tl;dr What should you do with sexy pics of your ex and what if you still get off to them? How can you have more pleasure if you have herpes and your partner does not? And what should you do if you can’t stop thinking of someone who drifted out of your life?

News!

1. The October Cohort of my 5-week online course, Power in Pleasure, is enrolling NOW. We kick off TODAY Sunday, October 20th and it’s going to be amazing. Learn more and enroll here: dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse (it costs as much as a single coaching session but includes six live calls and five weeks of daily emails bursting with powerful prompts and questions). Join us!

This week, it’s me and you!

First up, I want all of us to know about SexEdSchool.ca with Nadine Thornhill and Eva Bloom. It’s for kids and adults with kids in their lives, but let’s be honest. We could all use a refresher. Check it out.

Thinking wrote in about still thinking a lot about an old friend who drifted out of their life. Sometimes those memories are erotic and sometimes not, but is this because Thinking loves them or never got closure?

Crystal from Patreon had a few thoughts for Thinking. And then I weigh in about memories and how they can serve to support the stories we need in our lives. But it’s important that we use memories to nourish us or to feel into something that we enjoy rather than investing in the truth of this fiction we’ve spun.

It’s normal to look back, as long as looking back doesn’t keep us from living in the present.

Increase My Pleasure Please has herpes and their boyfriend does not. They are using gloves and condoms, but they’d really like to try oral sex. IMPP is on anti-viral meds, but there’s still a chance to shed the virus, so what is safe? How can IMPP increase their pleasure without increasing risk?

I love this question because current stats show that 90% of Americans have some form of the herpes virus, which means it’s SUPER common. And the more all of us know, the more pleasure we can all experience!

Because I’m not a herpes expert, I turned to a few great resources for data and suggestions. Bookmark these! Especially Herpes Opportunity because Adrial Dale has such a sweet, optimistic approach to herpes and relationships.

1. Check out Bianca Palmisano’s article on plastic wrap as a sexual barrier
2. HerpesOpportunity.com by Adrial Dale
3. Herpes.Education by Jenelle Marie Pierce
4. Ella Dawson’s blog has an area dedicated to herpes
5. The New Zealand Herpes Foundation

The long and the short of it is whether we are in a relationship with differing STI statuses, with disability, with chronic pain, with aging bodies, with fat bodies, with differing needs, or just want to have more options for pleasure, we can experience deep sexual fulfillment and erotic expression when we use our imaginations to connect around the infinite ways we can enjoy each other’s bodies – lap dances, mutual masturbation, erotic massage, tickle fights and wrestling, power exchange, bondage, reading erotica together, clothes-on humping and making out, toys, fucking machines – the sky is the limit on pleasure.

Kate has a super short question that I find fascinating. Is it wrong to keep sexy photos of an ex and to sometimes get off to them? What if you’re in a new relationship?

Let’s talk ethics and respecting people and how the digital age can make us feel entitled to someone’s body long after we’re with them.

Finally, Patrons, this week’s bonus will be some erotic breathwork practices. Join me! If you support the show at $3 per month, you can get access at patreon.com/sgrpodcast. If you want to help me answer listener questions, the $5 level is for you. Your support means so much!

Have questions of your own you’d like featured on the show? Send me a note using the contact form in the navigation above!  

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook 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, 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: 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.

Hey, you. Are you ready for this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real? I know I am! I was sadly sick last week with a sinus infection, you might hear that a little bit this week, so I apologize for missing an episode. But I’ve got medicine, I have sloth slippers on my feet – for reals. I have sloth slippers, hot tea, and loads of goodness for us to explore this week.

Dawn Serra: First up, because this is ultra time-sensitive – if you are listening to this on Sunday when the episode drops, October 20th or even if you’re listening on Monday or Tuesday, enrollment is closing for the October cohort of my 5-week online course, Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Joy, and Desire. Our first call is tonight, October 20th, but it is being recorded. So if you join Monday or Tuesday, you can still get access and the first module goes out bright and early Monday morning. Which means it’s not too late to join us. We’re going to spend five luscious, brave, curiosity-filled weeks unpacking our pleasure stories, investigating our senses, befriending our hungers, exploring the erotic, and examining the ways we set boundaries and communicate those needs to people in our lives. 

It’s one of my most favorite things and I would love to have you jump in. I won’t be running the course again until April 2020. So, if you’re at all interested, this is the time. Head to dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse for details and to slide into one of those last few spots.

Dawn Serra: So, what else am I cooking up? Well, I’m looking forward to some conversations that I have coming up soon for the podcast. I’m going to be chatting with Kai Cheng Thom about their new book, “I Hope We Choose Love” and I’m talking to Darcey Steinke, I think that’s how you pronounce her last name, about her new book about menopause, “Flash Count Diary.” I am so excited. I’m also eagerly checking my mail every single day because Christy Harrison’s soon to be released book, “Anti-Diet,” is zooming my way to me and as soon as I have a chance to dive in, we’ll be chatting on the show about it. I’m just going to say that’s where it ends and not acknowledge the 12 other books waiting to be read that publishers sent me. But, needless to say, there’s going to be some great conversations coming up on the show.

This week, I am fielding some of your emails, because you know I love hearing from you. If you could use some advice, a little support, resources for something that’s been on your mind, let me know. If you go to dawnserra.com – I just had a beautiful redesign of the site and it’s where the podcast lives now. So anyway, if you head to dawnserra.com, there’s a contact form where you can either email me anonymously or share your name. You can also reach out directly by sending an email to info at sexgetsreal dot com. Either way, I would really like to hear your questions, what’s keeping you up at night, or where you’re feeling stuck. Whatever it is, let me know and maybe I’ll field it on the show. 

Dawn Serra: There have been some really cool things happening in the world in the past few weeks and months. One of the things that I want all of us to have on our radar is a project that Nadine Thornhill, who’s been on the show a few times, has been working on called Sex Ed School with Eva Bloom. It’s this awesome video series where Nadine and Eva teach a classroom full of actual kids about sex and sexuality. The videos are so sweet and the kids laugh and get to ask questions – it’s this really fantastic resource for parents, teachers, and young people too. And honestly, even those of us without children in our lives, there’s things to learn from these videos. 

Nadine and Eva are so fun and down to earth and they share some fantastic information with young people about bodies, sex, gender, science, love, and lots of other things. So, if you want to check that out, the website is sexedschool.ca, because they’re in Canada – sexedschool.ca. And, on their website, there’s some other resources that I highly recommend checking out, especially if you’re a parent or you work with kids and teens. There’s some people doing some really rad things out there so check that out. 

Dawn Serra: I also wanted to share about this practice, someone posted about in a Facebook group that I’m in. And, it’s something very similar to what I do with some of my coaching clients. Because I get a lot of questions that have to do with unmet desires and fantasies, I thought I would share this. So, someone in a Facebook group I’m in attended a workshop on women’s sexuality, and one of the exercises that they did in the workshop was called What Is So Good About That? 

Essentially, as a practice, you write down things that you want, the things that you’re desiring, that you’re aspiring to. And then for each of those things, you ask yourself, “What’s so good about that?” And, you continue asking yourself that question and writing down your answer over and over and over again – kind of like peeling an onion until you can’t go any deeper into your feelings and what’s motivating the desire. Then, you can take a look at what’s underneath that desire, especially a desire that you got a lot of stories around. And it can reveal not only some of those deeper needs that maybe you didn’t know you had, but it can create this really rich, creative space for finding adjacent ways to get those needs met. I use this so much with clients who are at a stalemate around sex or something like that. 

Dawn Serra: Often, when we dive deep into the why, we find that sex gives them a chance to feel vulnerable or to experience touch or to share an intimate moment with someone they love. Whatever the reasons are, when we reveal those deeper needs, then we can play with all sorts of ways to get those needs met in other ways. It’s a way to use our imagination and to be able to collaborate, and communicate in new ways often around stuck places. And to bring in some creativity and flexibility – that helps us to get more of our needs met. I think that it has an expansion versus contraction and a “sinking my heels” kind of feel. So, if you want to give that a try – What’s So Good About That – I’d love to hear what you discover! You can use this for all kinds of things whether it’s a desire to write a book or what’s underneath that, a desire to travel – what’s the deeper need underneath that? Or a desire to fall in love. It can be a really fun way to give yourself more options and to just give yourself a more deeper understanding. 

Dawn Serra: One thing I’ll add is that this is also a very heady exercise. It can really help to check in with your body as you do this and notice information that your body is offering. How do you feel when you’re thinking about the desire? What do you start feeling in your body as you think about those deeper needs? That’s even more information. Where is there sensation? What does it have to say?

One more thing before we jump into your emails, I just want to remind you that you can support the show on Patreon. It’s at patreon.com/SGRpodcast. Every single dollar makes a huge difference for me. And this week, the bonus is an erotic breathwork exercise that we’re going to do together to try feeling what it’s like to move some erotic energy through our bodies. Fun, right? So, if you support at $3 a month and above, you can join in, check out this bonus and all the others. If you support at $5 a month and above, you can also help field listener questions. So, to those of you who are at that level, there are some new listener questions ready for you to weigh in on. So go check those out.

Dawn Serra: This first email comes from Thinking. It says, “I can’t stop thinking of this old friend of mine. It was almost a relationship but we didn’t get that far. We talked a lot back then, but it didn’t work out long term. Distance was probably part of it and I also met someone else. We used to talk a lot about sex and had a lot of deep conversations about that and other subjects. We never ended up having sex but we almost did. We met up a few times for dinner and to hang out. I enjoyed it and we had fun chatting about life. They are often in my mind, sometimes sexy thoughts, Of which they have the power to really arouse me), sometimes general thoughts. Do you think it’s because I love them? Or maybe I have some unresolved lust for them? Or maybe a mixture? Maybe no real closure?”

I posed this question from Thinking in Patreon and Crystal offered some thoughts. Crystal wrote:

“Dear Thinking, you are not alone in having those ‘what if’ type of thoughts. We all have someone in our lives who we have very close and intimate relationships with that make us wonder or even in some cases slip into and back out of a romantic or sexually charged interaction. These types of close relationships can have a golden glow around them that is heart warming and drenched in intense feelings that leave us wondering. Do you love them? The simple answer is yes. Do you lust after them? This is something only you would know, but it is more than ok if you do. There is a much more complex answer about your love for them. We can have a deep love for someone who we keep as a very dear friend that does not need to move toward a romantic connection or even a sexual one. This situation can create angst for those who are monogamous, but can be a very commonly seen relationship for those who are consensually non-monogamous. I hope that this helps you to know that you are not alone in this grey area. Crystal”

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much, Crystal! If you want to support the show and weigh in like Crystal did, it’s not too late! I love more thoughts, not only on this email but past emails and emails that are coming down the road. So, that’s all at patreon.com/SGRpodcast.

So, back to Thinking. I really appreciate you sharing this with us because I think like Crystal said, it’s so common that we have people who drift into our lives, who make an impact on us, and then drift out. It makes me think of that expression, “People are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” I think that that’s really true, but it’s more of a spectrum than hard definitions and buckets. I think the trap that we can fall into with people who have left our lives is in creating fictional stories that we become really attached to. And sometimes we need that lifeline or that fantasy to feel things we might miss feeling. But it’s also important for us to remember that we are making these people into something almost mythical based on our projections and needs, not who they really are with all their imperfect, messy selves that we maybe didn’t even really know that well. 

Dawn Serra: So, for you, Thinking, I think the answers to your questions depend on your perspective. For you, is love something that can take many forms and stretch across time and space? If so, then perhaps you do love this person for what they were, for those tender memories and moments that you shared, for the potential and the question of what could have been. It’s just one version of love in its infinite forms. You also mention closure. Closure, in my opinion, is something we rarely actually get and chasing it can cause so much more pain than not. Often, the quest for closure is often a veiled attempt at clinging to someone and a story we aren’t yet ready to grieve yet or let go of. 

I wonder about you, Thinking, what this old friend is offering you? Are these memories soft and warm and offering you something that feels nurturing and tender? Are these memories a way to feel something that perhaps is missing in your life right now or a way to numb out? Does turning towards these memories and the fantasies you’re spinning off of the memories help you to nourish yourself, to offer you something that’s really good? Or are they starving you and keeping you from settling into the reality of the present moment? Only you know what it is that you really need right now and what serves you best. But I do think it’s important for all of us to hold that the version we carry with us of someone we once knew does changes and shifts over time. Memories are so deeply imperfect and they’re easily influenced by our shifting moods and psychological needs, and the stories about ourselves that we want to believe and uphold.

Dawn Serra: As time passes, the memories gently morph and change to fit the story we carry or the story that we want to be true. It’s not a good or a bad thing, it’s just what happens with memories. But, I think it’s important that we don’t tether ourselves to these stories too tightly because ultimately they do become a sort of fiction.

So, I think my advice to you, Thinking, is to ask yourself what purpose these memories serve. I really think fondly of some people from my past and it’s this tender, bitter sweet little moment that brings some yummy little tingle in me for a few moments. And it’s nice to have those little reflections to be with. Sometimes when that happens, I wonder what if, because we are curious, imaginative creatures and our brains are always eager to spin tales and fantasies of what might have been. But these things are just that – tales and fantasies. So, if thinking of your friend brings you pleasure and is serving you in some way, then savor them, enjoy them, allow them to be true. They don’t need to make sense, they don’t need to have a purpose, they can simply be a part of you. Or, if you find the memories are holding you back, creating some kind of fiction’s difficult to separate yourself from, that you use to compare others to and find them lacking against this memory that’s so easy to craft as something less nuanced than it actually was, then maybe some grief work would help to create a little bit of space.

Dawn Serra: I hope that this helps and I definitely think that we can find a way to co-exist with our memories in a way that brings us a little joy or a little nostalgia that nourishes us in some way, and gives you more options down the road rather than less by closing us off and attaching us to something that is no longer true. Either way, Thinking, the one thing that is clear is it sounds like that fleeting relationship was meaningful, and that is what life is made for and I love that that happened in itself and it’s a beautiful gift. So thank you so much for asking.

This next email is about herpes and comes to us from “Increase My Pleasure, Please.” So, I will be calling Increase My Pleasure, Please – IMPP, just to make it a little shorter. So, IMPP wrote:

“I really want to know what sorts of pleasure are on the table. I’m herpes positive and my boyfriend is not. We’d like to keep it that way. We use gloves and lots of condoms! To be honest, we both would like to have oral sex. But the data on transmission, safe sex, and so many other things is so limited. I’m on oral antivirals. Translation – I should never have an outbreak. And yet, research says I can still pass the virus on to him, if we have skin to skin contact. So lay it on me! What sort of pleasure is safe and fun? What things can I engage in? How can we increase the joy without having to worry about transmitting this virus?”

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for asking this fantastic question, IMPP, and for sharing a little about your situation. I know there are lots and lots of people out there who have a similar question because herpes is really common. How common? I looked it up. Well, it says, over 90% of Americans have some form of the herpes virus (HSV1 and/or HSV2). 16% of Americans aged 14 – 49 have genital herpes/HSV2 and 80-90% of people who have it are unaware that they do. 80% of Americans aged 14 – 49 have oral herpes/HSV1 (cold sores/fever blisters). And, something else that I learned is that mono and chickenpox are both forms of the herpes virus. All of that came from Herpes Opportunity whose website I will be sharing in the show notes. And, basically it means, herpes is really common. 

I think it’s really note learning, too, that some people who think they don’t have it, actually do. So, I’ll be sharing some more stats later. But first up, I want to say that I love that you and your boyfriend seem to be talking a lot about your sexual health and ways to feel really good while doing that in a way that feels best for the two of you. I mean, gloves and condoms are awesome and can be so darn hot. That smell of latex and nitrile means sexy things are about to happen in my house. I mean, at least most of the time. We’re going to cover a lot of ground and I hope you’re ready for it.

Dawn Serra: The first thing that I want to say, IMPP, is for oral sex on a vulva – dental dams are your friend. A nice alternative to dental dams is actually plastic wrap like the kind that you can find in your kitchen. I, actually, recently shared a really great article by Bianca Palmisano, who has been a guest on the show, all about plastic wrap and sex. And I shared that on the Sex Gets Real Facebook page. You can find that article and everything else I’m about to mention at dawnserra.com/ep281/ for this episode. I’ll have all those links and resources. 

Essentially, a dental dam is a big sheet, it can be big and it can be small too, a large sheet of usually latex or polyurethane that forms a barrier that you can put between the vulva genital area and the person who is giving oral – their face and mouth. The larger the barrier, obviously, the more surface area is covered, which means you can cover a lot of skin and still be doing something really yummy. Put a little dab of lube on your vulva and then lay the dental dam on top. That really helps increase sensation. You’ll feel the warmth of their mouth, the movements and pressure of their tongue and lips, and all sorts of delicious sensations are possible. This is also a great way to engage in safer analingus or mouth-to-anus sex. For those of you who are interested in a variety in oral sex options. 

Dawn Serra: I also want to name that you can take all the meds, use all the barriers, be super careful and there will still be a chance of transmitting herpes between two people if you’re engaging in certain kinds of sexual activities. So, as long as everyone is okay with that, proceed with joy and curiosity. So, just a note to folks who may be new to these conversations. Now, I mentioned earlier that I was going to share a couple of stats. So, I did some research for you. I want to start by saying I am not a herpes expert. There are some awesome folks out in the world doing all sorts of educating around herpes. And a couple of places that I really recommend everyone bookmark and check out includes:

• Herpes.Education which is managed by sex educator Jenelle Marie Pierce
• HerpesOpportunity.com by Adrial Dale
• Ella Dawson’s website has a herpes resource area
• The New Zealand Herpes Foundation has lots of great info to check out

So, for this, I consulted with Herpes Opportunity to get some more information that I thought would help answer your questions, specifically, IMPP. So, their data which comes from the CDC and a couple of other organizations says that, “Between outbreaks, shedding happens 5-10% of the time depending on how long the person has had herpes and the strength of their immune system.” 

Dawn Serra: Now, if you’re on medication like daily suppressives, that reduces viral shedding by 50%. So, that means 50% of the 5-10% that shedding happens otherwise. That puts the chances of shedding the herpes virus when you’re on meds at around 2.5 to 5% of the time. I read at Herpes.Education, too, that there were some studies that show it’s easier to transmit herpes from a male to a female. But, I would need to do more research to learn the why behind that, where the data came from. One, because it really only applies to heterosexual cis bodies, as it was worded. I’m curious to know if, with the big studies or studies that were replicated. I saw it at a trusted website so I thought I’d mention that too.

You can get a lot of free awesome resources at herpesopportunity.com. There’s a PDF that you can get, along with some fact sheets, some articles. Adrial has some really, really terrific things to offer about how you can turn having herpes into an opportunity for more play, more sexiness, more connection in a relationship with someone who doesn’t currently have herpes, which is a great perspective.

Dawn Serra: Circling back to the heart of your question, IMPP, the answer is it depends on your comfort with certain activities, your boyfriend’s comfort with certain activities, and what level of risk you’re both comfortable with. There are lots of people in the world who have thriving, delicious sex lives where they feel fully erotically expressed and genitals are never involved. And, I think that’s the joy of things like sensation play, toys, mutual masturbation, power exchange, other forms of kink, and developing a really erotic imagination that allows for endless creativity between two people who really want to explore it.

If you want to engage in oral sex and/or intercourse, there is going to be a risk. What level of risk feels oka for you two is up to the two of you. The other thing to keep in mind is you may also find that your answers to that question change over time. What felt risky or outside of your zone of comfort at one point might feel much less so down the road and vice versa. So, checking in regularly is important. But I think the most important thing is pleasure is limited only by your imagination. So, whether it’s doing a hot lap dance and then masturbating in front of your boyfriend, buying a fucking machine and letting him fuck you into oblivion without ever touching you, taking a long sensual shower together and using toys on each other, humping each other to orgasm with your clothes on, trying out rope and spanking and electro play. I mean, the sky is literally the limit. And there is so much beyond oral sex, hand sex, and intercourse that we all have to discover. These intense, intimate, beautiful ecstatic ways to experience pleasure.

Dawn Serra: Another great way to get lots of ideas for pleasure and things to try can be reading erotica together to really see what other people have dreamed their way into and then talking about what you might want to try. What about public fondling? What about tickle fights and wrestling? What about sexy lingerie and strip teases? What about erotic breathwork and Barbara Carrellas’s Urban Tantra? Or role play? Sensual or erotic massage? 

It literally never ends. I mean, these opportunities for pleasure are endless and I’m getting excited just thinking about all the possibilities in front of you, IMPP.

And, if you want to engage in skin to skin contact doing oral sex, too, that’s okay. Whether your boyfriend has herpes and doesn’t know it, doesn’t have herpes and contracts it, or doesn’t have herpes and doesn’t contract it – both of you are clean, good, worthy, desirable, sexual human beings who deserve to have fun and to play in ways that honor your boundaries and needs.

Dawn Serra: So, I hope that gives you some permission and some ideas. I also hope that all of you will check out the resources I have listed at dawnserra.com/ep281/ – for episode 281. And travel down the rabbit hole of all the sex educators that are out in the world that are doing awesome work around herpes all while having lots of delicious, fun sex. The sky is the limit and growing your erotic imaginations is where I would start. Have fun!

This next email from Kate is super short. Kate asks: “Hey Dawn. So, I have old pictures of my old flame. Is it wrong to get off to these sometimes? Even if I’m in a relationship?”

Hi, Kate. Thanks for writing in with a question that, while short, I know lots of people have asked themselves or that it’s never occurred to them to ask but now they will because of you. And I think your question is an interesting one. It’s going to give us an opportunity to be a little more deliberate in how we use digital media to share pictures of ourselves. I mean, most of us have done it at some point. And, here’s where I want to start.

Dawn Serra: I think it is incredibly wise before you ever share intimate images of yourself with someone – the kind of images that you really wouldn’t want shared with people you don’t know, shared with friends, posted on the internet – then I recommend that we all adopt the practice of communicating our boundaries about images that we share and ask questions of the person you’re sharing them to. There’s a way to do that that can be really deliberate and playful and fun. Because I would dare say, if asserting your boundaries and asking some questions, “ruins the mood” then I would be much more worried that this person doesn’t respect or even deserve sexy images of me.

I think it’s helpful to ask things like, “Is this a picture that has anything identifiable about me? How would I feel if we stopped talking and this person still had these images? What would I want to have happen in a worst case scenario?” Knowing these things about yourself and communicating that before things potentially end or get ugly or somebody ghosts is a huge step in self-advocating. And it’s really okay to let people know that you’d like them to delete or destroy the pictures at a certain point or if your relationship ever ends. It’s okay to ask people what they’d like you to do with any images they sent you long before you actually need that information. Because that kind of honest, clear communication is just another way to demonstrate that you respect someone and expect to be respected in return.

Dawn Serra: These kinds of conversations before we share personal images can really be very enlightening. It can be really interesting to ask folks what they’ve done with pictures from old hookups and relationships after the relationship ended. Because, whatever they share and how they share it could tell you a lot about their values and the ways that they treat people they are no longer interested in. This is also a great reason to have agreements in place when we enter into any kind of relationship that we hope will be meaningful or last a little while. What’s our break-up clause? How would we like that to happen? What would an ideal break-up look like? What would help make it true for us if we ever reach that point? It’s not as if you’re dooming yourselves but it does say, “I care about you and I value you. How can we do good by each other even when it’s hard?”

Really being able to communicate needs before a crisis helps us to navigate those crisis with so much more skill and respect. So, let’s circle back to your question, Kate. I think a lot of people will say something like, “Well, how would you feel if an ex kept your nudes and masturbated to them?” I don’t think this particular reflection is very helpful because it doesn’t matter what I would do, what matters is what this other person would do. I want to know how we can respect people even after we no longer want them in our lives. I think this is an important question that reveals whether we’re using people only when we find them useful or if we have a deeper commitment to that relational responsibility that Nora Samaran and I discussed in Episode 280.

Dawn Serra: I think the most respectful thing we can do is to ask. If a relationship ends, we should all be asking “What would you like me to do with those pictures or videos I have of you?” And we should be sharing what we’d like them to do with any pictures or videos they have of us. So, it’s also possible, Kate, that this old flame is from long ago and you’re no longer on speaking or in contact. In that case, I would recommend erring on the side of respecting their sovereignty by assuming they’d want them deleted and delete them.

Unless I paid for the images from someone who consented to having their image looked at and used in all sorts of ways. For a long period of time, we don’t own those images, even if they live on our phone or computer, we don’t own them. We might like to pretend that we do. But that was, in reality, a gift meant for a specific time and place within a specific context of intimacy and trust. It’s not our body or our life that are impacted if those images got out or were seen by people we didn’t choose. So, I think remembering that even though these images might be on our devices, we don’t own them. 

Dawn Serra: I would say to you, Kate, I would delete them. Because it’s not about you and it’s not about your current partner – though, sidebar, there is the potential that your current partner considers that a betrayal if you haven’t explicitly talked about how you would both feel about that kind of behavior ahead of time. It’s about the person who shared themselves with you at a particular time for a particular reason. And now that you’re no longer in a relationship with them, unless they explicitly said “Yes, I don’t mind. Keep them.” Then keeping the images really seems like it’s about serving your desires at the expense of someone else’s body and sovereignty. The word that’s kind of bubbling around and being unsaid is entitlement. Do I have a sense of entitlement about continuing to have access to this person even though the context and the reason and the why that they gave it to me no longer exists? I hope that helps, Kate. Fascinating question and one that is so relevant, and that all of us have to grapple with. Thank you for tuning in.

Dawn Serra: I also want to say, that’s it for this week’s episode. Be sure to go to dawnserra.com/ep281/ for all of the resources mentioned in this episode. And, don’t forget, you can get the Sex Gets Real recommended reading list, totally free, if you go to dawnserra.com/books and just sign up for it. And, last call: Power in Pleasure. It starts today! Join us at dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse. I’ll be back next week and I hope you have a pleasure-filled week.

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?