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Sexual Burnout: Exploring The Antidote, Together

Join us for our Speaking of Sex mini series (and group erotic experiment!) on Sexual Burnout! April 2019 we will be hosting a month long exploration of how the stress cycle gets in the way of our sex lives, and what we can do about it. 

  1. Order your copy of Emily Nagoski’s new book Burnout.
  2. Tune in to the podcast for our mini series on Burnout & Sexual Burnout
  3. Join The Pleasure Pod to unlock our Pleasure Practices library and other member-only resources!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvmTAQIBzFb/

Your Sexual Self Care Pleasure Tools

  • One you don’t want to wait to get started with are these INCREDIBLE rolling balls. TRUST us on this one – the minute you feel it, you’ll “get it” The TuneUp Roll Model Kit* will get you started with one of the BEST self care practices we have found recently.  

Creating Your Bedroom As A Haven

Part of sexual self care is creating spaces you lovingly curate to be erotic refuge for yourself. We’ll talk more about this on the podcast. For now, look around and start noticing what you enjoy about your bedroom and what you might want to upgrade when you have the chance! Is there laundry in the corner? Piles of junk you’ve been meaning to give away?

Now might be a good time to “Kondo” your sex life.


Note: Every once in awhile, one of the links in our emails will be an affiliate link that means your purchase will help support Pleasure Mechanics. But we’ll never link to anything we don’t totally stand behind! Affiliate links are marked with an asterisk * 

Expanding Erotic Communication with Stella Harris

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We all know communication is essential for healthy relationships and great sex – but how do we begin to level up our erotic communication skills? How do we break through the fear and shame to start talking openly about what we want in bed?

Sex coach and author Stella Harris joins us to explore the tricky terrain of erotic communication. Stella guides us in activating more authentic communication – before, during and after sex.

Find out more about Stella’s classes and coaching at StellaHarris.net

Check out Stella’s book: Tongue Tied: Untangling Communication in Sex, Kink and Relationships

More Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes On Erotic Communication:

Transcript for Podcast Episode: Expanding Erotic Communication with Stella Harris

Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

Chris Rose: 00:00 Hi, welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. This is Chris from pleasuremechanics.com and on today’s episode, we are joined by the fabulous Stella Harris to talk all about erotic communication and how to get more of what you want in and out of bed.

Chris Rose: 00:21 Before we get started, I want to remind you to come on over to pleasuremechanics.com, where you will find our complete podcast archive and while you were there, go to pleasuremechanics.com/free and sign up for the erotic essentials our free online course. So you can get started implementing some of our favorite strategies and techniques tonight. That’s pleasuremechanics.com/free. All right, so let’s dive into our conversation with Stella Harris.

Chris Rose: 00:56 After last week’s conversation about Desires Unfulfilled, I wanted to bring it back around and share some strategies for getting more of what you need and want out of your sex life, and ultimately a lot of that comes back to communication and getting specific about what you want, so you are more likely to receive it. So I called up Stella Harris. She is a fabulous sex coach and author, and her book Tongue Tied is one of the best books I have found about erotic communication.

Chris Rose: 01:32 This is an area where we all have a lot of work to do, and freeing up our voice and learning how to communicate with compassion and love and specificity so we can all get more of what we want out of our sex lives. All right, here is my conversation with Stella Harris. Stella Harris, welcome to speaking of sex.

Stella Harris: 01:57 Thank you for having me.

Chris Rose: 01:59 Can you just introduce yourself in the work that you do?

Stella Harris: 02:02 Absolutely. So I’m Stella Harris, a sex educator and intimacy coach based out of Portland, Oregon. I teach classes for venues and universities, I do coaching with couples and individuals and I write for a variety of venues including a sex column for one of my local papers. And I just had a book come out from Cleis Press called Tongue Tied: Untangling Communication in Sex, Kink, and Relationships.

Chris Rose: 02:29 And your book is so amazing, we will definitely link to it in the show notes page. It is one of my favorite books about erotic communication because it is so thorough, it covers so much beyond the, just kind of open your mouth and say what you want and it acknowledges how hard that can be for people and troubleshoots so much erotic communication. So this week we really wanted to talk about how to get your desires met in and out of bed. And I could think of no one better to join me for this conversation than you, so thank you so much for jumping on the line with us.

Stella Harris: 03:06 I really appreciate that. Thanks.

Chris Rose: 03:08 Ah, I love this book. So let’s dive in. So from what I understand of your history, you got kinky at a pretty early age and you’ve been kind of in the sex community for a long time. So why is your first book about erotic communication? Why this subject and not all the others that you could have covered?

Stella Harris: 03:29 So it turns out this is maybe what I’m the biggest nerd about. When I did get involved in the kink and queer and poly scenes from when I was 17. And then later in college I was busy and sort of not involved with that as much and I realized what I missed the most was the way those people communicated, the way everything was so upfront, so well negotiated and I liked that as much if not more than you know, all the kinky sex things.

Stella Harris: 04:04 And then when I got into this line of work, after a long break got into this line of work full time, I really at first did think that the bulk of what I would deal with was teaching anatomy and teaching touch techniques and sort of the logistics of sex. And what was just happening again and again as the individuals and couples that end up in my office. There was just so much more, it was about the feelings pieces, it was about the communications pieces, you know, it’s about communication even when it’s not about communication. People come in with a sex difficulty and we ended up having to talk about the talking.

Stella Harris: 04:46 And every class that I teach, even classes that are very much focused on anatomy and technique I end up with a really big chunk about how do you talk about those things, because anatomy is different for everybody. When I’m teaching, just a couple of days ago, I did my class mapping the vulva and there is not one kind of vulva. I can show people and be like, “Great, now you’re going to know how everybody works. I can show you a handful of pictures of how it works for some people, but then what I really have to show you is how to talk about it, how to ask somebody what they like.” Here, you can try this touch technique and then modify it with these questions. And so that just kept being at the core of everything I was trying to do.

Chris Rose: 05:37 Yeah, and communication has almost become a cliché in the sex field because it is so important. And yet, most of us do not know how to communicate even about nonsexual things, let alone the charge subject of sexuality. Like these relational skills are so important in our lives and very few people have ever focused on building these skills and received coaching about building these skills and they’re total game changer. It’s something that as you introduce even little pieces of, can really propel you towards a more joyful life, getting your needs met and being able to love one another better. So I love your book so much.

Stella Harris: 06:25 Thank you.

Chris Rose: 06:27 Let’s dive in. What do you think are some of the biggest things that get in the way of people’s desires being met?

Stella Harris: 06:34 Well, I think fear is a huge one, fear of vulnerability, fear of rejection. Even though I do this for a living, I still feel those things, I can write about it and it doesn’t mean that every moment in my personal life those things feel easy to do. So I absolutely get that, so I think the fear is a huge piece with anything to do with sex, especially, we’re expected to know how to do it already.

Stella Harris: 07:04 And so there’s this double edge sword of, it’s frowned upon to be too experienced, that’s also frowned upon to be inexperienced. So basically anything you open up your mouth to say in the bedroom can feel fraud.

Chris Rose: 07:21 Let’s linger there for a moment because I feel like this erotic ego is one of the things that really blocks us from exploring new things and even with a trusted partner and that partner can be a casual partner or a lifelong relationship. We can have that trust, we can have good communication, but if our partner asks us to do something we don’t feel confident in doing, it can cause a total shutdown. How do you see that kind of erotic ego showing up and what are some of the ways we can care for that ego but push past it maybe?

Stella Harris: 07:58 Well, one of the things that I like to do is expand someone’s idea of what sex is. When I have people in my office who are terrified that they’re not going to have sort of a physical skillset, we always end up talking about all of the other young age who see important things, the connection pieces, the empathy, the care, sometimes the love, whatever those things are. And showing people how far those pieces go, and if those are really in place, some of the rest of it can flow from that a bit.

Stella Harris: 08:35 As can sort of the asking and telling what somebody wants, trying to make sure that people have other things that their confidence is based in and those don’t even need to be sexual or relational. If somebody is amazing at a sport or really good at their job, just making sure they have a really solid base of ways that they feel validated. What are your friends turn to you for? What do people ask you for advice on? Because it can start to feel like how good we are in bed is sort of this core element of our worth. And while I certainly think our relational skills are very important, sort of how “good” in bed you are does not define your value as a person.

Chris Rose: 09:28 And yet, sometimes it feels like our entire relationship is threatened if we can’t do that varsity level thing we’ve been asked to do.

Stella Harris: 09:38 Yeah.

Chris Rose: 09:39 And there’s so much of that reciprocal communication and these moments of vulnerability, what are some of the things the person asking for something new? So part of this conversation, we’re coming out of a few weeks of exploring desires. And last week we talked all about desires unfulfilled and kind of reckoning with these things that might never be met in our lifetimes.

Chris Rose: 10:04 And then as couples establish like mutual interest in something, but they’re both totally new added. So let’s take, let’s say rope bondage. Rope bondage is not something anyone has ever expected to know. So how can a couple kind of baby step into that with mutual vulnerability? So one partner doesn’t feel like they have to be the big bad top and know it.

Stella Harris: 10:28 Right. Well, I think that’s actually one of the things that can help is if, A) it’s something neither person knows already and B) it’s not something you are supposed to know how to do already. I often use rope bond there as an example because most of us didn’t learn that in high school. And so it feels more okay not to know that already. So hopefully that levels the playing fields such that both people can be vulnerable and can learn it together.

Stella Harris: 10:58 And it really helps if the thing that you’re learning can also be a little silly so that you can giggle about it when something goes wrong. And again, having it be something that is a little bit outside of a usual sexual skillset, it can feel less, less fraud, less intimidating, lower stakes. And even if it’s not a king skill, even if you go and learn, you know, a board game together, anything like that but skill building together can be a really great experience for bringing folks together. And learning those collaboration skills do end up carrying back over into the bedroom into different kinds of sex.

Stella Harris: 11:41 So teaching folks a new skill together is something I absolutely love, I get to do a lot of that and you can really see the way people work together when they are practicing something new like that. And it’s also really helpful. You know, you were saying, someone has to be the big bad top. I always tell people, even if you’re ultimately probably only going to bottom to a certain activity, you should still at least learn the basics because that helps you look out for safety. Know something isn’t going quite right, something is going to harm your body. So even if people don’t expect to switch, I always encourage them to learn both roles, to learn things from every perspective.

Chris Rose: 12:24 And when you’re teaching couple something like rope bondage, what do you notice between different couples? Like are there patterns of communication that couples use that feel really mutually empowering and healthy versus patterns you see that feel kind of destructive?

Stella Harris: 12:44 Yeah. You can see when people are coming in, having had sort of a long run of frustration with each other. You can see whether people, it takes our partners learning curve sort of in stride and are being supportive or when something goes a little wrong they’re laughing about it, or if someone already seems sort of exasperated and fed up before we’ve even started. So sometimes there are other things to unpack first. Sometimes people have come to me to learn some sort of a kink skill and as soon as they sit down, they’re on opposite ends of the couch, they’re not really looking at each other. And that’s sort of my cue that like, “Oh, we probably have something else to talk about first,” because just learning new kink or bedroom skills is not necessarily a bonded, for everything that’s going on in your relationship. I do think one carries into the other.

Stella Harris: 13:48 I really like seeing when people are able to help each other and give and take that feedback well. So with rope an example, I sometimes see the person who’s being tied up even if they can’t move their hands, sort of gesturing with their face and saying like, “Oh, you need to twist this loop here.” And the other person, smiling and thanking them for the help. So that’s what I really like to see and what I know people are sort of on the right track if both people can offer guidance, make requests, ask questions. And no one’s ever sort of side or rolling their eyes about it.

Chris Rose: 14:26 And I think in these moments of being asked for something new, of feeling that vulnerability, the biggest fear that comes up for people is feeling foolish but also then being rejected. Like, if I don’t do this well, I don’t do this perfectly I might lose this relationship. But how do we negotiate? How do we navigate moments where something isn’t going well? We need to pivot or recalibrate with our partner, but we don’t want to make it so personal. What are your go-to strategies then?

Stella Harris: 15:05 Yeah. Well part of why stopping an activity or saying no, I think feel so scary is because as you said, people don’t want to miss the opportunity to do something with that person. So having a backup plan of some sort of ready to go is really valuable. So if you’re playing with rope bondage and it just feels impossibly itchy on your skin and you’re just not liking it, if you can say, “Hey, this isn’t really working for me, how about we do this other thing instead?” And pivot to another activity immediately, then that can feel like it flows a little bit easier, that can make you feel like you’re showing your partner, you still like them and like doing things with them. It’s the activity that’s not working for you, so that can be a really big one.

Chris Rose: 15:56 In the book you talk about the yes and, that comes from Improv and then you add no but.

Stella Harris: 16:02 Yes.

Chris Rose: 16:02 They’re four really powerful words. Can you expand on yes and, no but?

Stella Harris: 16:08 Absolutely. So, I have a background in theater and if anybody is trying to work on their public speaking skills, I highly recommend you go take an Improv class. I hated every minute of it, but now I’m not afraid of making a fool of myself in front of people, which is a very valuable life skill. And one of the theater exercises is called yes and. There’s this idea that in Improv theater, you never want to say no because that brings us scene to a screeching halt.

Stella Harris: 16:43 So you always agreed to what the other performer has suggested and then you add something to build the scene. So that is absolutely a game that you can play with a partner where you ask for everything and you’re each building on things. But of course in sex, unlike in the theater, you absolutely can and should say no to things. But you can use that same principle of not bringing things to a halt, like I said before, having a backup plan.

Stella Harris: 17:12 So if somebody says, “Hey, can I kiss your neck?” And you can say, “No, but would you stroke my hair?” So whatever it is, you just immediately are pivoting to the next activity. So there’s always something to do, you don’t just come to that screeching halt where you both sort of feel awkward and don’t know what to do next. Of course no, is always a complete sentence, you don’t have to offer another activity. But in the instance where you actually do want things to keep going with this person, that can be a really great way to just keep things moving kind of smoothly.

Chris Rose: 17:51 And what do you do when you’re communicating in bed and one of you just kind of starts spinning out emotionally? Like a lot of times these things can trigger past experiences or past times you’ve been shamed, and we can kind of get out of the moment and into our own personal insecurities or personal trauma histories. Like how do you know when to keep going and when you need to kind of really step back and check in with each other?

Stella Harris: 18:22 Yeah, so part of that takes first a lot of self-awareness and then second, a lot of empathy and awareness of your partner. So if you are someone who knows you have emotional and physical triggers or this is something that could happen for you. It’s really great if you know for yourself some of the early warning signs of that happening, where do you feel it in your body when things are getting away from you a little bit, when anxiety is creeping in.

Stella Harris: 18:51 So if you can catch that a little bit early, that’s really fantastic. It’s also really helpful to communicate to your partner in advance what you would like them to do in a variety of eventuality. So what happens if you start crying, and some kink scenes, maybe that’s good and you keep going. And maybe it means you really need things to stop and you need them to check in.

Stella Harris: 19:17 Are you the kind of person who likes to be held and comforted or are you going to want space or to be left alone? So as much as possible, if you can negotiate that in advanced and let your partner know what you’re going to need, that’s always great.

Stella Harris: 19:31 Some people in those moments go a little bit nonverbal and so that’s also really important that your partner knows what you’re going to need in advanced if you’re not going to be able to tell them in the moment. And if none of this was a negotiated in advanced, anytime a partner seems anxious, not present, they’re not making eye contact, they’re not speaking anything like that, I would say, especially if this is not something you have negotiated for in advanced, that’s when you want to take a pause, check-in, let them calm down, see what they’re going to need.

Chris Rose: 20:08 And then debrief after things have simmered down.

Stella Harris: 20:13 Yeah, I actually suggest that regardless of how things went, having a conversation well after, don’t cut into your aftercare or your afterglow but a day or two later, what are the things that you liked the most? What are the things that you would like to change? That’s how we learn things, it’s from looking at how it went and adjusting it next time.

Chris Rose: 20:37 So it’s clear erotic communication happens in and out of the bedroom before, during and after sex. How do you approach the idea of communicating beforehand? Like how does this become part of the seduction, the flirtation and make it feel less clinical? A lot of people are like, “Well, if I ask for what I want, it doesn’t make it as exciting.” How do you counter that kind of cultural refusal to communicate and ask for what we want? How do we make it thrilling to talk about it?

Stella Harris: 21:14 Yeah, I mean there’s a few pieces there. People do act like if they’ve had to ask for something that receiving it as somehow less sincere or less genuine. So I do think there’s an element of needing to trust our partners that they’re doing things because they want to and because they enjoy them. For the first one to suggest a restaurant or a movie and our partner agrees enthusiastically, we probably don’t spend all of dinner guessing whether or not they really want to be there but we do second guessed that if it’s a sex thing.

Stella Harris: 21:50 So communication, people are worried that it will feel out of the blue or clinical, like you said or awkward. And I think that that’s mostly true if it starts out of nowhere, if it starts out of the blue, if you haven’t set that precedent. So if you’re starting off with somebody new, set that precedent for communication really early. Everything from negotiating what you’re going to do on a date to whether or not you’re kissing at the end, going home at the end, sort of set that precedent that everything is going to be talked about and checked in about. And then when you are in bed and you’re trying to direct how you like your genitals to be touched, that’s not going to be the first time you’ve opened up and given guidance or made a suggestion or a request. So it can help slow with that a lot easier.

Stella Harris: 22:42 It doesn’t have to sound like you were saying, sort of clinical, unless that’s your kink. It can be worked into sort of more dirty talk or sultry talk. Dirty talk doesn’t have to be putting on a particular kind of role, it can just be asking in a low tone of voice, “May I take your shirt off?” Anything like that. If the other person is excited about you doing that, hearing it is usually a turn on because then there’s anticipation, there’s the excitement to know this person that they like wants to do this thing with them.

Stella Harris: 23:28 So you can really work your requests, work your ongoing consent, all of that into something kind of sexy.

Chris Rose: 23:38 Well, for some people who can bring themselves to say it out loud, things like sending texts or writing letters or writing customer erotica can work. Do you think it’s ultimately important really to be able to use your voice and have this communication be verbal communication?

Stella Harris: 23:57 I think that verbal communication is a really great idea. I think verbal face-to-face is the most, it’s the safest way to get consent and ongoing consent in the least likely to be misinterpreted. And also, you’re right, it is really hard for a lot of people. I think doing a lot of the preliminaries by text is just fine. In kink we sometimes say don’t negotiate naked. The closer you are to an activity, the harder it can be to talk about thoroughly. So I think text is a great way to say, “Hey, would you be interested in trying such and such?” Sending links to pictures or stories, text is also a really great way to talk through things like your safer sex talk. So if you’re not right in front of the person, it can be easier to ask and answer questions that might feel a little sensitive or embarrassing.

Stella Harris: 24:58 And if you have some time and distance from when you can do the things, you’re less likely to fudge on any of your personal boundaries because you still want to play. And erotica is really great, sometimes people don’t even know exactly what they want. So if you pick up a book of erotic on a topic, you can just read through for yourself as though it’s a narrative yes no, maybe list and see, well what does turn me on? What sounds sexy to me? And if you find something then share that story with your partner so that you don’t have to use all the words for it yourself, but you can share it with them, you can put the little sticky pointers on a couple of parts you really like, or you can say, “What I like here is you know, the position that they used, or the particular romantic dynamic between the people.”

Stella Harris: 25:55 Something like that, so you can use a lot of these external tools to get on the same page and then hopefully also tweak the details verbally in person when it comes time.

Chris Rose: 26:09 At one point you mentioned the body and I’m curious how you think about the relationship between our body sensations, our internal wisdom and communication. Like, how do we let these things inform one another and pay attention to our bodies enough to know what we even want to say? What are some of the strategies you use to tap into the body’s wisdom?

Stella Harris: 26:38 So this is so tricky because our culture does not value checking in with our bodies about anything, it’s not a skill that we learn. I think some of this is changing a little bit, but at least, back in my day we were telling kids they had to hug people they didn’t like, they had to finish all the food on their plate. We were basically doing anything and everything we could to make it so that people didn’t know how to listen to what their body needed.

Stella Harris: 27:06 And now we’re supposed to turn around and trust our gut. So most of us have a lot of unpacking and reworking to do around all of that. So what it does take is a lot of checking in. There are a few ways you can do it. If you’re someone who goes to the gym or does any sort of sports or workouts, you might be used to sort of the difference between doing one more pull up because your personal trainer is standing there telling you to, and it kind of sucks but you can do it anyway versus maybe twisting your body in a particular way and feeling that little zing of pain, that’s your body saying like there’s going to be harm caused if you can continue.

Stella Harris: 27:55 So that is sort of a physical way of knowing the difference between discomfort, that it’s okay to push through and discomfort that you really need to listen to as a warning. And many of us have those same warnings for the more emotional stuff too. And what it takes really is just trying to check again with your body when those moments are happening and seeing what comes up for you. I really like journaling about these things you can track moods in an app. So for me, something that I’ve learned is that if somebody proposes something to me that I’m excited about, but it’s also like nervous and scary, but the kind of scary that I find exciting and I want to do. Usually my stomach is sort of not about it a little bit.

Stella Harris: 28:44 I have the butterflies in my stomach feeling and if somebody is asking for something and maybe a more unwelcome boundary, pushy kind of way, it’s a little higher for me then I feel it sort of in my chest and sort of a tight chest or heart palpitations you kind of way. So basically, flutters, six to eight inches apart in my body I now know is sort of my body warning me what my response is to something. But it took, you know, a couple of decades of making sometimes not the best decisions to learn what my body was saying and when I was ignoring it and doing something anyway.

Chris Rose: 29:27 And how do you find that process during arousal? Is it more clear to you or less clear what your body is wanting?

Stella Harris: 29:36 That really depends on the person. Arousal changes so much about what’s going on in our brains. Arousal diminishes our pain response, it diminishes our disgust response, which I find so fascinating. So sometimes in the moment things will feel good or sound good that in another non-sexy moment, don’t sound good at all. And so that’s another one where you need to decide when is it okay to go with what your body wants in the moment and are there some hard and fast boundaries or limits that you want to hold for yourself even if your body changes its mind in the moment.

Stella Harris: 30:20 Part of that listening in, if you’ve ever done maybe yoga or meditation, they teach the idea of this body scan. So either starting from the tip of your head or the tip of your toes and just sort of checking in with yourself all the way from top to bottom, seeing if there’s something going on there that you should listen to. And sometimes you can think something out, “Well, what would it feel like if my partner touched me here? What would some gentle touch feel like? What would some rough cuts feel like?”

Stella Harris: 30:53 And sort of thinking it through a couple of steps. The same way you might look at an item on a menu at a restaurant and like, “Oh I don’t know, does the hamburger or the solid sound good?” And think about what it would feel like to eat those things. You can do that with sex stuff as well. Of course, a lot of this necessitates slowing down a little bit. If your whole encounter is going to be a 10 minute quickie, which I am all for now and then, you’re probably not going to have a ton of time to slow down and check in with your body. So making sure that you do have play times that are more expansive and less goal-oriented, so that you have a moment to check in however you check-in.

Stella Harris: 31:36 Do you close your eyes for a minute? Whatever that’s going to be, and making sure your partner helps you create space to do those check-ins and ideally maybe they even want to do them for themselves as well.

Chris Rose: 31:50 I love it. We’ve been talking a lot about interoception, this skill of feeling the internal landscape and really thinking it’s the new sexual superpower we all need to develop. Can we talk a little bit about boundaries? Because I think often we talk about boundaries as what we’re saying no to, but often those boundaries make big yeses possible as well. How do you think about the relationship between desire and boundaries?

Stella Harris: 32:19 Absolutely. Well, if you don’t have any boundaries or you think you don’t or you’re not communicating any, that can actually really limit what you can do. So for most folks who are not intentionally just taking what they want from other people, most folks don’t want to cross somebody’s boundaries. And so if they don’t know where those boundaries are, they’re probably pulling way back from what could be happening. So for example, if you know how hard you like to be spanked and you can sort of communicate to somebody, you check in on a pain scale and you’re like, “Okay, I don’t want anything to go over in eight.”

Stella Harris: 33:03 Well then maybe the person is playing up to sevens. But if you haven’t communicated anything about how hard you like to play or your pain tolerance, maybe they’re doing threes and fours just to play it safe. And that sort of idea carries across to anything sexy, if someone isn’t sure how much is going to be okay, they’re probably taking it very easy and not at all exploring up to those edges.

Stella Harris: 33:32 So it can be really helpful to know, well how far can you go? I mean it’s an emotional guide rail. If you’re ever hiking to some sort of a lookout peak and they have that rail that’s going to keep you from falling off the cliff. If that railing isn’t there, I don’t know if you’re anything like me, you’re probably waiting 20-feet away from the edge because you don’t want to go tipping over and maybe the view isn’t as nice from there. But if the guard rail was saying, “Okay, it’s safe to walk up to this line,” then you can walk right up to it and look over and get that amazing view. So knowing where you have to stop can actually help you do more.

Chris Rose: 34:17 This conversation is really making clear like why I got along so well with your book, because I’m also a pretty risk adverse adventurer. And in the kink scene I really noticed that I’m like a rule follower, but I also really like to push boundaries and I think we’re kindred spirits there. One of the things in your book you really were really generous with is the importance of reliable pleasures.

Chris Rose: 34:46 And I think you talk about in terms of pizza. How do we think about finding and naming our reliable pleasures and having those and honoring them, but then also challenging ourselves to keep expanding our repertoires and discovering new pleasures? What’s that kind of dynamic balance for you?

Stella Harris: 35:09 What’s really nice to have something that is your go-to, so as we’ve talked about, it can feel safe or to try something new if you know that you still have something else you can do to still have intimacy or pleasure if the first thing doesn’t work out. And you discover those over time, either from what your masturbation routine looks like or from the kind of sex you and your partner have already been having. Sort of think back on, when have things float the most easily, when have I felt the most pleasure? And sort of use those to guide you to what’s your go-to activities are.

Stella Harris: 35:53 And having that, again, as sort of a safety net, can make it feel easier to get out of that comfort zone. So for some folks, if experimenting does feel scary, it can be easier just to add a little something to what they already are usually doing. So if your pizza of sex is missionary position sex, well, what would happen if you were going to have missionary position sex but with a blindfold on, or in different outfits that you would normally wear, or maybe with wrists tied to the bed, or maybe with a little sensation life first. So starting from your comfort zone and just enhancing it a little bit at first. And that also makes it really easy if whatever the enhancement is, it turns out not to be pleasurable to just remove that element and continue and absolutely adding new things entirely is so important.

Stella Harris: 37:01 Plenty of people have talked about and shown research about how much we require novelty, and it can help to make sure you have something like that on the schedule if it’s not something that comes naturally to you, planning for it in advance. So for some people that kind of thing is a lot easier when they’re out of their normal space. So I hear from clients all the time that they’re rekindling their best sacks or experimenting with new things when they’re on vacation. So being in a different city, being in a hotel room that can really help people push beyond their norms a little bit. So changing up your space entirely like that can be a huge help.

Stella Harris: 37:46 Having time for it on the calendar, I know people can be a little ambivalent about scheduling but we’re all very busy and sometimes that is what makes things happen. You can keep a little running list of things that you might like to try, and then when it comes time to set a date night, you sort of have some go-to ideas. So you don’t always need to think of things right in the moment, that works for regular date night ideas as well, because I dunno, what do you want to do? That struggle is real and it can get people in sort of a permanent loop of not having an idea of what to try next.

Chris Rose: 38:22 And as we try these things, as we expand our erotic repertoires, I think it’s really important to be very specific, both in what we’re asking for and in recalibrating things that might not quite work. So your example about rope bondage and you might say, no thank you to rope bondage, not because you didn’t like bondage, but because you didn’t like the itchiness of the rope.

Chris Rose: 38:48 And we don’t want to like throw the baby out with the bath water as we’re exploring new things and they don’t quite work. So what are some of the strategies have kind of evaluating both your desires and then your experiences and pulling apart? Like how do we know that it was the rope versus the bondage?

Stella Harris: 39:10 Yeah, well, there’s a couple of things there. So one is I’m always telling people to define their terms. So if one person says, “Here, you went to bondage,” and the other person’s mind immediately flashes to something like an intense suspension or a vacbed or something else that they think is really extreme and that’s what they think bondages, they might say no. But if you can ask, “Well tell me what you mean by bondage?” And then they find out, it’s like, “Well I’d like to tie your hands together with a scarf.” Then like, “Oh well maybe that’s fine.”

Stella Harris: 39:43 So making sure you both mean the same thing by the words because people often do not. And another thing that is certainly a conversation you want to have delicately because we never want it to look like we are pushing against someone’s no, but asking somebody why not and then you can get a lot of valuable information. So you really want to make sure somebody opts into this conversation first, and understands the intention of the conversation. So anything from going through a yes, no, maybe list and then having a conversation about the no’s, to having a conversation about the no, if you just propose something in the bedroom or if someone’s says, “Hey, I don’t want to do that again.”

Stella Harris: 40:27 So finding out the why’s, something that comes up a lot with my clients, maybe one person and a couple is interested in trying anal play and the other person is dead against it, and if you can get to the why conversation, you’ll hear about that one drunken college experience they had with no lube and no warmup and they hated it. And now that’s what they think anal sex is. So then you can find like, “Oh well you certainly don’t have to try again, but here are some things that might make that better.”

Stella Harris: 41:01 And so like you were saying what the rope, if you try some bondage and then you’re having your debrief a couple days later and what did you think of that? Would you like to try a bondage again? And if they’re like, “Yeah, I wasn’t into the bondage.” And then you ask the why, like what about it didn’t work for you? Did you not like the physical sensation? Did you not like feeling vulnerable and dig into that a little bit? Because then if you hear like, “Oh I love feeling vulnerable, it just hurt my wrists,” we’ll venue have options to address what the actual issue is.

Stella Harris: 41:36 And I like using those feelings questions both after the fact to decide what worked and didn’t work and ahead of time to find out what you would even like to do. Because if you can identify that, “Oh I would like to feel vulnerable,” and there are going to be dozens if not hundreds of ways to get to vulnerability and bonded, it’s just going to be a one thing on that list. But there’s going to be so many other you can explore to get to that feeling.

Chris Rose: 42:06 So shifting the question from kind of what do you want to do into how do you want to feel or what do you want to experience. Beautiful, beautiful. And what does that stake here? What do you see shift or change for your clients, for your coaching clients as communication starts opening up? Like how important is this in our overall erotic wellbeing?

Stella Harris: 42:32 I mean I think it is central, I think it’s kind of the most important thing when this hasn’t been working for folks for a while, I think it takes its toll on the whole relationship. I think we’d get to a place where we think maybe sex isn’t that important and the other life building things are what matters. And also humans and most animals can acclimate to a lot of different conditions. And you get used to what your day to day is to the point that you can actually not realize that you’re not happy or not satisfied until you get a glimpse of what’s possible. And then you realize sort of how far you’ve moved away from your pleasure or your happiness.

Stella Harris: 43:19 So seeing some of this start to snap back into place, I mean that’s at the core of why I keep doing this work. Seeing people have that like eye-opening, like, “Oh, this can work, I can feel this thing. We can do that together,” is absolutely amazing and sometimes it is sort of showing a different physical technique, a way to touch or a position to have their bodies in but more often it is the talking piece. It is finding sort of the sticking point or the frustration point with one couple that I got to work with. One partner hadn’t had an orgasm from the other person touching them and this was one of the few occasions where I got to be in the room while they were playing with each other and I’m standing off to the side and I’m sort of offering advice and it was very much like a personal coaching moment because they reached the point where they would normally get frustrated and stop.

Stella Harris: 44:27 And yes, I did suggest, here’s a little ways you could alter what you’re doing. Here are the tools you can use to say, you know, left or right, harder or softer. But the biggest thing was because I was providing accountability and saying like, “Hey, what happens if you keep going?” They ended up having an orgasm for the first time with their partner touching them. And I would love to say it’s because I’m some sort of sex coach superhero, but the biggest piece of it was just not giving up. And that was what I was really providing in that moment was that they didn’t give up.

Stella Harris: 45:08 And so that is a huge piece and sometimes I think we do give up because we’re really concerned about how long something takes were concerned whether or not a partner is really enjoying themselves. And so some of those communication pieces both expressing and trusting that our partners enjoying themselves, that they want to be there, that they want to try the things that can really be where some shifts take place.

Chris Rose: 45:39 And that’s so important for people to hear that asking for you one isn’t selfish, it’s an act of love for yourself and for your partner to externalize these things and give your partner more of a sense of how to please you. Most people want to please their lovers. People are far less selfish than we think of overs.

Stella Harris: 46:04 Well usually really relieved when we know what somebody else wants. We all have to make so many decisions in our day to day life that again, even something as simple as someone saying like, “Hey, I’m going to like pick up this kind of takeout for dinner. Is that okay?” Like just anytime someone else can take the initiative and make a decision ideally with a check in as well, that’s usually a relief where we want to know what people like and we don’t want to have to do all the coming up with ideas. That’s actually a really big one that comes up in my office is people feel burned out by coming up with the ideas of what things should we try.

Stella Harris: 46:42 And that is something I often see in partnerships is that one person is responsible for more of the suggestions than the other, and that can wear people out or take its toll. So yeah, I see that being a problem way more than I see too many requests or suggestions being a problem.

Chris Rose: 47:05 And I know just from being friends on social media that you are dating, is that right?

Stella Harris: 47:11 I am.

Chris Rose: 47:12 So as you explore with new people, as you date, I’m assuming that a lot of the time you are kind of the communication lead that you bring so many skills to your new relationships and flirtations. What are some of the things you do early on to kind of vet someone or feel like if there, are they up for being in that communication game with you? Are there questions you ask or topics you bring up or strategies you use to find people who can meet you more fully?

Stella Harris: 47:48 Yeah, there are few things, I mean you can get a really strong sense for somebody about how they’re presenting themselves, how they’re operating in early conversations. I’m such a word nerd, so I really do like getting to know people by writing. I really pay attention to how people respond to know, it doesn’t always come up super early, but if possible, have a negotiation about something, how do they feel about schlepping across town to meet you at your favorite restaurant? How are they taking requests? Are they taking no for an answer? Again, about stuff that’s really low stakes. Because if even that ends up being contentious, that doesn’t vote well. I always ask people about their previous relationships because how people talk about former partners or if it’s an open relationship, how they’re talking about their other partners now.

Stella Harris: 48:45 You can learn an awful lot about somebody that way, if someone’s willing to tell you why our relationship ended, that’s going to give you a lot of clues. Are people still friends with their exes? I usually have safer sex talks fairly early on, not necessarily because I want to have sex right away, but because I want to know what is somebody stance around safety because that’s going to be a real way I find out if they’re my kind of person or not. And how they have that conversation is just as important as what the answers are.

Stella Harris: 49:22 So if I ask somebody about STI testing and they’re offended or I’ve clearly never had this conversation before, like that, that gives me a lot of clues that, “Okay, they’re not used to having this conversation. So that’s probably not going to work for me.” There she is!

Chris Rose: 49:47 There’s your puppy.

Stella Harris: 49:50 And I also do a lot of the asking early, the things that I suggest I really do, I actually just had a really cute date last night and towards the end we were sitting on the couch and I just said like, “How would you feel about a little bit of kissing?” And I know that most people might think of that sounds ridiculous, but it got me sort of smiles and giggles and a really hot make out. And so yeah, it works. And if the person hated hearing that question, well maybe they weren’t going to like the kissing either.

Stella Harris: 50:28 So again, I would still rather no with my words then sort of lunging it and going for it.

Chris Rose: 50:36 I love that. You talked earlier that you were not maybe a sex coach superhero, but I want to say that you are. And as a sex coach superhero, like what is your mission? What are your hopes and goals for sex culture as we move forward from this point in time?

Stella Harris: 51:03 I would like to completely eliminate shame to do with sex, sexuality, gender, bodies. I don’t know if we’re going to get there in my lifetime, but that is what I would like to see. I would like to normalize people talking about their desires. I would like to normalize all of the different imaginable kinds of sex that people can have, including not wanting to have any at all.

Stella Harris: 51:38 I want people to understand that pleasure is important and to feel empowered to seek that out in their lives as a thing that is just as valid as anything else in our lives. Just as valid as professional growth or anything else that our culture does, sort of say, yes, this thing is good, this thing is not good. Sexual health and wellbeing is just as important as every other kind of health and wellbeing. I’m also really hoping that we can bring other professions along, I do some work with therapists and therapists and training a little bit with doctors and I would like to do more. Because I can’t talk to everybody about everything, I really need other professionals to be giving people good, safe, healthy, complete information about their bodies and about sex.

Chris Rose: 52:36 Stella Harris, thank you so much for all the work you do and thank you for joining us.

Stella Harris: 52:40 Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Rose: 52:42 So we have a couple quick questions from our patrons. Are you willing to stick around and answer a couple questions?

Stella Harris: 52:48 Absolutely.

Chris Rose: 52:49 Awesome. All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. And if you are ready for more from Stella, go to patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. She was gracious enough to stick around after the interview and answer a few questions submitted by our patrons over at patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. Join us with a monthly supporting pledge of a dollar a month or $5 a month and join our inner circle, show your love and support for this show and unlock ad free episodes, bonus episodes, bonus resources, direct communication with us, and much more over at patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. And I will be posting that bonus episode where Stella tackles some very sticky situations for our dear patrons. That’s patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. All right, I am Chris from pleasuremechanics.com wishing you a lifetime of pleasure. Cheers.

What To Do With Desires Unfulfilled

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Your erotic desires may be far more vast than can ever be met in your lifetime. What do we do with desires unfulfilled – so that we can be free to pursue more erotic fulfillment? In this paradox there is a rich terrain of both personal and relational exploration – so you can figure out which of your desires might be met more fully and which may never be touched.

Do you have erotic desires buried under layers of sexual shame? Check out our podcast on How To Overcome Sexual Shame

Dig into the work of leading shame researcher Brené Brown here.

Want to get more specific about your relationship agreements? Check out our podcast on Monogamy Agreements


Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

Podcast Transcript for Unfulfilled Desires Podcast

Chris Rose: 00:00 Hi, welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 00:06 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 00:07 We are the Pleasure Mechanics, and on this podcast we have explicit yet soulful conversations about every facet of sexuality and pleasure. Come on over to PleasureMechanics.com, where you will find a complete podcast archive. And while you were there, go to PleasureMechanics.com/free and sign up for the Erotic Essentials. It is a treasure trove of strategies and resources for you to get started with tonight. That’s PleasureMechanics.com/free.

Chris Rose: 00:42 On today’s episode, we are going to be continuing last week’s conversation and diving into the pools of desire unfulfilled. What do we do when we start to recognize that we have desires, longings, achings, for pleasures that may never be fulfilled right now or in our lifetimes? What do we do with desires unfulfilled so that we can have a fulfilling sex life? There’s a paradox here, and we will be exploring it.

Chris Rose: 01:15 Before we get started, I would love to thank our new sponsor for this podcast, #LubeLife. Lube is a very important ingredient for just about any sex act. So if you need a new bottle of lube, go on over to lubelife.com and check out their line of all natural organic lubricants. They make water based lubricants, and silicone lubricants, and flavor lubricants, oh my. Go to lubelife.com and use the code 20Mechanics for 20% off your entire order. And we’ll also throw a link in the show notes page. That’s lubelife.com. Use the code 20mechanics. Thanks #LubeLife.

Chris Rose: 02:01 All right. Let’s dive in. Last week we talked all about mapping your pleasure constellations. The idea that we are all unique individuals and we can figure out who we are and what life and love we want to make through looking at our unique pleasure constellations.

Chris Rose: 02:22 And this is pleasure in the broadest sense, so what are the activities and hobbies and work that you love to do. But also sexual pleasures. Who are you as a pleasure being? And really doing the internal work of figuring out what lights you up, what is your pleasure constellation?

Chris Rose: 02:44 And then within this work, there is an acknowledgement that not all pleasures can be fulfilled. Certainly not all at once, but perhaps not even in your lifetime. So what do we do? How do we work with the pleasures that are going unfulfilled?

Chris Rose: 03:04 And our focus here will be on thinking about unfulfilled pleasures through the lens of how to become more fulfilled, how to lessen the struggle and the suffering around desires unfulfilled. Yeah?

Charlotte Rose: 03:21 Yeah. It’s such a charged subject. It’s so emotional. I think it creates so much pain and suffering for a lot of people, having this deep well of desires that you feel frustrated, or sad, or upset about, that you can’t have happen right now.

Charlotte Rose: 03:41 And we really want to just dig into that, because we are interested in you feeling less pain around your sexuality. And this is one piece of it.

Chris Rose: 03:52 Totally. And it’s interesting just to start to think about in the broadest category of pleasures, many of us have unfulfilled pleasures. But we can sit with them and feel a little bit more neutral about the fact that we can’t have everything we want all the time. If you think about travel for example, many of us would love to travel more, and may even have specific places on the globe that we would love to go given the chance. But we don’t tend to suffer a lot around the fact that we will never get to Paris, Laos, and Thailand this year. We have a little bit more perspective that this world is a really big place, and we all have to make choices, and we can’t do it all at once.

Chris Rose: 04:42 When it comes to sex, there is a lot more suffering around our unfulfilled desires. And we need to think about why that is. And through this conversation, just know that if you feel unfulfilled in your sex life in general, you are not alone. Very few people we have ever spoken to self report sexual fulfillment. So while this is always something that we want to center, this idea that we can experience sexual fulfillment and that that is a very real goal for us humans. We want to explore what that would feel like and what that would look like for all of us. We want to acknowledge that most of us are starting from a place of deficit, of feeling a lifetime of unfulfilled sexual desires and needs.

Chris Rose: 05:43 So let’s just start there, and I’ll just acknowledge that the thousands of us listening to this around the world are all together in this place of feeling sexual longing and a sense of unfulfilled wants and desires.

Charlotte Rose: 06:00 But also, I want to-

Chris Rose: 06:04 Uplift us Charlotte, come on.

Charlotte Rose: 06:05 This is a very nuanced conversation because it is possible to have a fulfilling sex life currently, presently while also having unfulfilled desires.

Chris Rose: 06:19 Right. There is this paradox here of how do we acknowledge unfulfilled desires, make friends with them, be realistic and mature about that? While also going after that, which would be more fulfilling, and giving ourselves permission to ask for what we want. And set the bar higher. Part of the reason so many of us are so sexually unfulfilled is because we have not been guided in how to reach sexual fulfillment, and the bar is so low. The cultural bar here is so low, that we just need to all raise it up together and ask for more from each other as humans. And we’re going to look at that. All right?

Chris Rose: 07:07 So let’s first acknowledge that there are many categories of unfulfilled desires that we can identify, and they require different kinds of emotional work. So first, the easiest category is the really outlandish desires, the moonshot desires that we can acknowledge as more of a fantasy. Fantasy being the realm where we’re in the erotic imagination and anything is possible. So there are things that you may love to do if given the chance, but we can honestly say the chance of those actually happening are slim to null. Getting a blowjob in a helicopter would be fun. That would be thrilling, but you’d have to find yourself on a helicopter with a willing partner.

Chris Rose: 07:56 So we can allow ourselves to enjoy these ideas and mine them for clues about what we want more of. If the blowjob on the helicopter feels super thrilling, maybe you’re looking for more excitement and thrills and different context for sex. This is a lot of what we talk about when we talk about fantasy, is allowing them to be fantasy only. But that is still a real part of who you are. Fantasies are real because there are real in your mind, and your mind can create very real pleasure in your body when you explore fantasies. So they are part of who you are. But we don’t need to walk around expecting all of our wildest fantasies will ever come true, right?

Chris Rose: 08:44 So think through your unfulfilled desires and think about what might just be fantasy alone, and that’s okay, and they can be a joyful, pleasurable part of who you in fantasy alone. But then there are desires unfulfilled that are actually quite realistic. Things that you could have more in your life, and for many reasons don’t. And these are the desires I think that the most struggle and suffering comes from. It’s the things that we really do want that are realistic within reach, but somehow we’re not getting, and therein is the frustration.

Charlotte Rose: 09:22 Absolutely. And those are things that we could ask for. We could make requests around, and there’s something in the way of that. So that can be feeling like we’re not worthy. it would be shameful to ask. It would be taking up too much time and space, our partner might not want to. There’s a whole list of reasons and justifications why we might feel like we can’t ask for what we most want.

Chris Rose: 09:49 And Charlotte, and we were just talking recently after we got into a good flow of giving each other more massage. And you admitted that you had been longing for, but not asking for a more touch. Can you take us into that moment of you have a willing partner, you know that I’m not going to freak out in a shame response? So why would someone not ask?

Charlotte Rose: 10:16 Yeah. Life gets in the way where I feel like I needed to finish cleaning the house and I felt like you’d been working so hard, and I didn’t want to ask you to do more work at the end of the day. The concern that it’s too much to ask for, that it is uncomfortable to request more from somebody who is already got so much on their plate. All of those can get in the way from just asking. ‘Cause all of that might be true, but it’s still also is lovely to give to a love us. So I didn’t take up space where I could have, for a variety of reasons.

Chris Rose: 10:54 I just wanted to highlight that, because we talk all the time about willingness to receive and the worthiness to receive, and we live this. But it is still hard for us to ask for what we want sometimes. This is not simple. This is not a simple thing to prioritize your own pleasure over the laundry, the dishes, the work, the caretaking, the millions of other things that are begging for our attention. But when we do, something magic happens. When we prioritize our pleasure and say this is something I really want, I’m going to ask for it. You might just get it, and you might just discover that it is exactly what your partner was wanting too, or that you invited them into a very pleasurable experience. And that that in the long run may be more important the dishes getting done tonight.

Chris Rose: 11:56 So sometimes it’s just about taking a step back and realizing that your pleasure matters, that you’re feeling a little depleted, that you want to be filled up. In one way or the other. And asking out loud for what you want.

Charlotte Rose: 12:14 I will say that the first ask is the hardest. That as you do it more and more, it gets so much easier. And once you open that up, it just feels simpler and simpler. So just know that.

Chris Rose: 12:27 But another reason we don’t ask for what we want is because of the big S. Shame. Shame buries our wants and buries our desires under all of these layers of feeling. If we were to ask for what we actually wanted, we would lose love. We would lose our relationship, we would lose our partner’s respect. The worry, the anxiety about being judged for what we want is one of the primary reasons we never even bring our desires to light, let alone ask for them out loud.

Chris Rose: 13:05 So we really need to look at this category of desires unfulfilled. What are the things that you want, that your body responds to with a big yes, but that have been buried by shame, buried by guilt, buried by fear? What is in that cave within you? Because for so many of us, this is perhaps the deepest well of our desires that we haven’t even peered into. So it can be a really beautiful and tender thing to start recognizing and naming the things that we would want if we felt safe to ask.

Charlotte Rose: 13:47 Yeah, this is huge. And we might be concerned about what it means to ask for these things. What it says about us, who we might be seen as, how we might think of ourselves. So I’m thinking about men who might be interested in prostate or anal touch in some way. Women who might be interested in being spanked or any kind of kinky play of any sort. Does that undo being a good girl? We have so many stories about what wanting or desiring these kinds of sex acts mean about us. And if we give ourselves permission just to explore and wonder privately in the safety of our own mind and being, and notice what we notice. So letting ourselves explore what we might feel shame about is so valuable.

Chris Rose: 14:46 And how to work with that shame is perhaps a bigger conversation than we can go into right now. But I will link in the show notes page to a few podcast episodes that we’ve done all about shame and some other shame resources. But what’s important here is when you recognize those desires that are buried by shame, just start asking yourself, where did I learn that that was wrong? Where did these messages come from? And do I agree that it is wrong? Do I inherently believe what I am feeling here?

Chris Rose: 15:21 But the key here is to be gentle with yourself, and as much as possible to stop judging your desires. Self compassion and self empathy are super important when we are in this category of desires buried by shame.

Charlotte Rose: 15:40 Brené Brown talks about this brilliantly. She says, “If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially. Secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”

Charlotte Rose: 15:57 I just love that. We can bring some kindness to ourselves, and in doing that we can dissolve the shame that we might feel about certain desires that are unfulfilled. That neutralizes the deep shame.

Chris Rose: 16:12 Yeah, we can do this for ourselves to a certain degree. But I also think it’s important to recognize that shame is a social phenomena. And when we’re talking about sexual pleasures and things we might want to ask for, a big part of this is what is the context in your relationship? How judgmental, how open minded, how free do you feel within your relationship to ask for new things, to stretch your comfort zone? Because if you do your own work and then externalize a desire and it is met with harsh judgment, shaming behavior, and negative repercussions, then it is not safe to ask for what we want.

Chris Rose: 17:00 So this is internal work, but it’s also relational work of creating the conditions in your relationship where it is safe to ask for what you want, to try new things, or to at least talk about them. Because as we recognize these desires unfulfilled, as we excavate this shame, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get these desires fulfilled. Right? There’s going to be this process of the excavation and then looking at these things and being like, “Is this realistic given the context of our relationship?” So we will continue to talk about unfulfilled desires and particularly what to do within unfulfilled desires within your relationship.

Chris Rose: 17:48 But first, I want to take a moment and thank our sponsor for this episode. Lubelife.com is our new sponsor. #LubeLife offers a complete line of sexual lubricants for all of your slipping, sliding, stroking needs. Go to lubelife.com and check it out. They have water based lubricants, silicone based lubricant, and flavored lubes if you are into that thing. And you can use the code 20 mechanics for 20% off all of your orders at lubelife.com, or on amazon.com. And we will put that link in the show notes page preloaded with your discount, because #LubeLife is the best selling lube on Amazon for a reason. It’s a great product at a great value. So go to lubelife.com and use the code 20 mechanics for 20% off your entire order. And we will link that up in the show notes below. Big thanks to #LubeLife for sponsoring this episode and making this podcast possible. We love lube and we love you #LubeLife. Alright, back to desires unfulfilled.

Chris Rose: 19:05 And this brings us to our next bucket of desires unfulfilled, which are desires that we can recognize that would be realistic, but that don’t fit into our relationship right now. This could be something like being queer or bisexual, and having a partner of one gender presentation. And having a whole universe of desires for people of other gender presentations. This could be something like identifying kinky desires and you talk to your partner about it. You have really great conversations, but you realize you’re both really submissive and neither one of you wants to be dominant. What do you do then?

Chris Rose: 19:48 This could be recognizing that you want to be in an open relationship and be poly, your partner feels more monogamous at heart. What then? So there’s so many possibilities here where desires can be acknowledged, excavated from the shame, named out loud, and still don’t get fulfilled. Right?

Chris Rose: 20:14 What do we do with these? And this is a category that Charlotte and I are super familiar with because we’ve done a lot of the work of excavating shame, right? We’ve done a lot of the work about learning how to ask for what we want. And we are queer women in a relationship with each other and both of us have both the experience in our past and the desire within for kinds of sex with kinds of people that we are not. So Charlotte, how do you interact with this category of acknowledging desires within yourself that I as your skilled, loving, wonderful, low judgment lover, I cannot provide for you? What do you do with that?

Charlotte Rose: 21:04 Well, I think it’s so much easier in a way in queer relationships, being that we both have had relationships and loved men and trans people, that we really understand that that is, we are not that. And so there is no way, there is no physical way that you could be three different kinds of people.

Chris Rose: 21:24 As if there’s three.

Charlotte Rose: 21:25 Yeah. But as a general broad categories, that’s just not possible. So I don’t want that from you, because that’s physically impossible. So I feel like I have so much love for what we do and who we are together, while also knowing that I have loved and I could love other people and the kind of sex I could be having with them. But it doesn’t become a personal failing of yours or a disappointment in you or our relationship that we are not doing that and we cannot do that.

Chris Rose: 21:59 I want to stop you there because I think yes, it is easier if we think about, “I desire sex with men, and you are not a man. Therefore I cannot expect that from you.” There’s a lot of space and freedom in naming these things and being like, “My desire is bigger than you.” But what this points to is how we can personalize it. If your partner wants to be spanked and you don’t want to spank them, there’s a way you can make that a failing of your own. What in me is not kinky enough to do this? Or if I was more sexually liberated, I would be able to do this. So it’s really important not to personalize this.

Chris Rose: 22:42 The places where your Venn diagrams of pleasure overlap, that is your place where you get to play and explore. But it is not a personal failing if you cannot show up for your partner in all of the ways they desire. And to recognize the charge there of you want to have sex with other women, therefore that means I’m not good enough, I’m not attractive enough. It can be really easy to internalize these things as not enoughness.

Charlotte Rose: 23:12 Absolutely. What I feel like what makes the most sense is looking at the Venn diagram of where you do overlap in the sex that you have, and the kind of pleasures you enjoy together, and going so deep into that and enjoying it so deeply and fully. Because that’s where sexual fulfillment for the two of you can live and can breathe, even with this whole other world of unfulfilled interests and desires on the outside of those two intersecting circles. And I feel like that image is so helpful.

Chris Rose: 23:45 And to know that that Venn diagram shifts and changes, right? And so it’s not a static thing of this is what I want, this is what you want. And we have these five things where it overlaps. So many factors will expand or contract our desire circles, will change how we overlap. So I know this is getting a little bit metaphor-y he and confusing maybe. But the point here is at any given time within the context of your relationship, there are desires that you can fulfill for one another. There are needs, sexual needs you can fulfill for one another. And there are things you can’t. And just to be mature about that, and to recognize that that is both because our desires are more expansive, hopefully, than we can ever fit into a lifetime. And, and this is the crucial point. Your partner has chosen you. In this moment, your partner has chosen you. You are together creating a life and a sex life, and that’s where you need to focus your attention.

Chris Rose: 24:54 So in recognizing all of these expansive desires and being honest about who we are, there is a way that can then take us out of our relationship and start being an energy bleed. And thinking that if I was different or my partner was different, then I would be more fulfilled. This idea of the grass is always greener on the other side. And that is the place of suffering. If I came to bed with Charlotte every night wanting her to have a cock, I’m going to be in for a lifetime of disappointment. But instead, I come to bed with Charlotte every night knowing that within me yes, there is a desire for sex with people with penises. And so many other kinds of desires. With all of that, from that place, I am choosing partnership with her. And in that is a radical devotion and a radical commitment to seeking fulfillment within the container we are creating for one another.

Charlotte Rose: 26:01 And also making space for all those other pieces of your desire to live, and to breathe, and to be okay. They aren’t something that you need to deny or forget or suppress, or ignore. They may not be things that you’re acting on in this moment, but they can live quietly and coexist … Not so quickly, but they can coexist in your being because that is part of who you are as a sexual being. And to try and cut it off would minimize who you are, and what you have loved and what you love. It is part of your pleasure constellation. You just don’t need to suffer about it. I think that’s the piece we really want you all to know is that you can see those desires and they can live with you and they can be okay. And that is powerful.

Chris Rose: 26:48 And they can be part of just your fantasy. Your personal internal fantasies never named to another human being, and still be integrated in who you are. They can be part of shared fantasy. So say you’re really into cuckolding and want your wife to fuck other men, but she doesn’t want to fuck other men. But through conversation, you discover that talking about it turns both of you on. Right? So you have then found that place in your Venn diagram where you can integrate that desire in a way that feels good for both of you, knowing that that is where it’s going to stay, and then savor and enjoy that. You might find out that your partner is okay with you exploring desires through online forums or through specific kinds of porn you watch once in a while. And this is part of the question about monogamy agreements, right? If you are in a monogamous relationship, what does that mean? What are the specific agreements that means? And I’ll link again to that podcast episode in the show notes. But you and your partner can find ways to welcome, and acknowledge, and celebrate all the parts of who you both are as sexual beings, while also acknowledging where you overlap.

Chris Rose: 28:08 Charlotte and I sometimes will be in a restaurant, and she knows the kinds of guys I’m into and I know the kinds of guys she is into. And there’s a lot of overlap there, but then we have our specific interests. And a beautiful man will walk in, and then we will share this smile knowing that the other person has been sparked a little bit. She knows who I’m into, and so we can share that and enjoy that moment of pleasure together.

Chris Rose: 28:38 Or sometimes, we will send one another things that we know the other person will enjoy, or tease that part of one another out. Right? So this is just an example of when you know who you are as a sexual being in your completion, and knowing that that will always change and expand. It’s not a static thing. But when you know who you are and you start sharing that with your partner, your orotic world together can expand and become more permissive even if the sex acts you do don’t change. Just by acknowledging and giving these things space, instead of silencing, and repressing them, and burying them. And we will say again, the context of the relationship in order to be able to share these things has to be worked on. So you might need to baby step your way into this. And I always encourage you to stay on the side of safety within your relationship rather than just blurt it all out and overwhelm and flood your partner with new information. You will have to titrate this depending on your perceptions of how safe and open minded you both are within the relationship.

Charlotte Rose: 29:53 This is such a nuanced conversation because while we want you to accept a notice and honor your huge realm of desires that may be fulfilled or maybe not, and we want you to enjoy what is in your current present reality, we also don’t want you to feel like this is about settling, right? This is not about settling, but it is about acknowledging and appreciating what you do have while also stretching yourself where you can to ask for more of what you want. So this is all very nuanced.

Chris Rose: 30:27 We don’t shy away from the complicated conversations around here. Yeah. When you say settling, there’s this sense … But I struggle with that word because we all settle in some way. We all say this, this is good enough. This is what I want. But, we then have to interrogate that good enough, right? We settle in the sense of we acknowledge that we all have to make choices. And by living in Philadelphia, I’m not living in San Francisco. By being in bed with you, I’m not being in bed with the other billions of people on the earth. And there is as I said, that radical devotion in that and the idea of paying attention to where you are instead of having that suffering of imagining that someone else will be better. Or that if you were different, if you lost weight, if you got a better job, if you had more money, then you would be better.

Chris Rose: 31:32 So I think there is this thing of stopping the aspirational culture that tells us that we constantly need to be better in order to be fulfilled. And but, and/but, we also want to invite you to constantly be expanding your capacity for pleasure, your ability to stay present with one another, your ability to go deep with one another. Because when we talk about unfulfilled desires and acknowledging them, that doesn’t mean you have to be unfulfilled.

Chris Rose: 32:07 Sexual fulfillment is not about having all of your desires met all of the time. Sexual fulfillment for many of us is much simpler than blow jobs in a helicopter and whatever. Penthouse orgies. Sexual fulfillment for many of us comes from the feeling of being seen, and loved, and cherished, and held, and touched, and safe to explore different sides of our sexuality. It can actually be quite simple to feel sexually fulfilled, and yet that is really far away from many of us. Because as a culture, we’re not even at the point of honoring and celebrating, and having people feel safe in the basic sense of who they are as sexual beings. Many of us can’t even look at our own genitals without a feeling of shame. And that’s profound. These things are real. The shame and the fear, and the guilt around sexuality are so real and that is what is preventing us from feeling sexually fulfilled. Not the lack of penthouse orgies.

Charlotte Rose: 33:20 Sometimes it is not about expanding our pleasures to make them bigger, but to learn how to go deeper within the ones that we have and that are in our life, and that that is a pathway to sexual fulfillment.

Chris Rose: 33:36 Yeah. I was working with this couple over email and they’re working through a lot of trauma, and using our massage course to introduce touch back into their relationship. He wrote to me and he said, “I was giving my wife a hand and arm massage because that’s all she can tolerate right now. And at one point, she looked up, our eyes made contact, and I knew she was grateful for my touch.” He wrote to thank me about that moment. And that moment for them was fulfilling, because given the context of their life circumstances, given the context of what has happened to them, they were able to find a very real moment of intimacy and connection and mutual care, and mutual pleasure. That is what is going to push their relationship forward. That is what is going to fill their wells of feeling loved and cared for, and seen. Right?

Chris Rose: 34:34 So we need to stop talking about sexual fulfillment as this idea of doing all the things all around the world all at once, because that is not how our real lives, sex lives work. But just to acknowledge that sexual fulfillment for you right now might just be the simplest of touch with the kindest of intentions, across a kitchen table. How can you find fulfillment in that moment? Because what it means is I am not alone. I have this lover. They are showing up for me how they can. Let’s focus there. Let’s find fulfillment there.

Chris Rose: 35:13 So how do we leave this on a more uplifting note? I would love to hear from people about what sexual fulfillment, this idea of being sexually fulfilled, what that has felt like in different points of your life or what it might look like for you. Let’s help one another paint the picture of what this feels like and looks like together. Yeah?

Chris Rose: 35:40 So be gentle with yourself around this conversation. As I said, we do not want to shy away from the complicated conversations around sexuality. Next week, we will try to bring you a more explicit, fun conversation, because we do want to strike that balance within your feed. What we feed you on this podcast I want to be a balance between these deeper, more intense conversations about what is real around sexuality, and also give you tools to access more joy, and pleasure, and orgasm, and ecstasy in your body. We want to be there on both ends of your holes. Okay. I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 36:29 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 36:30 We are the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 36:31 Wishing you a lifetime of pleasure.

Chris Rose: 36:34 And hey, I didn’t say it before, but if you love this show and you want to support our work, come on over to patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. Patreon.com/pleasuremechanics, and jump in with a monthly pledge so we can continue to fill your feed and holes.

Your Constellation of Pleasures

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You have a unique constellation of pleasures, desires and interests that make you who you are. How well do you know your own pleasure constellations? What are the brightest stars that are easy to go after and express, and what pleasures might be dimmed by shame or fear?

This episode was inspired by the responses to our talk in the Explore More Summit. We will continue next week with a conversation about what to do with desires that can not be fulfilled right now – or ever!

Pleasure Constellations WorksheetDownload

Transcription of Podcast Episode: Pleasure Constellations

Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

Chris Rose: 00:00 Hi, welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 00:05 I am Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 00:06 We are the Pleasure Mechanics, and on this podcast we give soulful yet explicit sex advice about every facet of human sexuality. Come on over to pleasuremechanics.com, where you will find a complete podcast archive, and while you are there, go to pleasuremechanics.com/free, and sign up for our free online course, The Erotic Essentials, so you can get started implementing our best strategies and techniques to start building a happier and more pleasurable sex life on your own terms. That’s pleasuremechanics.com/free. Welcome to our new listeners. Last week, we were on the Explore More Summit. It is 10 days of brilliant talks and idea sharing with some amazing, amazing folks. We were honored to be a part of it, and if you were introduced to us through the Explore Sore summit, we are so glad you found us, and welcome to the community and we look forward to serving you over time.

Chris Rose: 01:16 Definitely check out the podcast archive, over at pleasuremechanics.com. There’s 325 episodes waiting for you, and they are all sorted by topic in our index on the site, and be in touch. Send us email. Let us know what ideas sparked for you in the talk, and what you are looking to explore with us. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the Explore More Summit is happening right now as you’re listening to this podcast, perhaps, or it is archived so that we will put a link in the show notes page, and you can get a copy of all of those talks, I think ongoing into the future, if you missed the live free event. All right, so today, we are going to start a little two part series, sparked by our Explore More talk. In the talk, we were talking about power, and pleasure, and touch, and intimacy. It was a very …

Charlotte Rose: 02:15 We covered a lot of topics.

Chris Rose: 02:17 We certainly did. We covered a lot of topics, and covered a lot of ground, and one of the ideas that sparked some conversation in the Facebook community, and in some emails we received, is this idea, of we all have pleasure constellations. We all have things we are drawn to. We all have desires, and fantasies, and parts of our sexuality that are being revealed to us at all times, right? We are living, breathing sexual organisms, and so first, how do we learn to explore those pleasure constellations? What does that mean to map those out and come to know ourselves as pleasure beings? Then what we do with desires unfulfilled? I made a little statement about, there is maturity in recognizing that there are some of your desires will never be met, and that seemed to spark some feelings for a lot of people. We’re going to talk in the second part of this, next week, about desires unfulfilled and how to come into a ease-filled relationship with those desires.

Charlotte Rose: 03:24 Great. I was going to say right relationship with our unfulfilled desires. What do we do with them? How do we hold them?

Chris Rose: 03:30 But first, how do we get to know ourselves? How do we know our pleasure constellations? What does this idea mean, in terms of getting to, getting in touch with what those desires are in the first place? Right? Before we know if desires can be fulfilled or not, we need to be able to name and articulate those desires.

Charlotte Rose: 03:54 Sorry, I was just going off into really wanting to paint pleasure. I want to do a painting about pleasure constellations, and I was painting it in my head.

Chris Rose: 04:02 Okay, so that’s really …

Charlotte Rose: 04:03 Now I’m back. Now I’m back.

Chris Rose: 04:04 That’s actually a really good clue. Okay, so how do we know who we are as human beings? How does our individual interests, and pleasures, and desires give us a map to who we are, and our purpose on this planet, and who we might be wanting to be in community with? There’s this idea embedded in this idea that we are all unique individuals within this beautiful human community, and that knowing yourself as an individual is important. If we just start there, that knowing who you are is important, and this includes your sexuality, right? This conversation can be about all pleasures, about what kind of food do you like, what kind of music you like, what kind of art attracts you? What do you want to do on your holiday? Do you want to go camping or do you want to go to the big city?

Chris Rose: 04:57 Right? We can think about this in these very broad terms of pleasure, and then we can also think about it in terms of the most intimate terrain of our sexuality, our core desires, what we want to do when we are naked and sweaty with another human being, even if that is only in our minds. We will try to straddle both of those things, talking about pleasure broadly, because that broad category of pleasure is actually super important, and we all need to know ourselves better there, but also our sexual core pleasures and desires.

Charlotte Rose: 05:34 Yeah. What we do with our time really influences and impacts our entire life. The choices we make about how we spend three hours of time on a Saturday or a Sunday influences how we feel in our body, the level of connection we have with ourself, with our family, with our community, and we are all making different choices all the time, and shaping our lives with the places we go, the food we eat, the communities we’re touching. It’s just really powerful to reflect on sometimes of, is it what you want it to be? What would you desire more of? What would you desire less off,and to sort of do an inventory of your life, and of the amount of pleasures you’re experiencing outside of the bedroom. Then we can think about it also in the bedroom. Sometimes it’s easier to think about in a nonsexual way. We have less …

Chris Rose: 06:28 Baggage.

Charlotte Rose: 06:29 Yeah, we have less emotional like feelings about it, so it’s sort of an easier place to practice.

Chris Rose: 06:35 When you think about your constellations of pleasures, think broadly, and try to pinpoint those stars in your sky that might start shaping who you are, if you are thinking about who you are through the lens of your core pleasures. Forget your identities, your profession, your family. Just think about you as an organism, as a being, and think about what gives you as a being the most pleasure. Is it the ocean? Is it golf? Is it food? Try to get really both broad and then specific, and we will provide you in the show notes page, a PDF, where you can print it out and actually do this on paper, and I think that can be really helpful to start making it graphic, really writing it out, or visualize it, if you’re more of a visual person, but think of who you are as a being, as a constellation of pleasures. Charlotte mentioned in the beginning of this conversation, oh, my mind went to painting this conversation. That is because one of Charlotte’s core pleasures is art, broadly, more specifically, painting, and even more specifically than that, bright, beautiful colors. Is that accurate?

Charlotte Rose: 08:02 Yes, and-

Chris Rose: 08:03 How would you name that?

Charlotte Rose: 08:05 Yeah, I have loved painting and making art, but it is something that I’ve had so much resistance around and I … It’s taken a lot of courage and support to really create, and I think this is true for a lot of people, like trying to make space for something that you feel deeply in you, in your internal landscape that you want to do but are not doing, is a whole relationship that is worth looking at, I think, for a lot of us.

Chris Rose: 08:39 Okay. Let’s transition there in a second. Let’s talk about, what is one pleasure for you that you have not had resistance around, then you’ve had full social permission to just embrace, and go for? What’s an easy pleasure for you?

Charlotte Rose: 08:52 For me, movement, like dance. In my own home, not in like any kind of professional or organized way. I literally mean like dancing in my bedroom, dancing and other big room stretching, all of those kind. That is so joyful for me, and is such an important part of my vitality and wellbeing, and changes my life when I do it, and I love it, and I’m so clear that it is important to me.

Chris Rose: 09:17 These are the good things to look at, so what are the pleasures that have felt easy for you to go for in your life that you’ve felt social permission around, that you have felt social support? Naybe your parents put you in a class when you were a kid, or you got encouragement from other adults in your life. What pleasures and interests of yours have been socially supported and easy to embrace?

Charlotte Rose: 09:41 What about you, honey?

Chris Rose: 09:43 My intellect. That was always my primary thing that people applauded and supported, and so the pleasure of being a student, and getting good grades, and weaving ideas together, and writing. Those were all things that we’re really encouraged for me, and so as an organism, when things are encouraged for you, and you have the adults, your caretakers around you saying, “Good job. Yay, that’s great. You’re so good at that,” it’s natural for us to gravitate towards those pleasures. Right? Because we are confirmed, we are affirmed from the outside, like, those are good things. Go for it. We are getting to sex here, people. Don’t worry. Then think about what are the pleasures that you might feel inside you that were not socially supported, so things like painting, or dancing, things that are outside of your gender box. If you’re a macho boy that loves football and cupcakes, like the football might’ve been applauded, and you were put on teams, and bought uniforms, but when you went to bake with your grandmother, maybe your father came to pick you up and said like, “Take off that sissy apron,” or something. Right? What pleasures were you drawn to as a kid and throughout your life that you were restricted or shamed about?

Chris Rose: 11:02 What are the ones that are just a little more tender and vulnerable? I think the arts, for a lot of people, it’s like, oh, you want to be an artist? Ha ha ha, that’s not realistic. Capitalism and all of these things, like the social pressure of performing and getting a good job, also start interrupting our pleasures. What are the pleasures we would do if we didn’t have to grind it out at our job every day, is also a great lens here. What pleasures do not give your space, time, or permission for? What we’re painting here is this landscape of, we all have these pleasures within us, but over our lifetimes, and within our social conditioning, some pleasures are amplified, and given a lot of space and encouragement around, and other pleasures start to be dimmed, and maybe even quashed, constricted, silenced, shamed.

Chris Rose: 11:56 When we start zooming into our pleasure constellations, and then thinking about our sexual pleasure constellations, this is where these two forces of what has been given social permission, what has been encouraged, and what has been dimmed, silenced or squashed becomes really obvious.

Charlotte Rose: 12:16 Totally.

Chris Rose: 12:17 As you think about your sexual pleasures, your sexual desires, just notice, and be really compassionate and easy with yourself, because we’re all going to have desires that are really easy to express out loud, and desires that feel terrifying to even acknowledge to yourself, and this is because we live in a very narrow window of sexual permission in our culture. It is totally okay for a man to say out loud over a couple beers that he is a boob man, right? For a guy to like be like, oh she’s got nice boobs. I l,ove tits. Not going to really disrupt a lot of social circles, but for that same guy to be like I love feet and sucking on toes. That is not as socially acceptable in that conversation. Right?

Chris Rose: 13:13 This social gaze on our desires matters. It matters what we see representation of, what we see permission around, and then how we hear other people talk about the things that might be lighting us up inside. If you’ve known you’ve always been drawn to feet, and want to suck on toes, and you hear one of your friends or a girlfriend kind of talk about, ugh, those guys with fetishes are so gross. Like, what do they get out of it? Like, what pervs. That causes your inner light to flicker, that causes you to doubt yourself, and it certainly causes you to say to yourself, “Do not reveal this, because if you do, you will be judged.” This is just the reality. And then all of us live within like micro cultures within our relationships, and sub cultures within our communities, and cultures of race, and clas,s and education that have different barometers of what is okay and what’s not okay, what is permissible, what is forbidden.

Chris Rose: 14:13 All of that affects our internal gauge of what is okay to express and go for in life, and what is okay to seek out within our relationships, and integrate as like part of your sexuality versus what has to stay in your shame, and in your most private landscape, and not even be acknowledged to yourself. Then the range between those. Can you masturbate to something but not ask your partner for it? This is all a lot of self reflection. I get that, but it’s also really important in the process of knowing who you are as a sexual being. When we, or your partner, turns to you and say, ‘What do you want to explore next? What do you want to play with? What do you want to experience? What kind of sex do you even want to be having,” that we can have a more specific response to that, we can name our longings more clearly, and know that those longings, just like you’re longing for art or cello music, those longings are part of who you are. They’re part of you as a unique and beautiful individual, and part of what you have to offer this human community. Reel me in, Char. I’m going broad.

Charlotte Rose: 15:33 I love it. I think it’s really valuable, so we can understand all of those as big ideas, and then what does that look like in the body? What are we listening for? What are we observing within ourselves that then we want to notice, so there can be slight flickering of interest.

Chris Rose: 15:53 Wait, just a sec. What are we noticing within ourselves to feel like what are desires? How do we feel a yes? Is that what you’re saying?

Charlotte Rose: 16:00 Yeah. Yeah, because I think that so many of us don’t allow ourselves to really notice what we love, because of that social conditioning, and we have to get into the practice of listening internally in our own flesh, in the landscape of our body, for information, for cues, for twinklings, I want to say, but I have to go keep going on this [inaudible 00:00:16:27], but of information that is telling us actually, you were a little bit interested in this thing over here, that maybe you have some feelings, and judgment, and shame about, but if you maybe explore a little bit more, and give yourself a little bit of kindness and compassion just to explore it. Let’s see what you discover, because that is one of the first pieces to really discovering our constellation, is giving ourselves a space of not so much judgment to explore.

Chris Rose: 16:57 I think that’s a really good question, of how do we notice a yes in our body? How do we pay attention to pleasure in our body, and we’ve been talking more and more about interoception on this podcast, which is that really sexy super power of feeling the feelings inside your body. Not the sensations coming from the outside, but the sensations internally, and paying attention to your yes is a process of interoception, so think of it this way. Let’s just do an exercise right now, so think of one of your favorite places in the world, a place where you feel happy, and secure, and safe, and also maybe even a little sexy or pleasured, and just go there in your mind, and notice how it feels in your body, and pay a specific attention to those sensual details that you love.

Chris Rose: 17:56 Is it the way the light hits the water? Is it the fabric of that couch at your favorite home? Anchor this fantasy in a few sensual details that you know with your body, and start paying attention to how your body feels. Can you feel warmth flowing, buzzing, a streaming sensation? What language can you bring to those sensations around something that feels good to you, or think about one of your favorite sexual experiences, and take this into the arousal realm. We’ve talked about peak erotic experiences on this podcast before, so take yourself into the memory of a peak erotic experience, and really pay attention to how your body feels.

Chris Rose: 18:46 Then take a few deep breaths, notice that in your body, and then we can start summoning a no. Think about a person you don’t like. Think about a situation you don’t want to be in. Think about a worst case scenario, and start noticing, I just felt that shift in my body right away. Just saying the words, notice the constriction, the tension, the tightness, the catching of your breath. This is a process of getting to know what your body is telling you about things based on sensation. It is a super power. It takes time to hone, but you can’t do this without noticing, so next time you’re thinking about going to a restaurant, you’re investing your time, and your money, and what you’re putting in your mouth based on that restaurant choice, so summon up a few choices. Visualize yourself sitting in that restaurant, and figure out where your yes is. Right. Does that?

Charlotte Rose: 19:46 Yeah, totally. I was just wondering if we could take them back to like a pleasant experience so we can like …

Chris Rose: 19:50 All right, so let’s go back to a really pleasurable experience. Let’s go to that peak erotic experience, because that’s one of the best ways to feel a yes, is to make it big. Thinking about a subtle yes between, do I want to join that PTA committee? That might be harder, so go to your big yeses, or go to the everyday yeses, but go into a peak erotic experience and again, locate the sensual anchors. What are the feelings you felt? What are the smells, the sights, the tastes, and then also how did that other person treat you in a peak erotic experience? What are the social cues of that feeling good?

Chris Rose: 20:36 This is complicated in the fact that there are ways we want to be treated, in high states of arousal and eroticism that, that’s not a yes in everyday life, but the process of feeling your yes and no in your body, and people have been talking about this more and more with our talks of consent, and boundaries. How do we know what we want? We have to go inside and give ourselves space and time to feel, and sometimes that means taking time, giving yourself the time for a few moments, pause before making a decision, before making a reaction, and really feeling the landscape of what’s going on. Let’s bring this back to sex, so when you’re mapping your sexual pleasure constellation, there will be those bright stars that you know you like. You love fucking your wife. Awesome. Locate that, and then kind of zoom in and like, what else is within that node in your pleasure constellation?

Chris Rose: 21:36 What do you like about fucking your wife? What are the micro pleasures within that, and then zoom out and it’s like, without social conditioning, without the limitations of real world, what would be in your pleasure constellation? Next week we’re going to talk about, how do we navigate naming and being authentic with the broadest sense of who we are, the most true sense of who we are as sexual beings, and also acknowledging we do live in real world, with real world limitations and conditions, and even something like being interested in more than one gender, or more than one person at a time, that might be a desire you have to live with not fulfilling, if you are in a monogamous relationship. Or things like sucking on toes. If your partner doesn’t like their toes sucked on, what do you do with that? What do we do with a parts of our desire maps, our constellations, that we will not reach in this lifetime?

Chris Rose: 22:38 How do we be in integrity with that? I think that’s a really tender conversation. We will go there next week, but for now, and with the resources in the show notes page, I really invite you to start mapping your pleasure constellations, and then your sexual constellations, and get to know yourself as a sexual being. If I wanted to know who you were as a sexual being, how would you explain that to me through what you enjoy? As we define ourselves, think less about your identities and more about what you enjoy, what pleasures you enjoy giving and receiving, what pleasures excite you, and entice you, and arouse you, and light you up. Let’s go back to that Audre Lorde definition of eroticism. What gives you life? What excites you and sparks your flow of life energy. Start there. Marie Kondo recently is been hitting all the news. What sparks joy, and we need to figure out how do we feel joym and then notice what sparks joy. What creates pleasure in your life. That is the inquiry of this week.

Charlotte Rose: 23:50 Yeah, so this is a lifelong inquiry that is always changing, always evolving, but any time, and attention, and effort you put into exploring this right now can be really valuable, no motto where your partner, if you have a partner, or if they’re interested in exploring this with you, it’s a really valuable personal inquiry that is worth returning to as you discover new interests, and as you’re out in the world, notice and feel for sparks of interest, of warmth, of excitement, about anything, and just let that be information for yourself, that that is a part of yourself that you are noticing.

Chris Rose: 24:31 As you map these pleasures, again, a reminder for self compassion here. As you recognize pleasures that you have longing for, there may be steps to start recalibrating your life, to allow more of those pleasures in. When you recognize, oh, I love swimming and I haven’t been swimming in two years, finding a local pool for a weekly swim might be accessible to you, and there might be pleasures that feel really far away, and there can be a sense of longing, and grief, and mourning that opens up there. This is really what we want to dive into next week, is how do we make friends with desires that feel further away? How do we excavate desires from underneath the shame and secrecy, and even if they stay private, honor our desires a little more? But this is all about getting to know yourself, and feeling a little bit more permission about being who you are, instead of being on the script, the social script that tells us who we should be, and who we ought to be, and start really re-centering into this, the radical diversity of the human family.

Chris Rose: 25:43 We all have so much in common, but we all are really interesting, unique individuals, and as soon as I started going to dinner parties and asking instead of like, oh, what do you do for a living, and we start asking, what excites you? What are you excited about right now? You get into such better conversations, because instead of knowing that someone’s an accountant, I know that they’re really into Greek tragedy opera. I don’t even know if that’s a thing. They’re really into something, and when they told me what they’re into, I see who they are, and we can start there. Tell me about your obsession with opera. When did that begin for you? This is such a better way to get to know each other as human beings, and so let’s all do the work of mapping a little bit, who we are through our pleasures, through our interests, and our excitements, and including our sexual pleasures within that.

Chris Rose: 26:38 Even that process is honoring that sexuality as part of who we are, and our unique sexual pleasures matter. Not only setting you on the path for fulfilling those desires, but even just knowing who you are as a unique sexual being is incredibly powerful. Let’s start doing that a little bit more together. Yeah?

Charlotte Rose: 27:01 Sounds good. Let’s do it.

Chris Rose: 27:03 Thank you for listening to this podcast. If you are a new listener who found us through Explore More, welcome. There is a huge podcast archive to be discovered at pleasuremechanics.com. While you’re there, sign up for our free online course at pleasuremechanics.com/free, and if you have been listening to this podcast for a while, and love what we do, and are delighted by the idea of an influx of new listeners, and more people being exposed to the heart and soul we bring to this topic, then please support us on Patreon. Go to patreon.com/pleasuremechanics, and throw in a monthly donation of a few bucks a month to help us do this work in the world, and continue to reach new people, and spark new conversations and ideas for folks. We are so thrilled to be doing this work. Thank you for your support. We love you. We are so happy to be in these conversations with you, and next week we will be back with you, with continuing this conversation about desires, fulfilled and unfulfilled. Yes? I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 28:16 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 28:17 We are the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 28:18 Wishing you a lifetime of pleasure.

Chris Rose: 28:21 Cheers.

Exploring Attachment Theory with Aida Manduley

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What is attachment theory? How do different attachment styles show up in our most intimate relationships and in our sex lives?

Therapist and social justice consultant Aida Manduley joins us to discuss attachment theory and how we can learn about ourselves and our relationships with this powerful tool.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship by Stan Tatkin PsyD MFT


Transcript of Exploring Attachment Theory Episode

Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

[00:00] Hi. Welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris from pleasuremechanics.com, and on today’s episode, we have a fabulous conversation with Aida Manduley about attachment theory, and how different styles of attachment show up in our most intimate relationships and our sex lives.

[00:21] Come on over to pleasuremechanics.com for the full podcast archive, and while you are there, go to pleaseuremechanics.com/free to sign up for our free online course so you can get started building a more satisfying and fulfilling sex life on your own terms. That’s pleaseuremechanics.com/free.

[00:46] All right, so on today’s episode, we have one of my favorite thought leaders in the sexuality field, here with us to talk about attachment theory and how it shows up, and what we can do to manage our own attachment styles in and out of the bedroom. If you don’t even know what I’m talking about by attachment styles, you are in for a treat.

[01:10] Attachment theory is one of the primary lenses that relationship therapists and sex therapists and all kinds of therapists look at to think about how we have learned to love, how we have learned to co-regulated with other human beings, and how we act in conflict and in moments of threat with other human beings. So this is a primary lens to look at your own patterns within your relationship and your love life in general.

[01:41] Alright, here is my conversation with Aida Manduley.

[01:46] Can you introduce yourself and the work that you do?

[01:48] Yeah, so my name is Aida Manduley. I am Boston-based, though born and raised in Puerto Rico. I am a trauma-focused clinician. I am also a sexuality educator, and I am a consultant/presenter that works with both micro-interventions … a.k.a. the sort of small, one-on-one parts of the work … and someone who also does larger-scale intervention and prevention … so the policy, the rules, the larger events, national work … because I like to do a little bit of everything.

[02:23] And so my mission in my work is to build the better world that can actually hold us all, and that is a world where there’s racial justice, that’s a world where we have more options in the criminal legal system to address harm, that’s a world where pleasure is an option for all those who wanna take it and experience it, and … yeah, all my work is really about fantasy and trying to bring that fantasy to fruition.

[02:54] Mm, I love that.

[02:56] And you’re one of the most brilliant minds that I look to to really think about how these external systems, the social world we live in, impact our most intimate arenas of love and eroticism, and even how we embody our own skin. So thank you for all of that.

[03:18] When I saw you post on Facebook about enjoying talking about attachment theory, I kinda jumped in my seat, because attachment theory is something that we haven’t really tackled in over 300 episodes. I have a sense it’s super important to sexuality and eroticism, but I’ve been looking for a guide in this, so thank you for jumping on the line with us.

[03:42] We’re gonna talk about attachment theory. Can you start us from the total beginning? What is attachment theory? Why is it important?

[03:49] For sure.

[03:49] So attachment theory is this idea that we work to connect to primary caregivers when we’re young … particularly in times of distress … and that the ways that we bond or don’t bond with them physically and emotionally sets up a blueprint for how, then, we connect to other important figures in our future, whether that’s bosses or partners or other family members and things like that. So it accounts for some of this biological drive to connect and feel safety, but it also then looks at how that gets woven through with experience. So attachment theory is not purely a biological theory, it’s not purely a social theory, and there is a lot of work around it. A lot of research focused on children … and that’s kind of where the theory started … and then there’s also been research on attachment in adults specifically.

[04:44] We have a lot of research, and we still have, honestly, more questions than we have answers, but for me, it feels really important because it is something that allows us to have language and context to discuss how we build relationships and why. And to me, it can help people give context and words to address their relationship needs and their issues.

[05:10] Is it something that’s gonna work 100% for everyone? No. Nothing … nothing works that way. But to me, it feels like a helpful shared language that we can use to talk about our wounds and the way that we can heal from them to build better relationships with any person in our lives, but particularly in what we consider intimate relationships, whether that’s romantic or sexual or something else.

[05:34] Beautiful. And so what is attachment? What does that look like between a child and a caregiver? What role does it play for us as humans? Why do we learn this skill?

[05:46] For a lot of reasons. Part of it is dealing with distress. So part of the reason we biologically want to attach to a caregiver is because we are experiencing the world and we’re trying to figure out how to do it and how to do it safely. So part of it is about calming ourselves down if we’re freaked out as babies, but part of it is also to learn about how to be in the world.

[06:10] Very early on, when we’re zero to two or three, our caregivers … whether that’s parents or someone else … these are the people that we as children are relying on to teach us, what does it mean to be a human? How are we supposed to react to things? Am I a different being than you? Are we the same kind of being? And so all these really big, existential questions are getting addressed through the relationships that we have. And that obviously varies across cultures, it varies depending on the household setup people have and what they’re exposed to … that all of it at its core is about the relationships that we have, and what those teach us about what it is to be human, how we’re supposed to deal with our emotions, the role that emotions have in our lives and all of that stuff.

[07:02] So attachment relates to how we get calmed down when we are in distress, how those caregivers react to us if we reach out to them, and it’s not just about physical reaching out. It’s also about emotional reaching out.

[07:19] One of the main gaps that I’ve seen when people talk about attachment is just assuming that it’s all about the physical outreach, and, “Oh, I had parents that were very involved. They went to all my soccer games and they took me to ballet and they helped me financially, so of course I had a great upbringing. Of course I have secure attachment. Everything is fine.” And when we actually dig a little big deeper, we see that, “Oh, they were there for you financially and physically and materially, but you could never talk to them about your feelings. They never expressed interest in your inner workings. They never were there for you when you were upset.” And so that creates a disconnect. That creates a gap or a void, and it can lead to what we would call and attachment injury.

[08:11] And so it’s all about the relational piece, and how others react to us in relationships … whether that’s physical, whether that’s emotional, whether that’s verbal … and it starts very, very young.

[08:26] So I’m hearing this piece of finding safety and comfort with other humans, and being able to return to that place of safety and comfort when we perceive threat or when harm comes.

[08:39] You know, I have a four-year-old daughter, and I’ve seen this cycle, and it’s so interesting how it gets further and further away from your body. You know, she becomes a toddler and falls, and then immediately runs back into our arms and we kind of co-regulate. Is this the kind of system we’re talking about? That being an independent person in the world, but then having other humans to come home to and find safety with. Is that [crosstalk 00:09:08]

[09:08] Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly it. And so the hallmark of what is considered secure attachment … we have secure and insecure attachment. There’s only one type, allegedly, of secure attachment … for now … and then we have various types of insecure attachment.

[09:23] For someone who has secure attachment, the idea is that they are both able to return to a safe haven, and that’s usually related to other people, but also a safe haven within themselves, and this person having the ability to explore, with some degree of security and with some degree of confidence. So you can be away and close, and both of those are doable, they feel easy, to some extent, and like there are options.

[09:53] Versus if you have insecure attachment, one of those arenas is compromised. Maybe you don’t feel like you can ever go to a safe haven. You don’t feel like you have anyone that you can rely on or connect to or maybe you feel really freaked out at the idea of someone trying to connect with you and you actually avoid it and fear it and dismiss it or minimize it. And so secure attachment gets formed by having those caregivers be there for you, and the cycle of secure attachment is someone … let’s say a child, in this case … a child experiences distress, or perceives a triggering event or something that’s starting to get their system activated. That provokes some level of anxiety, or alteration in their body. They generally then try to seek a connection to their caregiver, try to look toward the parent or the grandmother or anything like that, for some kind of reassurance or mirroring, and in a secure cycle, that adult or that caregiver will give them a good response.

[11:00] And a good response has a few different components, but primarily, a good response involves an acknowledgement of whatever the emotion is or whatever that child is coming with. It involves some co-regulations, so I can mirror the distress that you’re feeling, but I’m not as freaked out as you are, so I can give you a little bit of security and like, “Hey, it’s okay,” and then a being with. And through that process, then, the child can feel chill, basically, or feel less anxious and de-escalated. And then they know that, “Hey, if I’m ever distressed again, I can probably enter the cycle again. I can seek reassurance and comfort, and I will get it, and then I will feel fine, and this is an option for me.”

[11:44] Whereas if it’s an insecure attachment cycle, at some point in there, there’s a breakdown. So either you’re distressed, you feel anxious, you seek connection, and you get a bad response … and then we fork off into either, when you get a bad response, you say, “Okay, I just need to try harder. I’m gonna do that again. Let me seek connection again,” and you get stuck in a loop … or, very often, you seek connection, you get a bad response … or there’s no response … and then you’re like, “Okay, time to give up because I cannot trust anyone. Time to fling myself into the Sun and suppress the hell out of every emotion I ever have again. ‘Cause I can’t rely on any of you. Peace.” And then you just don’t try to connect again, or it feels really fraught.

[12:32] And then the other cycle is one that’s more erratic, where you may not even seek connection. You might seek connection sometimes, but you get a bad response and you get stuck in one of the two loops and it’s messier, and each of those cycles corresponds with a different insecure attachment style. Which I know is also one of your questions, so maybe I can briefly give an overview of that.

[12:57] Perfect. That last one, did you call it “erratic” or “erotic”?

[13:03] Erratic. I’m sure it’s erotic for someone, too.

[13:05] Amazing.

[13:07] But yeah, so we have the secure attachment style in adults, which is that cycle where there’s a good response and there’s some de-escalation and chill. Then we have anxious preoccupied, which is the one where you get a bad response but you seek connection again.

[13:23] For someone who’s anxious-preoccupied or has that as their primary attachment style, they do a lot of reassurance-seeking, there may be a lot of nervous energy, they want intimacy and they want approval, sometimes to the point of dependence. They’re afraid of abandonment or rejection. But also … some might qualify those as negative things … but also people who are more anxious-preoccupied tend to care a lot about how other people feel. They can be very empathetic. They can be very kind. They can be very observant.

[13:55] And so, as I talk through each of these, one of the things that I want listeners to remember is, none of these is a bad thing. None of these attachment styles is inherently more valuable than another, or better than another. If you’re securely attached, congratulations. But the idea isn’t to shame or malign any attachment style, just to say, “Hey, these are different. Some will face greater struggles in our world than others. How, then, do we interact with each other with as much compassion as we can, knowing some of these cycles and what it might take for us to get out of them?” So I just wanna say that really loudly, ’cause this can get very easily into, “Well, the avoidance and the anxious people are terrible,” and that’s not the point.

[14:42] So secure, we got that one. Anxious-preoccupied, talked about that one. Dismissive avoidance, which is mine. And I like to say that’s the one that I have as my baseline operating system. Sometimes I use a machine metaphor, so here we are. And I feel it’s important to acknowledge that, because often therapists have this clinical distance where we pretend that none of this affects us, none of this is relevant to us, we are perfect and all securely attached. And it’s not true.

[15:14] And I think that if I can be open about, “Hey, I have this particular style and this is how I’m making it work for me,” or, “This is how I’m getting security,” or, “This is how I’ve dealt with my baseline dismissive avoidant attachment style to build healthy relationships,” I think that can also be a really hopeful thing to share with people, so that if they feel like they’re stuck or they feel like, “Oh, I have this style that’s not helpful, I guess I’m living in this forever,” and it’s like, “No, you can make a difference. You can change things. You can build new strategies for yourself.” So I like to very clearly own my dismissive avoidant baseline operating system.

[15:54] People with dismissive avoidant attachment styles can be really confident, very independent, they feel very strongly about self-sufficiency often, and they generally report that they have very few emotional needs, like, “I’m good. I’m all set. I got me.” That’s kinda the upside of it.

[16:20] The sort of a little bit more complicated side of it is that if you’re dismissive avoidant, intimacy can freak you out. One of your biggest fears is of having other people control you, having other people depend on you, having other people hampering your freedom and kinda being stuck, and some of the strategies that people with dismissive avoidant use are suppression and distancing. So rather than having the anxiety and trying to be close and just running toward someone, they just … throw up a peace sign and are like, “I’m all set. Heck you forever. I don’t need this, I don’t need you.” And so it can be really difficult to build intimacy in that way.

[17:07] But it can also be really, like the word says, dismissive of other people’s feelings, and the dismissive in the title is not about necessarily dismissing other people’s feelings. It’s about dismissing certain kinds of connection and avoiding it, but I’ve seen a lot of dismissals. I like to bring that up as well.

[17:28] And then, the final one is fearful-avoidant, which comes from the same attachment style in kids as the previous one, but also, I think, relates a lot to what’s called disorganized attachment, or mixed attachment. And that is the one that is more noticeable because it’s erratic, and there’s this push/pull. Like, “I wanna get close to you, but then I’m gonna push you away, and I really want you, but I’m freaked out, so I’m gonna run away. I both highly avoid the intimacy and the connection, and I also have a lot of anxiety about it, but I also want it,” and it’s the one that’s a little bit more volatile, I would say. And again, not as a judgment, but as a … this one has a little bit of a mix. It’s a combo platter. And it’s sometimes a little bit harder to predict than the other ones.

[18:27] And so those cycles for each are a bit different when we perceive threat, and it’s really useful for people to know which one they gravitate to, which one might be part of their original programming for their flesh computer, because then that can give them a clue as to why they are getting triggered or activated during certain conversations or interactions with their partner. And especially if they can see what dynamic they’re creating between the two of them, what cycle they’re creating, it becomes much, much easier to intervene and change it. Because you have to name it before you can fix it.

[19:06] For example, if we have someone who’s dismissive-avoidant with someone who’s anxious-preoccupied, that’s gonna be quite tough. ‘Cause you have someone who’s like, “Please, please, please, please, come to me,” and the other person’s like, “I am freaked out. I need to run far away,” and the person then keeps chasing. And it becomes a really unhelpful cycle where everyone’s unhappy and no one’s getting their needs met, but they think it’s the other person’s fault. Or they think that somehow they’re ruining it, and rather than getting caught up in shame, we can say, “Okay, this is the cycle that we’re in. I’m doing that thing where I’m running away,” and then the other person’s like, “I’m doing that thing where I’m chasing after you. What do each of us need, in this moment, to create more trust, more safety, and better emotional regulation so that we can both be present and we can both address whatever actually is the conflict.”

[20:06] I think even just listening to you now, most listeners are probably feeling themselves kind of align with one of these patterns. How do we … over the course of our lives, in our workplace, and then especially in our intimate relationships … start noticing … both about ourselves and about the people we love … and start articulating these patterns? Where are some … you said when a threat comes up … is it usually around fights or conflict that these patterns emerge most strongly?

[20:38] Yeah. I would say so. But that’s also where the question of trauma comes in. Because for some people, they’re always in a low-grade state of anxiety, or a low-grade state of trigger, if not a high-grade state of trigger. So if you’re living in poverty, if you don’t know where your next meal is gonna come from, if you were raised in an abusive household, if you’re currently in a toxic, unhealthy, or abusive relationship, all of those can make it so that it’s really hard to tell when there’s a discrete moment of activation, ’cause you’re kind of always there.

[21:18] That feels important to mention, but regardless, one of the things that I encourage people to do is attune to both physical and emotional changes, and that can be really hard to tell if we don’t have any external measures or places where we’re putting that information, because recalling feelings … especially when you’re activated … or recalling information when your system’s on high alert is really hard. Biologically, neurologically, some of your brain functions a little bit go down the drain when you’re really activated or freaked out. So for me, one of the things that I encourage people to do is to log the emotions or what went on during their day, whether that’s journaling, whether that’s using a mood-tracking app, whether that’s having a calendar where you put highlights and low lights of your day … whatever the form or the shape, some method for tracking so that you can establish patterns over time and see when things come up or how often things are coming up.

[22:28] Because honestly, that’s also one of the biggest questions that if you seek any kind of mental health help, that’s one of the biggest questions that you’re gonna get asked. “How often is this happening? When was the onset of this feeling or this episode? How long did it last?” So if you can do some of that work … whether or not you’re gonna see a therapist or a doctor or anything … it can give you more insight into the when, how, possibly why some of these things are happening.

[22:59] The other piece is to pay attention to what your fears are, and to articulate them. You don’t have to wait for them to be activated to look into them, but sometimes that’s when they come up most easily. So for example, in arguments, when a partner comes to me with an argument, or we’re fighting or anything like that, I know that one of my core worries is that we will be so focused on the feelings and how badly they or I feel that we won’t get to a resolution and how to do it better in the future. So I know that my instinct is to say, “Okay, let’s be done with the feelings now. Can we talk about how we’re not gonna mess this up in the future?” And for a partner who is maybe really stressed out about not being validated or not having their emotional needs cared for, that can be terrifying. And so their fear, in that moment, is that we will focus so much on the “what next” that they will be invisible, that they won’t be listened to again, as a pattern that they’ve had in their life.

[24:08] So if you think about what you’re afraid of when you’re fighting with someone, or what you’re worried will happen in a moment of conflict, that can usually be a really good place to start to see how these attachment styles relate to you.

[24:26] Another piece is looking at … as cliché as it may sound … looking at your upbringing and where you grew up. So kinda doing a little bit of a mental inventory of, “Who was I around when I was growing up? Was it a stable home, or was I moving around a lot? Was I around many adults or simply one? Who could I talk to about my feelings, if anyone? Who would I rush toward if I had a physical injury? Who would I rush toward if I had a complex emotion? Who could hold a secret if I had it to share? When I was young, who made me scared? Who were the people that I very much wanted to flee from? What were the situations that would make me really nervous or anxious or upset? Who was there? What was happening?”

[25:20] Through that mix of tracking what’s happening now, looking at the worries during arguments or times where you clearly identify conflict, and assessing and inventorying your upbringing and what happened when you were young … and when I say young, yes, I mean when we’re children, but I also mean up to the teen years, for sure.

[25:43] With those three pieces, you can have a really, really good starting point … with any one of those, but ideally all three … you have a really good starting point to see what are some of your strengths, and what are some of your points of challenge or some of your wounds in a relationship, and it can be much easier to communicate that with a partner. And having that information for yourself, being able to vulnerably share that with a partner, can help them also be more vulnerable in looking into that for themselves and being able to share. Because you’re not saying, “You’re a jerk and you’re terrible when you argue because you do this and this and this and this.” You’re saying, “Hey, this is some of my stuff. Here’s some of my baggage. How does that interact with the baggage that you have as well?”

[26:34] And not everyone’s ready to do that work. Not everyone’s ready to dig. Not everyone has the tools or the safety, even, to do that. But if we can do a little bit at a time, if we can find the ways to build that into our day and our lives, I think it can have a really, really huge impact … not just for romantic or sexual relationships, but also in the workplace. Because there’s some interesting research about workplace interactions and how that relates to attachment styles as well. Because we’re not just attaching to the people that we want to be intimate with in sexual romantic settings, we attach to people that we see on a daily basis. We figure out how to build those communities at work, and that’s why this, to me, is so important. Because we’re in relationships all the time. We’re a social species as humans. We’re in relationships constantly. And so if we have these tools to better understand our relationships, defacto, they are tools to better understand ourselves and our purpose and how we can be in the world and make it better.

[27:40] Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful.

[27:44] How do you see this playing out in eroticism and the ability to get sexual? I’ve been thinking a lot about how sexuality is kind of built on this platform of the vagal safety of being able to be safely immobilized with other people. So that’s maybe a whole ‘nother podcast, but how does attachment and … because I feel like sex is a little bit of a threat in and of itself. We’re vulnerable, we’re naked, we’re letting people inside our organism. So how do these attachment styles play out in eroticism?

[28:21] Oh my God, great question.

[28:23] So some of the same patterns that I just discussed play out in erotic situations, because part of what’s happening in an erotic situation is we’re communicating with each other, using our bodies, using our words … whether those are text or coming out of a mouth or being signed by our hands, anything like that … we’re using a lot of channels to communicate what we want, what we don’t want, what we’re insecure about or unsure about, to another person. And so sex is just the topic, and I think sometimes we … in the world, societally … treat sex like this very special, specific thing that’s very different from everything else. I’m like, “Yes, and, it’s also really just kinda the same as many other topics. It’s just … we could talk about sex or talk about money.”

[29:14] But the communication pieces that underlie our communication in general are still there. And so looking at … how difficult might it be to ask a partner to do something sexually might be very tied to how hard is it to ask a partner to do literally anything.

[29:36] But with sex, we’re adding layers, generally, of shame … generally, layers of taboo … generally, layers of some kind of societal pressure on top of it … so it’s our usual communication with a bit of a twist, because the topic of sex has its own baggage, culturally and familially. And so the way that some of that plays out is people who are more on the dismissive-avoidant side of things might be less attuned to the emotions of their partner in a sexual situation. They might display a lot of confidence in a sexual situation. They might, out of fear … right, that’s actually what’s underlying it … out of fear of rejection or an inability to cope well with ambiguity or rejection or something like that … they might just never bring up a sexual thing that they’re interested in because they have already given up, preemptively, that it would even be available or something that their partner would be interested in.

[30:38] If you have someone with a more anxious style, they might be really nervous to bring something up, and they might seek a lot of reassurance. They might, when they do a sexual act or have a sexual interaction, check in a lot about, “Was that okay? Did you like that? How was that?” Basically, “Did I do a good job? Am I safe? Are you okay? Is everyone okay?” And so that kind of nervous energy or that checking in might be there a little bit more than if you just had someone with, quote/unquote, “baseline secure attachment”, who would check in. That person cares about your emotions. That person is gonna check in. But they won’t, quote/unquote, “overly” check in, or seem super preoccupied with that.

[31:23] So a lot of this attachment stuff, to me, plays out in how we communicate about sex, what we would think it’s okay to ask for, how much we censor ourselves in our desires, and how safe we feel letting go. And what we classify as vulnerability. Because a lot of people attach vulnerability to certain topics, when I don’t believe that that’s actually the way it works.

[31:49] So a lot of people say, “Oh, talking about sex is vulnerable.” Talking about sex is not vulnerable to everyone. I’m a sexuality professional. For me, talking about sex, generally, isn’t a huge deal. However, talking about my sex life or specific details about my sex life, some of those are really vulnerable.

[32:10] The idea that talking about trauma is a vulnerable act … also incorrect, if we just paint it with this broad brush. Talking about their trauma can be a very vulnerable act for some people, because they’ve had to rehash it so often … especially to be believed … it’s just business as usual. It’s not vulnerable. In fact, the most vulnerable thing some people can do if they have a trauma history and they’ve had to rehash it a lot, the most vulnerable thing they can do is feel joy again, is feel sexual pleasure again. Because that’s the actually terrifying thing, when you’re in a world that says you have to look like this perfect victim, and you have to be perpetually upset to be believed, the scariest thing to do is to fall outside of that trope, to fall outside of the, quote/unquote, “acceptable” range of victimhood.

[33:02] And so this idea of what is vulnerable … ’cause vulnerability is crucial to building intimacy into attachment … comes through a variety of ways. And if we all just assume, “Ah, you are being vulnerable ’cause you had sex with me,” that’s missing the point. ‘Cause for someone having sex, even if it is sharing body fluids, even if it’s getting naked, that might not be a vulnerable act to them. Who even knows if they were embodied at any point during that? They maybe were dissociating half the time.

[33:35] So when we’re looking at attachment styles, and when we’re looking at how they play into our sexual communication or erotic scenarios, that’s again why I would invite people to look at, “What is my style? Or the one that I gravitate to more frequently? What do I do when I really, really want something? Do I run toward it full speed? Do I kinda circle it for a few months and then go for it? Do I run in the other direction?” Because then that can give them a blueprint for what they might be struggling with, what they might wanna communicate to a partner.

[34:11] I’ve had conversations with partners where they automatically say no to things … kind of no matter what it is. No matter if they want it, they will automatically say no. And for my avoidant-dismissive self, I’m like, “Okay. You said no. I’m gonna respect your no and I’m just not gonna ask about it again.” When in fact, what would be more helpful is actually asking them again, or asking them in a different way.

[34:41] So a lot of communication mismatches can happen when people have different styles and don’t know about it and don’t communicate about it. So eventually, after this partner and I had a conversation of, “Oh, you automatically say no to things. It would be helpful if I checked in with you after or gave you another opportunity to reconsider, while still saying, ‘Hey, this is your decision. I’m not asking to pressure you. You mentioned sometimes you automatically so no, so I just wanna check in. Is this a for-sure, 100% no, or was this an automatic no that you might wanna revise? I’m cool either way.’”

[35:22] Wow.

[35:23] And that kinda thing honestly wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been talking about these patterns. I just would’ve been like, “All right, no. You said no. Cool, we’re just never gonna do that.” And the person would’ve probably been like, “Oh, man, but I … maybe I wanted to.”

[35:37] And that’s also where it connects to trauma and our upbringing. If you are in a home where you’re often told you can’t want things, or that safety is contingent upon you being as small and unobtrusive as possible, taking up any space, acknowledging any want, is gonna be really difficult.

[35:56] Wow.

[35:57] So in your modeling here of these varsity-level communication skills, you are mentioning various partners. So you live a poly love life, is that right?

[36:10] I do. That’s correct.

[36:11] I wonder what wisdom you’ve found there, because when we are in a poly relationships, I think there’s a little more space to understand what’s yours and what’s your partners, ’cause you get these multiple reflecting ponds. But when we’re in a long-term, committed relationship … and so many listeners of this podcast maybe even have only had one or two long-term, committed relationships … the sense of “we” becomes very murky, like, “What’s yours? What’s mine? And what’s the relationship’s?”

[36:43] So how do you discern that for yourself, and how does your poly experience give you some skills or strategies there that we might learn from?

[36:51] I think you nailed it with this metaphor of the multiple reflecting pools. And that’s a really pretty way of putting it. The less pretty way of putting it, that I’ve discussed with one of my partners in specific, like, “Oh, by having multiple partners, you get to see your shit reflected back at you in multiple directions.” And because you’re … at least for me, because I’m building with different kinds of people that have different styles; I don’t just go for one kind of attachment or body or gender or anything like that … I get to be in multiple roles, and I get to see what behaviors come out in each of those, and how maybe they all connect to certain core wounds that I carry or certain core issues from my upbringing, but also how interestingly flexible we can all be, and then how we process it based on our context.

[37:45] And so the lesson for me has been around seeing my own flexibility and my own change capacity in non-monogamous relationships. And also, if someone’s not polyamorous, if someone’s monogamous, we can still do that. You have more than one human relationship, generally, in your life at a time. How does this play out with the people that you call your friends? How does this play out with the people that you call your family? How does this play out with the people that you call neighbors? There’s always more than one reflection pool, but because of the way that society has structured monogamy and the way that we generally privilege romantic and sexual connections, we often don’t move those lessons and open them up to the full breadth of our connections and our relationships. ‘Cause we’re like, “Oh, this is about dating. This is about long-term monogamy,” or long-term blah-blah-blah, and it’s … a lot of the same lessons and a lot of the same milestones and markers are applicable to a wide range of connections that we have.

[38:53] So that’s another piece that I think feels really important and that I have noticed. Because as I’ve opened up to thinking about my broad sexual and romantic connections, I’ve also applied a lot of those lessons to my non-romantic or non-sexual connections, and found a lot of utility in doing so, as well.

[39:13] The other lesson piece there is that approaching our relationships through this lens of, “How can I be kind toward the things that are painful for you, and how can that be reciprocal?” feels really important. Because … again, I’ll use myself as an example … avoidant-dismissive, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to take on someone else’s baggage. I’m like, “I have worked so hard to manage my own. Why do I have to carry yours? That’s unfair! Meh-meh-meh-meh-meh!” There’s a angry little person in me that’s like, “Ugh! I don’t wanna have to carry your stuff!”

[39:54] But my values … which are deeply related to the reason I’m non-monogamous in the first place … my values around community, my values around building a world that is not just centered on capitalism, my values around understanding that we’re a social species that requires others to thrive, my values around being Puerto Rican and Cuban that make family the center of everything, that make community the center of everything … all of that has taught me that it’s really important and valuable to approach things with compassion and kindness, and think about … reframe it, basically, from, “I’m carrying your baggage because you’re incompetent and can’t carry it yourself!” to, “Hey, we both have a responsibility to our own baggage, and because we are in a relationship together and we care for each other, we have a responsibility, to differing degrees, toward each other’s baggage. Because your baggage affects me, and it is an investment in both our relationship and my own well-being for me to help you with your baggage in as much as I am able to.” And so rather than looking at it as this chore, as this obligation that someone’s just foisting on me, I can look at it as an act of care, as an act of mutuality.

[41:17] That is hard to do if it is not reciprocal, though. Or if you can’t see how it is reciprocal. And so another piece that I guess comes from the land of polyamory is processing. Not that every polyamorous person processes a lot, but the people I tend to hang out with sure do, and so there’s a lot of attention to not just what we’re saying, but how we’re saying it. Not just where we are, but how we are. Not just what we want, but how we want it, and the urgency that we may have around it.

[41:52] So a lot of it is about being able to attune to yourself and others, and in those ways, model more secure attachment. And frankly … the last piece of non-monogamy lessons … is that A.) a lot of the literature on attachment is extremely monogamous, extremely heterosexual, and [inaudible 00:42:14], you know … blah blah blah blah blah. So a lot of it we have to look at critically, and figure out how it works for us, if we’re not monogamous. ‘Cause a lot of attachment literature is actually actively anti-non-monogamy. And 2.) that either extreme of “relationships should be work, relationships are hard” or “relationships should be easy; if it’s hard, you’re doing it wrong.” None of those are actually useful, and none of them are true. Especially for people who have multiple marginalization.

[42:51] Because if you are trying to build a relationship with someone who has trauma … whether that’s diagnosed or not, whether that’s clear or not … if you’re trying to build relationships as a person with trauma, as a person who lives under patriarchy and capitalism and blah blah blah blah blah … there are things that we are carrying that are toxic. There are things that we are carrying that are difficult. There are things that we are carrying that are different. And if you’re building a relationship with someone who’s just of a different culture, regardless of if there’s, quote/unquote, “any trauma” or not, there will be things that will produce conflict. And conflict … especially if you’re attending to all its intricacies … is not simple. If you’re seeing it as simple, you’re missing something.

[43:42] However, relationships … even though they should be partly work … they should also be partly joy. They should also have the things that make you excited to be in it. So if a relationship, for a long period of time … however you define that … is just work and you can find no joy in it, no safety, no sense of pleasure, no sense of reciprocity … that’s a big red flag. I’m not saying that you immediately have to get out, ’cause rough patches are real, especially for the longer a relationship lasts … but if a relationship is so skewed, it’s really important to see why, how long, what are we doing to fix it.

[44:25] And that’s also sometimes what having multiple relationships can throw into such sharp contrast. Because if you’re struggling with one partner, but with another partner, there’s a certain kind of ease and you do feel a connection to joy, you can remember what that feels like. You’re at least aware, “Oh. Not all my relationships have to be like this. So what should I do now? What change do I wanna make or do I wanna request from my partner so that we can be relating differently in a better way?” Not to mimic another relationship, but to give perspective on, “Hey, not all relationships have to look the same, and I have the power to be in relationships in a different way so that if there’s a struggle, I can take some action to make that happen in whatever relationship I’m enmeshed in at a time.”

[45:12] I’m really glad you mention that not everyone will be resourced enough to do this work.

[45:17] So how do you, as a therapist or as a friend, kind of guide people in pacing growth and expansion versus staying safe within the comfort zone?

[45:31] Right, great question.

[45:34] Part of it … unsurprisingly … goes back to the body, and letting your body tell you, and being able to listen to your body when it’s telling you something. Which, again, on a basic level, is something that not all of us are attuned to. Some of us were specifically discouraged from listening to our bodies, or had to dissociate from our bodies as a survival strategy. Especially if there was any kind of early childhood trauma or there has been sexual trauma.

[46:02] But one of the pieces, as far as pacing, is getting a sense for those non-verbal, body-based cues that either we are seeing in ourselves, or our partners are seeing in us. And so I like to encourage folks to be descriptive about themselves and partners, in as much as that’s allowed for them, and notice, “Oh, hey, my eyebrow is twitching,” or, “I’m tapping my feet,” or anything like that. So as a therapist … but also sometimes as a partner and friend … what I’ll draw people’s attention to is what their body’s doing. Or I’ll invite them to think, “Where do you feel tension right now? Is there any part of your body that feels really tight? Is there any part of your body that feels really relaxed?” So that can help with pacing, because those are the first cues that tell us something is activating our system.

[46:52] Before we have an intellectual understanding of threat, we generally have a body-based understanding of threat. Our pupils may change size, our breath may catch, our movement may slow down. We may start to have our adrenaline pumping and we’re getting ready to fight, maybe we’re getting ready to run. Maybe we’re getting ready to try to assuage the person via compliments so that they won’t hurt us or that they’ll protect us. So listening to those body cues and being descriptive about what your body is doing physically or internally, is really, really key to understanding pacing and what you’re ready for.

[47:31] Another piece is around timing. So doing a three-hour-long conversation … especially around really volatile matter … is not useful. So I generally tell people, “Hey, if you’re having a really intense conversation, cap it at 45 minutes and/or give yourself a break between 45-minute chunks. Don’t just perseverate,” because if we give ourselves more time, it can be very easy to lose the thread of what we’re talking about, it can be very easy to get derailed, and our emotional resources generally are going down when we’re in a conflict situation. We’re not getting more resources as we’re in a conflict. So we are trying to do more with less, which is not good math. And I didn’t even major in math, but I know that’s not good math.

[48:22] So having some institutionalized breaks around certain conversations … and again, not to be super inflexible, not to say, “and every conversation will be 45-minutes!” but … if you’re tackling something difficult, make sure that you’re not just talking for three hours. You may choose that your minimum or maximum is 30 minutes, and maybe choose that it’s 120. I don’t particularly care. Just put some kind of break.

[48:51] Another piece, in terms of pacing and figuring out how to do this, is having access to resources. And I mentioned not everyone is resourced, or resourced in the exact same way, but there are resources that we can access. Especially if we know that they’re there.

[49:05] So 1.) people can read books about attachment. There is a book that’s pretty monogamy-centric, but very easy for lay people to read, that has some useful content that people can adapt. It’s called “Wired For Love”, and I believe it’s by Stan Tatkin … and figuring out and sort of taking inventory of who in your life has done this work, is interested in doing this work, if you wanna pursue any kind of professional support, what does that look like? Who would you want to reach out to? There’s a National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color network, which is really great and it’s all across the US. There’s other different resources locally. Often, there’s free therapy in many states for people who have experienced trauma, interpersonal violence, sometimes people who are going through traumatic grief, there’s resources.

[50:06] When I think of resources, I want people to think as expansively as possible. What are the resources that can help all of your sense digest this information? Maybe you’re really terrible at reading content, but you’re really good at listening, so podcasts can be really helpful, whether they’re for therapists or not. Looking at audiobooks can be another resource. Looking at in-person peer support groups can also be helpful. But looking at all the ways human and non-human, intimate and non-intimate, that you can give yourself tools and skills to learn more about attachment, but also practice self-regulation and emotional regulation, and paying attention to your own body. So those would be the main things.

[50:54] And reaching out, ’cause a lot of this is long-term work, so not thinking that you’re gonna have it all figured out or done in one day, one meeting, one class. Seeing it as a marathon, not a sprint, is really integral to being able to actually do the work. ‘Cause if you think that you’re doing it wrong and that it’s taking you too long, you’re more likely to go into a shame spiral about it. But if you can realize, “Hey, the goal here is management. The goal here is not eradicating bad feelings. The goal is having more resources and options, not taking one specific path. The goal here is me being able to be whoever it is that I want to be, and be in good relationship with other people.” That’s a much easier frame to exist in.

[51:40] Mm-hmm (affirmative). To love well and be loved well.

[51:43] Mm-hmm (affirmative)!

[51:45] Aida Manduley, thank you so much for your time.

[51:47] Yay! It was a pleasure.

[51:50] All right, thank you so much for listening. We will be back with you next week with another episode of Speaking of Sex. Come on over to pleaseuremechanics.com for our full podcast archive. To sign up for our free online course, to go pleasuremechanics.com/free. And when you are ready for your next erotic adventure, check out our online courses, where we guide you in everything from couples massage to mindful sex to kinky sex, so you can choose your next erotic adventure with us and get stroke-by-stroke guidance. Go to pleasuremechanics.com, check out our online courses, and use the code “speaking of sex” for 20% of the online course of your choice.

[52:39] All right, this is Chris from pleasuremechanics.com wishing you a lifetime of pleasure. Cheers.

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