WHOA! Free birth control? YES!!!!

1. Simple Health is generously sponsoring this episode and YOU can get a free prescription for birth control without every leaving your home. That’s right, Simple Health has made birth control easier and cheaper than ever. You fill out an online questionnaire about your health, body, insurance, and preferences. They have a doctor review your information and make a recommendation for contraception. Then, they issue a prescription and Simple Health MAILS IT TO YOU at regular intervals, without you ever having to go anywhere or remember anything. If you have insurance, using Simple Health is often totally free. If you don’t have insurance, you can get birth control pills for starting around $15 per month. And…Sex Gets Real listeners, YOU CAN GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION FEE WAIVED! Head to simplehealth.com/sgr or enter code SGR at check-out and the $20 prescription fee will be waived. Birth control has never been so easy.

So, let’s dive into this week’s episode.

First up, I have some openings in my coaching practice. If you’d like to work with me around your body, your relationship to sex and desire, or get some couples support, head to dawnserra.com or fill out my intake questionnaire and we can have a quick chat to see if this might be a good fit for you. I’d love to support you.

Yesterday, Mia Mingus shared some really thought-provoking questions about accountability. What if we cherished and ran towards accountability? What if accountability was about love, connection, and feeling into new depths of ourselves instead of about punishment? Let’s explore that a little bit.

I also got a short listener question asking about women who are into older partners. WHOA. I had a lot to say about this that I didn’t realize was swirling around inside of me.

So, let’s talk about power, about preferences, and about the ways we are groomed to value younger women and older men. Plus, Patreon supporter Katie weighs in with her thoughts, as well.

Then I field a question from Danny.

You see, Danny is married but he doesn’t want to have sex with his wife. He just wants to masturbate. Is that weird? Is it wrong? What’s up?

Solo sex is amazing. Talk about a skilled lover who can read your mind! And yes, solo sex, or masturbation, are REAL, FULL sex. But what about Danny’s wife, who doesn’t love his affinity for masturbating over having sex with her?

Want to support the show and get rad bonuses? If you support the show on Patreon at $3 per month, you get exclusive weekly bonus content you can’t find anywhere else. If you support at $5 per month you get the weekly bonus content AND a chance to help me answer listener questions. Check it out at patreon.com/sgrpodcast.

The bonus this week is all about pleasure. I’ve got some JUICY questions for you to explore that will help you consider your relationship with pleasure.

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: 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: Hey, you. Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. Your questions have been pouring in and I love it. If you want to send a question to me, you can visit dawnserra.com or email me at info@dawnserra.com. There are some great questions for you today, plus, some thoughts unaccountability that Mia Mingus inspired. I also want to note enrollment for the April cohort of Power in Pleasure. My online five week course on pleasure has closed but not to worry. Several of you wrote to me asking when I’d be running the course again because this time didn’t work for you, enrollment will be back open in June and we’ll be starting the next cohort sometime in July. So perfect end of summer exploration of pleasure and bodies and food.

In the meantime, I do have a few spots open in my coaching practice. If you could use some support in exploring your stories, unpacking the places where you feel stuck or constricted or ashamed. If you want to explore new possibilities and deepen your relationship with your body, your pleasure, your desire. If you could use support in your relationship, reach out to me. I work with individuals and couples. Details are at dawnserra.com just to note that my website is undergoing a massive redesign by this super awesome queer IT company. So there might be some little hiccups here and there because we’re in the process right now of switching everything over. It’s going to be gorgeous. But you can still get through to the coaching page and in the show notes for this episode is a link for my intake questionnaire. If you’re interested in getting a little bit of one on one support or couples support, I would love to be there with you so that you feel less alone. On with the show.

Mia Mingus posed the following on Instagram yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. I posted it in the Explore More Facebook group and I thought it would be something really interesting for us to share here on the podcast too. Here’s what Mia Mingus wrote, “What if accountability wasn’t scary? It will never be easy or comfortable, but what if it wasn’t scary? What if our own accountability wasn’t something we ran from but something we ran towards and desired, appreciated, cherished, held as sacred? What if it wasn’t rooted in punishment, revenge or superficiality, but rooted in our values, growth, transformation, healing, freedom and liberation?” That’s so powerful, isn’t it? It led me to actually an additional question that I’m sitting in, which is what would help us to feel supported in being held accountable?

Dawn Serra: I wanted to share some of my thoughts that I’ve been chewing on that I shared in the Facebook group. I’ve been talking to Alex over breakfast about it and I totally do not have answers by any stretch of the imagination. But I have lots of unfinished thoughts and some questions of my own as I hold this invitation from Mia. We are raised inside of a culture that celebrates perfectionism, performance and pedestals. I love alliteration by the way. We aren’t raised inside of a culture that celebrates mistakes that teaches us to err is deeply human and I wonder what might be different if every family, every classroom, every church, every social group, not only have the skills to really sit in discomfort together, but also have the skills to hold space for the inevitable harm that we will all, every single one of us, cause. Instead of that, we’re taught to hide and to downplay mistakes, to present ourselves as evolved, as woke, as having it all together, as being really successful. We disappear anything that bruises our ego or brings up guilt or shame, especially on social media because we’ve been taught that certain people are disposable, evil, bad, unworthy. This is exacerbated by capitalism and neoliberalism who profit heavily off of us feeling as if we’re always on the verge of being unlovable, unworthy, and forgettable.

It’s also exacerbated by this little adrenaline rush and moral superiority rush that we feel when we get to feel like we’re better than someone else. This is especially true on social media. I’m also thinking accountability inside of loving relationships with friends, family, partners feels really different than so much of the accountability that we see happening in online spaces. I might still feel really embarrassed or ashamed or shrinking in my personal life. But I also inherently know that my friends and my loved ones aren’t going to abandon me when I fuck up. I know that they’re going to offer me grace and time. They’re going to respect my boundaries. They trust that I’m trying and I know that I can offer the same in return when they fuck up because we’ve cultivated those kinds of relationships.

Dawn Serra: Healing takes time, but so does change. And in my closest relationships, there’s often space for those things. But something that I see in online spaces that turns into something else is, yes, naming harmful behaviors or problematic words is important. That’s how we learn. But so many times in the past couple of years, I’ll see one or two people say, “Ouch, you hurt me.” And then dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people jump in and say really hurtful things, “I always knew they were trash or I always thought they were problematic.” And suddenly this person who caused harm isn’t allowed any respect. They’re not allowed any boundaries. They’re not allowed any time. I’ve even recently seen people turning on those who come in to those threads to say to the harmed person, “I see you. You’re valuable. I know you’re trying. Thanks for letting us see your mess,” and turning on the people who are trying to show support. This is really complicated because, yes, we should always center those who have been harmed, whether it’s in our personal life or in this larger cultural community context. But centering those who have been harmed doesn’t necessarily also equate to ignoring, throwing out, dismissing, disowning, boycotting, or dehumanizing the person or the people who caused the harm. And this, I think, is part of what happens when we lead from our trauma and from our wounds.

When we don’t know justice for all of the violence and the hurt we’ve experienced, it can feel so good to have a chance to say, “You, you hurt me.” And to put all that hurt and trauma and to some kind of action. And I am speaking to myself when I say this because I have absolutely done these things. The blaming, the dragging, the raking a single person when really the problem is systemic and communal.

Dawn Serra: I think about adrienne maree brown’s words that what we focus on grows and we’re always practicing something. So when I think about accountability in online spaces, I think about how important it is to allow people to set boundaries for themselves. Even if they’re the ones who have caused harm, to take time to reflect even when we want answers, apologies and action now. How do we reconcile that, especially if accountability and connection or what we really want? How do we support those who have been hurt and who do deserve immediate action and sit in our discomfort around allowing those who have caused harm to also be human in their process? What if part of accountability is fucking up the accountability? Because we have so few models of it being done well. I also think that it’s really worth mentioning that for many of us, especially those of us who are more privileged. So often being told we’ve caused harm, feels like an attack and this is also work we all need to do.

Being able to suss out what is an attack versus what is simply uncomfortable, maybe embarrassing or shame inducing, but true and honest. Also, so many of us are so afraid of being held accountable that we fail to speak up. We fail to take the imperfect action that so desperately is needed. We silence ourselves and, two, so many of us are so afraid of being hurt that we cut people off the moment they do something imperfectly. So I’m wondering how do we begin to create more capacity around these feelings of messiness and uncertainty? If every single one of us has caused and will cause harm, if every single one of us, even our most favorites are problematic, what work do we need to do now to help make more space for when that inevitability does happen down the road, both in our personal lives and in these larger community scale, conversations?

Dawn Serra: I’m going to keep marinating and thinking about the kinds of connection and relationships and world I want, and how to live in our values around accountability. How do we shift from uplifting and centering punishment and these deep rooted stories of heroism and justice that are really about painting certain people as good and others as bad, instead towards stories of community connection and humanity. How do we become more transparent, more open and softer around the ways that we fuck up? How can we start practicing greater accountability inside of our most intimate relationships knowing that doing that has a big impact on the larger whole? And how can we start bringing people closer to us instead of holding them at arm’s length, instead of closing down and performing out of fear of messing up? Because I think a lot of us are doing that. How can we shift from embarrassment and dread to genuine gratitude when people say, “Ouch, that hurt or I need you to do better.”

I think at its core, this is deeply anti patriarchy, deeply anti capitalist, deeply rooted in alternative justice and new ways of relating to each other, which means it’s going to be really uncomfortable. Because for a lot of us, it’s new. It’s a new way of being.

Those are just some of my thoughts that came up from reading Mia’s post on Instagram and I would love to hear from you. You can comment on the Sex Gets Real Facebook page if you’d like to or email me if you have any thoughts. It’s something that I really want more of us to hold. What does accountability really, really look like in our relationships? How do we build accountability into our most intimate relationships? That it’s something that actually feels good and generative, not just something that only comes up when we’re angry and coming from a place of hurt.

Dawn Serra: Okay, enough of my musings. Let’s jump into your questions. First, I got his very, very short inquiry that led me to a really, really long answer. Someone who says, I’m African American and the subject line is Grey Hair. The message simply says,

I’m 33 with two kids and I absolutely love, love, love listening to your podcast. Now my question, can you talk about women who are into older partners? So I posted this question and Patreon because if you support the show at $5 a month and above, you can help me field questions just like this. And Katie, a Patreon supporter offered this note. Now I just want to note, that Katie’s response assumes that this person’s pronouns are she and her, even though we didn’t get anything in the email about that. So note that as I read this.

Katie says, “My first thought is to ask her what is underneath that question? What does she want to know more about and why? The why is certainly more searching question that requires possibly a bit more reflection and/or the help of another who cares for her and who she trusts, who may be able to have a different perspective on beliefs and behaviors. I wonder if this person, like so many others who ask questions about sexual desires, sexual pleasures or being into something, is she wondering if this is normal? And I would say, sure. If you’re both adults, both enthusiastic about the relationship in whatever form it takes and she finds it nourishing, then go for it. And, again, going back to my first thought to ask what is underneath that question? If she finds that she’s concerned that she is not quote unquote normal or she feels like this relationship is not nourishing, or if she talks with a caring person in her life who has some concerns. For example, if she’s 18 and this person is 45 which could but not always indicate some coercion or potential exploitation, especially given the pervasive dynamics of gender and power. Then this is an issue that I think she may benefit from seeking some professional help about. Again, not whether it’s normal or not, but more because if you’re asking the question, sometimes that comes from a place of knowing or intuiting in your heart of hearts that something isn’t right. And you’re looking for someone like Dawn Serra on the Sex Gets Real podcast to validate your experience, which is all okay. Trust your intuition. If you think something may not be cool in this relationship, talk to someone about it. You and they will know your context better than anyone else can and support you if that’s what you need.

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for that, Katie, and for supporting the show. I appreciate it so much. If you would also like to put your sex educator hat on, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast for Sex Gets Real. SGR podcast. And you can support the show anywhere from $1 and above. Those who support at $5 a month and above get a couple of questions a month that they can weigh in on and be sex educators along with me if they’d like. Going back to the question, here are some of my thoughts. Buckle up.

This question for me is lacking context because the truth is that I would feel differently if we’re talking about a woman who is 18, 19, 20 even 25 or 26 dating men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s than if it was a woman who was in her 40s and 50s dating men and their 60s and 70s. I would feel differently if it was a woman who was in her late teens or early twenties dating women or non binary folks in their 40s, 50s, and 60s versus a woman in her 40s and 50s dating women or non binary folks in their 60s and 70s. Power and inequity play out really differently in each of these scenarios and that context matters. Something that is woefully invisibilized at a cultural level for us is power. We don’t often examine the power dynamics that feed our relationships, which can lead to silent contracts and obligations ,and assumptions and expectations. What’s the class of the young person versus the older? What kind of ability or disability is present? What about race, body size, health?

An older partner might expect a younger partner to defer more often to the older partner. The older partner might have a more established career or a more established social support, which could make things a little less stable for the younger partner. And none of these things are inherently bad or wrong, but they are important to note and to make visible. Then when we add in gender dynamics beyond just age, it becomes even more complex because patriarchy and sexism groom men to desire younger women. Because younger women are, often not always, less boundary, less self aware, more pliable, easier to manipulate. They have less social status or maybe not as many resources. And because everything we see in media and marketing is about centering the male gaze, the rest of us also internalize this fetishization of youth and womanhood.

Dawn Serra: We treat boys and men like they’re these unaware of bumbling child like beasts who don’t have any self control. Some of the ways we hear this is in things like, “Girls mature faster than boys,” which isn’t true except the culturally we expect it. We also see this in policing what young girls were so as not to tempt boys who can’t control themselves. Young women are often attracted to older men because older men not only often have more power, more wealth, more knowledge, but also because so many men behave in really disrespectful and objectifying ways. Something else that’s important to note is that experience can change the way entitlement gets expressed. A little wisdom can make entitlements seem more like confidence, than youthful cockiness. And I do think that things are changing and that we have more and more young people being brought up inside of gender diverse cultures, inside of consent culture, with greater access to sex positivity and feminism. These things are changing. But for those of us who aren’t growing up inside of that, now we need to contend with what’s true.

I think it’s so important that we turn a critical eye at the cultural context that impacts why older men would seek much younger women and why younger women would seek much older men. It’s not just fertility like it was centuries ago when people only live to be in their thirties and forties so childbearing years were super short. We’re not there anymore, even taking this beyond older men. If it’s a younger woman who is attracted to other genders, there’s still a really interesting power dynamic in that to consider. We do fetishize youth and none of us are immune to that. Mentorship can sometimes also be a dynamic that gets built into relationships with a really big age gap and for some, that sense of mentorship might be really comforting and supportive. But for others, it can lead to an unhealthy dynamic down the road.

Now, if we lived in a world where sexism didn’t exist, where patriarchy didn’t exist, where all genders were totally equal, where resources were super abundant and violence was all been eliminated or communities taught young people about emotional intelligence and self regulation, body autonomy and consent from the earliest ages and have that supported every level of life, then our attraction and desire would be rooted less in oppression and scarcity and really more genuinely in connection. It bring us back to the personal. I really don’t believe any of us are broken or wrong for the things we long for. Our fantasies, our desires, our longings are incredibly complex and nuanced and they’re informed by so many things. And as adults, I believe we have a responsibility to really investigate those fantasies, those desires, those longings to ask if they contribute to a more liberatory, just and fair world. If we find that they don’t, which for so many of us, they don’t, then the work becomes finding ways to validate and honor where we are. We don’t need to pathologize or judge ourselves for what is true while also really gently investigating new ways of being that might be more aligned with our values in the world that we want to create.

Dawn Serra: If you in this moment are into older partners, that’s super okay. You like older partners. Lots of people do. I’ve had my share of older lovers and I have absolutely found that they were broad brush strokes, much better lover than younger partners. Now, Alex is an exception. And, of course, there are many exceptions. But this was often true because so many of the older partners I’ve had, their erections were a little less reliable, they had a lot of life experience. So the ways that we had sex were much more pleasure focused and much less performance and achievement focused. But it’s also worth mentioning that lots of older partners also might be more rigid in their views and perspectives because of the culture they grew up inside of. And for some of us, that might feel comforting. Maybe we were raised in a similarly more conservative perspective. For others that might be a turnoff.

I just want to note, my experience is not universal. So I want all of us to hold that there are many younger people with incredible body wisdom and life wisdom that many older people do not have. As Katie offered, I think being able to hold what is true while also investigating into the why and the impact of that why is where that really juicy, yummy stuff comes, for me at least, as we explore our erotic selves. so I didn’t have a lot to go on with this email. I just felt into the question at a really general level and I hope to the person who wrote in that offered you some things to chew on and feel into. How can we allow our arousal and our attraction to be true and start feeling into what are some of the conditions that might have made this be true for me? What has supported this attraction but has helped to create these conditions that led me here? That might be an interesting investigation. Thank you so much for listening and for writing in. I’m so curious to hear what you think.

Dawn Serra: Now, I want to just pause for a minute. We have an exciting sponsor that’s doing something totally revolutionary with birth control access in the US and it is long overdue. They’re called Simple Health and they are here to make your healthcare, well, simple. They are starting out by simplifying birth control access with online prescriptions and home delivery. One of the things that breaks my heart is there are over 20 million women, much less nonbinary and queer folks in America, that lack access to something as basic and fundamental as contraception. The existing healthcare system can prevent people from getting the care that they need whether it’s insurance barriers, income, physical location. Simple Health, thought of a better way. With Simple Health, you can get your birth control prescribed online and delivered to your door for free. It’s affordable, convenient, and safe. And whether you’re already on birth control, looking to get back on, or want to try it for the first time, Simple Health will take care of you.

Here’s how it works. You fill out a comprehensive online health profile, answers some questions formulated to find the best birth control for you, your body, your preferences, your insurance situation. They take all of it into account. And then a medical doctor reviews your profile, figures out if you’re a good candidate for birth control, recommends a product, and actually writes a prescription. Then your birth controls ships directly to your door on a recurring schedule. No interruptions, no having to remember to reorder. Now just to be clear, Simple Health isn’t making their own birth control. They only prescribed trusted and vetted brands of birth control, including pills, the patch, and the ring. Best of all, Simple Health offers affordable care regardless of insurance. Now they do accept insurance and luckily birth control is free with most insurance plans. You can pay absolutely nothing to use their service every month. For those without insurance pills start at $15 a month. So it’s still affordable and delivery is free for everyone.

Dawn Serra: The prescription is usually $20. But for you, Sex Gets Real listeners, you can try Simple Health for free by going to simplehealth.com/SGR for Sex Gets Real or you can enter code SGR at checkout and that makes the prescription fee free. I also want to mention this is not a replacement for routine evaluations by your primary care physician or gynecologist. You should still get health checkups as needed. But it is a convenient and affordable, comfortable way to get your birth control. As someone who just used an online doctor service yesterday, I can tell you it was amazing. No doctor’s office, no waiting in waiting rooms, no time off work, no driving to the pharmacy. I was just in my pajamas and filled in all this information.

This is going to save you so much time and money and if you aren’t on birth control but you know someone who is, tell them about Simple Health; let’s help improve access to healthcare it and conscious reception everywhere. Again, don’t miss your chance to try Simple Health for free. You just go to simplehealth.com/SGR or enter code SGR at checkout and they waive that prescription fee. Plus, it lets them know you heard about it here, which would be super, super, super helpful. So if you’re looking for ways to support the show, that’s one of them that’s simple and get you free awesome contraception. So check it out.

Dawn Serra: This next email comes from Danny with a subject line “I don’t like sex, but I love to masturbate.” Danny writes, Hey Dawn, I’ve got a weird one for you. I’m happily married, but I don’t enjoy sex necessarily. I love masturbating and have since I was 13. I’m very sexual with myself, if that makes any sense. My spouse is my one and only sex partner. I love touching myself and always want to. I’m aroused daily from my own mind and thoughts, but I just want to touch myself. I don’t consider myself asexual, but I don’t know what I am. I’m heterosexual. I just don’t like sex. Am I lazy? I mean, it feels good. But if I could just masturbate throughout my whole marriage, I’d probably be okay with that though my spouse would not. Am I a weirdo? I know it’s uncanny, especially me being a man. Thank you truly for your time.

Danny, I don’t think that’s weird at all. Masturbation can be amazing. I mean, talk about a skilled lover, right? When we engaged in solo sex, we get to have sex with someone who can read our mind, who can feel our impulses the moment we have them, who can follow it and deepen our pleasure as we feel it, who knows every part of our body intimately, all without having to say a word or explain a thing or ask for anything. There’s no awkwardness or discomfort. Masturbation is pretty darn awesome and I consider it totally full, legit, real sex. Now, I know you mentioned you don’t consider yourself asexual and I do honor that. But for folks who are listening, I want to mention that lots of asexual people not only masturbate but really love masturbating. Sexual pleasure with self is totally different than feeling sexual longing and desire for other. Being asexual doesn’t necessarily mean being nonsexual for everyone. It’s more about whether or not you’ve got interest in engaging with sex with others and you’ve got that desire for sex with others.

Here’s some of the other things that I noticed in your email, Danny. We have such terrible toxic restricting messages about men’s sexuality. Lots of men feel like the only way they can get their touch, needs met, the only place to even be remotely vulnerable is through intercourse. But sex and touch and pleasure and being seen by people we love so much more expansive than that. And I love that you know what you want and the more that we can break these really, really harmful social scripts about men and sex, the better. Because not all men love intercourse. Not all men think penetration is the best source of pleasure. Not all men need sex to feel deeply connected to a partner. It’s just we don’t usually see those truths celebrated or represented in porn or in Pop culture and the media. But it is normal and it is common.

Dawn Serra: I’m also super curious about your relationship with your wife. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with loving masturbation and getting your pleasure needs met through solo sex. It’s not an inferior form of sex. For me, it’s real delicious, legitimate sex. And how open is your wife about sex? How freely do the two of you communicate your wants and needs? How easily do the two of you offer feedback about what would make certain touches or experiences more pleasurable? How creatively expressed do you both feel in the sex you’re having? How open is your wife to feedback when you offer it to her? Does she offer you feedback? Where you both raised inside of deeply religious households or communities that taught you bodies are dirty and sex is sinful, so it created this sense of disgust or wanting to cut yourself off from it completely? These questions aren’t about pathologizing you. You certainly don’t have to ask yourself these questions because there’s nothing wrong with how you’re experiencing sex now. But it might be interesting to just consider those questions and see if you notice anything that wiggles with curiosity.

The only real question I have is how does your wife feel about this? Does she masturbate? Do you two mutually masturbate? Is that an option for the two of you that could feel really connecting but also still honor the ways you like to have sex? Does she want intercourse or oral sex or kinky sex and your lack of wanting leaves her feeling really frustrated and rejected? It kind of sounds like that’s true based on what you said in your email. Because hopefully what we do have in our lives is if both of you are happy and feeling satisfied not engaging in partnered sex, that’s a win. We don’t have to have partnered sex to have a really valid, healthy, thriving, connected, intimate relationship.

Dawn Serra: It’s really about having needs and desires met and validated in a way that feels really good. If that’s not true for you, it might be where some conversations about needs and wants that would help you both to thrive and feel connected. Now I really, really want you, Danny, to continue delighting in your body and the pleasure that you’re able to bring yourself. And I also hope for you that you and your wife can have some really yummy open conversations about her needs and what a deeper connection might look like without partnered sex. If she doesn’t want that, if she really wants partnered sex, if that’s important to her than I think either the two of you agreeing to get really creative around sex or talking about the state of your relationship and whether it’s something that the two of you can continue to feel happy inside of is going to be really important.

One other thing I want to offer now, you’ve heard me offer this in the past to other listeners, is often we use sex as a way to get needs met, like validation, connection, touch, vulnerability, play, all kinds of things. That might be an entry point into your conversation standing with your wife. Now if she really wants to have sex, if sex is important to her, she deserves to have that wanting. And if she’s really interested in having a deeper conversation, what does sex represent for her and how might the two of you get some of those needs met? Maybe for her sex feels really wonderful because of the closeness and the warmth, and the skin. So what if instead of having intercourse or partnered sex, the two of you did naked massage and then you went off and masturbated or maybe for her sex is an opportunity to feel really committed, uh, in the relationship. What are some other things that the two of you could do that create rituals of commitment and connection that offer her that assurance? Having those kinds of conversations can be really, really tough at first and awkward, but what they can yield on the other side is so much richness and so many more opportunities for connection, for a healthy relationship where your needs are rather different.

I also just wanted to mention for anyone who’s listening who does want some more information about asexuality head to asexuality.org There are lots and lots and lots of amazing resources on that website, including some definitions around asexuality and desire and arousal and how it all can fit together. Danny, I hope that that was helpful. I don’t think it’s weird at all. I love how much you love your body and your pleasure. And if you want too, without pathologizing or thinking there’s something wrong, investigate into, are you using masturbation to avoid certain things because you don’t want to have conversations? Maybe the sex you have with your wife feels good, but it’s kind of really not great and not meeting all of these other needs and fantasies you have? Maybe there’s something else that if you and your wife had some really open conversations, it would unlock new possibilities. It feels like there’s a lot of potential here. If the two of you are willing to get vulnerable and feel into that.

I hope that was helpful and I so appreciate you listening to the show and writing in. I hope you have much, much more amazing solo sex in your future and delight in that body of yours. Thank you so much for listening and for writing in, Danny.

Dawn Serra: The last thing I want to mention is for Patreon supporters, if you support it $3 a month and above, you get weekly bonus content. Most weeks there wasn’t bonus content last week because of my grandma’s funeral and all the travel. But this week, there’s going to be this really yummy series of questions all about investigating your stories about pleasure. I post these questions in a group call that I facilitated the other day and they yielded the most rich, amazing discussion. And I thought, why not bring that here and offer that to you? So if you support at $3 a month and above, pop over now patreon.com/sgrpodcast I will be later today uploading a little bonus where we’re going to talk about pleasure, and then I’m going to post some awesome questions and do a little visualization; and you can investigate your relationship and stories with pleasure. Because as you know, it’s totally on my mind right now with the of course kicking off. Totally check that out. If you’ve got questions that you could use support around, please write into me info@dawnserra.com or had to dawnserra.com and use the contact form where you can contact me anonymously. I will be back next week.

I just finished recording a few more interviews for that series of interviews I told you I’m going to be airing later in May. The conversation was amazingly rich. I cannot wait to air these talks that’s coming soon, so stay tuned. I also recently reached out to a whole bunch of publishers. There’s some awesome books coming out later this year, all about sex and sexism, and feminism and relationships. I’m trying to get all those authors to come on the show and I’m really, really excited for some of them. Thank you for listening. I will, of course, be back next week with even more on Sex Gets Real. Until next time. I am Dawn Serra. Bye

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

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