There are still spots available for the LIVE recording of Sex Gets Real on March 22nd at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. If you want to help celebrate the 200th episode, just complete this little entry form – I would love to see you there!

Patreon supporters – this week’s bonus is a big ol’ rant after a listener wrote in with some pretty problematic arguments around why coercion isn’t rape and that relationships are about persuasion and convincing. Um….you KNOW I have thoughts.

So what’s up for this episode?

AC wants to know where to find a kink expert that might teach at a private party about bondage and flogging. I recommend Fetlife to get started.

Drowning in Relationship Theory is so stressed. Her and her husband decided to open their marriage so she could explore her bisexuality. She’s met a lovely woman, her husband is on board, but she’s been listening to lots of poly experts who all say hierarchical poly is unethical and that prioritizing her marriage is wrong. Can she be ethically polyamorous while treasuring her marriage?

I have several thoughts, and also recommend Tristan Taormino’s “Opening Up”, Andre Shakti’s IAmPoly.net, and Poly Role Models.

And the short answer is yes, of course. You can be married and ethically open, especially if potential partners KNOW you’re married and get to opt in.

Anonymous confesses that she loves her husband, they have a great sex life, and she had affair. But she feels guilty because she DOES NOT feel guilty. It was a one-time thing that offered her deep healing, and she just can’t feel guilty. Is she terrible?

Another anonymous listener is terrified of sex. She’s 21, has never had intercourse, and feels woefully behind all her friends. Plus, she experiences lots of vaginal pain and doesn’t know that she’ll ever be able to have intercourse. Is it hopeless? Is she doomed?

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

About Dawn Serra

What if everything you’ve been taught about relationships, about your body, about sex is wrong? My name is Dawn Serra and I dare to ask scary questions that might lead us all towards a deeper, more connected experience of our lives.

In addition to being the host of the weekly podcast, Sex Gets Real, the creator of the online conference Explore More, and of the new weekly stream Pop Culture Undressed, I also work one-on-one with clients who are feeling stuck, confused, or disappointed with the ways they experience desire, love, and confidence.

It’s not all work, though. In my spare time, you can find me adventuring with my husband, cuddling my cats as I read a YA novel, or obsessing over MasterChef Australia.

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: This episode is brought to you by Dawn Serra’s One-on-One Coaching. Guess what? That’s me! I am now accepting new clients, who are looking to get unstuck around desire, the way that they feel about their body, communication, shame, anything else that might be holding you back in relationships and life. I work with cis and trans women, as well as couples and queer folks. So if that’s you and you could use a little bit of support, head to dawnserra.com/work-with-me to take a look at the coaching options.

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!

Dawn Serra: Howdy, listeners! Dawn Serra here with another episode of Sex Gets Real. I want to remind you that there are still seats available for the live online taping that I am doing for Sex Gets Real to help celebrate 200 episodes and I’m just a month away from four million downloads. So it’s a double celebration. If you’re available on the evening of March 22nd and you want to put your name in the hat to grab a spot, there is room for about 40 folks to hop online and join me for a live taping of the show. I will be answering your questions and you can be there to participate and laugh and join in the fun and it will be an official episode of Sex Gets Real. So if that sounds super fun, just click the link in the show notes or head to dawnserra.com for this episode and put your name in the hat. 

I also want to remind you, I am live streaming for free every single Wednesday at O.school. If you head to O.school, that’s the website, they have free livestreaming sex ed every single night of the week. So many people who have been on the show are pleasure professionals at O.school. My show every week is called “Pop Culture Undressed.” We talk about all the ways that pop culture influences our lives and our feelings about things like love, sex and our bodies. I have examined so many tropes and movies. Of course, I have so many more to explore. If you want to join in the fun, it’s live. It’s free and it’s online. Just head to O.school and sign up. They’ll send you an email every day with the educators that are streaming and I live stream on Wednesdays. 

Dawn Serra: This week’s episode is me fielding a bunch of your questions. I’m also interviewing Joanna Angel this week and a couple of other really rad folks. Those episodes are coming up over the next couple of weeks. I’m ridiculously excited. So stay tuned. If you support the show on patreon at patreon.com/sgrpodcast, you are going to get an epic rant from me. I got an email from a listener that includes the line, “The words you are thinking of is coerce. Not convinced, not persuade, not coax, not reason, not entice. Those are aspects of gaining consent. Do you know what the world really calls persuading a woman to have sex? Courtship. I know longtime listeners are going to know I have lots of thoughts about this email. So I will be soapboxing passionately about this very long and very problematic email in this week’s Patreon bonus. So if you want to delight in me being Dawn, then head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. 

Support the show at $3 and above to gain access to all of the weekly bonuses. If you support at $5 and above, you can help me field listener questions. I post listener questions that come in that I think would be fun for you all to weigh in on. You can share your comments, and then if you do, I’ll share them on the show. Of course, your support means so much to me. It helps me keep the lights on so that I can keep doing this. Because, unfortunately, most businesses don’t want to associate themselves with a show about sex. So getting sponsorships to actually help me pay for this is really tough. Your dollars, every single dollar helps so much. So patreon.com/sgrpodcast over on Patreon. Support there. Let’s dive in to the first question. 

Dawn Serra: AC wrote in and it says, “Hey, Dawn! I just started listening to your show and love it. My girlfriend and I want to have a sex class party, but have no idea where to start shopping. Do you have any suggestions for the Florida area? We’re looking for a bondage or impact play. Maybe some help with ropes or flogging. Thanks so much.” 

Well, AC, I love that you’re looking for some type of sex class. I’m not 100% certain of what it is that you’re looking for. It sounds like you want an educator to come to your place. And then for you to have some type of social gathering where they teach you skills and techniques. There are lots of places all around the country that do workshops like that and you can book private workshops. So if there are any feminist sex toy shops near wherever you are in Florida, that might be a great option. 

Dawn Serra: But what I would really recommend is getting on FetLife, and then seeing who are the educators in Florida that teach kink. If you can hook up with some local groups in Florida that are regularly doing munches or workshops, who are hosting evenings and dungeons, see who the educators are that tend to lead group flogging sessions or group bondage meetups. Those are the people that you probably want to reach out to and ask them if they do workshops and education. If they do, then you can ask them if they’d be willing to do a private party at either your place or a place of their choosing for a select group of your friends, and then negotiate a fee for that. There are amazing educators all around the country who do all kinds of private and public events at conferences and shops. So those are the people you’re going to want to hook up with, who are the leaders in your community that come highly recommended. 

You can also potentially look to see if anyone is touring to your area. A lot of kinksters will travel around to various locations around the country to offer their workshops. So if there’s a place near you that offers any kind of in person workshops, either at a dungeon or a sex shop, you might want to ask them who they’ve had to come and teach flogging or bondage. But FetLife is definitely the place to go if you want to see just who’s local to you and who’s running the events, organizing the events and see either if they do events and workshops or who they would recommend, and then go from there. So I hope that you and your girlfriend are able to find someone so that you can do some really fun hands on learning. Please report back if you end up doing that and how it goes. Thanks so much, AC.

Dawn Serra: This next question comes from Drowning in Relationship Theory and the subject line is “Open? Ethical? Poly?” “Hi, Dawn! I’ve been listening now for almost a year and I love your work. I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. I recently began the process of coming out acknowledging my own bisexuality. For the most part, it has been a positive and connecting experience for my husband of 11 years and I. We are together trying to create space for me to explore what this means and can mean for me and for us. 

We have decided to try having an open relationship. At this time, he’s not interested in dating anyone. Our agreement only includes women. After months of figuring out what to say, I made an online profile and started messaging some women in my area. I went on a few dates. None really lead anywhere. It’s a good place to be dating from. I have a happy relationship, a beautiful family and I’m content, so I don’t have any pressure to be open to anyone who isn’t a good fit. 

Dawn Serra: I recently met a woman who I have a really great connection with. We’ve been out three or four times and things seem to be moving in a good direction. She’s a great communicator and we have both been open to one another as we work out what we are each available for. The communication with my husband has been good, too. We’re working through the scary feelings of insecurity and fear together. We are tending and caring for our relationship, in some ways, better than we ever did when this opening up wasn’t on the table. 

I started listening to some polyamory podcasts. Somehow the ethical framework of polyamory feels more authentic to me than just wanting a relationship that is entirely based on sex. But the more I listen, I feel like there is this huge bias against hierarchy and even the idea that it is inherently unethical. I can’t really be a good polyamorous if I have primary relationship. Maybe the answer is that I am not poly based on some definition. 

The reality is that my husband is my primary relationship. We have two children, are building a home together. We have a mortgage and a shared retirement account. We’ve been living in a monogamous relationship for 11 years. I guess I want some reassurance that I can explore non-monogamy ethically and with kindness and compassion without having to give up the centrality of my marriage. There are a lot of dogmatists out there and you’re always so nuanced and thoughtful. I guess I just wanted your take on it all. Thanks so much. Drowning in Relationship Theory.”

Dawn Serra: I want to start by saying, I am not an expert in this. I tend to leave questions like this to episodes when I have guests on like Andre Shakti or Kitty Stryker – people who have lots of experience and, in fact, make their living giving advice in this space. So, I will give you my opinion, and then share with you some resources that I think could be a really good jumping off point. 

There are a lot of people who have a lot of feelings about a lot of things in this world. I think what we have to remember is, it all comes down to are we creating space in our lives for people to feel respected, heard, understood, held? And are we aware of the power dynamics, the privilege that we have? And are we doing right by the people in our lives? So whether it’s friends, family, lovers, whatever the relationship is, are we able to show up and be really honest and clear with those people about what we want and what we’re capable of giving? Because those things change over time. We are constantly evolving. So there’s a fallacy in assuming that the ways that we show up for each other today are going to be the ways that we can show up for each other forever. 

Dawn Serra: The reason I say all of that is, there are a lot of people who are examining all of the ways that we structure relationships in our lives. So many of the relationships and the stories we have around romance and sex are based on deeply problematic and oppressive structures and frameworks. That said, we all have to survive within them. We certainly want to be imagining a future without these things and working in that direction, while also being able to care for and tend to ourselves the best that we know how with what we’ve got.

I personally think that there are a lot of incredible poly experts out there who do believe that you can ethically enter into non-monogamous and polyamorous situations while also having a primary partner. I would highly recommend checking out “Opening Up” by Tristan Taormino. I think that that book offers lots of different ways you can be in relationship with others. It gives lots of examples of people in those relationships using their own words to give you an idea of, “There’s no right way, as long as everyone’s on board.” I would also highly recommend, of course, Andre Shakti’s iampoly.net. She has some beautiful advice about polyamory that has a lot of nuance and kindness. I think that that might offer you some wonderful food for thought. 

Dawn Serra: Also, Poly Role Models by Kevin Patterson is a really interesting resource for similar reasons to why I really like “Opening Up” because it gives people an opportunity, who identify as poly or as non-monogamous, to simply share their stories and their experiences and their so many different ways of doing it. There are people on poly role models who call everyone in their life “friends.” Whether they have sexual relationships or physically intimate relationships or platonic relationships with those people, they’re all friends. Other people are married or engaged and are swingers or are poly and have multiple girlfriends. It gives you an opportunity to see lots of different people living out there non-monogamy and polyamory in lots of different ways. 

In fact, at the time of this recording, the most recent person profiled is named Carly S. The very first thing that she says about what your relationship dynamic look like is “My current relationship is with my fiance. He is my primary partner.” And then goes on to talk about the ways that they navigate that. I think that would give you, Drowning in Relationship Theory, an opportunity to just see all the different ways that people exist in this space. 

Dawn Serra: You and your husband, if this relationship is something that’s important to you, have to decide how you want to open up your relationship. The important piece – and I think, where a lot of people fail, when they’re looking to open up – is they want that mystical unicorn to come in and just be their fun play thing. They’re approaching the relationships as some type of toy or object whose purpose is to make their relationship more interesting. That’s an incredibly dehumanizing and disrespectful way to treat another human being. 

If the two of you are able to hold space for the fact that you’re potentially you’re going to enter into relationships with other people – perhaps this woman – and that there might be feelings that develop and it might be something that becomes a really important part of your life the same way we have friendships with lots of different people that mean lots of different things and you’re able to talk to this person, this woman that you’re interested in and let her know your situation, she gets to opt in. If she knows you’re married and you have children and you’re building a life together and what your backstory is, you’re not lying or trying to downplay the importance of your relationship with your husband, she gets to opt in to that relationship. 

Dawn Serra: Now, technically, we are a culture that places a hierarchy on the types of love that we experience. We are taught that sexual romantic love is the most important love we can have in our lives other than parental love. And that friendships, platonic friendships, acquaintances, co-workers, those aren’t as meaningful that we should be willing to sacrifice those relationships in the name of love. We all know or most of us, I think, know that sometimes the most meaningful relationships we have in our lives are with our friends, who see us and hold us and understand us at a soul level. That doesn’t mean that we can’t also have this wonderful, beautiful, romantic, sexual relationship with someone. 

I think you need to decide for yourself, how can I ethically approach this in a way that feels aligned for me, where the other people in my life get to choose whether or not they want to engage with me in this way? And when things get complicated, know that you’re going to be able to show up and navigate it together. Because I think the fear often and the way that it does play out, unfortunately, is that often people who are already in some type of committed relationship will start experiencing turbulence. The tendency is to just pull up all the drawbridges and cut off the moat. Which means that anybody that you were dating or having secondary relationships with or other types of relationships with suddenly just get cut off. They don’t have an opportunity to participate in the decision. I think that’s where a lot of people who have really strong feelings about relationship anarchy and hierarchical poly, those feelings come from. 

Dawn Serra: You are just going to have to decide what feels good for you. You’re allowed to change your mind as you learn and grow. Also, I would recommend checking out Poly Role Models and reading through iampoly.net and checking out Tristan’s book. But give yourself a chance to just step away from a lot of the dogma for a little while and find your way. Because ultimately what it comes down to is no matter how many other people have had however many experiences they’ve had, you and your husband and this woman that you are really enjoying your time with have to decide how you’re going to structure your lives and how you’re going to navigate the spaces that are mortgages and children and what would feel good for all of you. 

So as long as you’re remembering that these other people you’re going to enter into relationships with are whole human beings with feelings and hopes and dreams and that they deserve an opportunity to participate in decisions that get made that might impact them, that I do think that there’s an ethical way to do that. I, again, am not an expert in this space. I really struggled in this space, personally, which is why I love having other experts on. Also, I recommend checking out PolyDallas and the conference that happens there. There’s all kinds of different polyamory experts that go to that conference with Ruby. I think you’ll find lots of interesting ideas and different ways people are navigating that space. 

Dawn Serra: So give yourself a chance to just relax and breathe and– Wooh! Yeah! There’s some strong feelings going around out there. It’s one of the reasons why I have, at every point of my life, struggled to ever identify with the poly community because I have encountered so many people who are so deeply entrenched in the dogma that it felt really bad and exclusionary. I was being judged or shunned for the things I struggled with and the feelings that I had. I know that’s not everyone, but it was certainly my experience consistently. You have to find your way through this. And if you find people are being judgy or shitty towards you, in the way that you’re experiencing your life, then maybe those aren’t people that you need in your life. 

While also staying open to new information and new ideas, maybe there is a better way, a stronger way, new communication technique, something you should consider that would help make all of these relationships that you’re navigating that much easier, that much more open, that much more honest. So check out Andre. Check out Poly Role Models. Check out “Opening Up.” Five yourself a chance to just breathe and relax. And know that this is a really joyous thing. It sounds like you’re experiencing something that your husband’s really on board with. If this woman knows what your situation is and she’s choosing to show up in it, then honor that. 

Dawn Serra: And just like any friend coming into your life, you would, of course, be super open and excited to have this friend come into your life and want to spend time with them. If something was challenging with your marriage, you wouldn’t just want to cut off all your friends. You would instead turn to your friends and ask for help. I think that this is a space where we can just breathe and give ourselves an opportunity to fail and try things. As long as we’re just doing our best to tend to the relationships without putting one relationship so far ahead of the others that we’re now harming other people, you get to rejoice and enjoy. 

So thank you so much for writing in. I hope that was helpful. I hope if nothing else, it just gives you a chance to like, “Okay. Other people might have big feelings about this and they might have some really important points for me to take in. I get to also find people who have relationship structures similar to mine and find out how they’re doing it well.” So, yeah. Just enjoy. Savor. Don’t go into research overload. You can always come back and learn more and change and have more conversations and expand the ways that you’re relating. It doesn’t have to be one and done or all or nothing or right or wrong. Good luck. Enjoy. Thank you so much for listening. Of course, if any listeners have any other thoughts, feelings, questions, you can always comment on this episode at dawnserra.com or on the Facebook page or on the Twitter page. I would love to hear from you too, if you’ve grappled with this as well. 

Dawn Serra: I got an email from Anonymous that says, “Guilty of not feeling guilty.” “Dawn, I have been happily married for decades and my husband and I have a great sex life. But I recently had a brief affair with someone I met online. We never met in person and I’m sad that it ended, but I do not regret that it happened. It was beautiful and healing for me. My husband, whom I love, has not found out. My problem is that I feel guilty for not feeling guilty. Am I a horrible person? I will never do this sort of thing again, unless this man comes back into my life, which is doubtful due to his family problems. But should I make myself feel guilty? Will the remorse hit me later? Anonymous.” 

Whoa! Anonymous. Yeah. This kind of stuff is complicated and a lot of people struggle with it. I did pose your question anonymously on Patreon and one of the Sex Gets Real Patreon supporters offered the following: “The fact that you said ‘My husband has not found out’ rings alarm bells for me. How you should feel is none of my business, but your choice of language suggests to me you know you have done something you don’t want him to know about and that you suspect he might be hurt by.’” 

So I think that this is a really interesting perspective for you to sit with, of not feeling guilty because you haven’t been caught, is a really interesting space. Would that guilt shift if you were to have to then witness the hurt and the betrayal and the loss of trust and the way that your husband would then look at you or relate to you if he did find out? I think that’s a really interesting question to grapple with. Not being found out means that you get to have this lived fantasy experience that feels utterly and totally yours. But if your husband were to find out, and then you then had to sit with the anger and the grief with him not trusting you any longer when you answered questions, hearing the ways that he felt wounded, I wonder if that would shift to the way that you’re feeling. Would you then feel guilty because you’d be confronted with the actual harm?

Dawn Serra: I would also recommend checking out Esther Perel’s books, “Mating in Captivity” and “The State of Affairs.” One of the things that Esther talks about a lot – and I think this makes people deeply uncomfortable – is that, so often, when we have some kind of infidelity, it’s not our partner that we’re turning away from, it’s ourselves. We’re either turning away from ourselves or turning towards something that we’ve never been able to articulate or name. For whatever reason, we feel like we can’t be honest with this person in our life. 

I think that’s an interesting concept because so often we think of culturally cheating as being because we have fallen out of love with someone, because we have resentment. Certainly, those things happen. But in Esther’s work as a marriage therapist, who does tremendous amounts of work around infidelity with couples who have experienced betrayal, what she has found in her extensive experience doing this work, is that often it’s not about the partner. It’s about the person who was making the choice to then do this act of betrayal or this infidelity. Often because they felt like there was a part of themselves that they never got to explore or that they had shut themselves off from, a part of themselves that felt hidden and denied and invisible in their relationship and not knowing how to articulate that or ask for it. Because, again, we’re also a culture that’s terrible at communication. Being vulnerable and being uncertain, and then we make these choices. Sometimes those choices are important for us. 

Dawn Serra: Anybody who’s listened to the show from the beginning is very familiar with my story with Mr. 45. Our relationship was not an ethical one. He had a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” situation with his wife and she didn’t really realize they were actually exercising that option when he and I had our affair. While I feel sad for all of the feelings that they had to grapple with later around that in it, it was one of the most healing relationships I’ve ever had. It was a deeply important relationship for me. It was one of the first times that I had experienced those levels of sexual desire and sexual pleasure. It was one of the first times I let someone enjoy my fat body after years of telling myself I had to stay in a relationship that was super unhealthy because I didn’t think someone could ever actually appreciate my body. And it was one of the first experiences I had after that relationship that taught me maybe I can ask for more. Maybe I can be desired. There was so much tenderness and it was just a very crucial experience for me. I was not in a relationship doing the betraying. He was in a marriage and they hadn’t been very clear about what their expectations were. So there was some hurt later there. 

But I also had an affair years ago with a married guy whose wife was deeply sick. He loved her very much and he did tons of caretaking for her. All of his life was about caretaking and maintaining their household and just keeping her afloat and alive. He needed a place where he didn’t have to be a caretaker, where he could tap back into that fire. 

Dawn Serra: For a lot of people, they have really complicated feelings about stuff like that. And for good reason. It is a betrayal. There is the potential for deep hurt and wounding. But I also think that sometimes we enter into these situations and feel healed. But that can shift when then the person you have been hiding something from finds out. If that discovery happens, we have to grapple with a whole different beast. So while I’m not going to tell you how you should feel, you have to decide what your values are and how you want to navigate this situation. It sounds like it was deeply important for you. You said beautiful and healing.

I would also ask you to just sit with what didn’t get said to your husband. If this relationship with your husband is one that you said you love, you have great sex, you’ve been happily married for decades, I think it would be a valuable exercise to examine what’s not being said and what parts of you aren’t being seen that made this thing happen? And is there a way to start cultivating space for that inside of your marriage? Is there a way for you to ask for new things or to feel more seen or to change the level of mystery, so that there’s more heat – whatever the reason was that you needed that. What are ways that you can start cultivating that inside of your marriage, if at all? 

Dawn Serra: I am just so curious on what the response would be if your husband did find out and you had to actually look him in the face, in the eye when he grappled with that. I’m not saying that your experience would not be healing still, because it can be both. This experience that you had, this affair that you had can be beautiful and important and healing for you and utterly devastating and something that causes you deep, deep, deep, painful feelings. If your husband were to find out, you had to grapple with that. 

I don’t think that it’s a black and white situation. I don’t think it’s ideal. But I also think we encounter all kinds of situations in our lives that are not ideal. We just have to do the best that we can. I think this is a really important place for you to then start grappling with, how can I examine the reasons that I did this and start making the changes that I need to make, so that I can have a better relationship with my husband or new conversations with my husband? If it’s not something that you’re going to be able to get from him, then even being able to acknowledge that with him could be really, really important. Because it’s so hard for one person to come even close to meeting all of our needs. But if we can acknowledge that that’s a pretty powerful thing. 

Dawn Serra: One of the things that I love so much about Esther Perel’s work is she always, always stresses that, so often, for couples who are willing to put in the work – which is not very many – but for people in relationship who are willing to do the work after a massive betrayal, often, the relationship that emerges afterwards is an even stronger and even healthier and even more connected relationship than before. Because you have to learn and practice an awful lot of emotional intelligence and really challenging uncertainty and communication skills to get through something like that, to rebuild that trust. That can yield a really healthy relationship on the other side. 

So I’m not going to tell you whether or not you should feel guilty. I know there’s a lot of other advice columnists out there who would tell you exactly how they think you should feel. But that is not my job. My job is to ask questions and to invite you to ask yourself some new questions and to find ways to do things better next time. So good luck. Thank you so much for sharing this with us so that we can all grapple with it as well.

Dawn Serra: I got another anonymous question. There’s a lot of anonymouses coming in. So Anonymous says, “Dear Dawn, I want to first thank you for the content you put out on the podcast every week. Sex is something that has always made me feel anxious, afraid, self-conscious. I can honestly say that listening to Sex Gets Real has allowed me to feel more comfortable in my own body and with my own sexuality. I truly cannot thank you enough. My question really has to do with starting my sex life and overcoming some fears and concerns that I now believe are entirely socially constructed. 

I am a 21-year old cis female and I have only had two few very brief sexual encounters. I’ve never had intercourse. This is a source of shame for me. It seems as if I am the only one, who at age 21, is still so sexually inexperienced. I know this is probably not true, but it sure seems like it. Everyone in my social circles talks about having sex and I just cannot relate. I fear intercourse because of pain. I can barely insert a tampon without pain. How can I ever fit a penis? Is there anything I can do to practice or stretch my vagina so that when I do have intercourse, I don’t experience pain. 

Dawn Serra: I also fear sex because I don’t want to seem inexperienced and bad at it. Since most people around me seemed to have already had several sexual partners. The older I get and the longer I go without having sex, it feels like it may never happen. I want to have sex, but I have no idea where to even begin, especially since I have a lot of fears and doubts about myself sexually. Any advice would be so appreciated.” 

First of all, Anonymous, thank you for the articulate and vulnerable personal email. I so appreciate everything that you’re sharing and the fact that you’ve already been listening and you’re starting to grapple with, “Holy crap! So much of this is just culture putting shit on me. That’s not mine to carry.” That’s a really huge important step for so many of us. The fact that you’re already grappling with that at 21 is pretty extraordinary because I certainly didn’t until I was in my 30s. So you are well ahead of where I was, at least even contemplating these types of issues and questions.

Dawn Serra: I also want to say I so got it. I had intercourse for the first time when I was 22. I think it was 22. It was either late 21 or early 22. I had lied to my friends about having sex. I absolutely knew that all of my friends we’re having sex in college and it was this weird thing for me because I was raised in a household that talked about sex constantly. I knew more about sex than pretty much all of my friends starting in middle school. I had no shame talking about condoms and birth control. I was the person friends came to when they needed advice or when they had abortions. It was something I was super comfortable with. 

While I was having sexual experiences, I was experimenting with blow jobs and fingering and being touched and rubbing bodies against each other and certainly masturbating. Oh, my God! I was the masturbation queen. I didn’t actually have intercourse with another human being until I was 22. And I lied about it. Because I felt like if I’m the person everybody’s coming to for advice and everyone thinks that I’m super sexually open, which means I have sex – because, of course, we conflate those things in our culture – that it would be a totally shameful thing. It’s like that scene in “Clueless,” when they find out one of them is a virgin. It’s like, “You’re a virgin?!” It’s such a thing in our culture and so much of it is performative. 

Dawn Serra: For so many people who are young and talking about sex the way that your friends are talking about it, often, it’s coming from a place of performance. They may have actually engaged in intercourse and maybe multiple times. But, so often, the things that get talked about are the things that we think are going to make other people think we’re having great sex or that we’re really sexually liberated or that we’re super forward and progressive. In our super private lives, we’re feeling, “Something’s not right. This doesn’t feel the way that I thought it would. Am I normal? Should this be happening?” Know that even though lots of your friends are talking about this, the likelihood that many of them also have insecurities and things that they’re struggling with is very high. 

Also, know that even though we are in a time and a place when it seems like everyone is having sex from high school on, many recent studies have shown that the rates at which young people are having sex is actually going down. Teens these days, if we compare them to teens from a decade ago, are actually initiating intercourse at older ages than before. Now, we don’t see that reflected culturally because all the shows aimed to teenagers are full of sex and all the magazines are full of sex and the assumption is everybody’s doing it. But more and more people are actually delaying their first intercourse or sexual experience well into college. Some people even many years into college. Some people don’t have intercourse until way into their late 20s and early 30s. It’s just different for everyone. 

Dawn Serra: But I know that the social pressure when everyone’s talking about something and you feel like you can’t relate, feels like you’re the sore thumb. You’re the person that’s standing out. It’s a source of embarrassment and weirdness and othering. Just know you are not alone. So many people are feeling that way. And, hey! I was there, too. I was 21 years old and I had friends who were married, who had been dating for years, who had multiple sexual partners and I had never had intercourse. By the time I got to a place where I did, I was super in this place of, “Let’s just effing get this over with, so that I can just say that I did it.” And it wasn’t that great. It wasn’t that exciting. It was just a checkbox to mark off. 

The important thing to remember is that you get to do this on your terms, your way. I also question– And I know why. I know it’s tempting because everybody else is talking about it. We can have sex in so many ways that don’t involve intercourse. There are lots of people out there, especially in queer and disabled bodies, who have all kinds of delicious sexual experiences that don’t involve intercourse or penetration. That’s normal for them. That gets to be normal for you too, if you decide you want it to be. Who says sex can’t be hands and toys and mouths and clitorises and anuses and bodies rubbing together? There’s so many erotic opportunities with the bodies that we’re in. And guess what? It counts when you have sex with yourself. That is sexual experience. That is a sexual release. That is getting to know you. So if you have a sexual relationship with yourself, you are a sexual being having sexual experiences. 

Dawn Serra: Now, when it comes to penetration and pain, there’s lots of different things you can do. I wonder, does that pain shift if you’re incredibly aroused? If you give yourself 20 to 40 minutes of warm up and arousal and teasing and touching and watching porn or thinking about a really sexy fantasy or reading erotica, does that shift your experience of vaginal pain? Because arousal might be a thing. Also, lube. That’s definitely worth checking out. Masturbating with lube, super fun. I highly recommend it for all bodies and all holes and orifices. If you don’t have lube, that might be something to check out. 

Also, you probably will want to go to a sex positive doctor, maybe at a place like Planned Parenthood, to talk about this. But a lot of people who experienced vaginal pain because of dyspareunia or other types of issues, will use vaginal dilators. Trans women who get bottom surgery will also often– Well, they have to use dilators. But there’s all kinds of fun, colorful, different types of dilators that you can get. And it’s for exactly what you’re talking about. For people who are experiencing a lot of muscular tightness, they need help just kind of stretching the tissues. People who have a variety of different kinds of health experiences use dilators. So it’s nothing like weird or awkward to be ashamed of. Everybody’s bodies are built differently. 

Dawn Serra: But if you want to invest in a set of violators, that can be a really, really interesting way to just engage with your body as an invitation. Because you don’t want to be forcing your body to do something. It’s just not ready to do or wanting to do. If you get a really great dilator set– Of course, finding a mentor or a sex positive doctor that you can work with that can walk you through different ways that you can engage with your body would be a wonderful thing. But dilators are basically a series of different sized insertables and they start, depending on the set that you get, from very small – like the size of a finger – and then gradually increase to different sizes. You don’t have to go as big as a penis if you don’t want to, but it just depends on what you’re doing and how your body works. That might be something else for you to check out. 

I think there’s lots of wonderful things in here for you. You’re clearly thinking about these questions and examining the ways culture is influencing you. I just want you to know, you can have the most amazing, pleasure-based, mind-blowing sexual experiences and they never ever in your entire life, if you don’t want to, have to include intercourse. Because there’s all these other holes and tissues and experiences that your body was made for. You can delight in that. It takes the pressure off. Also, just try experimenting with your own body and your own arousal. What happens if I tease myself for 20, 40, 60 minutes until I just can’t take it anymore and I want that release? Does that change the experience of vaginal pain? I love that you’re asking these questions and I so just want you to know you are not alone in having these fears. 

Dawn Serra: The one last thing I just want to touch on is, you said that you’re worried that you’re going to seem inexperienced and bad at sex. Everybody starts somewhere. The truth of the matter is, if you are with someone that you’re potentially going to be having a sexual exchange with, whether or not intercourse is on the table, if they talk down to you or treat you like shit because you don’t have as much experiences, then that is absolutely 1,000% someone that should never get access to your body. So that’s wonderful information to have.

The other thing to keep in mind is, all of our bodies are so different. I know lots of people are worried about seeming inexperienced, but if you’re just really upfront about, “Hey, I’m super nervous. I haven’t done this a lot. This is new to me. I want this to be something that’s mutually pleasurable. So can you show me what you like and how I can touch you?” That’s such a wonderful way to invite a partner in and to make it clear you’re invested in their experience. And then, you get to ask for what you want, too. I don’t care how many people you’ve slept with. You probably have garnered a whole bunch of skills and techniques and tools, but each body is new and different and comes with a little bit of that nervousness and fear and excitement. They’re going to be nervous too, about getting to know you and experiencing your body because what if they do something that you don’t like because their past partners all like this thing, and then you don’t? Now, they’re like, “Oh, shit! What do I do?”

Dawn Serra: I would suggest reading books, watching feminist porn, getting to know your body the best that you can and know that counts as sex. And just feed yourself with as much information as it feels good. So that when you’re finally in a situation where you’re exchanging some type of sexual touch with another human being, you have all of these different thoughts and ideas and ways that you can touch them and ask them about it. That’s going to set you up for so much more joy and pleasure and connection than, “I don’t know what to do. I’m shutting down. Let’s not talk about this.” You deserve it. You deserve pleasure and delight. 

So I wish you luck. If you want to check out dilator sets, a whole bunch of feminists sex shops have them on their website for you to look at – She Bop, Self Serve, Smitten Kitten. I think almost all of those carry dilator sets, for you to just take a look at, if that’s an interesting to you. Also feel free to go talk to someone like Planned Parenthood, a place that’s sex positive and inclusive, if you want to get a little more information about vaginal pain and ways that you might be able to work with it. Thank you so much for writing in, Anonymous. Good luck! Delight in your body and go at your own pace. Because you get to do you. I did me, even though at the time, I was super insecure and terrified of it all and felt like I was missing out on things. It all happens in whatever timeline it happens in and none of it is wrong. So good luck. 

Dawn Serra: Okay. Listeners. I have to sign off so that I can go record this Patreon bonus because I am very eager to jump up on my soapbox and get super angry. So if you want to hear me get really mad about coercing partners into sex, then be sure to head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. Anybody who supports at the $3 level and above gets access to, not only this week’s bonus, but all of the other bonuses that I’ve been recording over the past couple of months. There’s lots of really fun little nuggets and I would love for you to hear them. 

I will, of course, be back next week with my interview with Joanna Angel. She’s got a new book out and I am delighted to be talking to her and rolling around in all of her experience in porn and writing. If you have any questions you want to pass my way. Go to dawnserra.com. There’s a contact form. You can, of course, choose to be anonymous if you’d like. Don’t forget to jump on those seats for the live taping. I want you there. Let’s hang out. Let’s see each other. Let me answer your questions live. It’s going to be super fun. So please participate. The link is in the show notes and at dawnserra.com for this episode. I will talk to you next week.