Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra

tl;dr Leonore Tjia on highly sensitive people, relational work, and why modern mental health models are inherently anti-erotic.

Explore More Summit registration is OPEN. Grab your free ticket by registering today for this free, entirely online conference that happens April 20-29th featuring 28 delicious, timely, intimate talks. Head to exploremoresummit.com now!

Finally, Patrons who support at $3 and above, this week you get to hear a private conversation Leonore and I had prior to recording for the podcast. We didn't intend for this to be heard, but it was so good I had to share! Hear it at patreon.com/sgrpodcast.

In my chat with Leonore, we explore what a highly sensitive person is and why Leonore has been holding workshops on sex for HSPs. We also talk about the difference between highly sensitive and high sensation seeking.

Leonore shares about how resentment builds with tolerating and performing emotional labor as a highly sensitive person. Plus, the impact to our libido and desire when we don't feel welcome as who we really are (because of a fear and experience of being too much).

Leonore talks about the erotic suffering we are living in and how modern medicine pathologizes valid experiences.

We explore what partners of HSPs need to know about supporting highly sensitive people, and what it means for Leonore to be shifting her professional work to a more relational capacity. What if we all had more places where people genuinely wanted to hear about our experiences, even if it was uncomfortable?

We discuss how worthiness ties to healthier and more connected relationships, boundaries and how we take responsibility for things that aren't ours which leads to codependence and pain. Plus, why knowing what is not yours takes a lot of practice and work on our worthiness and self-love.

Leonore names why eros can't move through us when we are in fight/flight/freeze/fawn, not to the extent that it's possible, so the process of finding our inner authority and transforming shame into courage creates a good container for eros to visit.

We both talk about why our work is dedicated to deeply shifting our ways of relating with ourselves, each other, and the world - because we need to change things, and it starts with our most intimate relationships.

Finally, we geek out on the harm and damage mainstream mental health causes when it operates from within the dominant paradigm. We discuss: the normativity of modern mental health models, how little sexuality training therapists receive, and its goal is to bring us into alignment with oppressive systems. Leonore sees much of modern mental health as inherently anti-erotic.

Be sure to send in your questions! I would love to hear from you. Use the contact form at dawnserra.com.

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

About Leonore Tjia:

Leonore is a feminist sexuality educator who helps people create more presence, play, pleasure and power in the bedroom and beyond. As a trained practitioner of Internal Family Systems therapy, she assists people in recovering the parts of their sexual selves that have been exiled and repressed. Her workshops and teaching bring an ecological focus to sexual empowerment, helping people to reconnect to erotic vitality and step into sexual wildness. She is the founder of the Nordic Woman retreat, which combines wilderness skills and expressive arts in the Swedish backcountry.

Stay in touch with Leonore at rewildingtheheart.com and on Instagram.

Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real

  1. Listen and subscribe on iTunes
  2. Check us out on Stitcher
  3. Don't forget about I Heart Radio's Spreaker
  4. Pop over to Google Play
  5. Use the player at the top of this page.
  6. Stream it on Spotify
  7. Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.

Hearing from you is the best

Contact form: Click here (and it's anonymous)

Episode Transcript

Coming soon! at dawnserra.com/ep299

Direct download: Episode_299.mp3
Category:Health, Sexuality -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

tl;dr We are talking vaginal discharge, FGM or genital cutting scars, cheating when a partner has Alzheimers, and how to teach your kids the importance of pleasure with food.

  • Power in Pleasure, my 5-week online course all about pleasure is now enrolling. The next cohort starts March 22nd, so do not miss it! Especially now with the news cycle and the fear. Spending some dedicated time for 5 weeks, plus 6 intimate group calls, to explore pleasure and safety is sooo important. Check out the details and enroll now.

First up - BE SURE TO SIGN-UP FOR THE BODY TRUST SUMMIT!!! There are still 3 days left which means NINE free talks to see, and there is a 90-minute Parenting with Body Trust panel on Tuesday, March 17th that is a MUST for parents and caregivers of small children. Register, for free, now because it's entirely online and ends March 17th.

Patrons who support at $3 and above, this week's bonus will be at patreon.com/sgrpodcast. Enjoy!

Also, I love your emails. Send your questions my way! You can use the contact form at dawnserra.com.

On to the episode!

I Sense You Are Stronger Than Me wrote in asking about vaginal discharge. Occasionally, especially after sex, ISYASTM will have thick, white discharge and they are embarrassed to go to the doctor to get it checked. Is it normal? What is it?

I share a few articles with you about the ways our discharge can change over the month and the impact that condom-less intercourse with a penis can have on vaginal pH and discharge. Links to all the articles mentioned in this episode are at dawnserra.com/ep298.

Next up, North is struggling because they have a lovely partner they've been with a year. Everything is fantastic. The problem? North's partner experienced genital cutting (many people know it as FGM or FGC) and the scars on their partner's genitals trigger a disgust response. North isn't disgusted by their partner, but by the evidence of the violence that was done to them. How can they move past it all?

Donald Alone wrote in concerned that he is cheating. He is in his 80s, and his wife has Alzheimers and is in a memory care facility. Donald recently met a woman who, while married has been left by her husband, and the two of them are hitting it off. They've kissed and they are wondering if what they've done is considered cheating.

Finally, Eating Momma loves the idea of eating for pleasure and wants to help teach her 9-year-old daughter the importance of pleasure around food. How does she do that?

A huge thanks to the Vocal Few for their song in the opening and closing of the episode and to Hemlock for their awesome song "Firelight" which was used in this episode between questions.

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

About Dawn Serra:

What if everything you’ve been taught about relationships, about your body, about sex is wrong? My name is Dawn Serra and I dare to ask scary questions that might lead us all towards a deeper, more connected experience of our lives. In addition to being the host of the weekly podcast, Sex Gets Real, the creator of the online conference Explore More, I also work one-on-one with clients who are feeling stuck, confused, or disappointed with the ways they experience desire, love, and confidence. It’s not all work, though. In my spare time, you can find me adventuring with my husband, cuddling my cats as I read a YA novel, or obsessing over MasterChef Australia.

Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real

  1. Listen and subscribe on iTunes
  2. Check us out on Stitcher
  3. Don't forget about I Heart Radio's Spreaker
  4. Pop over to Google Play
  5. Use the player at the top of this page.
  6. Stream it on Spotify
  7. Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.

Hearing from you is the best

Contact form: Click here (and it's anonymous)

Episode Transcript

Coming soon! at dawnserra.com/ep298

Direct download: Episode_298.mp3
Category:Health, Sexuality -- posted at: 9:31am EDT

tl;dr Christy Harrison of Food Psych is here to talk about pleasure, happiness, weight stigma, what it means to be anti-diet, and why trusting our hungers around food & sex is so important. Part 2 of 2!
 
I am so excited to share Part 2 of this 2 part conversation with the incredible Christy Harrison! If you haven't heard Part 1, hop over and give that a listen before diving into this episode.
 
Christy is an anti-diet dietitian, host of the Food Psych Podcast, and she just published a book that we are exploring here called, "Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating".
 
Before we get into my chat with Christy, I wanted to share a post on Tumblr by Inkdot about clothing that I wish more of us knew. The dressing room can be a fraught place for many of us - clothes never seem to fit just right, or the arbitrary sizes bring up shame. Head to dawnserra.com/ep297 for a link to this piece about celebrities and clothes might bring some relief to those of us who struggle with finding clothing that fits our bodies.
 
Be Nourished's free online Body Trust Summit is March 11-17 and it is going to be fantastic. If you like my conversation with Christy this week, the summit is 24 talks that will take you even deeper into your relationship with food, body, pleasure, and healing. Register now!
 
Finally, Patrons who support at $3 and above, this week are going to explore our body stories and I'm going to share a few more awesome bits from Christy's book for us all to be in together. Hear it at patreon.com/sgrpodcast.
 
So back to my chat with Christy:
 
This week on Part 2 of my conversation with Christy Harrison we continue our exploration of many of the lies we've been sold, desirability politics and changing bodies, and why the problem is NOT weight but rather weight stigma and a focus on dieting.
 
All of this ties so so intimately to the ways we experience sex, the ways we navigate consent, how we set boundaries, and do relationship.
 
Be sure to send in your questions! I would love to hear from you. Use the contact form at dawnserra.com.

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

About Christy Harrison:

Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN is an anti-diet registered dietitian nutritionist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and author of the book Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating(Little, Brown Spark 2019). She offers online courses and private intuitive eating coaching to help people all over the world make peace with food and their bodies. Since 2013 Christy has hosted Food Psych, a weekly podcast exploring people’s relationships with food and paths to body liberation. It is now one of iTunes’ top 100 health podcasts, reaching tens of thousands of listeners worldwide each week.
 
Christy began her career in 2003 as a journalist covering food, nutrition, and health, and she’s written for major publications including The New York Times, SELF, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, Gourmet, Slate, The Food Network, and many others. Learn more about Christy and her work at christyharrison.com.

Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real

  1. Use the player at the top of this page.
  2. Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.

Hearing from you is the best

Episode Transcript

Visit dawnserra.com/ep297 for more.
Direct download: Episode_297.mp3
Category:Health, Sexuality -- posted at: 11:50am EDT

tl;dr Christy Harrison of Food Psych is here to talk about pleasure, happiness, weight stigma, what it means to be anti-diet, and why trusting our hungers around food & sex is so important.

I am so excited to share Part 1 of this 2 part conversation with the incredible Christy Harrison!

Christy is an anti-diet dietitian, host of the Food Psych Podcast, and she just published a book that we are exploring here called, "Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating".

Before we get into my chat with Christy, I have a few important things:

First, at Alex's suggestion, I turned my answer from last week's episode about preferences for certain bodies into a blog post... that has as of six days later been read over 31,000 times. HOLY SHIT! There has been so much beautiful input, additional nuance, and depth in all of the things people are saying, and I am so grateful. If you like it, feel free to share it! Let's keep the conversation going.

Second, Be Nourished's free online Body Trust Summit is March 11-17 and it is going to be fantastic. If you like my conversation with Christy this week, the summit is 24 talks that will take you even deeper into your relationship with food, body, pleasure, and healing. Register now!

Finally, Patrons who support at $3 and above, don't miss my bonus chat with Christy at patreon.com/sgrpodcast. Christy and I talk about my own disordered eating and orthorexia, the part of her book that made me burst into tears, the cost of the performances we do around food and also sex, and where the advent of the “obesity” epidemic came from and why it’s actually really new. Hint: it has to do with money in people’s pockets NOT science.

So back to my chat with Christy:

I expect a lot of you are going to have some big feels come up as you hear Christy and I talk about diet culture, weight stigma, and how dieting and disordered relationships with our hungers impacts our sexual desire and pleasure.

This is a really nuanced conversation, so if you notice yourself constricting or feeling defensive, feel free to take a break, breathe, move, and then return to it later. Seven or eight years ago me would have felt really resistant to a conversation like this, so I get it.

Part 2, which drops next week, continues our exploration of many of the lies we've been sold, desirability politics and changing bodies, and why the problem is NOT weight but rather weight stigma and a focus on dieting.

All of this ties so so intimately to the ways we experience sex, the ways we navigate consent, how we set boundaries, and do relationship, so I hope you'll join me for this delicious 2-part conversation with Christy.

Be sure to send in your questions! I would love to hear from you. Use the contact form at dawnserra.com.

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

About Christy Harrison:

Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN is an anti-diet registered dietitian nutritionist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and author of the book Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating(Little, Brown Spark 2019). She offers online courses and private intuitive eating coaching to help people all over the world make peace with food and their bodies. Since 2013 Christy has hosted Food Psych, a weekly podcast exploring people’s relationships with food and paths to body liberation. It is now one of iTunes’ top 100 health podcasts, reaching tens of thousands of listeners worldwide each week. 

Christy began her career in 2003 as a journalist covering food, nutrition, and health, and she’s written for major publications including The New York Times, SELF, BuzzFeed, Refinery29Gourmet, SlateThe Food Network, and many others. Learn more about Christy and her work at christyharrison.com.

Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real

  1. Listen and subscribe on iTunes
  2. Check us out on Stitcher
  3. Don't forget about I Heart Radio's Spreaker
  4. Pop over to Google Play
  5. Use the player at the top of this page.
  6. Stream it on Spotify
  7. Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.

Hearing from you is the best

Contact form: Click here (and it's anonymous)

Episode Transcript

Head to dawnserra.com/ep296 for the episode transcript.

Direct download: Episode_296.mp3
Category:Health, Sexuality -- posted at: 5:00am EDT

1