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Intersex-inclusive language. Resentment in relationships. Questions from YOU!

I am loving answering your questions this summer, and I’m so glad I’m getting a chance to get caught up on the backlog.

Resentment is something that comes up a lot in my coaching practice. People tend to harbor all kinds of resentment without realizing it. A friend recently posted that whenever she feels resentment come up she asks herself, what aren’t you saying?

And it’s true – resentment breeds in the spaces where we silence ourselves, where are aren’t witnessed and understood or heard and validated. When you’re tolerating something, it’s the launching pad for resentment. As soon as we stop being generous towards the people in our life, as soon as the little things they’ve always done start to irritate us or we get passive aggressive, resentment has shown up.

I also wanted to share this AWESOME resource by Interact about intersex-inclusive language. I share a few excerpts on the show, but if you’d like the entire document you can find it here. I also recommend checking out 4intersex.org for more resources on intersex issues and inclusion. Intersex folks are as common as redheads, so we all need to level-up in this space.

Enrique wrote in wondering what cis means and asked for a definition.

Anonymous wrote in because her boyfriend asks her every single day for anal sex, or at a minimum, hounds her for intercourse as soon as she gets home. The problem is anal sex hurts her badly, she experiences vaginal tearing when they have intercourse, and she wants to cry and avoid going home because of it all. They were each other’s firsts and she feels broken. What can she do?

I have big thoughts and big feelings on this one because too many men treat their partners like sex vending machines that owe them access to their bodies in exchange for being in relationship with them. That has got to stop. Sex should never be painful (unless it’s intentional and mutually agreed up). Our bodies should tear. We shouldn’t fear sex. Lots of thoughts on this one.

Kate wrote in wanting help getting her husband to unpack his fatphobia. After many years together, all of which she’s been in a fat body, he recently said some hurtful stuff about her fat body. She is super clear that her body is NOT the problem, which makes my  heart endlessly happy. But what can she do to help him work through the fat shaming?

Truthfully, I think the issue is not at all her body and that he’s got something else going on he can’t express. That said, we can’t make folks change their stories no matter how much we want them to. He has to want it deeply for himself. Tune in for my suggestions for Kate, including Sarah Thompson’s blog post which comes out in mid-July 2018 about this very topic. Check it out at resilientfatgoddess.com.

Patreon supporters – I got a new sexy consent game called Consentacle. It’s about a human and a tentacled alien finding ways to build trust and engage in mutually satisfying sex. I tried it a few times and share my thoughts, plus a little excerpt from Dr. Lori Brotto’s new book on mindfulness and women’s desire. Tune in to this week’s bonus (and all of the other weekly bonuses) at patreon.com/sgrpodcast when you support at $3 and above!

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook and Dawn is on Instagram.

About Host Dawn Serra:

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: This episode is brought to you by the online on demand workshop Take Up Space, a workshop on boundaries, self worth, and strengthening your relationship with self. I just saw this image. It’s going pretty viral on Facebook right now and it’s just a picture of a piece of paper that says, “What do boundaries feel like – And then there’s nine statements on the page, “It is not my job to fix others. It is okay if others get angry. It is okay to say no. It is not my job to take responsibility for others. I don’t have to anticipate the needs of others. It is my job to make me happy. Nobody has to agree with me. I have a right to my own feelings. I am enough.” And that just speaks so beautifully to my new online workshop Take Up Space. 

Boundaries are something that I am still trying so hard to learn and master and navigate and practice. I know so many of you out there struggle with wanting to share a need or a desire and being worried about what someone else’s feelings are going to be. And so, you silence yourself or you struggle to say no, when you really don’t want to do something, but you feel obligated, especially with family or coworkers or friends. This workshop is all about confronting those stories, finding new ways forward, and learning how to take up more space in both gentle and fierce ways. If you want to sign up for the workshop, it’s all online, on demand. There’s 10 lessons. You can grab it for $37 and there’s a link in the show notes. on with the show.

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics, and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing, and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Dawn Serra: Hello, lovely listeners. I am so excited to talk to you this week. Next week, I’m going to be in Portland, Oregon for BeNourished’s Body Trust Weekend Intensive. I am ridiculously excited to not only head down to Portland for a couple of days, and to get a chance to see some rad folks; but to get to spend a weekend really learning how to develop body trust, and how to rewrite some of the stories that I have about my body. I think it’s going to be really rich and nourishing and wonderful. So I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I’m also going back to Portland in early August for the ASDAH Conference which is the Association for Size, Diversity and Health Conference. A whole bunch of rad people are going to be there so there’s some wonderful body stuff coming up, which is good because one of the emails that I have today is all about bodies and fatphobia. 

We’ve also got some awesome stuff about intersex relationships or intersex language and resentment, and also some relationships stuff that I’ve been going through because you know, I try to keep it as real and vulnerable as I can. For Patreon supporters, if you support at the $3 level and above, you get weekly bonus content. And this week, I am going to tell you all about this brand new consent game I just got. I backed them on Kickstarter about a year ago. And the game is called Consentacle and it arrived yesterday. Alex and I had a chance to play it a little bit. And there’s actually a lot more to the game that we still have to play and try out. But, I am going to share a little bit about the game, a little bit about our experiences, the sexy places that we talked about taking it, and kind of give you a little bit of behind the scenes of this awesome game. Plus a couple of other little tidbits. 

Dawn Serra: So if you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and you can do that there. So, supporters, thank you so much. for helping me to keep this thing going, and your little behind the scenes bonus is waiting over there for you. 

So this week, I’ve got some fun stuff for everybody. I’ve been lining up all kinds of interviews, but I just am kind of feeling like I’ve been on a roll this summer with answering lots of your questions. So, I want to keep that going. Because I am slowly making my way through the massive backlog of all of your questions. 

Dawn Serra: Somebody posted recently on Facebook about resentment and I’ve been thinking about resentment a lot. I talked about it with a lot of the people who come through my coaching practice, because resentment shows up in a lot of really interesting ways. And it’s just so common in relationships, when things start to get a little bit tough or a little uncomfortable, for resentment to start eeking in. And it’s a very seductive thing, because the alternative to feeling resentment and the discomfort of it is the discomfort of actually doing something different. And, Brené Brown has this great quote of, “I’d rather step into discomfort than resentment.” And I think that’s such a beautiful encapsulation of what resentment can look like. 

So, one of the things that I talked about with couples who come through my coaching practices is if passive aggressive behaviors show up, that’s usually a sign that there’s some resentment going on. If there’s a lot of sarcasm and a lot of cutting remarks – the passive aggressiveness. Something inside is not being heard or witnessed or expressed. And that’s leading to resentment, which a lot of us then turn into this mean biting humor. So resentment is really, what am I not saying? Which is something that Carmen Cool, who’s a really rad activist that I follow online said she asks herself. And I think another question is, what hasn’t been witnessed in this other person or by this other person that needs to be seen? 

Dawn Serra: So resentment comes from a place of, “I feel like I’m not being heard. I feel like I can’t express myself. I feel like I’m not being understood. And so, I’m either not saying the thing or I’m expecting the other person to just get it without me saying the thing.” And often, there’s a fear that comes with that of, “If I say the thing, then they might reject me, that our relationship might change, then all kinds of scary things are going to happen.” So instead of actually saying the thing, we keep it inside of ourselves and let it fester, and then that starts to breed resentment. And we start finding a lack of generosity towards this person in our life, where all the little things that they do start to really irritate us, where things that they’ve done for them since we’ve known them suddenly feel much bigger or much harder than they were. Those are all signs of resentment. 

I know it’s shown up for me in so many different places, family, friends, work, lovers. It’s a way of just really, “Okay, I’m feeling some resentment,” or “I’m starting to get passive aggressive. I’m starting to be less generous. So what in me is not getting seen? What in me isn’t being expressed or is feeling stifled and suffocated?” And usually, as soon as those things get spoken about or confronted, the resentment dissolves. Often behind that comes of grief or sadness. But it just really got me thinking when Carmen posted about this a couple of days ago. Because so many people commented on her thread that they struggle with resentment, too, and that resentment for them is absolutely a red flag that they’re being avoidant. And so, I just wanted to mention it here. 

For anyone listening who has noticed some kind of low grade resentment starting to bubble up either in your own behavior or in the behavior of someone you love towards you. It’s probably a sign that something isn’t being said or that something has been said, and it hasn’t been heard. And that you’ve been trying and something isn’t changing. So something needs to be done differently. So I just invite all of us to sit here and think – Where am I tolerating something? Because what you’re tolerating that you don’t really want to be tolerating is often where we’re going to start breeding resentment. 

Dawn Serra: I was looking at how to make yogurt last night. And so I’m just thinking about these live cultures – all the things that we’re tolerating are these live cultures that are just going to keep breeding until we get something that’s like resentment. Something else that I saw that was super cool on social media, I’m going to post a link. And this actually contributes a little bit to one of the questions that I got. InterACT is an intersex advocacy group that does amazing work. And if you aren’t familiar with InterACT, I highly recommend you check them out. But somebody took a screenshot of a PDF that they have that’s all about speaking up for intersex folks and being more inclusive in our language and it’s so rad. I will include a link in the show notes so that you can check this out. But I’m just going to run through a couple of the tidbits because, you know, I’m always looking for ways to level up, and I know many of you are as well. 

So instead of saying biological sex or biological gender, InterACT recommend saying sex traits. Because people are born with sex traits – including chromosomes, genitals, reproductive organs. But that may not line up neatly into what most people think of as one “biological sex”. Gender, of course, is social and cultural. We talk about that all the time on the show, and someone’s gender may not correspond with their bodily sex traits. Although in our culture, we often consider sex traits and gender the same thing. So instead of saying biological sex or biological gender, InterACT is recommending that we say sex traits. Instead of saying, born both a man and a woman, which is pretty dated language – they want us to, of course, say born intersex or born with different sex traits. And that’s because intersex folks are as common as redheads. So as many people who really, really, really love to insist that there’s only two biological sexes, whatever that means. It’s blatantly false and has been forever. 

Instead of saying female chromosomes or male chromosomes, they recommend X X chromosomes and XY chromosomes because, of course, chromosomes don’t have a gender. They just have a presentation. And so, we need to call parts what they are without gendering them. This goes for trans and non binary folks as well as intersex folks. Because some intersex folks can have XY chromosomes and vulvas. And some people can have XX chromosomes and gonads. 

Dawn Serra: So, our bodies do delicious things and they’re so rich in variety and we just don’t see that because we try to force everything into the binary. And of course this one, you know, instead of saying female genitalia or male genitalia, really getting specific about the genitals that you’re talking about. So vulva, vagina, penis, testicles. And then, you’ve heard on the show other guests talking about assigned male or assigned female at birth versus born a boy or born a girl. And that is where the listener question is going to take us. So I’ll jump in in just a second. But, I want all of us to be thinking about the fact that intersex folks are as common as redheads. So every time you see a redhead think, “That kind of represents someone around us who is intersex in some way.” 

The more that we can be inclusive in our thoughts and in our language, the less we are to cause violence and harm to other people. There is a tremendous amount of violence towards intersex individuals, especially by the medical community. So the more we can all level up and do better. By making our language and our hearts more inclusive, the more that we can advocate for others and use our privilege and our power in ways that help rather than hurt So if you want to check out this handout that InterACT made, they’ve got all kinds of really awesome things about terms to know and terms to avoid, and points to emphasize if you really want to learn about intersex issues, and then a whole bunch of hashtags that you can follow if you want to learn more about intersex advocacy and issues. I will link to that in the show notes. So be sure to check it out. 

Dawn Serra: So this takes me to an email that I got from Enrique which says “Definition Explanation.”

“Hi, Dawn. Love the podcast and appreciate what you do. As a new listener trying to catch up with past episodes, can you please define what cis man/woman is? I think there’s a few different terms like that and I would guess a few of us could benefit from a little education.”

Great question, Enrique. This is something that comes up a lot for people who are new to the sex positivity movement or who are from a country or culture outside of the United States and Canada. So, great question. So you’re probably familiar with the phrase trans and cis is essentially just the opposite of trans. It’s the not trans word. And cis is a shortening of cisgender, which means that people’s gender identity, the way they feel, matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. So when you were born, if the doctor looked down at your genitals and screamed, “It’s a boy!” And you’ve moved through life feeling like a boy and like a man, then that would mean your cis. If you have any kind of different experience of gender and body then That’s usually coined as trans or transgender or gender non-conforming, or somewhere on the gender variant spectrum. 

Dawn Serra: There’s all kinds of delicious words that we’re developing that help to give us more nuance and understanding. But cis just means not trans. It means that the way you move through the world is basically the way that everyone around you expects you to move around the world. Because nobody ever asked you what kind of gender you felt. They just looked at the genitals between your legs when you were a wee little baby and decided they knew, for you, what you would feel like when you grew up, and who you would feel like being, which is rather assumptive, but there it is. 

So whether you identify as a man or a woman, if that matches what people yelled out about your genitals when you were born, then essentially that’s what cis means. And that comes with a whole bunch of privilege in our culture. Everyone has to everyone else’s a cis. That’s one of the definitions of privilege in our culture. So, most people don’t assume the person next to them is trans or gender non-conforming. Most people just assume everyone around them a cis until otherwise proven something else. And so, again, that’s some cis privilege there where you get to just move through the world, assuming everyone is like you. So, thank you for asking the question, Enrique. I know there’s lots of people out there who probably had that same question. And, I appreciate the opportunity for us to all level up and learn new language together.

Dawn Serra: I got this email from someone who wants to remain Anonymous. It’s a little bit long and it’s about “Anal sex and Pain.” So let’s see where we go. 

“Hi, I’m very new to your podcast, but I’ve been looking for something to help me understand a few things better and your show is very open. So I thought maybe you would have some good advice. My boyfriend of nine years wants to have anal really bad. We tried it about five years ago and we didn’t really know what we were doing. We didn’t use enough lube and it hurt me like crazy. After it was over, I ran into the bathtub and put my ass underwater immediately. It felt like my asshole had turned inside out. I have since developed a hemorrhoid and can’t stand anything touching my anus. How can I overcome this fear of being in bad pain from my hemorrhoid? I never felt pleasure from my anus. Every time he tries to put something in it, I don’t like it. It just turns me off immediately when he even starts talking about it. He wants to do this more than anything. So I want to be working towards getting to that point, but just the thought of it makes me want to cry. I’ve had feelings like I wish I could just get it over with so he’ll leave me alone. Because it’s literally all he talks about non-stop when we’re alone. I’m tired of hearing about it.” 

“I like vaginal intercourse but that hurts me too. I get little tears at the base between my vaginal hole and anus, it always rips a little. I used to get yeast infections and bladder infections really easily. So sex in general just isn’t very pleasurable for me. I’ve also only had a few orgasms that I’ve known of. I don’t exactly know when I’m having one and and now he’s also super obsessed with trying to make me come every time. I just seem to disappoint him. Sex is now stressful, and all I do is avoid thinking about it. Until I go home to have him bombard me with stupid jokes or try to flirt in order to get me to be aroused, which doesn’t really happen. We were both virgins and have only been with each other. I am submissive and enjoy missionary and things that don’t rip and aren’t painful, but he wants to be adventurous and wants me to come up with more playful things in the bedroom. I was abused as a three year old by a male babysitter and it’s affected me my whole life. I also used to be anorexic so I have a very bad body image. I want to change. I want to feel comfortable in bed with the man I love, but I think he’s a lot freakier than me and wants to try a lot of other stuff. And I don’t even know where to start. Please help. I was thinking maybe some type of sex counseling would help, but I don’t even know where to begin. Thank you in advance. You’re pretty inspiring, being so open. And I really want to know how you think I should take my sex life back and be in control and enjoy my body. Love your show. It’s so helpful for people like me.”

Dawn Serra: Anonymous. This is such a heartbreaking email and I’m so sorry, you’re going through all of this. The first thing that I want to say is, you never, ever owe your boyfriend sex. Never. And if he is pressuring you to have sex and sex is painful and you’re not enjoying it, then you don’t have to keep doing it. He might feel disappointed. He might get angry, he might threaten to leave, and he might actually leave. And those are all his choices. But you get to say, “No.” You don’t owe him sex. It doesn’t make you a bad girlfriend. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you broken. It doesn’t make you a failure in any way. It’s you taking care of you and prioritizing your pleasure. And pleasure is not sex right now. So I just want to start with that. He can want anal sex all he wants to, but you don’t have to give them access to your ass. And he can want intercourse all he wants to. You know what? You don’t have to do that either. You also get to say, “I don’t want to talk about this. These jokes aren’t okay. I’m not feeling turned on right now. I need you to stop talking about this for at least the next couple of months because I’m working through some stuff. And this is bringing me a lot of distress and it feels really terrible.” So that’s where I want to start. 

I would highly recommend setting some pretty firm boundaries around the ways that he is approaching sex with you and the ways that he’s putting this pressure on you. It’s unacceptable. He should be able to say, “I’d really like to do this thing.” And if you say, “I’m really not into that right now, things are hurting, my body’s not agreeing and it’s just not on the table.” Then he should be able to say, “Thank you so much for taking care of you and maybe we can revisit this in a couple of months.” And that should be the end of it. He shouldn’t be talking about it every day. He shouldn’t be bringing it up. That’s, frankly, in my book, abusive and deeply manipulative. So, I want to just give you that permission. You can say, “No more talking about this. We can circle back in a couple months and see how my body is feeling. But no more comments. No more jokes, no more hinting, and no more acting like a shit if I say no and take care of me.” And the same around sex, you shouldn’t be dreading going home. Because he’s going to bombard you with stupid jokes and flirting, knowing that he only wants to get sex out of you. You’re not a vending machine, you’re a human. So what would make going home feel wonderful? What things, what behaviors, and changes would help you to feel nurtured and seen and loved and help take some of this pressure off? If it’s letting him know, “Hey, when I get home, here’s what I really need.” And when he shares jokes that feel yucky or when he starts trying to pressure you into sex, being able to really say, “This is what I’m talking about. This doesn’t feel fun or good for me. And if you need to go masturbate or you need to go watch some porn or we need to do something else that feels really connective, great.” But you don’t have to go home feeling like you owe him something that’s going to cause you pain. 

Dawn Serra: I also just want to say I’m really sorry that you experienced abuse so early in life, and that you’ve struggled with anorexia. Those are both hard things for many people. And I think that finding ways to give yourself some compassion, and finding other people who can help give you some compassion, like a really skilled therapist or counselor could be tremendous. Because I think what I’m hearing, too, is “I just need to be listened to and understood.” 

So let’s talk a little bit about the sex. If you’re tearing during intercourse, then that tells me two things: either you’re not fully aroused or the things that are being done to you just don’t work for your body. So if you’re not fully aroused, if your tissue isn’t fully engorged which for some people who have vulvas can take anywhere from 10, 20 to 45 minutes to really get fully engorged and fully aroused and feeling totally throbby and turned on and delicious. All of that happening before anything goes inside you is a way to help ensure that your body is actually ready to be penetrated. Our bodies are capable of tremendous stretching and growth with all this blood that rushes to our genitals when we’re super turned on. And that helps to prevent things like bladder infections and urinary tract infections and tearing. But we have to be getting to that fully aroused place. Some people choose to have sex when they’re not fully aroused because they like that little bit of ouch and that little bit of control that comes with it. But that’s a deliberate choice. Everything you shared and your email is that this is not fun for you. It hurts. You don’t like the ripping and the tearing. 

Dawn Serra: So one of the things I would recommend is, take vaginal intercourse completely off the table. Give your body a chance to just feel at peace and to not feel hurt and torn and in pain. You can have amazing delicious sex with hands and mouths and toys. It doesn’t have to involve anything at all with your vulva or your ass. If he has problems with that, that’s for him to work through, not you. Your number one goal, like I said, at the very top of the show when I was talking about the take up space workshop, which also might be a really good one for you around setting boundaries is you’re responsible for making you happy and you’re responsible for taking care of your body. And then if he has problems with that, then he has to go deal with those feelings. You don’t have to carry them for him or make them better. 

I would also highly recommend the book “Women’s Anatomy of Arousal”by Sheri Winston. It’s a really great book that talks all about the tissues and the ways that the tissues engorge during arousal cues that a body is actually ready to be penetrated. There’s cues that our bodies give that say, “Oh, yeah. I’m ready now.” And oftentimes, we don’t give ourselves enough time to really get warmed up, to really get to a place where our bodies are hungry for something and then that’s where a lot of pain can come in, which then leads to a lot of shame and all sorts of other things. 

Dawn Serra: Now, around your hemorrhoid a couple of thoughts. One, have you been to a doctor? Have they offered you any kind of treatment for it? They might recommend hemorrhoid surgery to remove it depending on how big it is. They might also recommend some shrinking creams You can also buy over the counter creams and wipes that helped to keep the area from getting super inflamed and that can help a lot. So, start there. Get your body to a place where pain is minimized, where you feel good about it, where you feel like, “Okay, I’ve really taken care of me and things are feeling good.” That’s just all you have to do. You don’t have to give your butt to anybody, no matter how much he wants it. You don’t owe him your butt. That is not what being in a relationship with another human being is about. It’s not transactional. 

So, do what you can to just take care of your ass. Minimize the hemorrhoid and minimize the pain, and just feel good about your butt. Something else to keep in mind is you can have amazing anal sex without anything ever going inside your ass. You can have someone massage your ass cheeks and massage around your asshole or touch it gently or tickle it gently. And depending on how your ass feels and the sensitivity of your hemorrhoid, that might feel really great or it might not. Something else that I’ve found just from personal experience, because I have experienced something similar to you, is if I get really, really aroused, maybe I’ve had – I don’t know, a couple of chances with a toy and I’m feeling really yummy and all the blood is coursing, and I’m really, really turned on. And then someone gently starts massaging my ass – that can feel amazing and you don’t ever have to go inside. If you do want to do anything internal, then I recommend a single finger and nothing more. Many times. And then, once a single finger, many times, feels safe and comfortable and normal and like, “Oh yeah. I totally got this. This feels good.” Then maybe you go to two fingers and you do that many times. And maybe you use a butt plug that’s a similar size and you get a dildo that’s really, really narrow.

Dawn Serra: Giving yourself the opportunity to very, very, very slowly retrain your body that ass play can be pleasurable is crucial. Because anal should never hurt. If anal hurts, then you stop. That’s the golden rule for butt stuff. So if a finger hurts, if touching the outside with lots of lube and a really gentle touch hurts, stop. No more. We’re not going any further. That’s it. Let’s do other sexy things. If that feels good and you do it a couple of times, and you can kind of relax into that. Then you take the next tiny step and then the next tiny step. 

For some people’s bodies, they will never get to a place where they can take a cock – depending on the size of the cock. For some people’s bodies, it takes lots of lots of warm up and lots and lots of clitoral stimulation, and lots of practice with many, many, many other things before you get to the cock. And even with the cock, for me personally, I have to have a vibe on my clip in order to be able to do any kind of internal anal play. That’s the only way that I can get that to be pleasurable for me. And then once we get going, I can stop with the stimulation. But the butt stuff without the stimulation, no go for my body. So everybody’s built a little bit differently and you get to experiment if you want to, with how to do that. But I think the number one takeaway, what I’m hearing here is your boyfriend is terrible at thinking about your boundaries, at listening to your needs, at trusting where you are, at believing your pain. That’s shitty and you deserve way better. I mean, nine years of this? You should not feel guilty about having a hemorrhoid and having a butt that just doesn’t want penetration. You should not feel guilty about not wanting to have sex because it’s rarely pleasurable for you. You can rewrite those stories and you can find ways to explore pleasure and to experience pleasure on your own terms, in your body, exactly as it is. But that’s a journey that has to come from a place of curiosity and delight, not pressure and expectation. 

So I would definitely recommend getting either a sex counselor or a sex coach. I do sex coaching. So if you’re looking for some one-on-one support, you can go to dawnserra.com, there’s a work with me page. But I think it has to start with you setting some really clear boundaries. He cannot pester you for anal anymore. He cannot pester you and joke and try and manipulate and coerce you into sex when you come home anymore. This has to be a mutually enjoyable experience. And if it’s not enjoyable for you, it might be uncomfortable to tell him no. He might be disappointed. He might be frustrated, he might feel lots of things. There’s all kinds of other activities that he can do that, one, offers him sexual pleasure and, two, connects the two of you that doesn’t have anything to do with your genitals and you being in pain. 

Dawn Serra: So I would recommend to you, listener, get some support to help you set these boundaries. Because what I’m hearing is a deeply unhealthy relationship dynamic. That’s leaving you wanting to cry, feeling stressed, not wanting to go home, and unsure of how to advocate for yourself and putting your body through things that cause it damage. No one should ever be in that position. So, I know that’s not the easiest thing to hear. Take some time, really evaluate what your needs are, what your body is capable of, and then do the best that you can to advocate from that place, or even have your boyfriend listen to this episode so that the two of you can talk about it. But I think you need to get some professional support to help you find your voice, to help you get creative around your pleasure, to help you find some trust and some delight in your body. And that might mean telling your boyfriend, “No sex, no intercourse, no butt stuff. Nothing for the next couple of months while I work through this at a minimum.” And then find other ways to play. If he’s not open to that, that gives you all the information you know about what kind of a relationship he wants from you, which is not one that’s mutually beneficial and not one that cares about your pleasure. 

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I know you’re not alone and I know that it can feel so embarrassing and shameful. But you deserve way more than this. So, take care of you and write back with an update if you have one at any point. Thank you so much listener.

Dawn Serra: It’s really interesting doing this show without Dylan. I miss Dylan so much, and Dylan just had a big 50 birthday party. So I will wish Dylan happy birthday from all of you. I have loved the direction the show has gone over the past year of interviewing such incredible leaders and I’ve grown so much personally and professionally that we’ve been having much different conversations than we did at the beginning of the show. And some of you have stuck with us through that and some of you haven’t, and that’s all okay. But the one thing that I miss about having a cohort in addition to Dylan’s amazingness is, sharing of myself has become a little bit more difficult. It’s hard for me to just sit here and talk about my stuff without somebody else to react and to interact with them, to share as well. It’s kind of a weird thing to just speak out into the ether, unprompted about stuff. So I haven’t shared as much about me in the last year as I did, especially in that beginning part of the podcast with Dylan. 

So I just wanted to share a little bit about something that I’ve been through in the past couple of weeks that’s very personal. And it’s just to demonstrate that no matter who you are, no matter how skilled you are, no matter what kind of relationships you’re in, no matter how much love is there, sometimes things are just tough. So, Alex and I have had some very personal conversations over the past couple of weeks and there have been big feelings. I’ve done a lot of crying. I’ve done a lot of advocating for myself in new ways. The other night, I said something that is very rare for me to say to people in my life, which is “I am really angry.” Because expressing my anger is something that is very difficult for me. I grew up in a house where anger was not a safe thing to express or to feel. And so, I’m still finding my voice around my anger in a lot of ways and it felt really good to actually say those words; and to be able to stand in them powerfully. But I’ll admit, I spent a couple of hours trying to kind of talk myself out of the anger and trying to ignore it. And then I realized, “No, I’m allowed to be mad. This hurts and I need to express that.” And I did and the world didn’t fall apart. We had some intense conversations that were not easy. Thankfully I had therapy, the day that we had one of our conversations, and my therapist was so beautifully supportive and offered me so much insight and permission; around the things that I was struggling with and coming to terms with and really validated my feelings and witness to me in such powerful ways. 

Dawn Serra: The reason I share that is because I think in our culture, we tend to romanticize relationships and turn our backs on some of the more difficult stuff that come with being in relationship with other human beings. It’s not always easy. People fuck up. People make mistakes. People say the wrong things. People have big feelings that they don’t share until it’s way later than when they initially had the feeling, and hello resentment. And then, we say things we don’t mean that hurt other people. Part of being in relationship is finding ways to navigate those often painful places, and to do so with as much generosity as you can and as much honesty as you can. And hopefully come out the other side, having learned more about each other, and having practiced some skills, which also means being really awkward at them. 

It’s really easy to talk about feeling awkward and standing in uncertainty. It’s another thing to actually feel fucking awkward, and to be swimming in uncertainty. So I just want to acknowledge that. A lot of the advice that I give on this show comes from research and from other experts that I’ve talked to and some of it also does genuinely come from the fact that, just like you, I struggle with so many of the things that you write in with. Sometimes I don’t feel like having sex. Sometimes orgasms aren’t easy. Sometimes I don’t advocate for myself. Sometimes I don’t say the scary thing. Sometimes I say things really badly and I hurt somebody’s feelings. I’m constantly learning and practicing and growing. And thankfully, I have many people in my life who are generous and believe that I’m coming from a good place when I make mistakes. I also believe that of the people in my life. That even if they say something that really, really hurts, and even if they say something that speaks to my deepest, deepest insecurities and wounds, there’s a part of me that also knows they’re doing their best. And we can work through this, even if it feels scary, even if I’m not sure. 

Dawn Serra: So I just wanted to share a little bit about that. I’m really proud of having sat in some tough places. And I’m sure there will be more tough places and the weeks, months, and years, decades to come. But getting to really express my anger was new and having a therapist who just, fuck, so gets it and is so so, so generous in witnessing me has made such a difference. So to all of you who are listening, if you don’t have a therapist and you have the means and the resources and the access to one – God, I can’t recommend it enough. And it might take some shopping around. But when you find a good one, everything changes. It’s incredible. 

So I want to use that to segue into this next listener email, because therapy is a part of the question and a part of the answer. So, I got this question from let me just make sure I’m allowed to say this person’s name. So, I’m pretty sure I can say Kate’s name. So Kate wrote in and it says “My body is not the problem.” 

“Hi, Dawn, I’m a new listener to your show. I absolutely love your content. And I’m so glad I found you. Thanks to your recent interview in another favorite podcast of mine Food Psych – shout out to Christy Harrison. I’m a mom of two, married to my husband for nine years and we’ve been together for 11. I’ve always been fat. I’m in a fat body. I always have been and I always will be. Yes, I’ve gone up and down the scale. And I have had some thin privilege in my mid 20s thanks to some extreme exercising and a 60 day stint living in the woods, hiking 10 miles per day. But what I’m saying is that in order for my body to fit into the oppressive norms for women’s bodies to be considered good. I am foregoing my own body autonomy and living in order to please others.”

Dawn Serra: “So cut to many years later, a long body positivity journey, understanding it through a lens of what I was working hard to be, which is an intersectional feminist, peppered with a strong yoga practice and I am IN LOVE WITH MY BEAUTIFUL SELF – all caps. The catch, my husband is not. He recently told me he was less sexually attracted to me because I am “too fat” and behaved in an insensitive and oppressively mean fashion. We are going to marriage counseling and have made some strides. I honestly feel like our marriage can and will weather this storm, but I am not going to be working to change my body in any way to please him. I need him to understand why he values me more sexually when I am smaller and why that is, in part, influenced by toxic patriarchal ideas of what women should look like. He is a self proclaimed feminist, but this is a huge disconnect. 

We have hot, passionate, sexy time sex. We are curious and into trying new things, toys positions. But I can’t help but be confused and not turned on by the fact that he has expressed this and felt this way. Please help. I’m hoping that you might have some ideas about how to help him unpack his fat phobia in a loving way. I love him very much and one our sex life to continue to grow and be a loving, intimate place of pleasure, discovery, and growth – pun intended. Thanks for all you do. You’re changing lives and helping people all over the world. With love, Kate.”

Dawn Serra: First of all, Kate, I love how clear you are that your body is not the problem because it’s not. Not in any way, shape, or form. So the fact that you’re really clear on that is beautiful. And thank you for people like Christy Harrison, who put content out into the world and to help all of us to really unpack fat phobia and diet culture; and finding our ways towards loving and accepting and even existing in our bodies the way that they are. So, good on you. I also want to say I’m really sorry that your husband expressed that to you. That’s deeply hurtful and really not okay. My first thought was to share with you what I want to share. But I decided to reach out to a couple of friends of mine who are therapists and who work in the space. And they also had some thoughts that were very similar to mine. So, I’ll just wrap it all up in a little bow for you. 

So, the first is Gina Senarighi, who’s been on the show a couple of times, said, “I would plain out call bullshit on that claim. Anything that’s “too ______ anymore,” when that hasn’t really changed is usually scapegoat or an easy target.” And she hopes that your couples counselor calls that out because either the too fat or the fatness never bothered you before and something has shifted in you that now it bothers you now, or you’ve been harboring resentment this whole time, which is both unfair and speaks to a communication issue – nothing to do with weight or size. So that’s what Gina said and that was exactly what I was going to say to you. Interestingly, timing. 

Dawn Serra: A couple of days ago was was speaking with a friend of mine who for years really believed that the reason that she didn’t really like her husband, and wasn’t sure she wanted to stay married to her husband, and wasn’t enjoying sex with her husband was because the story she was telling herself was that he was just too fat. And that if he would just lose weight,then all these other things would be fine. Since that time, a lot of things have changed for her, but one of the things that she’s realized is that that was exactly what Gina said, a scapegoat. It was easier to blame his fatness than to come to terms with the fact that she actually really didn’t like him anymore. She didn’t want to be married to him anymore. She didn’t want to share a life with him anymore. After kids and decades it’s a lot harder to say, “There’s this thing that’s not working for me,” than it is to just say, “Well, if you lost weight and you were thin,” because we’re culturally just taught to do that. I know I’m still trying to unlearn that habit of, “Man, maybe this would be easier on me if I was just thin. Maybe I wouldn’t be so anxious, maybe X,Y,Z wouldn’t happen if I could just lose weight.” But my therapist would also call bullshit on that for me. Because I have people in my life who have been thin their entire lives, and they’ve had more surgeries than me, and have had more anxiety, or deeper depressions – all kinds of things. But it’s easy to use weight as the scapegoat. So that would be my guess. 

My guess is there’s something that your husband is feeling resentful about, that has gone unspoken, that hasn’t been acknowledged. And he either doesn’t have the language for it, or he’s too scared to share it. And so, saying you’re too fat and he’s not attracted to you is his way of blaming something that has absolutely nothing to do with his levels of happiness or attractiveness, and more to do with what he isn’t willing to say or hasn’t found the language for yet.

Dawn Serra: Sarah Thompson is a blogger who went through BeNourished’s Body Trust Program. You might be familiar if you follow all the body positivity, fat activism folks online. Sarah Thompson is very active in sharing resources and thoughts about fat phobia and diet culture. And Sarah said that her blog next week is on this very topic. So I’ve asked her to pass along a link to her blog. And as soon as I get that, I’ll tweet that out. So keep an eye on Twitter for that. But Sarah Thompson, who is Body Trust Certified with BeNourished – If you haven’t found her on Instagram or social media, check her out. Because her blog next week is about this very thing, about partners who start using that, “Well, you’re too fat to have sex with or to find attractive anymore,” or whatever those other things are. 

So I just want to offer to you, one, I love how clear you are about your body. As far as helping him to unpack his fat phobia, you can’t do the work for him. You can give him resources. But unless he is really willing to do the work, it’s just going to be lip service. So what I would recommend is that he hire a coach or a Body Trust therapist to help him really do this work. Because he has to choose it for himself and he’s going to have to confront some real big stories if this is truly fat phobia related. My guess is that it’s not, but he still has to do the work. Listening to ChristyHarrison’s show together, listening to Summer Innanen’s Fearless Rebelle Radio Podcast together, reading Melissa Toler’s blog together, reading Sarah Thompson’s blog together. Or checking out the conference lineup for the ASDAH conference – The Association for Size, Diversity, and Health Conference that’s at the beginning of August. There’s so many leaders in this space there who probably have awesome resources that the two of you could dive into together. And also encouraging him to fill his world and his feed with body diversity. Whether it’s following BeNourished and Adipositivity and Chubster, or getting books like “Curvy Girl Sex” and “Big, big Love.” 

Dawn Serra: It takes active, ongoing constant work to continue to confront diet culture and fatphobia and fat bias. It’s not one and done. It’s not, “I did this work for a little while,” and that’s it. Because it’s constantly morphing and changing itself. If he’s not willing to do that work and if he’s not clear about why he’s using this as a scapegoat, then this problem is probably going to just keep coming up. So hopefully, your couples therapist is helping you to zero in on that because the issue is not your body. And if your therapist can’t articulate to that point, then I would recommend getting a different therapist who can or a therapist who specializes in that. And then I also recommend, Kate, you. If you don’t have a personal individual therapist or coach, get one. Having a place where you can really process around your needs, your boundaries, your wants, how you want to be seen and held in the relationship, how you want to be treated; and really grieving and mourning and grappling with maybe the things that your husband is or is not willing to do in this space is crucial and it’s not something that you should have to do alone. 

So I hope that you get more support for you. I hope that you do whatever you need to do to keep that clarity around hope. Your body is totally not the problem. And I hope more than anything, that you really sit with what Gina said, which is it has nothing at all to do with your fat body and with whatever he is scapegoating around – what isn’t he articulating? What is he feeling insecure about? What is he struggling with? And this is just the easy thing to blame. So thank you so much for listening and for tuning in. I love that you love Christy Harrison and I love that you’re listening to the show. I want more people who are super on the train of fighting against diet culture and being fat activists, because what an amazing space to be in. Thank you so much, Kate, and feel free to write back with an update when you have one. And of course, I will share Sarah Thompson’s blog on social media. So check Twitter. Follow the show @sexgetsreal on Twitter and I’ll share that. Or you can follow me on Twitter, I’m way more active on my personal Twitter, which is @dawn_serra. I share way more resources over there. So I’ll share Sarah’s blog as it comes out. So be sure to go to dawnserra.com for this episode to get the link to the interACT-intersex document that I shared.

Dawn Serra: Also, I will link to Patreon so for those of you who support the show, head over there now and get your bonus, where I’m going to be talking all about Consentacle, a consent game that is all about helping a human and a tentacled alien to navigate a super hot, mutual sexual experience. So we’ll hear more about their story and all of the incredible tasks and activities that you negotiate that are on the cards and how you build trust and satisfaction and have release. So.patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show or to check out your bonus. And, of course, if you have questions, comments, thoughts, go to dawnserra.com and use the contact form there. I love hearing from all of you and I have loved spending these past couple of months getting caught up on so many of your questions and emails. So apologies – some of you have been waiting a year to get your question answered. So I am working my way through.

I also have a whole bunch of guests that I’ve been working with. Virgie Tovar is going to be on the show in a couple of weeks. We recorded a while back, but we’re waiting to release the episode until her book publishes or book gets launched in August. And a handful of other really rad people. So I’m just going to keep answering your questions and then in the Fall, we’re going to have so many awesome interviews. I’m so excited. So thank you so much for tuning in and I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses. 

As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?