tl;dr Is squirting embarrassing? How can I find a fat-friendly therapist? What if my marriage is falling apart?

News!

1. Patrons who support at $3 and above, you’re invited to join the Explore More book club. We are meeting in December to discuss Jenny Odell’s “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy”, so check out my new post at patreon.com/sgrpodcast.

This week, it’s me and you!

An awesome video called “How to Support Harm Does in Accountability” came across my feed this week, and it turns out it’s part of a multi-video series by the Barnard Center for Research on Women featuring Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, adrienne maree brown, and a bunch of other amazing folks. Definitely check them all out.

How can we become more committed to collective healing and safety? What do we need to let go of in order to center the most marginalized? I explore this a bit as I share a few quotes and tidbits from the videos.

Then, we dive into your questions.

Sad Gay Millennial and SaFyre both wrote in this week with really sweet notes about how the show has helped them. I’m holding them so tenderly.

Ina wrote to me about being in a fat body and finding support. How can you find a fat-friendly therapist? I have resources for you to check out!

1. If you’re looking for a sex positive therapist who is kink and poly informed, Tristan Taormino’s The Open List is definitely a great resource. That directory is here.
2. If you’re looking for Health at Every Size informed therapists and therapists who know about body liberation and dismantling diet culture, then definitely check out Be Nourished’s Certified Body Trust Provider directory (I’m on there!).
3. ASDAH has a HAES directory that’s worth checking out.
4. And, there’s a directory of Intuitive Eating certified professionals on the Intuitive Eating website. Just know while massive, not everyone here will be social justice-informed.

Regardless of who you have near you for support, I recommend asking lots of questions about their values and going in with a list of requests and boundaries that would help you to feel more safe and supported.

Is squirting embarrassing? Amy wrote in because she squirts and after she does, she often feels really embarrassed and worried about the mess she made. Her current boyfriend is really supportive, but she wants to know if there’s a way to feel less awkward about the mess her body makes.

Finally, Emotionally Wrecked Matt wrote in because he lost weight last year and as a result his wife has experienced a lot of insecurity and withdrawal. Sex isn’t what it used to be, feelings are hurt, and now they’ve shared some fantasies with each other that left the other feeling even more hurt. What can he do?

As much as there is to dive into in this email, what’s clear is that Matt and his wife need some support. Repair needs to come before adventure and play, so let’s talk about that.

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! I’m so glad you’re here for another episode of Sex Gets Real. My sister is visiting this week with her partner. It’s their first time coming up to Canada since I moved here 2 ½ years ago. So it’s been really fun and I’m really excited that she’s here. This episode’s just a little bit late ‘cause we’ve been adventuring and hanging out and catching up which has been so fun and long overdue. 

Dawn Serra: I have lots of interesting, juicy stuff for you today – mostly driven by your amazing emails. Speaking of which, I want to hear from you. If you want to send in a question, you can email me directly at info at sexgetsreal dot com or if you want the anonymous option, you can go to dawnserra.com and use the contact form there. I love hearing from you and I would love more emails, so send them to me. 

Patrons, if you support at the $3 level and above, I am hosting a book club call in December. We are going to be reading Jenny Odell’s new book, “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” and you’re invited if you support at $3 and above. So, I just posted all the details on how you can register for the call and get the Zoom link, and the date and the time at patreon.com/SGRpodcast. So, I would love to see you there if you’re down with book clubs and you want to geek out with me and a whole bunch of people from the Explore More community. Check that out.

Dawn Serra: I also want to say yesterday was Intersex Awareness Day, which is awesome. I saw so many people posting about it. Intersex folks are as common as redheads – and, sadly, there is a history of horrible, painful, invasive surgeries and othering that Intersex people experience – and, actually, continue to experience. There’s a lot of places in the world where invasive surgeries on genitals and medical procedures are done to babies. So, if you want to learn more, one of the places I highly recommend connecting with is interACT. You can check them out at interactadvocates.org/. They do all kinds of really awesome education and outreach and advocacy. So, check that out – interACT.

This week, I also had a really awesome video that came across my feed and it was titled, “How to Support Harm Doers in Being Accountable.” When I went to YouTube to check it out, it turned out it’s actually part of a series of videos on consent and accountability by the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, adrienne maree brown, and a whole bunch of other really rad folks are in these videos, which are totally free. I’ll link to that one video that I saw, “How to Support Harm Doers in Being Accountable.” at dawnserra.com/ep282/ – for episode 282 if you want to check it out. It was a really powerful series and I want to share a little bit about it.

Dawn Serra: One of the people from one of the videos was Rachel Herzin from the Center for Political Education. I actually wrote down a quote that Rachel said that I thought was really awesome. So, Rachel Herzin said, “A lot of how we get trained to be in the world is about protecting our own interests, being right, protecting our egos, having a sense of importance. And accountability asks you to strip some of that away. Accountability asks you to put your ego aside to acknowledge your interrelationship with other people and maybe not just somebody you did harm to, but an ecosystem or a cluster of people who might be involved in your life. It asks you to commit to being in relationship to people in a deep way.” Rachel went on to say, I’m paraphrasing this bit, that we get socialized into punishment and vengeance as responses to harm. We see that, pretty much, in every movie ever. Undoing that impulse is a part of accountability work because the rush to vengeance really erodes the possibility of accountability. That’s kind of a big thing for us to sit in.

A few other takeaways that I jotted down as I was watching the videos:

• If we want to really create transformative and restorative communities, those communities can’t enforce, normalize, or ignore/downplay abusive or coercive behaviors. I think the rub is that most of us don’t even realize how pervasive abusive and coercive behavior is. I mean, most of us engage in both of those things in a variety of ways – big and small. We have to begin interrogating that.

• This also includes the ways we lead from our trauma – expecting perfection from others, having no tolerance for differences or mistakes, not allowing for nuance or disagreement, needing everyone to be exactly as ‘woke’ as we are in the particular moment while also asking compassion for our own learning edges and mistakes. That kind of mindfuck is a part of this. And how many of us don’t understand the difference between disappointment, frustration, grief, regret, and harm.

• A few folks of the videos mentioned how culturally we are taught to smooth things over and that’s what an apology is – patting things back into place. But that makes things about us and our comfort, and the way the world sees us and trying to control that. That’s not true accountability because accountability means really taking something in and considering what we might need to do differently. Allowing that discomfort to be with us instead of rushing past it. So, often, we hurry to apologise and pat things into place, it’s really because we can’t tolerate the discomfort of really thinking about how we may need to change some of our behaviors and our beliefs to actually do differently moving forward.

• Another takeaway from the videos is that when we are punished as kids for messing up, which is so culturally normalized, it teaches us that making mistakes leads to hurt. And that makes many of us averse to owning our mistakes because we’re desperate to avoid more hurt and punishment so then we avoid accountability.

• Mia Mingus, who I adore – I’ve been trying for years to connect with Mia to either have her on the show or have her in Explore More but she’s just so busy doing so many incredible things. But fingers crossed, maybe someday. One of the things that Mia asks in these videos is what if accountability wasn’t scary and what if accountability felt easier than hiding/lying/downplaying the truth? I think that’s a powerful question. Accountability is always going to be uncomfortable but what if the discomfort was easier for us to be in than pretending to be something that we aren’t?

• I think another thing that’s so pervasive and so common and normalized is the need to be right during disagreements and conflict. That’s just another way that we damage connection and accountability because it’s our ego needing to be in control. And to create communities that are really resilient where we really live the ethics of accountability, we have to allow for discomfort, being uncertain, and not being in control.

Dawn Serra: So all of this made me really consider how can we move from me-care (known as self-care) to me and we care? It’s going to seem really simplistic and silly but I had this really big a-ha moment last week around the flu shot, as silly as it sounds, it connected a lot dot for me.

For those of you who don’t know, I am severely needle phobic- like really really needle phobic. I have to use numbing creams and I need a week to emotionally prepare. I usually take the whole day off when I get blood work done or anything like that. I had a really traumatic couple of experiences as a kid and that’s just dug itself really deep into me. On top of that, the two times I have actually gotten the flu shot as an adult, I’ve ended up super sick the next day so it’s just how my body responds to it, I think. And because of those things, I haven’t gotten a flu shot in the last 15 years. I really truly felt justified in my reasons for not getting then each year. Because I was focused on me – my fear, my phobia, my hurt, my inconvenience of being sick.

Dawn Serra: One of the things that have been revealing itself to me in so many ways, and this is just a really simplified example is the seduction that neoliberalism and hyperindividualism teach us – these superhero narratives where we are the center of the universe and our convenience and our story is more important than other people’s survival. It really did occur to me that by not getting the flu shot, I was potentially going to kill someone or make really vulnerable people in my community sick who can’t afford care or who can’t afford time off work and to keep a roof over their head.

When I really think about that – that by me not getting the flu shot, I’m potentially costing someone a family member or housing, access to income, a whole host of other consequences that are so much more damaging to the collective and this community that I’m a part of than me being scared for a couple of days, me being sick for a day. I am putting myself ahead of the people who are most vulnerable that need to be centered. So, as scared as I am, now I really understand the importance of taking this action. Because it’s not about me, it’s about we. 

Dawn Serra: We can apply this logic to so many things. Safer sex practices is a great example. How many men, particularly but not exclusively because people of all genders do things like this. But I also think the privilege and the entitlement that comes with being a man inside of patriarchy makes this pretty common – how many men push to not use condoms because the few minutes of pleasure they experience when their penis is inside of someone’s body in some way trumps other people’s feelings of safety, autonomy, trumps other people’s health and well-being. 

Imagine just how self-centered it is to think, these few moments of pleasure could be a little bit better without this condom and that’s more important than the fact that that decision might mean you end up pregnant, it’s more important than your emotional safety when you said this was important to you. I mean, that’s the definition of entitlement. Do I feel more entitled to a little pleasure or less inconvenience than another human being’s health, wellness, access to safety, trauma, and so much more? These questions take us into really interesting places. Does my comfort and convenience mean more than the exploitation of the human beings who are manufacturing or harvesting the things I want? What if my desire to have access to all foods in all seasons means I’m putting myself and some of my preferences ahead of the devastation of entire ecosystems, of people being exploited – child labor, and more?

Dawn Serra: I think this ties back, again, to that conversation that I had with Nora Samaran and I around, what does it really mean to be in right relationship with other people, with our community, with the planet? Anyway, it brought up a lot of questions. It’s really a good video series. I hope you check it out. It just made me think of all the ways that this applies to our lives in really tiny ways but also really big ways, and the ways we center ourselves over and over again.

I hope that we can all be in a little bit of the discomfort, of seeing how we’ve been trained and groomed to believe our entitlement to comfort and convenience, and so many things in the name of self-care and performing success – actually costs other people their lives, their homes, and so many other things. I mean, we don’t have to carry the burden of fixing the entire world on our shoulders. But when we start seeing how connected we all are, it really becomes clear how each and every one of us, especially those of us with more access and privilege, really need to be doing the work to break up with ego, with smoothing things over, with control, with centering ourselves; if what we really actually want is to create communities that are healing and accountable and supportive where we all have access not just a few of us.

Dawn Serra: Let’s dive into your emails. I received two really thoughtful notes this week, and they touched me deeply. This first message comes from Sad Gay Millenial, who wrote in last year. They just wrote to me this week and it says :

“Sometime last year, I sent in a question as I was transitioning through a very difficult time. I was experiencing confusion, isolation, hopelessness. And unbeknownst to myself at the time, I was really processing a lot of unpacked traumas. Reaching out to you was both a cry for help and also cathartic in and of itself. Hearing my question read aloud on your podcast was the beginning of a lot of healing. Your thoughtful and sympathetic response gave me information to consider, but the biggest takeaway was that when I asked for help, someone gave it to me. Thanks for being there. Making yourself available as a resource as you do has to be tiring work that tests your own boundaries. Managing effort economy, especially in the realm of emotions and our seemingly selfless desire to help others, can easily err into self-sacrifice, because it can feel like we’re doing a good thing. Just know that your excellence doesn’t go unnoticed, and you–for you, and for what you do–are so appreciated. Tl;dr… update: life’s great now, and we love you. Thanks again. ~SadGayMillennial”

Dawn Serra: Thank you for the update, Sad Gay Millennial! I’m so happy to hear life’s great now and receiving your note meant so much. I’m holding this close to my heart all this week. And then, interestingly, another note came right on the heels of Sad Gay Millneial’s. The subject line is, “A thank you from a college microbiologist.” And it says,

“Hey, Dawn! Thank you so much for what you do! I found your podcast in 2016, my first quarter at university. I was in a place of ignorance and shame around my sexual experiences, traumas, and sexuality. Due to your podcast with all of your guests and Dylan, I found valuable information for myself but also the people around me. Sex education and sex-positivity is so important to me! WIthout your careful guidance and kindness, I would not be who I am today. Who I am today – I am an American college student who is planning to apply to graduate schools across the world. Thanks to your influences on my life, I am going to be studying sexually transmitted infections. I want to help those people who are living with these illnesses that do have stigma still surrounding them. Also, to continue the message of sex-positive, sex-positivity and self-acceptance. If I didn’t love microbiology so much, I would want to follow in your footsteps and become a sex activist. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day. SaFyre”

Dawn Serra: Whoa! SaFyre, you’ve been tuning in for a long time and I am so glad you’ve stuck with me through all the changes. Congratulations on applying to grad school. We need more sex positive folks who can understand social justice going into academia and research. So that we can make change happen from the outside and from within those institutions. And, a huge YAY for studying STIs. More information means more choices and more options for everyone. I love it. Keep up the amazing work that you are doing, Safyre, and thank you for being a part of the Sex Gets Real experience for so long.

Ina wrote to me about being in a fat body and finding support. They wrote:

“Hello Dawn. I want to start by saying you are so amazing. Thank you for all your hard work. I found your podcast a few weeks before your Explore More Summit this year and was able to attend. I found that to be amazing. I have been listening to every episode going backwards since finding you and am currently on episode 43. I like listening at work as it feels naughty sometimes and I so love naughty. I also listen when I am alone in the car. The only bad thing about listening in the car is not getting to make notes of things I want to remember or places to visit.”

Dawn Serra: “I am a cis woman that walks through life in a big body. I know on one episode you mentioned a site where you could go to find body positive & sex positive doctors and therapists. I am in upstate New York and really need to find a therapist. I have experienced a lot of negativity in my past along with abuse. I have felt well until recently when my child started dealing with a lot of mental issues. So I now have to have help as I cannot cope on my own. If you could share this info again I would greatly appreciate it. Again, Dawn, I thank you for the work you do. I can’t wait until I am in a place where I can support your work financially. Also I forgot to tell you all my friends are tired of, “well, Dawn said” or “go listen to Dawn she talks about that.””

Thank you so much, Ina! I appreciate how generous you are in sharing the show with your friends, and that is a lot of listening to me. So, thank you for writing in. I am so glad to hear that you are looking for support, too, because you deserve to feel supported, especially by someone who understands the challenges that are unique to people in bigger bodies. I’m going to have all of these links that I mention at dawnserra.com/ep282/ – for episode 282. So, if you’re in the car when you hear this, just head there and everything will be cookable and ready for you.

Dawn Serra: Here is where I recommend starting: Tristan Taormino runs The Open List, which is a directory of professionals who are sex positive and usually also kink and poly informed. Most of these folks are not HAES informed or fat activists, but they are going to have a range of experiences with sex positivity. So if you want support that’s a little bit more sex positive, I would go in that direction. For people who are Health at Every Size informed and who aren’t going to suggest people in larger bodies that, “You need to diet,” or something, I recommend three places as a jumping off point:

First, is Be Nourished. They have a directory of people who are Certified Body Trust Providers (I’m one of them!). That directory has some amazing people who are deeply committed to social justice, dismantling diet culture, healing, support, people who work with parents – all kinds of great stuff. So check that out.

Dawn Serra: The next thing I would recommend is ASDAH, the Association for Size Diversity and Health. They have a directory of HAES providers. You’re going to find some doctors, nurses, therapists, dietitians, nutritionists. Everyone who’s on that directory has committed themselves to the Health at Every Size ethos. So that could be a really good place to turn.

Finally, the Intuitive Eating institute has a directory of people who have been certified in Intuitive Eating. There are loads of therapists and coaches on their website that you can find. I do think it’s worth noting that not everyone who goes through that certification is necessarily a fat activist or even social justice informed. They’re just in the certification for intuitive eating, which isn’t as radical, say, as the Body Trust certification. So with all of these lists, you’ll still need to do some little bit of research, vet the professionals you reach out to. If you have several therapists to choose from in your area, I definitely recommend calling or emailing them and asking them some questions about their values and their experience. Then meet with them for a few sessions before deciding they are a good fit.

Dawn Serra: If you are in an area where choices are limited and you might not be able to find someone that really fit the bill on paper, then I recommend writing down your boundaries when you’re at home and when you’re in a place where you can really feel into your needs and wants – how do you want to be supported in this relationship? And bring that to your session. You may need to explicitly say things like, “I do not discuss my weight or dieting. Please don’t bring those up. That’s not why I’m here. Here’s where you can learn more about Health at Every Size and sizeism if you’d like.” Offer them some resources but do what you need to do in order to help create a container that feels safe and supportive if the people that you’re working with maybe aren’t certified in some of these body liberation paradigms.

I hope that helps, Ina, and I hope you find someone who feels like a fantastic fit for supporting you. You definitely deserve it. Thank you for listening to the show and for being such a cheerleader for it, too!!!

Dawn Serra: Amy wrote in with a subject line of: “I’m a squirter, but until it happened for the first time I thought it was a myth. ” The email says:

“So, a little back story. The first time I squirted I was with my ex on a blow-up double mattress at his friend’s house. I didn’t even know it was possible and then it happened and it made a bit of a mess. I got really embarrassed and cried at which point he went out to tell his friends that he’d just made me squirt. I’m now with a new boyfriend who can also make me squirt and does it a lot because he likes it but he won’t tell his friends because he thinks it’s only our business which I like. He makes me feel really good about it but I still get very embarrassed whenever we finish and I actually look at the mess I’ve made. Is there any way to stop being so embarrassed about it? I get embarrassed in general about how vunerable I am during sex because I’m very loud and I can’t control the sounds or the mess I make no matter how much I try. Is there a way to make me feel less awkward with it? My boyfriend is amazingly supportive and I love him and the sex we have. But the minute I finish, I criticise the mess and sounds that I’ve made all in my own head.”

Dawn Serra: Hi Amy, thank you so much for writing in and trusting me with this. I want to start by saying I’m really sorry that your ex was such a shit about using your private sexual experience as a way to make himself look really cool with his friends. That wasn’t OK and I’m happy to hear your new boyfriend is more respectful of your privacy and boundaries. That’s good.

You asked if there’s a way to stop being so embarrassed and to feel less awkward with this amazing thing that your body does. And, I thought I would post some questions to you: If you were to touch your boyfriend in such a way that he lost himself completely in pleasure. He moaned and screamed yes, and you got to marvel at the extraordinary beauty and power of him surrendering to his pleasure because of how you were touching him. And if in the peak of his pleasure, he came in the sheets or on you and then was a panting, glowing, happy, in spent pile of human – how would that be for you? What if as soon as he was done, he jumped up embarrassed and instead of savoring all that pleasure, started trying to hide the mess from you? How would you reassure him?

Dawn Serra: I’m guessing that instead of him jumping up to hide the mess or to apologize, you’d probably prefer for the two of you to let the mess be the mess, and instead to feel into every ounce of that afterglow and pleasure that you could. To really be in that floaty come down after all of that intensity. To know you both could go to some place so exquisite together and to try to make it last a little longer. Would those noises, would that surrender, would his orgasm and the mess he made be something to be embarrassed by or something to marvel at and grin over and to just really be with?

I think sometimes it’s just really helpful to do that mental turn around. When we’re struggling with self-compassion, to take that story we have around and to imagine someone that we really love and care about behaving in the same way that we do and then asking us for help. How would we reassure this person we love that their body is doing something amazing that they’re deserving of this pleasure?

Dawn Serra: Another question I have is can messiness be a part of sex for you? We see this clean, sanitized version on TV and in movies because, one, those people are simulating sex – fluids aren’t actually being exchanged, actors aren’t actually getting super aroused and orgasming together. Even in porn, it often takes multiple takes and lots of prep to craft the scenes that we end up seeing. Fantasy versus reality. Depending on the body parts involved in a particular sex act, there might be spit and saliva, vaginal wetness, arousal fluids, lube that we add from a bottle, squirting, cum, poop, sweat, tears. This is what human bodies do when they’re moving and shaking and pumping and pressing against each other – and contorting, and doing all the things that we do when we engage in all kinds of sex. So, what if messiness is a sign of really surrendering to your pleasure in ways that cleaner and neater sex might not?

I also think it’s worth considering the alternative. If, when you’re in the throes of passion and experiencing all this delicious, mind-bending pleasure, you squirt and make a mess, what if to not make a mess meant cutting your pleasure in half or in thirds, or barely feeling any pleasure at all? My guess is that pleasure and messiness is way more enjoyable for both you and your boyfriend than less pleasure and less mess. I mean, mess and pleasure – heck yes.

Dawn Serra: I also think some of this also comes with experience. The more we do something, the more we understand what our body does in a variety of positions and states of arousal, and then the more normal it becomes for us. The first time that we orgasm or squirt or are penetrated, it can be a really big deal – it can be emotional or scary, it can be new or shocking. The hundredth time, it may still be really special, pleasurable, impressive, and important, but it may not be quite as emotional, scary, or shocking because we’ve done it before and understand ourselves a little better. That ex boyfriend really did something really shitty, so it makes sense that a part of the story you carry around the way your body reacts during certain sex acts would include some embarassment. I mean, he violated a boundary of yours during a really intimate and vulnerable moment. Living your way into a new story can take time.

It’s not wrong to feel embarrassed. It’s not wrong to want to clean things up. But, it might be way more pleasurable and satisfying to move away from some of that embarrassment over time so that you can really savor the afterglow and be with it.

Dawn Serra: The other thing I’m wondering is, would it help to watch some porn with other people who squirt – especially like Pink and White Productions and their CrashPad series or MakeLoveNotPorn.tv where it’s really about the pleasure of the people on screen and their bodies happen to do this thing, and less about performing for the viewer. 

I think in the end, I would suggest asking yourself how can you increase your pleasure – What would make your sexual encounters with your boyfriend more enjoyable and fun for you both? Maye having a little mantra that you can say to yourself when you notice your thoughts turning critical could be a gentle way of bringing yourself back into the moment and out of your head. Because what I’m noticing, is there’s a vast difference of where your attention is when you are moaning and making noises, and in your body experiencing that pleasure – you are really in that body experiencing those things versus afterwards when you start really thinking about what happened, looking and making judgments. You’re in your head and you’re leaving your body at that moment.

Dawn Serra: I am willing to bet that if you and your boyfriend just had some loud, fun sex and you squirted all over the bed that you’d both enjoy flopping into the bed, sweaty and laughing, marveling at what your bodies can do together, kissing and touching and nibbling. Maybe hydrating and snacking a little bit, and letting all that pleasure wrap you into a cocoon of yumminess and staying with it as long as you can. What is a small phrase or invitation you can offer yourself or what is something you can ask your boyfriend to reassure you of that helps you to stay present with that pleasure and each other, instead of immediately leaving by going up into your head and worrying over what just happened?

It is vulnerable to be seen in this way. It can be scary to be so utterly unmasked in front of another person. And, I think that’s part of the beauty of finding a partner or partners who can meet you there and help you to feel safe so that you can go there again and again. If there’s something that would increase your feelings of safety, it’s OK to ask your boyfriend for that, too. 

It sounds like you two are having a lot of fun and feeling really good together. It’s normal to feel embarrassed, especially when in the past you’ve been shamed or used by someone else in a way that didn’t feel good. It can take time to rewrite that story. But in the end, you know that mess means something really yummy just happened and I would try to find small ways to stay with your boyfriend and your body, and the pleasure that help keep you out of your head so that you can enjoy this incredible gift. Because I assure you, Amy, most people would love to see their partner – and I’m sure you would love to see your boyfriend experiencing so much pleasure that they yell and moan and sweat and squirt and make a mess everywhere. It’s such a gift to be able to be a part of something like that with someone else. So, have fun, Amy, and enjoy this glorious body and this amazing pleasure that sounds like you’re getting to experience.

Dawn Serra: This final email does mentions intentional weight loss and uses some stigmatizing language, so take care of you as I read it. Emotionally Wrecked Matt writes, 

“Hello, Dawn, long time listener. Never expected I would need to reach out but here we are. This is messy & complicated, so feel free to edit… A year ago I started dieting and working out, and the physical changes have been a great confidence booster for me. The effect on my 20 year marriage though has been unexpectedly difficult. My wife became nervous I was having an affair. She began overeating, gaining weight, and her own self confidence has crashed hard. Our sex life has gone downhill as well. It’s become a weekly checkbox that I think she feels is a necessary activity. We’ll start hot & heavy but there’s always a point where it becomes weird, disconnected, she shuts down and focuses on my pleasure. I do not believe she has reached an orgasm with me in months. It all feels very wrong to me, and I end up guilty afterwards though she says it’s ok. I thought we were working through it. I have reassured her that I love her regardless of anything, that I would never cheat on her, and that I find her desirable (which I do). But she has suggested repeatedly I could cheat, that I should find someone better. That she would be okay if I found a girlfriend. It’s like she is pushing me away intentionally.”

Dawn Serra: “Things recently escalated though where now my wife told me that she no longer finds me attractive, that I’ve physically changed too much, that she is sexually bored with me -that one really hurt… And what turns her on are “hotwifing” fantasies. I had to look it up. She is masturbating to cuckolding porn and has shared some of her favorite videos with me. She was also enthusiastic that it was something she would like to experience. I am not handling that well. I don’t find that dynamic to be exciting – the husband on the sidelines. When I shared my own fantasies of possibly attending a lifestyle club and taking small steps to explore voyeurism or swinging as a middle ground, her reaction was muted, jealous, and then she cried.”

“As I write this to you at 5AM because it’s keeping me up at night, I’m worried that potentially living out any of these fantasies is harmful. I’m not sure how or if we can resolve this, I’m not entirely sure what is even going on between us or how to rebuild our love. Did my weight loss wreck our marriage? Thank you for any advice and for your years of helping others navigate these topics. Best regards, Emotionally wrecked Matt”

Dawn Serra: Oh, Matt. This sounds so painful. I’m sorry that you and your wife are in this place which sounds really difficult. I really just want to validate that. It sounds like it hurts and it sounds like it’s hard. My short answer to your question is get help. Get help from a sex positive and HAES-informed therapist who works with couples if you can find one, especially because at this particular juncture the damage that could be done by a therapist who encourages your wife, either explicitly or implicitly, to change her body could be terrible.

You can’t make your wife do anything she isn’t really ready to do herself, but it really does sound like she might find a lot of ease and healing if she worked with a body trust provider or met with someone who could support her around body shame, confidence, and healing. It must have hurt a lot to hear that she’s sexually bored. But it also seems like such a powerful opportunity for connecting and getting creative together. That kind of connection though requires trust, curiosity, and playfulness – and it sounds like some healing and repair needs to happen before that would be possible. 

Dawn Serra: It also sounds like your wife feels really hurt and in her attempts to not feel the hurt or to deny that she’s feeling hurt, it’s creating a wedge between you two that’s becoming harder and harder to bridge. It really is going to come down to repair work. How can you two begin to repair the damage and heal the hurt that’s happened?

I think you’re right – diving into fantasies right now probably isn’t a wise idea. Instead, I think it’s important to ask how can you two become co-conspirators and collaborate on how to move forward in ways that feel connecting and sexually playful? You need a strong foundation and it sounds like your foundation is pretty cracked right now and in need of some repairs. And repairs take work, they take time. There’s going to be grief and hurt feelings. Ultimately, only the two of you know if you’re up for going through that process and being in those uncomfortable places.

Dawn Serra: I think there’s so much more that I could say about why losing weight increased your confidence and the normativity and the fetisization of thin bodies that we have, culturally. And how that process could have increasingly hurt your wife, the more both of your bodies changed. Like I say so much about fantasies and the feelings that can come up when we share them, about escaping a painful reality by fantasizing about ways to abandon or hurt a partner, about withdrawing from each other… I mean, there’s a lot here.

Our sexual fantasies can be delicious and pleasurable and rich with ways to express ourselves. But it really comes down to the two of you taking some time to decide do you want to do the work to repair this relationship? If you just keep pressing ahead and try to force things, I don’t think repair can happen at some point. Are you both committed to being uncomfortable, to experiencing grief, to working with someone who can help you find new ways to relate to each other?

Dawn Serra: I think if the answer is yes for the both of you, your relationship could come out of this stronger and more resilient than ever. Because it’s really these challenges that we experience that can help us to level up in our skills, to deepen in our vulnerability, to find new ways to relate, to expand our tool kit in a really massive and impressive way. But if the answer is no for one or both of you around doing that kind of work, then another conversation might need to happen about what that means. 

I think one of the worst things we can do to someone we love is to decide we aren’t going to do the work to heal, that we aren’t going to give the time and space for the repair to happen, but then desperately cling to the relationship out of fear of being alone, which essentially locks the both of you into this purgatory of misery and pain. You both deserve more than that.

Dawn Serra: I’m sorry this is where you find yourself, Matt. It’s possible that really long-held insecurities bubbled up as your body changed. It’s possible that in the process of you changing your body, you inadvertently made comments that really hurt your wife without you realizing it. It’s possible that other issues were lying in wait and that there had been a low-level resentment bubbling up, and then the body changes were the straw that broke the camel’s back and have become the thing that is being focused on as the reason but perhaps some of these issues have been there for years. 

Now there’s an opportunity for either really diving in and doing some work that could be uncomfortable but potentially creating something that’s really strong and resilient with a huge tool kit or you two might need to decide to relate to each other in really different ways.

My hope is that you and your wife are able to talk about getting some help and that you’re able to find someone who is really qualified at being able to help with your particular issues. And that you two find a way to feel less hurt and alone – whether that’s together or separate. I hope, Matt, that you can take care of you and I thank you for trusting me with this. I hope that help is around the corner. 

Dawn Serra: And that’s it for this week’s episode, folks. Be sure to send me your questions. I definitely want to hear from you. Head to patreon.com/SGRpodcast to support the show and to get details about that book club that’s coming up. Also head to dawnserra.com/ep282/ for all the links that I mentioned in this episode and stay tuned for next week’s episode ‘cause I will be back soon. 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?