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This week it’s just you and me, working our way through some rad listener questions.

It starts with some listener love from an episode I did around the election last year. Sometimes I feel a little nervous to share political stuff – like the oppression episode and the abortion episode, but I trust you to hold space even if we disagree.

I will be having a vendor booth at the Vancouver Dyke March. YAY!

Of course, I got love for Amarna Miller’s interview in Episode 168 and Ruby Bouie Johnson’s polyamory chat on Episode 166. Gavin appreciated Amarna’s views on ethical porn and her deliberate choice to share herself on film. Me, too!

It’s so frustrating to me that we still need to constantly prove to the world that sex workers are people with agency and complex stories. But, I’m grateful it means I get to connect with amazing folks like Amarna and Andre Shakti and Kitty Stryker and Conner Habib…

Michelle wanted to know about the fat-friendly wedge pillow I mentioned a few years back. That was the Liberator wedge and I highly recommend it.

Jes wrote in with feelings she had about my Orgasmic Meditation episode. Let’s make sure we all move into spaces that combine sex with other things like money or spirituality with an open mind and also a healthy dose of skepticism. Abuse is SO easy in these spaces because we’re all moving through so much shame.

T.S. is struggling with a lot of anger and big feelings. Her friend’s dad just cheated on her friend’s mom and she doesn’t understand why. How can she support her friend and her friend’s mom and how can she process her feelings about it? Why do people cheat?

I have lots of thoughts, and explore so many of the reasons people might cheat and why it doesn’t mean a lack of love, even if it does mean lots of pain and hurt.

Ethan gets aroused by screenprinting on t-shirts and clothing. He wonders is this a fetish that others have? Where can he learn more? It’s not a fetish, per se, but he gets very turned on by the look and smell and even taste of screenprinted letters. I weigh in.

Zak needs help. His wife hates his cum and he wants her to love it. How can he get her to open up to the idea? Also, why doesn’t she have any fantasies? I have big thoughts about “making” someone like anything. Instead, how can we create relationships full of openness, vulnerability, and curiosity, so that we can share our desires without feeling judged or like we have to force other people to change? Shout out to Wendy Strgar for developing fantasies.

Curious about signing up for my newsletter? Sign up here to get a kinky Yes No Maybe list or sign up here to get a 5-video course on desire and libido. I recent wrote about the politics of pleasure and how many of us are skeptical of pleasure. Someone wrote back something really beautiful that I want to share.

Miss B is worried about the age difference between her and her new partner. They’re having AMAZING sex and they’re in love, but will there come a time when the age becomes a problem?

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

About Dawn Serra

I am the creator and host of the laughter-filled, no-holds-barred weekly podcast, Sex Gets Real. I lecture at colleges and universities on sex and relationships, too.

When I’m not speaking and teaching, I also work one-on-one with clients who need to get unstuck around their pleasure and desire.

But it’s not all work! In my downtime, I can often be found watching an episode of Masterchef Australia, cooking up something delicious, or adventuring with my sexy AF husband.

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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! It is just you and me today for this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I have a ton of emails, both comments and questions that I’ve been holding on to, and I’m super excited to dive in and hear from all of you. Let’s just start with the first email that I have. I literally just have a long list of about ten, and we’ll see where we end up. 

Dawn Serra: The first one was a text message that I got. I don’t have the person’s name. But it just says, “Dawn, I am a new fan, new listener to your show on Spotify, and you fucking rock. Oh, my god! The emotions heard in your voice and what that brought up for me in your oppression talk after the election has me falling in love with you as a human being. You are the best. I’m an older guy who obviously missed out on a whole lot of second chakra stuff, so rock on. You’re the best. Best wishes for love and great sex.” 

Yay! Thank you so much. That was a hard episode for me to record. The show is about sex, and of course, started with all of the adventures that Dylan and I went on and has expanded to include so many other things. We’ll continue to document exciting things. For instance, I just signed up to have a booth at the Vancouver Dyke March. It’s going to be super exciting to connect with all of these lesbian and dyke and queer women and folks of all genders in the community. And to just let them know like, “Hey, I’m new to your area. I do sex and relationship coaching.” We are going to have all kinds of super fun giveaways. I am sure that’s going to yield some fun stories. 

Dawn Serra: Also, Alex and I just got passes to the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. It’s actually a 10-day festival that’s nothing but queer films. I am expecting amazing things to come out of that. There are lots of things to try in this city and so many adventures to be had that I’m excited to share. I have interviews that are already waiting in the can to make it on to the airwaves. So just lots of really exciting stuff. But sometimes sharing the personal feelings, the failures, the fears, even just my political views. 

The internet’s a pretty terrible place for a lot of us, especially if we’re women or if we’re fat or if we’re marginalized in some way. So trusting all of you to be able to hold space for that, even if you disagree, it feels good. I know that I can do that. But sometimes it’s also scary, so it was really nice to get that text message. Thank you to whoever wrote that in. I appreciate it so much. 

Dawn Serra: I also got another comment. It was about the Amarna Miller episode that just aired last week. Of course, people can comment on dawnserra.com for each episode. So if you didn’t know you could do that, you can head over to dawnserra.com and find an episode that you’re interested in listening to. You can listen to every single episode from the podcast, plus loads of details and links for all of the speakers and the adventures and the articles. But you can also leave comments. 

I got a comment from someone named Gavin. It said, “One of the most beautiful aspects of ethical porn, other than the wonderful films produced under its auspices, is also everything that surrounds it, like the interview itself. Interviews given in conventional mode of porn, almost instantly go to the proverbial gutter, with rapid questions about when virginity was lost, first anal scene, facial preference and so forth. There’s a time and a place for the vulgar. But the vulgar without sophistication just becomes the plain old vulgar of conventional porn. 

The teasing out and displaying of Amarna’s mind and spirit in this interview is a beautiful sort of voyeurism in itself. To then know she’s willing to let us see her in her most intimate and passionate moments makes the complete nature of ethical pornography and its performers in an evolution over the vulgar conventional porn that it hopes to be. The more intelligent and thoughtful we are about this, the more we can actually enjoy all-rolling in the smooth, warm, slippery, beautiful mud together.” 

Dawn Serra: I thought that was such a thoughtful comment. So thank you so much for leaving that, Gavin. Amarna is super fun and super thoughtful. It’s really frustrating to me that kind of conventional logic in our world still dictates that sex workers are victims, that sex workers need to be saved, that sex workers are contributing to oppression. As shitty as it is to have to prove otherwise, because that in itself is a form of oppression, I love just having the opportunity to actually showcase the beautiful artistry and thoughtfulness and politics and deliberate choices. Even just the deliberate grappling with really hard questions like what happened with the Kitty Stryker interview. That is the truth behind so many sex workers experiences. Amara was delightful, and I hope to have her on the show again at some point. And I appreciate that comment Gavin. So thank you. 

I got an email from someone named Michelle, and it says, “Plus size sex enhancer.” Michelle wrote, “Hi there. I heard an episode once where you shared some items including doggy style straps. I think you also mentioned a wedge pillow. Can you share the name of the pillow? Will the pillow go flat or flabby after a while? Will it support my plus size weight? Any advice you can provide would be amazing. I recently got in a relationship with an average-sized man, and I’m super afraid to be on top. He gets overheated easily and often stops as my body is just making the climb. Then after a while of going from 65% to 0%, I give up. So I wanted to get some enhancer items to help our sex life. Please help.” 

Dawn Serra: I already wrote back to Michelle. But that wedge pillow that I was talking about is by Liberator. Liberator makes really high quality sex furniture and things like pillows that you could form into different shapes and wedge pillows and circular pillows for sex enhancement. They’re pretty expensive. There’s lots of other companies out there that make similar type furniture and pillows that I think are a little more affordable. But one thing I will say is, even the Liberator is pretty pricey, the quality of the product is something that I’ve found to be super fantastic. 

The wedge pillow comes in a standard size, and then a plus-size size. The standard size works great for me even with my fat body, and it doesn’t ever collapse. It hasn’t gotten soft, the way that lots of pillows can after use. Now, maybe a couple of years down the road it will be a different story. But the Liberator wedge that Alex has is a couple of years old. We’ve used it a number of times, and it is still just as firm and plump as it was the first time that I ever saw it. There is a plus-size wedge, but I want to warn you, a friend of mine got it, it’s enormous. So if you’re hoping to have something discreet, that’s not it. Now, that said, you can probably do a lot more on the plus-size wedge and lots of other positions to support your body in a variety of ways. They also have Liberator sofas and huge pieces of furniture that would dominate a room. So have fun shopping for it. It comes vacuum-packed, so it’s really really, really, really heavy. But they actually get it down into a pretty small box. Most people are going to have no idea what it is that you’re having shipped to you. 

Dawn Serra: A lot of feminist and body positive sex stores have smaller Liberator products. So definitely check that out. It’s a great thing to have if you’re in any kind of body. But especially if you’re in a body like a fat body or a body that has certain types of disabilities, if you’ve got a bad back or bad knees. I mean, use all of these things to have the sex that you want to have, to have your body supported in ways that feels great. I’m glad you wrote in and asked, Michelle. I hope that you check that out and that it offers some interesting and creative new ways to connect in this new relationship of yours. 

I recently did an episode on Orgasmic Meditation or OMing. I was expecting a pretty serious backlash because people involved in OMing tend to be really, really involved in OMing. I got an email from Jes about the OMing episode. Jes said, “Hi, Dawn. I’ve been listening to your podcast for a couple of years now, and I’ve always loved it. I just listened to the episode on OMing and I wanted to say thank you. I’ve experienced an OM and have learned a lot about the culture. But I haven’t had the words to describe the feelings of distrust I’ve felt towards it until hearing your episode. It’s also made many other experiences that mixed sexuality and spirituality with cult like leaders make sense for me. So thank you.” 

Dawn Serra: I just want to say to Jes, thank you so much for writing in. That was why I wanted to air that episode. There are so many different things in our world that mix sexuality with other things – sexuality and business, sexuality and spirituality, sexuality and pleasure. But because we live in a culture that is not sexually proficient, even the most experienced and the most educated of us still have all of this baggage that we have to constantly unpack and all of this shame we’re constantly facing because of the cultural soup we’re living in. It’s not that I don’t want people to try things. If you’re interested in Orgasmic Meditation, absolutely check it out or something similar. If you’re interested in Tantra, absolutely check it out.

But what I want people to do is to go in with eyes wide open. It’s OK to be open to the experience, but also go in just knowing that there’s the possibility for people to so easily trigger our shame responses, to make us feel like we have to pay this money in order to be relieved from our shame and pain. That it’s OK to let people push our boundaries if we aren’t quite sure what those boundaries are. I want people to just think about that when they go into these situations. 

Dawn Serra: Of course, people doing good work should get paid. Doing things in the sexuality field and paying money isn’t inherently bad. If you have someone that’s offering education or who’s partnering with you in a sex work exchange or who’s created something like porn or erotica, of course, you should pay them for their time and their expertise, and the things that they’re sharing with you. But let’s also try to remember that if someone’s charging you thousands and thousands of dollars, there better be something really special you’re getting from that, and you better be able to talk to lots of other people who’ve had very critical and skeptical thoughts about that, and tell you how they came through that process. I hope that OM episode was interesting to others. If nothing else, just gives all of us something to think about. And to Jes, specifically, thank you so much for listening for several years and for writing in. It meant a lot to me. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from someone named T.S. I exchanged a few emails with them just to learn a little bit more about the situation. I wanted to share it here and offer some more in depth thoughts. T.S. said, “We’ve exchanged emails before, but today I have a question. Growing up, and to this day, I’m super against unethically cheating. I think it’s wrong, and I’ll still yell at the TV every time Miranda takes Steve back in the Sex and the City movie. Recently, my friend’s dad cheated on her mom, and now they’re getting a divorce. All of us were shocked and hurt because we didn’t think he was that type of person. I was angry because his actions hurt people I love dearly. For a while, I was unsure how to interact with him. Should I ever see him by myself?

Dawn Serra: I’ve binged your podcast. I’m all caught up. I’m currently working through the Savage Lovecast. Both of you have talked about cheating. In the episode I’m on, Ira Glass talks about his mom and her take on cheating. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her. He just wants something more. I’ve grown a lot thanks to you and Dan Savage, but I’m now at a crossroads of my take on cheating. I still think it’s awful, and the cheating person is a scumbag. But I’m hoping you can offer advice about cheating and where to go from here. I’m trying to be open-minded, but I’m conflicted.”

I actually wrote back and said that this is something I love to dig into the podcast, that I have experienced being cheated on. I’ve lived the experience of being part of a cheating dynamic, and it’s super complicated. You know I love talking about this topic. I think one of the things that’s important for us to remember is, I think that there’s different types of betrayal. One is when someone goes into a situation knowing that they’re going to manipulate someone, that they’re not really going to abide by any of the agreements. They’re going to lie to them from the beginning. Often culturally, we label this like a dog or a player. But it’s someone who has no intention of actually abiding by agreements from the very beginning. And that to me is just abusive. 

Dawn Serra: Then there’s other kinds of infidelity. If you’re familiar with Esther Perel’s work… Actually, there’s lots of people who talk about this, but Esther is one of the most famous because of her TED Talk. There are lots of people who go into relationship and deeply love the person that they’re with. At some point during the relationship – it might be six months in, it might be 20 years in – there’s been some type of ignoring of self. A feeling like needs aren’t getting met. That they’ve changed as a person. That they have lied to themselves about something unknowingly. There’s this pain that starts coming up. 

Often, we’re super lonely in a relationship. We are in a world that does not teach us the most basic relationship skills. Most of us are flying blind and just pretending our way through what a grown up relationship looks like, without actually knowing, “How do I have these conversations? What happens when I start realizing, for years needs haven’t gotten met, and being afraid of hurting someone?” 

Dawn Serra: There are a lot of people who actually do cheat and do betray and still deeply love the person that they’re betraying. This isn’t to excuse the behavior. But it is to say often there’s all kinds of circumstances that are leading to someone making this really difficult choice. We should have compassion as much as we can for everyone involved, while, of course, really taking care of the person who’s been betrayed. 

But Esther Perel is really, really, really known for saying that often the person that’s been hurt the most is the person who goes off and actually does the betraying because the other person in the marriage is constantly shutting them down or berating them or not interested in hearing what their needs are. This is super common in relationships, where culturally, it’s OK to belittle cis men and to talk about what children they are. There might be some truth to that. But to actually belittle your partner on a regular basis is just a recipe for someone to feel so invisible and unheard, that the second someone comes along who actually makes them feel like a whole human being again, that’s pretty fucking tempting. 

Dawn Serra: Of course, we want to be doing everything from an ethical perspective. And that takes a lot of really painful conversations sometimes and feelings we don’t know how to deal with. Because, again, we’re a culture that does not teach us any kind of emotional literacy. 

Anyway, I shared some of that or shorter version to T.S. I also said that my recommendation is just to offer as much support as you can to your friend’s mom, and to also try and hold some space for the pain that your friend’s dad may have been in, in order to even choose something like this. It’s OK to be angry in these situations as T.S. is. It’s OK to have big complicated feelings. You’re allowed to sit in those. Of course, just because we have big feelings doesn’t mean that we can mistreat other people. I think the key in this space is to grieve, to be angry, to feel confused, to not know what type of a relationship you want to have with your friend’s dad. Just try to avoid actually then behaving badly towards this person. 

Dawn Serra: T.S. wrote back and said, “I’ve been thinking about what to reply since I got your email because I’m trying to remove myself from the situation. It isn’t my family. My duty is to be there for them and not worry so much about how it affects me. After thinking over what you said, I wonder, what does it mean when despite being offered therapy to get through it, he declines and moves out, rather than continuing the relationship? That seems to fall outside of the types of cheating you outlined, and I really do want to understand. But I’ll read Esther Perel’s book, and I’ll work to understand it better. Thank you so much for your guidance.” 

It can be easier to end things than to face things. Because, let me be clear, it is possible to overcome betrayal in a relationship and actually come out the other side stronger. But it takes years, often, of work because it can be highly traumatic for someone to be betrayed on that level. Terry Real, who is a marriage and couples therapist, has been working for over 30 years. He’s got a couple of books. He likes to say that it takes anywhere from two to five years for someone to really start to actually forgive and trust again after there’s been a betrayal. That’s not to say that it’s not possible. But it is to say that for the person who did the betraying, they have to be able to sit in that place of not being fully trusted, of seeing the pain in that other person’s eyes and knowing it was because of something they did for years. 

Dawn Serra: For some people, it’s worth it. For some people, what comes out of that is new ways to have conversations, new ways to actually say, “What’s really going unsaid? Why is this pain here? Why do I feel so lonely?” And to start actually acquiring some of those skills that I wish more of us had in the beginning. I hate that it takes a crisis for so many of us to really start to understand like, “Hey, I’m not super skilled at this relationship thing. I’m just winging it and pretending and copying what I’ve seen on TV before we actually start leveling up.” But it’s possible. It can happen, and you can rebuild that trust. But it takes work and a lot of it over a long period of time from everyone involved. 

To T.S., your friend’s dad might have so much shame about what he did. He might be in so much pain. He may have actually made this decision to cheat very unconsciously without even really understanding why he was doing it. Then once he did, he had an awakening that maybe he’s been unhappy for years. 

Dawn Serra: And you can be unhappy and love someone. I think that’s another myth that we have in our culture. You can deeply love someone and also be deeply unhappy or deeply lonely. We are such complex human beings. So for him to decide, “I don’t want to go to therapy, and I think we just need to end things,” maybe that was a truth that he’s been carrying with him for years, but he didn’t know how to actually do it. Because he was so afraid of pulling the plug and hurting his family. Then he did something rather drastic that ended up crushing them. Or, maybe he really does love her, and he really does want things to work out. But he also knows that to put in this kind of work is just going to be way too painful. So there are so many complicating factors that go into this. 

Of course, it’s not to excuse behavior that’s really harmful and hurtful. We all owe the people in our lives to always show up the best that we can. We also aren’t a culture that understands ourselves. We have not been taught how to look within for the answers. We don’t know what it is that we want in bed half the time. We don’t know what our needs are, and we can’t clearly articulate them around relationships often until it’s too late. So if we can’t even name those things inside of ourselves, how can we possibly communicate them to others and doing it in a way that sets us both up for success? 

Dawn Serra: Relationships are complicated. All of us are just doing our best. Yes, there are people out there who are just terrible people and who really have some shit they need to work through. But I think for the most part, there are absolutely situations, like your friends, parents, who probably had a pretty good life and who probably cared about each other a whole lot, but just had a series of things that slowly got ignored or neglected or not talked about. There’s the potential that they were both hurting really, really badly and that one person ended up finding solace and comfort in the arms of another. While the other one found solace and comfort in just trying to pretend like things were OK. Then they ended up at this place. So definitely check out Esther Perel. I think Terry Real has a book called, “The New Rules of Marriage,” that is, I think interesting, just worth at least skimming. There are lots of other skills and workbooks and all kinds of things. 

But I think when it comes specifically to infidelity, remembering, one, is it our place to be involved in this. If it’s not, then all that we can really do is hold space. It’s not helpful to a friend or to family members to just add fuel to the fire. To sit there empathetically and hold that space, and allow their rage is one thing. But to say, “Oh, my god! He’s such an asshole. You deserve better,” that can be really invalidating to the person that still loves the person who did this hurtful thing. 

Dawn Serra: I think for T.S., unpacking all of this, it’s not something that you just do once. It’s a constant conversation. It’s constantly asking questions. It’s allowing yourself to just be uncomfortable and not really know what you think or what you feel. And that’s super OK. You can be angry, and you can be hurt. You can hold space. But it’s also not your place to insert yourself into their experiences and their family hurt. 

So I hope that was helpful. Thank you so much for writing in. I know there are lots of people listening who have been in many circumstances around cheating and lying and betrayal. It hurts and it’s awful. And it can be super traumatizing. That was definitely my experience. I’m still struggling with trust issues because of what I went through. But that’s not to say that I’m not healing and growing each and every day. And that can be true for all of us. So thank you, T.S. I hope that was helpful. 

Dawn Serra: I got an email from Ethan. It says, “A fetish of mine I’ve never heard of or seen before.” “Hi, Dawn. I listened to you for the first time today on Spotify. I don’t know exactly what it was about you, but you seem to just be really open and someone who genuinely listens and wants to offer their opinion when you can. My topic is somewhat mislabeled. I don’t have a fetish per se for this because it doesn’t affect my ability to find pleasure in sex without its presence. It’s just something that I’ve really liked for a while. I’ve searched for this “fetish” before, and I’ve never seen anyone mention it. It’s never come up in conversations before either. 

I know this sounds bizarre, but I’m really into the material that comprises the screen print on shirts and other clothing. But it has to be on a piece of clothing. I am especially aroused by letters that are printed on clothing. It’s a multitude of factors that go into it. It’s the way the letters look when being pressed tightly against breasts that I really like. I like the way they crinkle and fold when the clothing is tight. I like the way they feel in my mouth. I also think they have a scent to them that I enjoy. If they’re printed on a ribbed tank top and the letters are starting to stretch or rip at the edges, I like it even more. I also like when this material is printed on booty shorts or panties. 

Dawn Serra: As I stated before, I’ve never seen anyone discuss this or share it. But I would really like to know if there’s a term for this just so I can see other points of view around the subject. I’ve liked this ever since I can remember being into girls. I’ve purposely bought girlfriend’s clothing for gifts that fulfill this and asked them to wear it for me. I’ve never really directly told a woman that I like this because it’s just hard to explain. I told someone I was hooking up with after she asked why I always asked her to wear a certain shirt, and she said it was weird. Like I mentioned before, I don’t in any way need this to enjoy sexual contact. I don’t use this material when I pleasure myself. But I’m finding that I just really prefer this, and it has become more prevalent as the years go by. So if you heard of this or have any information on it, thank you so much, Dawn. I plan to keep listening regularly, and I hope you can supply me with some insight. 

Well, first of all, thank you for writing in Ethan. I super appreciate that you listened to an episode and decided to write in with your questions. So thank you for trusting me with that. I did a little bit of research, and I wasn’t able to find anything. But that could also just be because often, fetishes have very unique language associated with them. When you’re not in the club, it’s really hard to find things. There’s so many people in the world who super enjoy being tied up and dominated, but have no idea what BDSM is, so they wouldn’t even know to search for it. 

Dawn Serra: I’m not saying there aren’t other people that don’t enjoy this. I’m just saying that my searches didn’t yield anything, probably because I’m not using the right language. I also think there could be some similarities between your interests and people who enjoy other types of clothing adhering to bodies and/or clothing that have certain types of textures and smells. There are absolutely people out there who have rubber and latex fetishes. They love the smell of the rubber or latex. They love the shine. They love the way that it adheres to the body and accentuates certain curves and certain edges. And I’m finding some similarities in what you’re sharing with the screen printing. There’s people out there who probably have something super similar. It might not be the exact same. They may not experience it the same, but there’s going to be similarities for sure around apparel, and the way that they hang on bodies and the smell and the feel and the sound. So absolutely supernormal. 

If I ever come across something that is more specific, like the screen printing, I will be sure to share that on the show. If anybody listening has any ideas, I know there’s lots of kinksters who listen to the show, if you’ve heard of this before, and you know of any groups or any phrasing that we can look up… I’m sure there’s some groups on FetLife that might be worth a search, Ethan, if you’re not already on FetLife, just because that’s where lots and lots of gangsters gathered to talk about all kinds of stuff. So if you go on FetLife and you just search for screenprinting or t-shirts, I’m 1,000% certain you’re going to find some people who have already turned that into a fetish, even if there’s not a group. 

Dawn Serra: Thank you for being super articulate and sharing this with us. I think that it’s really wonderful for all of us to give ourselves permission to just name it without feeling like we have to pathologize it. That’s something I really appreciated about your email. That you don’t seem to be experiencing distress around this thing that you can’t name or haven’t found community around. But you’re simply appreciating this is a part of you, and you’re not quite sure if there’s others out there like it and you’re curious. But it’s not impeding your sexual pleasure in any way. So I love that. It feels very integrated. 

I think the key is when we start integrating others into our fantasies, making sure that it’s consensual – Do they understand what the thing is that’s meaningful to you? So that they can opt in or opt out, and also help participate. It’s not going to hurt somebody to wear a certain type of clothing or cost them pain or harm. It might be different. It might be something they’ve never thought of, and they’re allowed to have those feelings. ButI can certainly say that if someone I cared about said, “I just really, really, really love this one type of shirt because of this thing. It super turns me on,” even if I didn’t understand it, there’ll be a part of me that’s like, “OK. Well, now I know to wear this thing because it turns you on. That’s a super fun little tidbit to know.” I hope everybody listening just feels how much you’re giving yourself permission around this. Of course, if anyone has information, pass it along. You can head to dawnserra.com to contact me.

Dawn Serra: Speaking of Sex Gets Real, your support on Patreon would be amazing. I just had my “Sex is a Social Skill” group call last week. We talked about feeling cherished. We had this awesome online video chat, where we were talking about ways we cherish ourselves, and ways we feel cherished in a relationship, and ways that people we love feel cherished and how it’s different from us. Even got us talking about setting boundaries and having healthy conversations around our needs. And it was so wonderful. These calls happen every two weeks. They’re live online video with me and other people in the community and who listen to the show. 

First, you can totally sign up for the “Sex is a Social Skill” group call. If you want to, there’s a link in the show notes for this episode. But Patreon supporters at the $20 level and above get free access to those calls. But of course, you can totally support it like the dollar level and that would be amazing. So check it out. patreon.com/sgrpodcast to see all of the options and the goodies. And let’s move on with the show. 

Dawn Serra: Bella Dare wrote in with a subject line that said, “Opened my eyes.” “I just caught your episode with Ruby on polyamory. I seriously wanted to thank you. I tried poly once to disastrous results. While I’d already realized what some of the mistakes I made in that relationship were, the two of you made me realize some of my misconceptions, thinking that I owed the male of our triad sex, even though I’m a lesbian. Figuring out that problems I already had with one of them was indeed multiplied by another individual. Your podcast gives me the courage to look into BDSM. Now, I’m thinking that maybe I could try a respectful poly relationship again after I do a little more of my self-awareness and soul searching.” 

Thank you so much for writing in. Ruby is amazing and putting incredible things out into the world. So I’m so glad that that was helpful and resonated with you. She’s hysterical, and I would love to have her back on the show at some point.

Dawn Serra: I got a text a couple of months ago from someone named Zak. It says, “Hello! I’m 37, and I’ve been married for nearly 10 years. I’ve been listening to some of your older episodes – number 40, specifically. I apologize if this text is a bit detailed or graphic. That’s why I’m texting instead of calling. You’ve talked about precum and the taste and how some girls really love the taste of cum. I’m extremely sexual, and my wife is less so. It’s a rare day that her mouth travels to my dick, and she doesn’t ever swallow my cum. I’ve always wanted her to want it more, even if it’s not her swallowing it. 

I’ve been with women in the past that can’t get enough – in their mouth, on their face, all over them. I miss that. I love my wife, but she does not share my fantasies in any way about loving my cum. She’s really not that into any kind of oral, even for her. I don’t get it. Every time we fuck, I cum inside her and she loves that. So how do I get her to open up more? More than that she never shares any fantasies with me. How do I try things without freaking her out? I guess I should have elaborated with a longer email. Zak.” 

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for writing in, Zak. There’s a couple of things that we need to unpack around this. The first, is your wife is allowed to not like cum. She’s just allowed to have that preference. There are people who like all kinds of things and don’t like all kinds of other things. It doesn’t make them bad or wrong. It just makes them who they are. So just like some of us really love pickles and others of us really hate mushrooms. Then we don’t expect people to try and talk us out of those preferences. If they do, we probably think they’re a little bit of a jackass that’s dismissing us. 

The same goes for sex. Some of us really like being spanked. Others of us are like, “That totally takes me out of my pleasure moment.” The same is true for cum. There are some people who really love it. They actually might not like the cum itself. They might like what cum represents. They might like feeling very taboo and dirty. They might like feeling they’re doing something that’s super, super against the grain. And it’s less about the cum and more about the act. Then there’s probably people out there who’s super, super just love the taste. They like that taste. It’s less about being dirty and more just about having acquired a taste for that particular person’s cum. 

Dawn Serra: So your wife is allowed to not like it, and you’re allowed to have feelings about that. But that’s for you to really deal with. It’s not for you to try and find ways to manipulate your wife into enjoying your cum or to trick her into wanting it. She gets to want what she wants, and you get to have feelings about that. But it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with either of you. It’s just there is a difference. 

And sometimes differences are super hot. Sometimes that frustration can actually increase passion. Other times, it’s just disappointing. But you, Zak, need to care for yourself around that, instead of trying to change your wife or to show her why what she’s doing isn’t good enough. In the long run, if we’re constantly telling our partner that we need them to be different, it actually just drives home that we feel like there’s something wrong with them or that they’re not good enough. And that’s a pretty terrible way to treat somebody that we love. 

Dawn Serra: So let her not like it. Find other ways to integrate the fact that you love your cum into your fantasies or into the ways that you play with yourself or in the porn that you watch. All of that’s super valid because it’s about your experience. 

That said, we are also a society that shames folks, especially women and people who are marginalized, about their sexuality. We’re raised thinking that cum is gross. We’re told that it’s dirty. We’re told that it tastes bad. We’re told that only certain types of girls or women do certain types of things with cum. Of course, mainstream porn doesn’t help that because it just takes its way out to the nth degree. Then I think it just reinforces these cultural dialogues around our body – that our genitals and anything that comes out of them is gross, which absolutely isn’t true. But if that’s a message we’ve received our whole lives, it’s probably one we’re going to carry for most of our lives, too. 

Dawn Serra: There’s reasons why she may not like your cum. It might be because she’s been told it’s gross. It might be because she had a terrible experience when she was younger, and now she’s just decided, “Nope. Not interested.” She might really just have this internalized belief that genitals are gross. So doing things with faces near them is really uncomfortable for her. That’s not for you to fix. But it is for you to just have some compassion around all the different opportunities, and the reasons why that might be true. 

I think the only thing that you can really do is just flat out have a conversation. You can sit down and actually say, “I love you so much, and I love our marriage. I want both of us to feel fulfilled and held and respected for as many years as we’re together. And I have this thing that I’m a little embarrassed to talk about or that’s a little uncomfortable for me. But I really want to hear your experience of it. What were you taught about genitals and oral sex growing up? What are your feelings when you think about oral sex? What are your thoughts about your own cum?” Give her a chance to actually articulate it. She might be so uncomfortable that she can’t have that conversation. But just make space for it to be OK to have those conversations, instead of just assuming what the story is, and then trying to manipulate her truth into a truth that works for you. 

Dawn Serra: As far as not sharing fantasies, I think the Wendy Strgar book is a really good place to start. She was just on the show a couple of episodes ago. She talks a lot about fantasies. Fantasies are something that is also really dangerous for a lot of people to share. A good example is, if you have a partner that’s constantly trying to get you to like something you don’t like, then it tells you that it’s super dangerous to share your fantasies because there’s a chance that now they could start trying to pressure you into living those fantasies out, even if you don’t want to. Think about the ways that you’re actually creating a culture of vulnerability. Where are you sharing yourself in the places where you feel insecure or you’re maybe needing more support? How can you ask her for her stories? Maybe she doesn’t have any fantasies, and maybe she never will. So how can you get OK with that? If you can’t get OK with that, what does that mean? 

So I think Zak, you need to look within and ask, “What are my behaviors? What are the ways I’m actually allowing us to have better conversation about sex? Am I asking about her experiences and her stories, and letting her have time to safely share that, without them turning it into just another thing to pressure her around? Let her not like your cum, and let yourself be disappointed about that. You don’t have to change it. You can just name it and recognize it, and then find other ways to honor it. You can develop your fantasies. You can also ask her if it’s OK for you to share some of yours. It doesn’t have to be about following through on them or living them out. But just simply saying, “I want to share this part of myself with you. Maybe someday, if you ever have a fantasy, you’ll want to share it with me, even if you just write it down and slip me a little note.” I think that creates a lot more opportunity for creativity and for shame to move away. But what it sounds like right now is both of you are operating from a place of feeling ashamed and feeling frustrated. That’s just going to make everyone dig in even deeper and get even more stuck. 

Dawn Serra: So good luck. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that was helpful. And I hope that you start having some really yummy conversations with your wife, so that maybe you can get to a place where you can actually talk about cum. That’s not where you start. But maybe that’s where you end up. 

For those of you who don’t know, I have a newsletter that I send out every couple of weeks. Sometimes if life is busy, a month will go by, but I try for every two weeks. If you go to dawnserra.com, you can actually sign up for my newsletter. Or, if you go to dawnserra.com, you can sign up for it there. There’s different freebies that you get, depending on where you sign up. But I send this newsletter out often full of really big thoughts that I’m having around sex and pleasure and relationships, the ways that I feel like I’m struggling or the things that I’m learning. I include links to the podcast, and also to some of the really cool things that I’m geeking out about. 

Dawn Serra: I actually got a reply to one of my newsletters that I really, really liked. So I wanted to share it. It’s from someone named Ryan. I had been writing about pleasure and why I thought that pleasure was such a tricky thing. That pleasure was something we felt like we had to earn. That it was only accessible to certain types of people. That we see fat people or poor people is not deserving pleasure because they haven’t worked for it and earned it. It was just me picking through my thoughts around the politics of pleasure, and how that holds us all back. 

Ryan wrote this wonderful thing and it said, “One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned is how much pleasure I derive from simply being allowed to want the type of pleasures that I want. To accept that there are things in the world that gives me pleasure, beyond that which is accepted as normal. That I can love my wife and want only her for most aspects of my romantic, sexual, intimate fulfillment. Yet still want, need, and desire other women in varying ways. Whether that’s to flirt with, have sexual encounters with or even just to feed some of my skin hunger, in both a sexual and a platonic way. Understanding that it’s OK to want those things, that I’m allowed to want them, satisfies so much of the desire itself. It’s also opened up a world of interesting and positive discussion with my wife. And that openness has led to so many wonderful things, including actually being able to pursue and achieve some of these items of pleasure. Just thought I’d share.” 

Dawn Serra: I love that so much. I’ve found that absolutely to be true. I was talking to a friend recently who said that she had been thinking about whether or not she wanted to maybe try a threesome or have sex outside their marriage. She’d been thinking about it for a while, and it was starting to feel really intense. So on a whim, she just shared it with her husband and found that as soon as she shared, it just created this huge break. There was this immediate relief around acknowledging that that was true, and feeling safe enough to trust him with it. In that moment, she realized she actually didn’t want those things, at least not yet. That she wasn’t interested in following through on them. She just needed to acknowledge them. 

I think that what Ryan’s sharing is very similar. We can experience so much shame and build up intention around the things that we’re hiding from that it actually makes the need bigger. It makes us feel more desperate. It can make us feel like we’re going to die if we don’t do this thing because it’s all we think about. It’s that classic mind trick. If I say don’t think about an elephant, of course, now you’ve got elephant in your head, so you’re going to think about it. 

Dawn Serra: It’s the same thing with our fetishes and our fantasies. When we try to deny them or hide them, pretend like they’re not there, downplay them, they start taking up an awful lot of psychic and mental space. So just being allowed to have those things, to know we have permission to have this inner landscape, that we have permission, and that it’s super normal and OK to have all these different kinds of thoughts and desires, we don’t have to live them out. But if we just name them and let them be a part of our being in our lived experience, often that just releases that big dam, and everything just kind of evens out. 

I love that Ryan’s sharing how just being allowed to have it and name it often means he doesn’t want to follow through on it. Sometimes he does, but just being able to discuss that has given him so much freedom. So I want to thank you Ryan for writing in with such a thoughtful response. 

Dawn Serra: I have one last email for this week, and then we will wrap up. I got an email from Miss B, and the subject line is “Age difference.” “I love your podcast. It’s so refreshing to find an intelligent woman talking about actual sex and not just porn. I’m a 35 year old woman who’s recently found my libido after a long dry spell. I’ve fallen in love with a man, and I’m having amazing sex. We hope to keep building and experimenting as time goes on. But even in regular old sex, we are a perfect match. The kicker is he’s 13 years older than me. The age doesn’t bother me, but he’s worried about, as the years go on, that he isn’t going to be able to keep up with me. He is a very healthy man, and we are unbelievably attracted to each other. How do we continue to grow together as time continues? Thank you for your time.”

When I was around the age of 35, I had that affair with Mr. 45, who, for longtime listeners of the show, will know was this very passionate and very short love affair that I had with a married man who was in his 40s. And we had the most amazing sex. Even though I called him Mr. 45, he was actually a few years older than that. So our age difference, I think, at the time, was around 13 or 14 years – well, at the time. We’re still that age difference, and we still talk actually. But the age difference was 13, 14 years. 

Dawn Serra: I don’t know. There was just something that felt right. There was something around his confidence, his life experience, his patience that fit really well with where I was and my body and my needs. So I think, we have all these stories around older men dating younger women and cougars and all this kind of stuff. Each of us really moves through our life in a different way. There are some of us who have had lots of experiences. We’ve traveled lots of places. We’ve had different kinds of traumas by the time we’re in our late 20s. So we might have very particular experiences about moving in different worlds and experiencing our bodies in different ways. There’s other people who don’t really even start learning about their body until they’re in their 40s or 50s. 

There’s no right way. There’s no better way. But to find someone that you really jive with, that you’re super attracted to, when you have this chemistry and you’re having fun together, I think that it’s less about age and more about intention and energy, and the ways that you talk about life, and the ways that you experience the things you’re interested in. You could have a 35 year old dating a 50 year old, and if the both of you love film, and if the both of you love eating certain types of food, and the both of you are kinky, there’s no expiration date on those things. Now, you might have slightly different approaches. But isn’t that a wonderful thing to also be able to talk about those differences? To celebrate the ways that you look at these things differently and experiencing them differently. 

Dawn Serra: I think the key to a thriving relationship really just comes down to do you have things that you share, that you have in common, that you love talking about that’s more than the sex? Because sex changes, our bodies change. Your body might go through a different phase before his goes through whatever his next phase is. So how are you connecting? How are you communicating? There might come a time where he can’t recover as quickly after he ejaculates, and you’re still ready to go. But if the two of you are great communicators, then there’s no reason why he can’t hold a magic wand while you ride it. You keep going and have 12 more orgasms while his body is feeling rested and done with the amazing sexual encounter that you had. I mean, we can be creative. There’s no kind of limit because our imaginations are endless. 

It’s legitimate to worry about that. I mean, we have all these myths about youth and what’s more valuable and bodies out there. We’re not really taught how to be creative in relationship and how to communicate well in relationship. But if the two of you have all these things that you just really adore about each other, and it feels like a really, really good place to be, explore that. Stay curious. As the two of you grow and change, you might find that you have slightly different interests in certain spaces, celebrate that. Like, “Hey, I want to hear about this new thing that you’re interested in. I totally don’t want to go, but I love that you love it. And so I want to hear about it.” Or, maybe your bodies do change, and it does become a little bit of a mismatch. There’s a bajillion ways that you can be creative around that without it having to feel like something has gone wrong. 

Dawn Serra: So just stay curious and enjoy. Congratulations. I love that you had this long spell of not feeling sexual, and now you’re with someone who’s making you feel super deliciously sexual, and then that feels good for you, celebrate it. Let him know, “It’s super OK to have these concerns, but how about if we just explore them together?” If things come up, we’ll find our way through them. Even if you met someone who is exactly your age. I promise you that in a couple of years, you two are going to have differing ideas about what your bodies are doing and what you want and what’s going on in life. You’re going to have to find ways to negotiate that. It’s less about age. And yes, there are differences. Yes, when you’re 20 versus dating somebody who’s in their late 30s, that’s quite different than someone that’s in their mid 30s dating somebody who’s in their late 40s. But just have fun and let the fears be true and ask questions and stay present and stay curious and go on the adventure together. 

Thank you so much for writing in Miss B and for listening. To all of you who wrote in with questions, I still have lots of other questions about wearing panties and an email from someone who’s a cis guy that struggles with orgasm. I will hopefully get to those in the next couple of weeks. I also have some really rad interviews coming up with amazing folks. I’ve got a rope slut that I’m having on the show, where we talk all about rope and her experience in the Portland kink scene. I also have an expert an queer and trans health coming on and we super geek out around consent culture in the medical industrial complex and finding alternative ways to validate our health when we are kinky or polyamorous. It’s a really great interview, and so many other things lined up. 

Dawn Serra: Thank you for being here with me. Please write in go to dawnserra.com to shoot me a message, to leave me a comment, to support me on Patreon. Also, I’m all over Twitter, so be sure to follow me there. And sign up for the newsletter, so that you can see what’s going on in my brain and hear about what I’m creating and up to as well. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.