healthier and more joy-filled world.

To that end, she writes articles and facilitates workshops on how to build amazing relationships. You can find out more about Kate at KateMcCombs.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @katecom and on Instagram.

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Hearing from you is the best

Contact form: Click here (and it’s anonymous)

LISTENER CONFESSION DETAILS

Are you ready to be part of the show with your juicy, awkward, fun, sad confessions? Now you can be!

January’s theme is FIRSTS, so if you have a story to share about a first in your sexual or romantic history that was meaningful, transformative, disappointing, surprising, or something that you hope to experience soon, I want to hear from you.

Here are the guidelines:

• Subscribe to the Sex Gets Real newsletter (there’s a box in the upper right) because that’s where I’ll be announcing future themes.
• Record your story using your phone, your computer, a recorder, or whatever you have at your disposal. It should be no longer than 7 minutes.
• Don’t want your voice heard? Type up your story, email it in, and I’ll read it for you.
• Email your MP3 file/story (make it as high quality as you can – both in sound and content) to info(at)dawnserra.com.
• Submission does not guarantee your story will make it on the show, but every submission will be reviewed and considered.
• Deadline for January’s confessions is January 20, 2017.

What should your story be about?

• I want stories that are real – I want to hear the awkward, the disappointing, the surprising, the reality versus the expectation, how the experience changed you or how it didn’t even though you wanted it to. This isn’t about being as explicit as possible, and it’s not about writing erotica. I want your real, true, humanity-filled story including your feelings, thoughts, and the impact it had on you.
• Include a beginning, middle, and end so we have a complete picture of this event you’re sharing.
• It MUST include the theme of the month, though it doesn’t have to be terribly literal. For instance, a “first” may be the first time you felt pleasure or the first time you realized your sexuality was changing or the first time you gave yourself permission to talk to a partner about your past.

Need examples of great personal storytelling?

Listen to The Moth, This American Life, The Heart, or check out the confessions at Erika Lust’s XConfessions.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!

Well, hello listeners. This episode is coming out on December 25th 2016. If you are a Christmas celebrator, I hope today is full of joy and not too much family drama. I love that this episode is coming out on Christmas. It is me being joined by two other amazing sex educators fielding a few of your questions. It’s my little Christmas/holiday gift to all of you. I also just want to take a moment to say thank you so much for listening, for your tweets and Facebook messages, for all of your emails and compliments, and feedback and questions. I love being connected with all of you and creating this for you. It brings me so much joy. 

Dawn Serra: I’m super excited about 2017, and of course, featuring some of your confessions. January is going to be the first month where I feature listener confessions on the show, and the theme is firsts. You can go to dawnserra.com for this episode to see all of the guidelines for submitting your own confessions. You can either record your own story or write it out, and I will read it for you. Each month in 2017, there will be a different theme. So I would love your confessions about firsts. They can be as short as you’d like them to be, all the way up to about seven minutes. I think it would be really fun to hear some other perspectives and experiences and regrets and hopes and dreams from all of you to get you as part of the show. 

I also just want to say a huge thank you to Hotels By Day for sponsoring this episode, and being so generous. Of course, if you need a little escape from all of the holiday madness or you need a place to recover on New Year’s Day after your New Year’s Eve, Hotels By Day helps with day stays. So if you’re looking for a day’s stay for a little spa getaway or for a little afternoon of writing or a sexy little hookup, you can use SGR5off as a discount code to get 5% off your first day stay through Hotels By Day. 

Dawn Serra: The rest of this episode is me chatting with Kate McCombs (note: Kate changed her name to Kate Kenfield in the years after this recording) and Louise Bourchier. We talk all about women and sex tech. We talk about empathy. We answer several of your questions, and have a good old time. I hope you enjoy. So enjoy your holiday season. I will talk to you next week. 

This is a very special episode because I’m not joined by only one guest, but two guests who are superstars. First with me is Kate Kenfield, who’s been on the show before. Welcome back to the show, Kate. 

Kate Kenfield: Thank you. I’m so delighted to be back. 

Dawn Serra: And unlike last time when you were, I believe, in New York, calling into the show, this time you are all the way around the world and down in New Zealand.

Kate Kenfield: Yes. I’m so excited to be down here. I’m in Auckland at the moment teaching with my professional soulmate, Louise Bourchier. 

Dawn Serra: Who is also here. I want every single person ever who’s interested in sex education to know Louise. So welcome to the show, Louise.

Louise Bourchier: Thanks, Dawn. And thanks, Kate. Hi, welcome– I mean, thanks for having me to the show.

Dawn Serra: Oh, my gosh. I love that the two of you are in New Zealand, and we are able to connect through the power of technology to have this amazing sex positive conversation, and just literally take over the globe.

Louise Bourchier: Yes. Great living in the modern era. Yeah.

Dawn Serra: One of the things that is so charming about the two of you because you do a lot of teaching together, and you call each other professional soulmates, and we’re going to be answering tons of listener questions today because the two of you are just such skilled and compassionate sex educators. But what’s fascinating is how the two of you met. Kate, do you want to share that really sweet little story on how the two of you came into each other’s world?

Kate Kenfield: Absolutely. I love telling this story. It’s one of my favorite stories to share because it’s like our little meet cute, and how Louise entered my life. She completely changed my life, and how we met actually relates a lot to what we do professionally as well. Louise and I both did our Masters of Public Health with a focus in Sexual Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia. I was about a year into my program, and I was teaching a workshop for the university student union. They were running a sex week. It was called “Rad Sex and Consent Week.” I got hired to teach a workshop on female pleasure physiology. 

I was in the middle of this workshop, and I got to the point in my workshop where I was talking about the importance of a strong pelvic floor, and how that relates to orgasm and overall pelvic health. One of the participants in the workshop asked, “How do you upgrade your pelvic floor workouts. What can you do to take that to the next level?” I said, “Well, you can get these weighted vaginal balls that you can wear around in the vagina. The power of gravity can help you do this vaginal weightlifting exercise,” blah-blah-blah. I said, “I don’t actually have an example of what these look like.” Then I see this hand grow up in the back. 

That was Louise. And completely unprompted, she pulls out these kegel balls, these Fun Factory smart balls out of her bag.

Louise Bourchier: Out of my bag, I might emphasize. 

Kate Kenfield: About half of the audience was alarmed, like, “Where did she pull those out of?” The other half of the audience was intrigued like, “Oh, that’s what those look like. Was this an intentional setup? Was this a planned part of the workshop that they’re tag teaming? That the setup that the audience has these kegel balls already ready to go?” 

So needless to say, it was a very memorable part of this workshop that even before we had ever met, she was supporting me and educating and answering this participant’s question. We didn’t actually get to connect after that workshop. But then a couple months later, I was in this public health leadership and management class. During the tea break, I was just standing there drinking a cup of tea, and this unbelievably radiant and confident woman waltzed up to me and just looked me in the eye. She’s like, “Hey. I don’t know if you remember me. I was in your Pleasure Physiology Workshop. I was the one with the kegel balls.” I was like, “Oh, gosh. Of course, I remember you. It was very memorable.” Then she delivers the best friendship pickup line I have ever heard in my life. She just looks me in the eye and says, “I reckon we should start the revolution.” I just looked at her, and the rest of the room fell out of focus. I just said, “Yeah, that sounds fantastic.” I felt totally professionally and platonically seduced. It was wonderful. 

Kate Kenfield: Very soon after that, we started teaching workshops together. It was unlike any co-teaching experience I’d ever had before. We just have a rhythm and a rapport that I’d never had with anyone else that I’d ever shared a stage with. It’s just been this really fruitful professional and personal relationship ever since.

Louise Bourchier: I really love it when you tell that story. However, there’s one detail I want to add, which is the reason why I had those smart balls. It could be a little confusing. The reason I had those smart balls is because I was teaching a sex toys workshop that day. It was part of a student week on sex and sexuality. So that day, I was teaching a workshop on safe sex and a workshop on sex toys, which is why I had my swag of silicon wonders.

Kate Kenfield: Although, it wouldn’t have been incongruent with human being to just happen to have sex toys in your backpack. 

Louise Bourchier: That is true. That is true. But honestly teaching with you is one of my favorite things to do as well. We’ve had such a great time. You’ve been such a mentor to me professionally, as well as a colleague on the same level. You’ve also been a mentor and really shown me the way in the sex education world. It has been really, really great for me connecting with you over the last five years.

Dawn Serra: Louise, I know that a lot of what you teach has to do with sex and pleasure and communication. What are some of your key workshops that you really love teaching to people?

Louise Bourchier: Ah, good question I most enjoy teaching classes like female orgasm or classes that have an anatomy and physiology component, as well as bringing in some some tips around how to communicate about sex. Because I find that a lot of people still don’t know the true size of the clitoris, for example. There’s also lots of misinformation about the g-spot or around how desire and arousal is supposed to work or how it’s likely to work for people. 

I still find that’s my most powerful work because the work around informing people about sexual pleasure, particularly female pleasure. Although, all types of body sexual pleasure. With that kind of anatomy and technique and physiology focus, that’s the heart of what I really enjoy doing. But I also love teaching about those communication skills – “How do we get what you want sexually?” “How do we interact respectfully with our partners, and playfully?” “How do we use language and emotional literacy to have satisfying relationships and sex lives?”

Dawn Serra: You just got– Mine has not arrived yet, so I’m deliciously jealous to have seen yours on video recently. But you just got a 3D printed clitoris, isn’t that right, of the internal structure?

Louise Bourchier: Correct. I’m glad you’re delighted you saw my clitoris on video. In the full internal structure, no less. Yeah. So recently, I received this amazing 3D printed clitoris from a friend of mine or a friend of ours, Linda.

Kate Kenfield: Our friend, Linda Kirkman. Yeah. She’s an amazing sex researcher in Australia.

Louise Bourchier: It’s such an amazing little tool. We used it in the workshop that Kate and I taught a couple of nights ago in Auckland. We were explaining things using the vulva puppet, which we’ve done many times. Then I also was able to pass around this terrific 3D printed life-size clitoris, which was such a terrific addition to my teaching tools.

Dawn Serra: I cannot wait to get it. People have no idea until they actually see it, just how much delicious real estate there is in a vulva with pleasure potential.

Louise Bourchier: Real estate. That’s such a great term. Yeah. 

Dawn Serra: Kate, you have been teaching your Tea & Empathy Workshops, which I have experienced some versions of the Tea & Empathy. I’ve also worked with your empathy cards, which are amazing. I would love for you to tell everybody a little bit about what you do with that workshop.

Kate Kenfield: Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. This workshop really, it came out of me in a surprising way. I started teaching this empathy workshop in my apartment, in the middle of essentially a health crisis. About three years ago, my migraine, that I had my entire adult life, went from being something that I had a couple of times a month to something that I had every day. So I went through… There’s this really overwhelming period of time where I was in absolute chronic pain, and I could barely leave my apartment. I was just noticing how the people in my life, many of them, were able to really communicate with a lot of empathy toward me about what I was experiencing. Other people, I could tell, they really wanted to support me, but really struggled to communicate empathically. 

I realized, “Oh, I know this skill set. This is something that I teach within the larger framework of sex and relationships education. Maybe I could build a little workshop around this that my friends and their friends might enjoy.” Even in the midst of all this pain, I developed this little workshop that I did just in my apartment because I could control the sensory environment there. I was so sensitive to light and sound that I couldn’t really leave my apartment, but I could do it in my apartment. 

Kate Kenfield: I decided to call it Tea & Empathy. I did it in the middle of the afternoon. I had people bring snacks, and I made tea. I developed this workshop with these cards that have feelings written on them. The way the workshop works basically is that everyone… I do a little intro talk about what empathy is and what it isn’t, and about how we’re taught to support people, and often the strategies that we are taught about what support is is often not what actually is most conducive to connection. We’re taught things like how to give advice, and often this advice is actually unsolicited and unwanted. 

But what empathy actually is, in my view, is about being curious about and non-judgmentally engaged with somebody else’s emotional world. I think this is such an important skill set in order to establish real connection with people. But we’re taught that our value is actually to fix people or to shift someone else’s emotional state, when, in fact, that’s not actually what really drives connection. 

Kate Kenfield: In the workshop, we talked a little bit about that nature of empathy, what it is, and what it isn’t. Then I get people into small groups where everyone gets the opportunity to share a little bit about something that’s emotionally challenging for them. Then using this deck of cards that I developed, they actually get to practice doing empathic inquiry, like asking empathic questions about what that person was feeling in that situation that they described. Then they actually get that experience of feeling that empathy from a small group of people. Then they take turns. 

It’s really powerful to witness this process and have people be really present with your emotional experience without trying to change it or offer you advice in any way. I’ve been getting some really amazing feedback about it. I’ve been doing it with– Now that my migraines are better managed, and I’m participating in life more fully, I’m getting to do it with all sorts of different groups. It’s been really interesting to see how that’s been landing with people.

Dawn Serra: One of the most powerful things for me about that deck, even just being able to be more self-reflective and more patient with myself, is how it gives me the opportunity to not only name the feelings that are difficult. But then you also have all of these emotions that are easy or more enjoyable to sit in. You get the opportunity to then explore what you would have liked to have felt around that. I felt so much spaciousness around painful experiences and being able to… If I’m feeling frustrated and unheard and judged, and I wish that I was experiencing or would have liked to have experienced patience and confidence and ease, it’s amazing to actually have in front of you this very concrete visualization of what I am feeling and what I would have liked to have felt, and how to move towards that the next time. And to give myself that permission of being able to play with my emotions instead of feeling like I’m stuck in them, and there aren’t any other options.

Kate Kenfield: Yeah, absolutely. I love that idea of playing with emotions. Because I think we can spend a lot of time resisting our emotions and trying to force ourselves out of them, which I think is a really counterproductive process. Because then we can just be fighting with ourselves internally. But I think that that idea of play and just having a more gentle approach to our emotional landscape can be a really great first step in practicing more self-compassion, which I think leads us to a lot more joy and a lot more ease with our whole emotional world.

Dawn Serra: The two of you together are just like this amazing bundle of energy and laughter. I don’t even know. The conversations that the two of you have that I’ve had an opportunity to be a part of have just been so… I don’t know. I feel like I level up when I’m around the two of you. 

Louise Bourchier: That’s a lot coming from you, Dawn.

Kate Kenfield: Seriously.

Dawn Serra: Well, thank you. Yeah. I love how Louise you’ve got this technical anatomy, pleasure, sex education-based approach. Then Kate, you have this communication, empathy, compassion, approach to sex and relationships, and how the two of you have now married that. You teach these workshops that bring the best of both worlds into a single experience for people. What an enriching experience for people who come to your classes.

Kate Kenfield: Well, thank you for saying that. That’s so kind of you to say.

Dawn Serra: Louise, I know that you were in the states for a couple of months over the summer, and that while you were in New York, you went to Women of Sex Tech with Cindy Gallop, actually from Make Love Not Porn. I read on your blog that it was women talking about technology and sex, like vibrator development and sex apps and things like that. I would love to know a little bit about what you experienced there.

Louise Bourchier: Absolutely. Kate has also been to Women of Sex Tech events. We’d hoped that we would go to that event together that night. But as Kate’s already mentioned, she gets migraines. Since she had a migraine that night, I ended up going to the event by myself. I’ll tell you what I did, but Kate might also have some bits to add from her other experiences of attending. 

That night, it was just really cool because there were all sorts of different women there who work in sex and sexuality field, but in this precise part of it, which is the technology part. What’s so awesome about New York is that it’s so big that it can house these very specific micro-communities. For example, in New Zealand, where I’m based, there’s a bunch of people who are interested in sex and sexuality. But you might have what constitutes a community might include sex therapists, people who work in sex toy retail, sex educators, people who work in sexual health promotion. It might feel like the community. Whereas in a city like New York, that’s so big, you have all these tiny little – not tiny – but these quite specific subgroups that conform, where you have a viable number of people to make that a community. 

Louise Bourchier: So in New York, you’ve got enough women who are not only involved in the sexuality field, not only are they women involved in sexuality, but it’s also that technical aspect. That was just so cool for me. There were people there who run podcast as an example of sex tech work. There are people there who designed sex toys and run sex toy companies, like Dame product that has the Evo and other vibrators. There are people there who run websites that were about dating or connecting websites. People who run websites related to pornography. Make Love Not Porn, of course, is a pornographic, a pornographic real porn, I think they call it project. 

It was just really cool having all these people who were not only super knowledgeable in the sex field, but they had all this area of knowledge around technical stuff that I didn’t have as much knowledge, and I was super interested to hear about. But there was just these really ambitious and capable women doing cool business things. So, yeah. That was my experience. I was just like, “Wow! It was really cool to meet people.” I’m always grateful when I’m in the US for having a New Zealand accent because it means that otherwise I might have just blended into the background that somebody was not allowed to contribute. But it’s like, “Oh, where are you from? What’s your accent?” Even in that context where I didn’t necessarily have a sex tech thing to bring myself, I really enjoyed the conversations that I had, and people seem to enjoy connecting with me and hearing about how my piece of the sex ed puzzle fits into. So, yeah. It was a really cool event. 

Kate Kenfield: You are being so self-effacing and Antipodean.

Louise Bourchier: Am I? 

Kate Kenfield: Yes. You’re so fascinating and amazing. Of course, even if you had an American accent, you’d be the life of the party. You’re amazing at parties.

Louise Bourchier: Well, I was wearing my best shirt. So now I think about there was lots of reasons. 

Dawn Serra: That clinched it, that shirt. Well, we talked through a ton of listener emails, and I want to make sure we have time to get to a bunch of them because I love both of your perspectives so much on so many of these topics. I want to know if the two of you are ready to jump in and roll around in some of these questions.

Louise Bourchier: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I would love to. Yeah. We can triangulate. Not just not just me and Kate, but Dawn and Louise and Kate can triangulate.

Dawn Serra: That’s right. Between the three of us, we’ve got it. Or, we’ll pretend like we do. All right. This first email is from someone named Hannah. The subject line is “Sexually frustrated.” The email says, “Since moving in with my boyfriend about a year ago, our sex life has diminished greatly and is only getting worse. At this point. We only have sex once a month, and I’m so sexually frustrated. I don’t masturbate because it doesn’t do anything for me except turn me off. But of course, he does masturbate. Sometimes I just need the touch of another human being. I’m a very sexual person, and the physical connection is so important to me. 

In my frustration, I find myself so horny every day that I’m even starting to fantasize about other men, and I’m curious about being with a woman. I have a feeling that a woman might be a way better lover than any man could ever be, just because women are much more connected and sensual. I find myself being short and distant with my boyfriend because I need orgasms. Yes, I’ve voiced my frustrations to him, but still no sex. I’m tired of feeling like I have to beg or negotiate to get fucked, and then I’m still not getting any. I wish I could masturbate, but I guess I just don’t know how. I’m so frustrated, it’s starting to affect my daily life. Help!”  Who wants to go first?

Kate Kenfield: There are so many things in that email. I mean, I would say there’s a lot of angles to take it as. It sounds like there’s a lot that’s going on in that relationship that is not about the sex. Because if she’s articulating that she’s really unsatisfied about their sex life, and that’s not being heard and that’s not being addressed, it sounds like there’s some pretty systemic communication problems in that relationship as well that would need to be addressed. 

But I’m particularly intrigued by the piece around the fact that she wants orgasms, but is not willing to masturbate or that masturbation is not working for her. That’s very curious to me. That would be one piece of the puzzle that I would suggest that she explores. Because I would imagine if she was more– I mean, you have to tackle– It’s a multi-faceted problem. I would imagine you’d have to start tackling it from somewhere. I’d imagine that her orgasmic autonomy could help her get some of those needs met. That if she was committed to staying in the relationship, could ease that pressure off a little bit so that she could then start addressing some of these other problems in a more holistic, less sexually frustrated way.

Louise Bourchier: Yeah. I’m curious about what she thinks has changed in the relationship. I know she said that a year ago, they moved in together, which is a big change in their relationship. Just having somebody constantly close can really change how you feel sexually about them. Because when you’re in a dating phase, it’s like when you see each other, you’ve gone out of your domestic context – slightly you are. It’s a bit special. Whereas, when you’re living day-to-day together, it can dilute some of that attraction, possibly because you’ve seen them so frequently. That’s possibly part of it.

But I’m also wondering, maybe something else changed. I’m curious about what might have contributed to her boyfriend wanting to have less sex. For example, has anything changed in his work circumstances, health circumstances, financial circumstances? Because that can have a real impact. Yeah. I guess I’m just curious about what’s motivating his reduced interest in sex because understanding it might help them to both getting your needs met better.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Something that occurred to me, as you were talking Louise, is Esther Perel’s approach to desire and intimacy, and how Esther talks about how there are opposite ends of the same spectrum. If you have too much intimacy and too much closeness, then you don’t have space for that heat and that desire to exist. So then there’s zero erotic energy. 

I love that you pointed out how moving in together can really change the dynamics because now instead of seeing each other as a treat and having that wanting, it’s just there all of the time, which can really shift the way that you experience each other because now it feels like there’s no missing and no mystery. So, yeah. I think that’s an interesting space for her to just reflect on.

Dawn Serra: I love what you said Kate about orgasmic autonomy. It’s so tough, and I don’t think it’s one or the other, but having a healthy sexual relationship with a partner and healthy, of course, being whatever works for you. So if you’re asexual, then whatever that looks like. But having a sexual connection with your partner that meets your needs is so important. But at the same time, we also have to not require our partner to give us our pleasure and give us our orgasms. It’s not a burden we should be placing on them, and then being angry and frustrated when they aren’t able to do that. By being able to give herself those sexual outlets via masturbating or porn or reading erotica or writing erotica or whatever it is, so that she hasn’t– I mean, I think her fantasies about men and women are perfectly healthy. 

Kate Kenfield: I agree. Yeah. 

Dawn Serra: If that’s something that helps her get off, she needs to meet that need for herself in some ways. 

Kate Kenfield: Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. I mean, I think it sounds like she’s quite unsatisfied in a lot of ways, and those desires outside of her relationship could be a little problematic for her. But I’d say that, in general, having desires outside of your relationship is not something that is inherently problematic in any way. I get a lot of questions like that in my workshops and in my work, where people feel quite guilty about that. But that’s so incredibly normal. Something that so many people have shame about, but really needs to be just reframed as, regardless of whether you’re in a monogamous relationship or an open relationship, it’s just part of being human to have those desires, and where the ethical framework is around what your actual behaviors are, and how those are in line with your actual relationship agreements.

Louise Bourchier: It’s really great that you mentioned Esther Perel, Dawn, because I was also going to suggest reading “Mating in Captivity” is a great idea. I was also going to add Dr. Sandra Pertot’s books, “When Your Sex Drives Don’t Match,“ and “Perfectly Normal.” They’re not necessarily exactly going to encapsulate the situation, but they talk a lot about desire discordance and strategies to communicate around it. So those could be good resources for this person to explore.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I love that you said strategies for communicating around this because I think the tendency is, or I will say, the things that I have done in the past is, when I’m starting to feel really frustrated with something, and she says, “I find myself being short and distant with my boyfriend,” this is probably something that she’s voiced over and over and over again. So it’s starting to feel a little bit like a broken record. When you find ways to approach the conversation from a completely different angle with a completely different energy, often you’ll get very different results. But it can take some experimenting. So having tools that help you find different ways to have those conversations could be really helpful.

Kate Kenfield: Absolutely.

Dawn Serra: Well, Hannah, I hope that was helpful for you. We’ll have links to the books that were mentioned on dawnserra.com for this episode. If you decide you want to check out one or all of the books to help you get some new ideas, so that maybe you can approach this a little bit differently or even just have some new conversations with your boyfriend, those will be available to you. And I wish you luck. Please report back. If something interesting happens or if anything changes, I’d love to hear from you. 

Louise Bourchier: Good luck, Hannah. 

Dawn Serra: Do we want to answer the question from the virgin?

Louise Bourchier: Go for it.

Dawn Serra: Let’s do it. OK. Rebecca wrote in and it says, “Hi, Dawn. I’m a 20 year old female who’s interested in men. I’ve been following your podcast as a virgin, in every sense of the word, for over a year now. I’m coming to you with some very exciting news and a lot of questions. Something I knew for myself was that I didn’t want to have sex with someone unless we were in an exclusive relationship, especially since it would be my first time having sex. 

The guy that I’ve liked for over three years, and I recently entered into an intense makeout session, I knew right away I didn’t want to have sex, but I found a loophole. We did everything except have actual intercourse. When we are done, I realized that although we hadn’t had “true sex,” I had still lost my virginity. He was the first one to kiss me, make out with me, touch me, even finger me. It’s suddenly really hard to keep calm and unclingy. For him, I was nothing new. He’s had plenty of sex before me. 

Dawn Serra: Now that it’s over, I’m feeling really lonely. I want more from him sexually and personally, which is the exact reason I didn’t want to have sex with someone who I wasn’t dating in the first place. But I really did enjoy our encounter. I’m not sure if it will happen again. I’m just wondering, if you have some ideas on how I can make myself more healthy so that I won’t have these negative emotions after sex. I’m really looking forward to having some fun exploring. Thanks for your advice and support.”

Kate Kenfield: Oh, so articulate about her experience.

Dawn Serra: I agree. At 20, I don’t think I would have been able to write that.

Louise Bourchier: It’s good.

Kate Kenfield: I think my first response is just that this is something that comes up a lot in the empathy work is that people are often trying to avoid “negative emotions.” I would challenge that. I think that, in my experience, being maximally mentally well is not about avoiding negative emotions, it’s about being able to sit with them better and having better reflective self-care practices, so that you can better manage a “negative” feeling. 

What I would encourage her to do is rather than avoiding those negative feelings to just simply observe them and just collect data. Just notice, “OK. I’m noticing that when I have this experience, when I sexually engage with someone, I notice that I feel these things afterwards. What do I need to do in the future in order to feel more emotionally safe when these feelings come up? What do I need afterwards in order to feel more supported, either from the person that I’m having the sexual exchange with or from the other people in my life, like from support from friends or other networks of support or personal solo self-care practices? What do I need in order to feel, just in general, more emotionally safe and try to implement those things in a more comprehensive way?”

Louise Bourchier: Yeah. ‘Cause it can feel really frightening and out of control to have those… Wanting attachment feelings or being in an oxytocin high, where you just want to be with that person, and you feel this instability that can be quite frightening and stressful. But it is just a feeling. She’s made the observation that the person that she had this encounter with is more sexually experienced, and she’s observed how he’s a bit more cool about it. Applying that on that same principle to her own future, she can probably expect that the intensity of that experience is likely to diminish as it becomes less of a new experience. She becomes more used to the physical and emotional experience of being sexually intimate. It probably won’t take such a roller coaster effect on her afterwards, I would imagine.

Dawn Serra: When I was 14 years old, I was a freshman in high school, and I had a crush on this guy, who was a senior. We ended up at a party together and ended up kissing me like for reals kiss. I mean, before that I’d had little pecks with some of the boys that I liked. But it was the first time someone had genuinely kissed me with tongue and had their body pressed against mine. I had such an intense physical response to that experience. I wasn’t expecting for my entire body to be flooded with sensation. I wasn’t expecting every inch of my skin to feel like it was on fire. I had no idea that kissing would feel like that. It was so overwhelming for me that I cried for two days.

Louise Bourchier: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Dawn Serra: I was so scared of all the feelings. Then he felt terrible because I had this huge emotional reaction to it. Bless his heart. He was so sweet. We ended up dating for a couple of months. He was amazing in every way, but I just had these really intense feelings about it because it felt so big in my body. 

I’ve had similar experiences when I’ve had new sexual encounters when I’ve tried something kinky for the first time or when I have a lover who has done something that I’ve never done before. Having those great, big emotions because I experienced sensations so huge in my body. Then just knowing that… Well, after I kissed a couple of people, even though it was still this amazing experience, it wasn’t overwhelming for me anymore. 

Kate Kenfield: The newness of it can feel quite intense. Yeah. I think that’s such a valuable perspective to bring that sometimes when something is new, it can feel much more overwhelming. Even if it is still powerful in the future, the magnitude of it might be significantly more diminished in future encounters. Yeah.

Louise Bourchier: Also, with all sexual experiences, that reflective part is really important. So thinking after sexual experiences, what did you like? What did you not so much like? What might you change? Perhaps that’s going to be helpful for you. Not just for this first encounter, but ongoing through other encounters to improve your own sexual skills and your emotional management of sexual experiences and intimate experiences. Just having a debrief with yourself like, “Ha. OK. I’m going to be compassionate with myself. It was one of my first sexual experiences, so I couldn’t have known better. But what might I do next time to feel a bit safer?”

Kate Kenfield: I wonder also about the role of having a more explicit conversation with her partners about what the terms of engagement are. I think this is something that is a little bit more of a rare skill set. I think it’s more common in our community of sex positive people who are more open communicatively, but just being much more explicit about, “What do we want out of this relationship? Is this a more casual thing? Or, is this something that is more leading into a more long term relationship. Because, I think, if you know the terms of engagement, whatever that is, and making sure that you’re on the same page, there can be more of an emotional relaxation that can allow you to just in general, feel more at ease with however it is that you’re relating. That can turn down that intensity a little bit.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I wish we lived in a world where– Maybe we will at some point, but I wish we lived in a world where it was normal and acceptable to tell someone that you’re about to hook up with, “I would really appreciate it if two days after this, you just check in with me, and we can talk a little bit about how things went, and what you enjoyed and what I enjoyed.” Just so they can still have that point of connection or whatever your request is. Because I feel right now, so few people are at that level of communication that it would come with the stigma of, “Oh. You’re just trying to hang on.” Instead of, “No, that just genuinely would feel nice.”

Kate Kenfield: Right. That’s just being a respectful human being. That doesn’t mean that you want to get married and have babies. Simply that you’re checking in about someone that you’ve had a lovely experience with. That’s just a kind, human thing to do. Yeah.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. If that’s not available, then being able to have a friend that you turn to just so that you can download the experience and share the feelings, and just have someone be there that’s receptive and can go over all the details with you in a way that feels good. Those are all wonderful self-care techniques that make those feelings a lot more tolerable when you’re not alone in them. 

Kate Kenfield: Yeah, absolutely.

Dawn Serra: Anything else for Rebecca?

Louise Bourchier: That’s all from me. 

Kate Kenfield: Yeah. All from me. 

Dawn Serra: All right. Well, Rebecca, I want to say, first of all, congratulations since you labeled exciting news. Congratulations on your intense makeout session and on getting fingered and on having all these feelings. Because now you’ve had the feelings, you can go do it again, and find new ways to manage the feelings. I hope that you do have fun exploring, and I hope that you report back and keep me posted on what’s next for you because it sounds like you’re off to a great start.

Louise Bourchier: Hope it all goes well, Rebecca.

Dawn Serra: Do we want the anal question, the kink question or the best friend fantasy question next?

Louise Bourchier: I want the anal one.

Kate Kenfield: Yeah. I think Louise wants the anal one. 

Dawn Serra: OK. Well, Pandora’s Box wrote in, subject line–

Kate Kenfield: That’s fantastic. 

Dawn Serra: Pandora’s Box wrote in with a subject line of “My boyfriend is the MacGyver of sex.” It says, “Hi, Dawn. I’ve known my boyfriend since we were in middle school, and we hated each other back then. But we recently ran into each other again, and now we are happily dating. I eventually started to find out that he loves anal all the ways – both giving and receiving. He also loves eating ass and all of that colorful shit…” That’s her phrasing. I think that’s kind of hysterical. 

She says, “However, my first and only anal experience was when I was 16, and the guy slammed into me and caused some damage. Needless to say, I swore it off. However, I really care about my boyfriend, and I trust him completely. What advice could you give me about anal sex and all those yummy bits that he likes? I know you have some podcasts on anal, but I would love a little help because I’m freaking out.”

So, butt stuff. We were just talking about butt stuff.

Louise Bourchier: Right. Yeah. Challenging situation. It’s so not rare that I hear people who have had unpleasant or somewhat traumatic first anal experiences. That makes me really sad because, for many people, anal’s a really pleasurable kind of sexual experience. But often, early encounters, especially when people are a bit younger, and haven’t got the right sex education about how to do it comfortably, means it can be really awful. I’ll give a few technical tips, and then we can hand over to you for some more of the relational advice. 

But my technical tips are take your time. Make sure you take plenty of time, in terms of within one encounter, give yourself plenty of time to play. But then also, time in terms of multiple encounters of anal play because it’s going to probably take a while before it feels comfortable to insert bigger things. If you want to have penis in anus sex, that’s going to be differently a build up, psychologically building up that comfortability, as well as the physical side. 

Louise Bourchier: So taking time, using lube. The anus is not self-lubricating so using lube. Silicon-based lube is really nice for many people, anally. But try out different ones, and see what works for you. And I would say start with a finger – ideally your finger which you have some control of, so you can feel the sensations. Then if you want to move up to two fingers and some small toys, that’s a great idea. 

Anal sensation or anal sexual exploration doesn’t have to be about penis and anus sex. Anal play can involve, as she mentioned, rimming – tongue on anus. It can involve your fingers, toys, all sorts of fun activities. The outside of the anus has lots of sensations. So you can make sure you’re really enjoying that external sensation before you try and go spelunking, as we call it – going on the inside. Yeah, that’s just really my tips. There are books, like Tristan Taormino has a great guide to anal sex for women, and that would be my recommended reading.

Kate Kenfield: Speaking of reading, too, I think that when you’re exploring anal play for the first time, I think it can also be nice to look at some erotica that features anal play in some ways. Because I think you have the physicality of the anal play experience, but also the psychological element of it to eroticize the experience, particularly when you’ve had a negative past experience. Because it sounds like this person is very open to having this new experience. I think it could be quite fun and beneficial to be reading erotic narratives of anal play being really hot. And even just reading sexy stories to her partner and incorporating that into into sex play, that may or may not feature actual anal play, but just having the words and the language around what sexy anal play could look like. 

Rachel Kramer Bussel has an anthology – I think it’s called “Baby Got Back” – that’s just full of lots of sexy anal play stories. It could be quite fun to explore. That maybe something could appeal to the mind as well as the bum.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I love so much that you mentioned, Louise, the outside. I mean, playing with that area, for me, is one of the most pleasurable parts of anal, of just having anal massage and fingers and the teasing. Sometimes that’s better than the actual penetration. I mean, it’s just so packed with sensation. Then it’s also like the mindfuck element a little bit, of knowing what could be coming and how long is this going to last? There’s all kinds of fun ways to play with anal in a way that doesn’t have to feel invasive. You don’t have to be afraid it’s going to hurt if you know that’s just the kind of play you’re going to be doing tonight. So you can fully relax into the experience, which is so important.

Louise Bourchier: Can I add another couple of points about anatomy? 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. 

Louise Bourchier: What I wanted to say is that often people think anal penetration has to hurt. Like it’s a necessary part of the process, some kind of devirginizing process. And that’s not true at all. Some people might have a bit of eroticism around having some discomfort around penetration, but that’s absolutely not something that has to be part of it. You could have very unpainful anal penetration, and that’s all about building up and stuff. 

It’s also about understanding anatomy. What I want to mention is that there’s two different rings of muscle. There’s the anus, the external sphincter, which you can think that one open, using your mind power. You can be like, “Oh, yeah. Opening, closing.” Whereas a little bit further end is a second ring of muscle, which you don’t have any voluntary control of. That’s what tends to cause pain and discomfort. People will put a little bit of a finger or a little bit of something, like a toy or penis, in the beginning of the butt. It feels really nice. But then once it gets a short way in, it hits that second ring of muscle which spasms that caused a lot of pain. So having a good understanding of the anatomy and what you’re working with is really, really helpful.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I would say, I’ve had really negative anal experiences. For me, that was really stored as some trauma in my ass. Anal play was something that was really difficult for me to relax into. So I started doing work around anal massage and playing with myself, since that was safe and I could control the situation. As I started trusting the experience and trusting my body, and as I started really feeling pleasure with what my partner was doing, it helped me to rewrite that story. I hope that Pandora, if you can do something similar, of completely letting go of that past experience, and then creating all of these new, fresh, yummy memories with your boyfriend.

Louise Bourchier: Absolutely. Good luck on your mission, Pandora. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And really quickly, he likes receiving anal. So I just want to throw in there for Pandora, that if you want to give to him, glove up, and as Louise said, use tons and tons and tons of lube. Just remember that it’s all about going really slow and letting him tell you what his body is ready for at his own pace. If you are feeling really adventurous at any point and get yourself a strap on, I just want to say, pegging can be really, really fun. Allow yourself the chance to explore that, if he’s open to it at some point. Because it can be a really fun way to connect, and also to swap out gender roles a little bit and do a little bit of power play. I think that can be a really fun place to go, if at any point, your butt starts to feel like it’s a little bit off limits. OK. Any other thoughts for Pandora’s Box on the butt stuff? Are we all butt stuff fans? I am–

Louise Bourchier: I think, yeah. I think it’s good. Yeah, I think it’s good. I’m hoping that’s some helpful info for Pandora.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. One last thing I just want to say is this episode’s going to air afterwards, but I’m doing an anal sex one-on-one class online. I’m probably going to be running it again just after the New Year. So Pandora, if you feel like you need more help where you can ask specific questions and you actually want to see examples of toys and lubes and things like that, keep an eye out because my online webinar is going to feature all the nitty-gritty, and the ins and outs of anal. 

Kate Kenfield: Butt sex puns.

Louise Bourchier: I was going to make a sex pun, Dawn, when you said, “See if your boyfriend is open to anal.” I was going to make an open joke. I missed that part, but I’m glad we had anal pun. Really great.

Dawn Serra: I told you I’m terrible at intentional pun,s but I unintentionally say them all the time. All right. I think we have time for one more. Do you want the kink one or the fantasizing about the best friend one? Or, do you want the orgasm-diabetes one.

Kate Kenfield: Ooh. So many choices.

Louise Bourchier: I’m with you Kate, you can make a decision on this one.

Kate Kenfield: Let’s do the kink one. 

Dawn Serra: OK. Curious Kink wrote in with a message asking about kink. It says, “My girlfriend and I are having some issues. She is into kink, while I have never been in a relationship where that was a part of it. We’ve been together for three and a half years, and there is a large age gap. She’s 40, and I’m 25. So to get this thing started, she wants me to research and try out kink. I’m all for it, but she’s afraid that I will get scared by what she’s into. I’m pretty tough–” Oh. It says, “I’m pretty tough when it comes to just about everything. I really just want to make sure she’s happy, and I want to be happy. So I was wondering, what should I do? 

I’ve done a little research, watched porn, read some articles of all different sorts about different types of kink. But since she’s older, she’s had a lot more experiences in life with both men and women around kink. And I’m at a loss of what my actions should do to please her. I want to know that I’m doing it right. I want to know that if I don’t like doing it, she won’t try and find it somewhere else. Any suggestions for getting started? Thanks for your help.”

Kate Kenfield: This is a great question. I would say that– I mean, the first thing is, if she’s been in a relationship with him for three and a half years, she’s probably pretty patient. I think if it was this super, super urgent need for her, I would imagine that she would have been finding a partner in the kink community three and a half years ago. I’d imagine that he can probably take a deep breath that she’s willing to let him learn, and go a little bit slowly. It sounds like they’re communicating really clearly. That this is something that can build over time. My first thought is also just about how they frame his upskill – since obviously, she’s the more experienced partner, and there’s like a power thing in that. I think the idea of doing a sex lab would be something that I would really think would be super appealing to them. Louise, do you want to explain– 

Louise Bourchier: Great idea. Oh, sure. Yeah. A sex lab is when you designate a time and a specific activity you’re going to work on to learn, basically to learn a new skill. Because often as adults, there’s a lot of pressure to be sexually competent. If we’re reading… I think what I can hear with what Curious Kink is saying is that he’s concerned about feeling incompetent or fumbling or not really being hot. She wants a certain kind of hot, kinky experience. He might be feeling self-conscious about going through the learning process of that. A sex lab is a way you just designate a time and an activity – “OK. This Saturday night, let’s have a little play with, I don’t know, spanking or something.” 

Like any experiment, it might not be successful. So you check in as you go along – “How’s this going? How could this be different?” The emphasis is not on being super hot and competent. The emphasis is on being curious and learning and being willing to say, “Woah! Maybe that didn’t work out perfectly.” And learning from that experience. So the idea being that when you do want to have hot and heavy, competent, sexy sex sex, then you can bring those skills to the table. But you’ve also had that learning environment first. Is that a good description, Kate? What do you reckon? 

Kate Kenfield: Yeah. Absolutely, spot on. Yeah. I think just in general, as adults, we have so much pressure to be super competent at everything right away. I think that’s just such a frustrating thing because there’s no absolute line where adulthood starts. Particularly with sexuality, because we’re not taught these things and we’re not given a comprehensive sexuality education that comprehensively prepares us for our adult sex lives. Inevitably, we’re going to be fumbling a little bit as we acquire these skills as grownups. 

I love this idea of a sex lab, where you can take the pressure off to be immediately expert at something. It really is just this time and space to have curiosity be the goal, and really give yourself permission to upskill. Particularly with something like kink, whether there’s a technical element, as well as a psychological element, and feeling out how each partner reacts to certain kinds of stimuli can be a really useful framework for building that up and feeling more comfortable with something new.

Louise Bourchier: I’m also curious what kind of kink she’s into because it sounds like maybe he’s feeling a little overwhelmed because she’s brought kink onto the table and he’s like, “Ahhh! I’ve got to learn about spanking and rope and different kinds of power dynamics.” Perhaps his not getting the precision that could be helpful for him, if she was to say like, “This is something that I really like to try.” I’m not sure if this is a situation where she wants him to be dominant or submissive, those kinds of things. Not knowing what’s on the cards can be quite stressful.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I was going to say the same thing because as you tumble into the vast world of kink, and you start to realize that there’s literally endless options for how kink can be played out and experienced, it can feel really overwhelming, especially if you feel like you have to learn multiple things at once.

Louise Bourchier: Yes, absolutely.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. So finding ways to really zero in on specifically what is she most interested in and starting there, but also staying open to learning about kink that maybe she’s not interested in or hasn’t mentioned. Because maybe Curious Kink is going to find that his girlfriend is really into rope and impact play. But maybe he finds that he’s into humiliation. Granting the permission for him to have an experience that’s separate from hers of kink. Just all of the delicious ways that kink can really be. 

I love the sex lab idea because I think the scariest thing about kink is when you usually meet someone who’s into it, they already have so much experience, it feels like there’s no way you can ever possibly catch up. So finding ways to get those skills, either doing a sex lab at home or going to workshops in your local kink community, can be a really fantastic way to learn. 

Dawn Serra: I mean, for me, so many kink skills require hands-on learning. Personally, I never ever would have tried throwing a single tail whip on my own at home. I just never would have. But I saw some friends doing it, and I got to experience it and see what it felt like. Then he volunteered to, not only use it on me, but teach me how to throw it. He was able to position my hand and my arm, and I was doing it on a wall. It felt really safe because I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. 

For me, so much of kink is actually meeting someone to position my body or to show me how to do the tie, or to show me the different ways that I can throw something. Being able to either be in an in-person class or to do something like kinkacademy.com, where you have access to 1,400 how-to videos from all the world’s leading kinksters. That can be another way to feel like you’re upping your game and your skill. 

Kate Kenfield: Yeah, absolutely.

Louise Bourchier: Yeah. There are some book resources like Tristan Taormino’s “The Ultimate Guide to Kink.” That can be a good place to start as well. And there’s the book of topping and the book of bottoming. What’s the title?

Dawn Serra: Yeah, by Dossie Easton? 

Louise Bourchier: By Dossie Easton, exactly. Those three books would be a really great place to start as well.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I know if humiliation is at all on the table, Princess Kali just came out with her erotic humiliation book, “Enough to Make You Blush.” If submission or dominance is a part of it, Sinclair Sexsmith runs online workshops all about dominance and submission. There’s tons of amazing resources out there. Sinclair and Princess Kali have both been on the show. Hopefully, Curious Kink, at least, has those resources. But, yeah. 

I think, for me, the number one takeaway around this is, one, she’s with you for a reason. 

Kate Kenfield: Absolutely. 

She’s not going to expect you to be amazing at all the kink things right away because she clearly cares about Curious Kink. Then also, doing these sex labs, that sounds so fun to me. An opportunity to be bad at something, but in a planned way. That sounds great. I can fail and my ego doesn’t have to be on the line because we planned for this failure. So it’s OK.

Kate Kenfield: Sex labs are so much fun.

Louise Bourchier: They are so much fun. Also, even if you’ve got to most competent, kinky people who have done everything before, there’s always going to be a process of learning a new partner, whether that happens quickly or slowly A sex lab context is just a place where you can try things out and say, “Oh, hey. Is this hot for you? Is being called a slut something you want or is that something that’s really unhot for you. Having those discussions is going to be really important, regardless of the person’s level of skill or experience. So, yeah. Go for it.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I mean, I think what you just brought up, Louise, is so important. Even if you have super, super advanced experienced kinksters, there’s still that period of negotiation in trying to get to know, “How are we going to play because the way I play with my last partner could be totally different from the way that you like to play?” So just having the skills of being able to ask really good questions and to negotiate, that’s going to get you so much farther than knowing how to do a couple knots.

Louise Bourchier: Yeah, absolutely. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I hope Curious Kink that you find a way to make this learning experience something that’s really fun for not only you, but for the both of you. And to use it as an opportunity to bond and to create new memories together, versus something that feels like a point of stress or a burden that you feel like you have to play catch up or something like that. Hopefully, Louise and Kate’s suggestions will help you to reframe this as an opportunity for something really awesome, versus something to be super scared of and kind of like this point of disconnection. Good luck in all the kink stuff ‘cause they’re so much fun. 

Louise Bourchier: Good luck, Curious Kink.

Dawn Serra: OK. Well, we are at the end of our hour, and we answered some awesome questions from some listeners. Louise, I want to start with you. How can people stay in touch with you if they want to find out about workshops you’re doing or just what’s going on, and where can they find you?

Louise Bourchier: I would love people to stay in touch with me. I can be found at louisebourchier.com. We’ll put the link somewhere because my name is not completely normal spelling. My last name is BOURCHIER. My website’s louisebourchier.com. On Twitter and Instagram, I’m Louise Labouche, which just is a little bit of a nod to my French speaking-ness, which is another feather in my cap. That means Louise with the mouth in French. So Louise LABOUCHE on Instagram and Twitter.

Dawn Serra: Kate, how can people find you and stay in touch?

Kate Kenfield: Yeah. I am at katekenfield.com, which is where you can sign up for my newsletter, and read my blogs, and see where I am in the world, and read more about Tea & Empathy and all that sort of thing. On Twitter, I am @Katecom – KATECOM. On Instagram, I am @katekenfield.

Dawn Serra: I will have all of the links to all of the things that Louise and Kate just mentioned dawnserra.com for this episode. I just want to take a quick moment to thank the two of you for joining me all the way from New Zealand to help field with all these delicious questions.

Kate Kenfield: So, so my pleasure, Dawn. It’s so delightful to be here. I love getting interviewed with Louise. This is something that we’ve been teaching together for five years now, but it’s been recent that we’ve been getting interviewed together. It’s like getting to teach with her, but different and fun and casual. It’s fantastic.

Dawn Serra: In bed

Kate Kenfield: In bed. I know.

Louise Bourchier: Well, Kate is in bed. I’m on a desk. But that’s a whole other story. Yeah, thank you so much for having us, Dawn. It’s been so, so good talking to you. So good for us both to be on here together. Yeah, it’s been really, really fun. I’m so glad we made this happen. Thanks for having us.

Dawn Serra: I want to thank all of our listeners who wrote in, and also who tuned in and listened. Of course, if you have your own questions or comments, you can write to me. Just head to dawnserra.com. There’s a contact form where you can submit questions, either anonymously or share your information, if you want to reply. Be sure to follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook – @SexGetsReal. I will be talking to you next week. This is Dawn Serra. Until then. Bye!