Kate: Hello and welcome to Called to Queer, where we hold space for the queer Mormon women, gender queer and intersex experiences. I’m Kate and my pronouns are they/them.
Colette: And I’m Colette and my pronouns are she/her
Kate: Today we’re discussing a topic of sex, and we are actually really excited to have this conversation. I am, at least I hope we both are.
Colette: Know that Kate spent, was it Christmas, writing up this outline,
Kate: This is my Christmas present to myself was this episode.
Colette: So we really are excited
Kate: But before we jump into that, we wanna start our start off by seeing what brought us queer joy this week. Colette, what brought you queer joy this week?
Colette: The one I’ll share, cuz there’s just so much queer joy lately, but the one I’ll share is I was making a quick trip into Walmart and of course [00:01:00] because it was the end of December, they had switched to Valentine’s already. And so I’m just walking in, I’m seeing pink and red everywhere and I’m like, sure, that’s fine, whatever.
But then I walked by these plush throws and there was pink and red, purple, whatever. And there was a rainbow one. And so of course I immediately bought it. It has rainbow hearts all over it and it just made me really happy to see Rainbow hearts in with the pinks and purples of Valentine’s. I don’t know if it was supposed to be there, but it was meant for me. So it made me really happy
Kate: It was meant for you because you have more rainbows than anyone I know. I love it.
Colette: and it’s so cozy Kaneesha and I’ve enjoyed cuddling together with that. So it’s been nice.
Kate: Nice.
Colette: What about you? What was your queer joy?
Kate: I also have had a lot of queer joy recently. But I would say, We’re recording this on January 2nd, and I’ve started off 2023. [00:02:00] Just deciding I’m gonna be very open about, by very open, more open than I
Colette: You’re gonna at least talk about it
Kate: Yeah. Gonna at least talk about the fact that I am in a partnership or relationship it’s also exciting and It’s also been really difficult to navigate the complexities of it, but I’m excited to be able to do that a little bit more publicly now.
Colette: I am really excited. I was shocked. Kaneesha actually saw your story first and was like, wait a minute. Kate’s in a relationship? And I’m like, yes. They don’t really talk about it. And then I looked at the story, I’m like, oh, they’re talking about it
Kate: Yeah. There won’t be much talking about it, but at least I can, at least I’m, I get to say that and that is a lot of queer joy.
Colette: that it really is so much queer joy, and I know it [00:03:00] is more complicated in some ways, in some relationships, but I think so much of queer joy for me is being able to share. And so I’m so grateful that you can now talk about this at least a little
Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Being able to share is that I think that our generation of queers don’t necessarily recognize how difficult that was for previous generations. That that queerness has been something to keep quiet for a lot of generations, and there are lots of ways that still exists and this situation is one of those. But I’m happy to be crawling out of that.
Colette: I love that. Thank you for sharing.
Kate: Yeah. Should we get into this?
Colette: Let’s get into it. That’s what she said. I’m sure there’ll be lots of jokes. Kaneesha’s been impacting my dirty mind in some ways. Maybe we’ll take that part out, but there’s lots of, that’s what she said jokes in our house. So
Kate: I love that. Yeah, so we’re gonna talk about [00:04:00] sex and we’ve been talking about having this episode since we started Called to Queer. And I think that both of us have been like, eh, I don’t know,
Colette: Yeah, it seems like a really big topic to tackle, and we’re like, are we the right people to do this? Yeah, we both have credentials that lead to this, but there’s some imposter syndrome that comes up. And do our listeners even wanna hear about this? But we’re doing it.
Kate: Yeah. We’re doing it.
Colette: That’s what she said.
Kate: doing it. And I am excited and here for it. And. I’m excited because I do think that we have complimentary credentials here that make it so we can talk about this in pretty good detail
Colette: just the fact that we’re both queer AFAB people talking about this, I think is a big deal. There are like some different Instagram accounts that I refer people to and things, but overall sex [00:05:00] is still talked about generally in such a heteronormative perspective. And so I think just the fact that we’re both ab queer individuals bring something personally.
But then of course, let’s talk about our academic credentials. I am an LCSW, licensed Clinical Social worker. I’m a therapist. I have my own therapy practice and I’m working on finishing up my training to become a certified sex therapist. And how I got into that was I had joined Natasha Helfer’s Group Practice Symmetry Solutions, and she’s a sex therapist.
I’m like, why not get this training? She’s already a supervisor for this. And, but really so much of what it came down to for me was. . I have issues with sex growing up. Mormon, you of course have issues with sex. Some people don’t. But being in a very high demand religion, purity, culture, religion, and then just the purity culture of being in America already have issues that way.
And then you [00:06:00] add any sort of queerness. Of course, I have issues with sex and why not get the training and deduct it from my taxes about sex to try to work through some of my issues. That’s one advantage of being a therapist. Part of it was like, yeah, let me do this training work through some of my own issues, and hopefully then be able to help others. So this is, I’m becoming a lot more comfortable talking about sex, which that in and of itself is a big step for me and I’ve been able to help clients in different ways.
And we’re doing this podcast episode to try to help. I know, and Kate, you come from a really cool perspective too. You wanna talk about that?
Kate: Yeah. Thank you for introducing all of your credentials because you really do, you are the person to talk about this, and I feel like you’re, you let me tag along in this conversation because this is a topic that is being talked about more often now and I do see a lot of Instagram accounts, but, but you in particular as a queer AFAB person doing sex [00:07:00] therapy, I think is just like really crucial.
And I’ve always admired that’s the work you’re doing. So thank you for that. My credentials, I am a PhD candidate at the University of California Riverside, and I do gender and queer theory. So I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about systems of power particularly patriarchal power and what patriarchy is and what it looks like and how do we describe it and what ways.
I also do the history of science, which. For me, the history of biology, the history of anthropology, and the way that we think about our bodies, especially from a white heteronormative perspective. The, our the way we’ve shaped how we understand biology is not just fact-based. It [00:08:00] is heavily influenced by white supremacy and patriarchy. So I come at it from a more theoretical, big systems type background.
Colette: And so I really think this is a great conversation to bring both together. And there’s so many things we could talk about with sex. I love the outline Kate came up with, we could definitely return to this subject later, but I think let’s just jump in and start talking about some of these definitions to begin with and then go from there.
So as far as definitions, I think it is important to talk about types of attraction first. I think that’s something that most people don’t think of. And when I bring up in therapy, they’re like, wait a minute, what? I’m attracted to this person. I’m like, okay, yeah, but like, how are you attracted to them?
So there’s different types of attraction. I think a lot of times when people think attraction, they think physical or sexual attraction, which is totally [00:09:00] valid, is one the types of attraction. But there’s more than that. And I think Kate and I wanna highlight this, especially because we both identify somewhere on the gray romantic or asexual graysexual spectrums.
I, we both identify as demisexual, which means that we don’t experience sexual attraction until there’s an emotional connection. And so that’s really important for both of us is to recognize emotional attraction components and separating also out sexual attraction from romantic attraction. I remember when I was at a Mormons Building Bridges retreat several years ago, we went through this questionnaire for you were supposed to say percentage wise, how attracted are you to the opposite gender in these categories as far as romantic, physical aesthetic sexual affectional , then you’re supposed to, how attracted are you to the same gender in these things?
And then [00:10:00] how it wasn’t repulsed that was too strong of a word, but like how, oh, it was how averse are you to the same gender in these attractions? How averse are you to the opposite gender in these attractions? And for me, going through that, I’m like, oh, I’m demisexual. I had a really low, just thinking theoretically about people.
I had very low sexual attraction, but then the emotional romantic attraction was high with women. So I consider myself demisexual, homo, romantic, if we’re getting into the weeds. I don’t know what you have to add about the types of attraction and why that’s important, but I’d love your insights as.
Kate: Yeah. No that’s an excellent background too these orientations. Yeah. I also identify as demi demisexual and I realize that my arousal process is I don’t have arousal unless there is a strong emotional connection. So many of the things that we’re gonna talk about that some of [00:11:00] the things that we’re gonna talk about don’t really resonate for me because I don’t experience that arousal unless there is emotional connection, but I think that, sorry.
Colette: I was gonna say, and that’s totally valid. I think some people think they’re broken or wrong for being oriented that way, but it really can be considered an orientation. And so that is nothing to feel shame about. It’s something to be aware of as you are potentially exploring the sexual side of yourself and just attractions.
But that is not something that you need to feel bad about. That’s just how you are. And that’s okay though. It could also be something, again I never want to be thought of as oh, that sounds conversion theist. I just wanna point out that one thing to possibly examine, how much is shame from being in a purity culture and a high demand religion?
Playing into that, are you actually sexually attracted to people and [00:12:00] just scared to admit it? And again, I don’t wanna deny that people are asexual and demisexual. I identify as demisexual. And it might be interesting to examine, are you actually not demisexual or asexual? And you just haven’t had the chance to lean into that side yourself?
I don’t wanna say that’s not a valid identity cuz it totally is. And potentially I work with a lot of individuals who have been they’ve been really hurt by purity culture and just accepting the fact that they’re a sexual being. So I wanted to add that in as well.
Kate: Yeah, I think that another element of that is we’re talking, this episode is mainly towards women and gender marginalized folks. And we get a lot of sexual shame placed on us, but also we have a higher risk of sexual assault. And there is that factor as well. There is trauma that comes up for me. When we’re [00:13:00] talking about these things, yeah at any point my trauma might come up and that might impact the way that I feel about myself, the way I feel about sex, the way I feel about arousal even.
Colette: a hundred percent. And I can’t remember if we’re gonna be talking about this or not, but just the idea of accelerators versus breaks, the dual control model. I think what you’re talking about really plays into that. And that I think is very enlightening for a lot of people. It became more popularized from Emily Nagoski Come As You Are the dual control model about accelerators and breaks that so often people are like, oh, to get more in the mood, put on the accelerator.
What makes you feel sexy? What sexy music can you have on What is the best environment? What lighting, what sounds, what smells? But for a lot of people I work with and myself, it’s not about the accelerators as much. Having very strong [00:14:00] breaks and the break of living in a purity culture, having sexual shame about even being a sexual person, of course that’s gonna impact your ability to be sexually connected to another person if the breaks are so strong.
That one time I was making out with a girlfriend and I went into a trauma response to the point that she’s wait, have you been sexually abused? And I was like, no, I haven’t. That’s just how strong my shame reaction was. And that’s how strong of a break it was. And of course, if your partner’s going into almost a panic attack, as you’re making out with them, that’s gonna inhibit their ability to connect sexually.
That’s something to be aware of as well, of how the culture, how the patriarchy, how sexual shame, how purity culture, all this can impact our ability to be sexual people.
Kate: Yeah, and thank you. We will be making reference to several books, [00:15:00] several authors, and so we will have come as you are in the, in our transcripts, links linked in our transcripts.
Colette: Yeah, I, Emily Nagoski is awesome. And if you aren’t a huge reader, of course there’s audiobook version, but she also recently put out a short-term podcast also called Come As You Are, find out on any podcast player and also pleasure tv, short series on Netflix. She’s interviewed on there as well. So those are a few things.
We’ll definitely check out our transcript for other resources that we’ve mention.
Kate: Great. So let’s go over a few of the terms that we’re gonna be using. We use these terms quite often, but I think it’s worthwhile to delve into them in this episode to make sure that we’re all on the same page, and not try to confuse anybody. So the first one I have listed is AFAB and AMAB. So AFAB stands for assigned Female at [00:16:00] Birth, and AMAB is assigned male at birth. And we’re gonna go into a little bit more about gender and these terms, but just so you know, that’s that’s what those mean when we say AFAB and AMAB. When we’re talking about biological sex, you’ll often, if you could see me, see, I use quotation marks, quotation, biological sex.
Biological sex is a dog whistle phrase to signal to somebody that you think that when somebody is. Assigned female at birth that they are a girl and they grow up into a woman that biological sex and gender are related. Biological sex is not, as we will see throughout this is not as straightforward as we’d like to think of it. We’d like to think it is. And so we’ll get into a little bit more of the weeds of that. So we’re gonna talk about the differences between legal language, and biological [00:17:00] language. Legal language would be, I’m assigned female at birth.
I’m a, that assignment is made by a doctor, but on my birth certificate, which is a legal form versus biological language where we’re gonna talk about vulva owners and penis owners. So those are the different ways that we can think about bodies and we can think about gender and we can think about identity.
And the last one we have is heteronormative. Heteronormative. We will use probably all throughout. We’ve probably already used it up till now. It’s so common in our vocabulary that, we’ve probably used it
Colette: It’s do we need to define this one? We talk about it a ton. I think it comes up in almost every episode.
Kate: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. But just to go over a really quick heteronormative means that um, straight is the default, that CIS is a default. And when we disrupt those things, we are going against a heteronormative narrative.
Colette: Awesome. Thank you for those definitions.[00:18:00] So let’s talk about patriarchy and sex and how that impacts things. And this, Kate and I have listened to different podcast episodes, especially aims at Mormons and Queer Mormons. And I don’t think this is something that’s really been talked about is how the patriarchy can impact sex, especially for queer individuals.
And one thing that’s been really interesting to me is I’ve been in my sex therapy training, is just the idea of what is sex. And I was at a training, the Rocky Mountain Sex Summit back in November and there was a author who came and talked, and her name is Amanda Montell, and she wrote this book called Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. And she brought up the idea of how different would we be looking at sex if we didn’t define it from sex equals [00:19:00] penetration. The word penetration, you can even hear the word penis in it. The idea that sex is penis focused. And I think that’s how we sometimes get into the idea of how do lesbians have sex?
There’s nothing penetrative about it. There can be as you add other things in, but there’s no penis involved. So how can it be sex? And whenever someone’s like, how do lesbians have sex? I’m like, you just revealed way too much about your sex life and I feel sorry for your partner. If you’re wondering how you cannot have sex without a penis, she is probably not receiving as much pleasure as you think she is.
Most women don’t reliably orgasm, or most vulva owners don’t reliably orgasm from penetration alone the way that most women’s anatomy are. A lot of women need clitoral stimulation. and most women don’t receive that clitoral stimulation enough to orgasm from just penetration. And so Amanda was talking about what if we use different words to describe that?
What if the vulva enveloped the [00:20:00] penis? And we talked about envelopment instead of penetration and had it more vulva centered. And it was just a very interesting thought experiment as she went on and talked about these ideas about how just language can impact how we view sex. And again, I think that’s how the patriarchy pillars into it.
When we’re talking about sex equals penetration, that drastically changes how we think about sex and how we do sex. If that’s so penetration focused, man, we’re leaving a lot of things on the table that could bring a lot of pleasure and a lot of sensations to people that they might enjoy.
Kate: Yeah. Thank you. I was at the Affirmation Conference in October with you and
Colette: It was so fun.
Kate: it was so fun. You and Natasha ran a session, I guess is what we’d call it, a panel maybe on
Colette: Ask a sex therapist is what we called it.
Kate: Ask a sex therapist so great [00:21:00] because we really did get to ask any questions. We, and it was very interesting being in that room with all queer people, but cis gay men and lesbians or gender queer people. We have different questions about sex. And so to hear these different questions but in a safe space was just, and all from people who were, are or were Latter Day Saints is, it was just,
Colette: It was fascinating. I loved it.
Kate: was an interesting environment. it was an interesting environment. So I asked the question, it was right after a cis gay man asked a question about gay penis owner sex.
And his questions were thoughtful and thought provoking. But what it came up for me, especially as a non-binary person who has certain anatomy, my, [00:22:00] I have AFAB type anatomy that questions about penises actually are, I don’t know, they’re more intriguing than triggering for me. But it brings up a lot for me.
It brings up a lot of questions and thoughts for me. And so after he asked his question, I asked Natasha and Colette, okay, how do we though get around this question of penile intercourse? Because for me, I’m thinking about those things, but I also. Think that sex has gotta be so much more than that.
And Natasha answered it in a way that kind of blew my mind. She said that, it’s funny how we have the law of chastity where for so long we’ve been taught everything up [00:23:00] until penetration and penile penetration is pretty much fair game. There are some lines you may not wanna cross but certainly we wanna find where those lines are and like go straight till we’re okay in certain instances. And that is the kind of concept of the law of chastity. And she had said, what if, especially if we’re thinking through um, vulva owners sex with vulva owners, two or more vva owners, and there is no penis. All of that stuff is exciting and perhaps that foreplay and everything else besides the penile intercourse and penetration is sex.
What if we included all of that, like that dichotomy between that line? We wanna keep that line [00:24:00] versus let’s include everything was mind blowing to me, and I’ve thought a lot about it since, because I wanna see sex in a lot of different ways. I want to be excited about sex in a lot of different ways that isn’t First of all, penis centered, and second of all that it doesn’t have to be orgasm centered even.
And that has brought a lot of oh, okay, now I can think through these things in a in much different way than I had before.
Colette: Yeah, I love that. Thank you. I really, one mind shift for me was again, talking about the importance of words and language and what we talk about moving from penetration. Again, penis focused, moving away from the idea of foreplay into, again, Natasha introduces to me the idea of outer course versus intercourse.
And so much of, again, when people are like, how do lesbians have sex? It’s do you do what you [00:25:00] call foreplay? That’s outer course. That’s sex. You may not think of it as sex because it’s not involving a penis necessarily, but all of that can be considered sex. And so that’s another potential language to play with of intercourse versus outer course, instead of foreplay versus sex.
Kate: Yeah, that, that idea, the fore part of foreplay is standing in for before and what is it? What is before it? For orgasm before whatever else before intercourse, whatever you’re going to do. And that foreplay, I agree, is just not a helpful term, especially I think for Afab folks. There’s an episode of Glennon Doyle’s podcast. What’s Glennon Doyle’s podcast called again?
Colette: We Can Do Hard Things.
Kate: Yeah, we can do hard things. There’s an episode of We Can Do Hard Things where [00:26:00] Glennon, Doyle and Abby talk about what sex is to them and
Colette: fascinating discussion.
Kate: Right. , it’s such a fascinating discussion. So they were talking about, like looking into one another’s eyes and, but for Abby, she says, somebody getting me coffee, my partner getting me coffee is sex.
And I was like, what? But we might not have to go to that extreme, but to just decenter orgasm again is a really big deal for me because I’ve placed so much attention and effort into, I don’t know, not effort. I’ve, I get really nervous about orgasm, but if I can think about all of these other things as sex, as deeply physically connecting, then that opens up a lot for me.
Colette: Yeah. And I think that is, again, the patriarchy is impacting sex by making orgasm the [00:27:00] goal of sex. Because the idea that penis owners orgasm through penetration and that sort of stimulation. And so again, that’s the focus is orgasm. And I think. taking that away and that pressure to orgasm, you must orgasm to have it be considered sex opens up a whole new world, especially again when most Volvo owners don’t reliably orgasm through penetration.
Can you just I really like Emily Nagoski. The idea of pleasure is the measure and just focusing on pleasure in her podcast limited edition series. The first episode was just about pleasure and what is pleasure and how can you experience pleasure in your day to life? Not even sexual pleasure, but how can you be in your body and experience pleasure, which I think is really hard, growing up in a high demand purity culture, religion, when you’ve been taught to disconnect from your body when you’ve been told your body’s evil and carnal and sensual and devilish, and.[00:28:00]
Learning to get back into your body is gonna be important for a lot of people to just be present, to enjoy whatever pleasure they feel in a physical encounter.
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this is probably one of the main points that I wanted to get at in this episode is that orgasm is so focus, we’re so focused on orgasm because we’re so focused on procreation it within Mormonism, we’re so focused on this is a method to have children, and that itself is patriarchal.
If we wanted to move away from the patriarchy, if we want to reconfigure and rethink our world that wasn’t patriarchal, we actually wouldn’t spend as much time thinking about either procreation or orgasm or linking those two things together because vulva owners orgasm [00:29:00] has nothing to do with procreation, only penis owners.
Orgasm has to do with procreation. So this idea that those two things are linked is in itself patriarchal.
Colette: Hundred percent. Thank you so much for pointing that out. So explicitly fascinating to think about in those terms.
Kate: So if we were to reframe and rethink our society and not be thinking about penile intercourse and thinking about really. Penis owner orgasm. What would our society look like? How could we reframe it if instead we focused on pleasure, we focused on consent, we focused on everything that is a sexual encounter with another person as being two people coming together as one.
And I think Mormonism has really tried to make that leap to [00:30:00] say that we care about two people coming together, or Mormonism. It’s two people, two people coming together to make one. There’s that Jeffrey R. Holland talk where he talks about that it’s two people coming into one, but.
Colette: that’s what Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments, if anyone wants to go read that.
Kate: but that you, in, in my view, you really cannot make that claim while you’re still placing so much offenses on procreation and a penis owner’s orgasm. If we wanted to focus on two people coming together, we would focus on the importance, the cr, the critical importance of two people coming together and having sex in much more broad and meaningful ways than just this one way
Colette: There are so many times I wanted to say that’s what she said as you talked about two people coming together [00:31:00] and so I just had to put that in there. Yeah it’s interesting for a church that is so it’s just interesting to think about churches that are purity culture are really just so obsessed with sex , right?
That there’s just all these rules around who is allowed and isn’t allowed and what is allowed and how far, just all these rules. And of course that’s gonna impact people’s ability to be in their bodies and enjoy experiences potentially. I know some people are able to make it through just fine. And sometimes I have clients come around, I’m like, so any issues with sex?
No, that’s great. And I’m like, but you grew up Mormon. How? Good for you. But there are a lot of potential things that get in the way of people being able to enjoy their bodies and sexual connection with some person or multiple.
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. So we’re talking a lot about like the social parameters of sex and these different [00:32:00] definitions that we see from different people and maybe potential definitions, but they’re actually like structural definitions of sex. And those are the legal parameters of sex, what it means to have sex.
And those legal parameters are also patriarchal. They’re also based on, on they’re, they change from place to place. I think that often we think that. sexual assault makes sense that we know how to define it across the board, but you cross state lines or you cross an international border. And those things, that definition of sex, that definition of sexual assault, all of those things changes from one place to the next.
So these definitions are not even legal definitions are able to, we’re not even able to agree on a legal definition of what this is, of what sex is. And I think that so often we just say, oh yeah, this is sex and this isn’t, or[00:33:00] this is what consent is and this is not what it looks like. We actually ha have very little agreement on what these things look like.
And so if we open ourselves up to thinking more about how we can. Define sex and talk about it more. I think we’re going to be able to be safer. First of all of us be safer. The more we can talk about it and get on the same page, because it’s such a taboo topic, we’re not on the same page and it leaves us very vulnerable to all sorts of harmful physical, not just abuse, but non-consensual anything.
Colette: A hundred percent. And just, I’m very grateful for the training I’ve been receiving in being able to talk about sex, because I know that has made my ability to talk with my partner about sex and physical things and my boundaries [00:34:00] and what feels good and what doesn’t feel good. So much easier than if I hadn’t gone through this training.
Because again, sex and physicality bodies, it’s just so taboo. We don’t even necessarily have the language for it. So I’m grateful again for the training and support I’ve been given in this area so that it doesn’t just help me and clients and whoever listens to. To this episode or whoever was in the ask the sex therapist breakout session, it is really helping me too,
Kate: Yeah, given what you just said, I think maybe. It’s worthwhile to ask the question, what is lesbian sex? Because I also know that there are people that, that are wondering that and they, that genuinely, they’re not just voyeuristic people. I think there are voyeuristic people who ask that question, but I also think that there are people like me.
I was, let’s see, [00:35:00] 31 when I came out and I approached my lesbian husband and said, Hey I actually dunno how to do this or what it looks like or what it is. So can you like help me out and tell me, so maybe y’all don’t have a lesbian cousin. You can all go ask
Colette: We’re now your lesbian cousin. If you need one, you can adopt us. Yeah. So what is lesbian sex? We talked about foreplay or outercourse, so there’s a lot that can happen there. Whether, and again, this is where you get to define what does sex mean to you, what does it not mean for some people?
Lesbian sex is. It can be mutual masturbation you and a partner or partners lying down next to each other and you’re both stimulating yourself, but you’re doing it at the same time. That can be considered sex. It might be breast play, it might be [00:36:00] just stroking each other’s bodies all over, maybe not even touching genitals or breasts or of course if you are involving genitals, it can be fingers or toys inserted into the vulva. It can be tongues, mouths involved. There’s again, lots of different ways lesbians can have sex, and I think you’re only limited by your imagination.
Kate: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Yeah. So just like to be super frank and vulnerable here, I really didn’t know. I had come out and I had, I didn’t know, I understood like oral sex was a thing, , but I didn’t understand digital stimulation. I didn’t understand really what my options were. And that is I was really excited and curious, but it’s really sad that was the state of things in 2018 that I couldn’t,
I think becoming less taboo [00:37:00] to talk about. But I just wanna give the person out there who’s like, I don’t know what this is and I think I’m a lesbian or whatever, to give yourself some time to let yourself explore and figure out what is and isn’t right for you. We also have this purity culture that is anti-porn and
Colette: And anti masturbation.
Kate: and anti masturbation.
And I want to like, give permission to everybody to be able to say aren’t taught this, we are not taught. in our sex ed class, what this looks like, at least not in Utah, maybe in perhaps wherever you are listening to this, maybe in California, I don’t know. But in Utah, this is not something we talk about.
And so you go to the places where you can start exploring that, and I’m here to tell you to dismiss your [00:38:00] shame about that because nobody’s taught it to you and it’s worth it to know how try things out, what works for you and what works for your partner or whatever.
Colette: Yeah, and I think this can be an exciting time. It can be scary, it can be nerve-wracking. You may not know what you’re doing, but. Explore yourself, explore your body, give yourself permission that this is your body and you get to feel good if that’s what you choose to do. And again, I know there’s a lot of shame, but just learning to be present with your body and seeing what feels good and maybe exploring some ethical porn sites and seeing what looks interesting or what gets your arousal up.
Exploring things that way while also realizing that I’ve heard the analogy, if you’re not porn literate, it’s the idea of watching a race car driver drive and then trying to drive yourself [00:39:00] like without a driver’s license. It’s just like watching someone do a race, car race and then thinking, how to drive sex isn’t always.
Real on porn sites, believe it or not. And so having some porn literacy skills, I think can be really helpful on what is real thinking about consent getting different types of bodies in there. A lot of typical porn sites have a very typical look of this is how the people are portrayed.
They’re skinny, they’re white, they’re blonde, they’re whatever. Everyone always orgasms at the same time. Penetration always occurs. It only takes a couple of minutes, and that is not realistic for most people.
Kate: Yeah. Can you give us just like a brief oversight, what ethical poorness.
Colette: Sure, yeah. Ethical porn is the idea that. It’s made consensually. It [00:40:00] treats performers with respect, doesn’t portray people in a dehumanizing way. And it’s just made and shared respectfully to the actors and the workers making sure they get paid. Which means generally ethical porn is generally not gonna be free to pay.
It’s not gonna be your porn hub, right? It’s made in a safe environment. Consent is important and hopefully it shows some real sexual pleasure, not just acting. Hopefully it shows a diversity of ages, body size, sexualities, genders, abilities. So that’s the idea of ethical.
Kate: Yeah. Also, I don’t think that people who aren’t porn literate realize that lots of times videos are taken without consent. And so this consent is like the main purpose of ethical porn is to make sure that there’s consent and make sure that people are properly treated, but also properly paid.
Colette: [00:41:00] Yes, a hundred percent. Love that. Thank you. And you can Google ethical porn, do some research. There’s several different things out there. There’s, even when we talk about porn, I think a lot of times people think visual porn, which is an option, but another thing to explore is audio porn or written erotica.
Some people like reading things and that kind of gets their accelerator going or they liked hearing different sounds or a narrator. And so there’s lots of options that way too.
Kate: Yeah. We’re speaking to a primarily latter day saint or audience that comes. The latter day saint tradition where porn is treated as Satan itself. And so spending time reading about porn at a place that isn’t something like the Sons of Helaman or whatever that place is called [00:42:00] and from experts and from actual researchers will be helpful for you if you have this aversion to porn Still.
Colette: definitely. That’s definitely been part of my journey to be a little transparent is. Looking at some of this stuff again, part of my sex therapy training is oh, I’ve now looked at pictures of penises and I’ve looked at pictures of lots of different vulvas and I’ve watched some porn. And one thing I think maybe we should have did a disclaimer at the beginning that I appreciate Natasha did in the ask of sex therapy, is even just talking about sex can be arousing and that can feel shameful when you’ve grown up in a purity culture religion.
So if you’re feeling aroused, even just listening to us talk about porn, just notice that’s not something you need to shame yourself for. That is actually a pretty natural reaction to talking about sex or hearing about sexual [00:43:00] things. And then, so part of my journey of accepting my sexuality was desensitization training, almost going through these sex therapy courses, exploring some erotica talking to people about sex.
And that’s been helpful for me.
Kate: Yeah. And I think that we can talk about toys too. Like toys are also, I think there’s also a stigma within Latter-day Saint culture against toys. But.
Colette: And again I think part of that is, again, it’s so penis focused. And if my penis is not enough for you, it’s not satisfying you. That’s an assault on my manhood and it’s no toys can be a great addition to any sex life penis involved or no. And there again, are plenty of places to find good toys.
I’ve used I bought some from Bellessa, I think is how you pronounce it. but the, you can get some. One of my friend’s favorite vibrators is just a magic wand type thing that she got from Amazon. And again, exploring [00:44:00] different toys and different sensations. And do you like vibrations? Do you like different patterns of vibrations? Do you want just the stimulation? Without vibrations and the penetration? Do you like stimulation in your anus and having that cuz that can be very sensitive. Or do you want more of the vulva and do you want breast play? How about nipple clamps? There’s so many different things you can explore just with yourself without a partner.
If you’re not ready to bring someone in. And bringing in toys does not mean you like your partner or partners less. It’s just another way to feel good in your body. And if a partner’s threatened by that, I hope they can be educated that this is not about them. This is not an assault on them. This is just another way that you are.
Able to be together and experience pleasure and it’s not against them. So don’t be afraid if toys interest you bring them in. If they don’t, you don’t have to. But know that is something that can be part of sex and [00:45:00] you masturbating with toys does not mean that you’re not going to be able to be sexual with a partner bec or that you won’t be able to orgasm if you are orgasming with your toy. Just wanted to disspell some of those myths.
Kate: Yeah. Thank you. I do wanna talk about strapons for a second. As somebody who does identify as non-binary and trans mask that I would recommend if you are. Non-binary or you’re exploring your gender or something, I would recommend watching Feel Good on Netflix. That show handles the gender dys.
Yeah, it handles gender dysphoria around penises for non-binary or trans mask AFAB people. It handles it really well and shows you how to just different ways to explore that and think about something that you, that might be really [00:46:00] gender euphoric for you and perhaps how to go about that.
Colette: That’s great. So for those, I’m assuming most people know what a strap on is, but for those that don’t, it generally is a harness worn with then a dildo or something that resembles a penis in it that one partner can then penetrate. Or if we wanna play with Amanda Montel’s idea, the envelope, or Penis like structure the dildo.
And so being able to penetrate your partner that way can provide a lot of pleasure for both partners and it can be definitely worth something exploring. It can also, some people like to just wander, especially non-binary transmat, people might enjoy the sensation of wearing a prosthetics penis of sorts, right?
So that can be something aside from using it to penetrate a partner, it could be something that can feel gender euphoric. And that can be something to be aware of too. One question that [00:47:00] came up in the Ask a Sex Therapist breakout session at Affirmation was gender dysphoria during sex. And that can be a very real thing and something that I hope that you can be aware of, talk to your partner partners about because that can be very sensitive if you’re like, I don’t identify with these genitals, what do I do that’s a tricky one.
So bringing in things that can make you feel more at home in your body. could be worth exploring.
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Because all of this is about gender too, right? All of these things have to do with gender and our physical bodies, and you know what we do have what we don’t have, and trying to explore and figure out all those things.
Colette: Yeah. And I so as far as stats goes, I feel like there’s some commonly quoted statistics that I couldn’t find the actual, like scientific research. But I’ve heard again and I think I’ve said this a few times already, the idea that most vulva owners cannot reliably [00:48:00] orgasm from penetration alone.
So I think that is important when we’re thinking about sex, what that means, what that might look like for your sexual practice, that most Volvo owners do need clitoral stimulation. And when we think about the clitoris, I think a lot of people think about that little tiny.in anatomy things, cuz that’s the external clitoris, but the clitoris is actually a big internal structure as well.
And so just exploring your own body of Yeah, maybe playing with that, moving, removing pushing back clitoral hood, playing with that tip of the clitoris, external clitoris, but also exploring where the clitoris is internally and feeling around the inner labia lips or in the outer labia. And just what feels good down there.
There’s also the idea that lesbians have the best sex and there’s been some research into that as far as there’s a joke I’ve heard that’s the question shouldn’t be how do lesbians have sex? It’s [00:49:00] how do they stop? And I think that question is enlightening when you, again, are redefining what sex is.
When does sex stop? If it wasn’t the goal wasn’t necessarily penetration or orgasm. If you’re just exploring your body, exploring your partner’s bodies partners are exploring your body, partner, exploring your body. When does sex stop? Sex can go on for a long time. If the goal isn’t to be penetrated by a penis, that then orgasms and then it’s over.
And so there’s that kind of idea that lesbians have the best sex cuz it lasts the longest it. The idea that they know each other’s bodies more and what feels good and just being in pleasure without necessarily the goal of orgasm. Though that can happen and some women are able to orgasm multiple times within a session, whereas penis owners generally can’t cuz they have that refractory period.
Women don’t really have that sort of [00:50:00] period where they can’t then orgasm again. So thinking about all of those things I think again, I’ll see if I can find the actual scientific studies, but those are things I’ve heard over in, in, again in my training, some of those facts.
Kate: Yes, thinking again about penetration and specifically penile penetration it’s interesting to me that it was pointed out to me actually when I was in grad school long after, it probably should have been pointed out to me that we all know the pink triangles, or we should know the pink triangles.
Pink triangles represent the pink triangles that were worn on. On the prisoners concentration camps during World War ii, during Nazi occupation, the Nazi death camps for, particularly for AMAB people. So these are generally [00:51:00] men who are caught or thought of to be having sex with other men or penis owners, and they were sent to death camps.
What I didn’t know when I went to what I went to grad school was that I think. Almost all of these folks are men who are sent to camps. Everybody wearing a pink triangle, almost everybody wearing a pink triangle is men. Because Nazis think that women can’t have sex with one another. That is
yeah, that you can’t have sex without a penis involved. This is how we also get sodomy laws. Sodomy laws are based on this. Where homosexuality is illegal is it’s generally tied with sodomy laws. So all of these things still again, have to do with penetration male or AMAB, penis owner orgasm [00:52:00] where we can, again, think of.
These broader ways to think about sex? Where exactly as you’re saying, like where does it begin and where does it end? And is it when somebody brings you coffee and if so, when does that end? Is it when you, I don’t know, you drank the coffee. I don’t know. It’s however you want to. It’s however you want to define it.
The problem I think is, so nazim is an extreme example of surveillance. But at BYU, if you are looking into somebody else’s eyes and you and one person knows that you are, one person on campus knows that you have identified as a lesbian say, and you feel like you’re having potential sex with somebody else and.
then somebody like goes and tells on [00:53:00] you, goes and tells the honor code department about you. Like suddenly those parameters are extended to eye contact, right? Suddenly, BYU this institution that has these really sharp law of chastity lines suddenly sees this as a sexual encounter. So I think that’s important to note that even within Mormonism, what we are so hyper focused on what sex is for queer individuals that we will give, we will take measures against that sort of infraction, I guess we could call it, versus a straight couple is never gonna be sent to the honor code office for locking eyes with somebody that they liked, right? So there’s this double standard for queerness.
Colette: Yeah, that really makes me wanna find the the letter written by the CES Commissioner for the [00:54:00] clarification of the honor code back in March of 2020. Cuz that’s where my. I’m gonna see if I can find it. Cause that’s where my mind went as far as what’s the commissioner’s name? Why can I not remember it? Aha. Yeah, so Paul v Johnson’s the commissioner of church education at the time, and in the letter it said, same sex, romantic behavior cannot lead to eternal marriage and is therefore not compatible with principles of the honor code. And I remember I was working for the church at this time.
I got this email in my work email and it just, it really hit me that, again, the church is so focused on monitoring. people’s genitals, , and because in their mind right now that two vulva owners cannot be married because it doesn’t lead to eternal marriage.
I’m like what about a [00:55:00] NCMO, a non-committal bank out between two BYU students assigned male birth, assigned female birth, or cis, they’re straights. That doesn’t necessarily lead to eternal marriage, but that is not against the honor code because it involves two people with opposite parts supposedly.
It was just weird. reasoning when I first read that, and that’s where mind was going with the monitoring. That’s the best reason you could come up with that. It doesn’t lead to a eternal marriage, and so it’s not allowed.
Kate: Yeah, exactly. And I think that you’re pointing out something really important about this double standard that the church has and that queerness is always associated with sex. If we , if I can remind you of just a few minutes ago, I said that I didn’t even know what lesbian sex was. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t identify as a lesbian.
I understood what attraction was and that I felt attraction. It wasn’t that I wanted to have sex with [00:56:00] somebody, I didn’t even know what that meant. I literally didn’t even know what that meant or what it looked like. And yet I had this attraction. I felt something for another person that didn’t involve sex at all.
And yeah, this double standard of, for queer people Sex for queer people versus sex for straight couples. Particularly involving the Law of Chastity and how it’s so closely monitored at BYU shows that even for the church sex is not really easily defined.
Colette: It really isn’t. And in a lot of ways, and maybe this isn’t exactly where we wanna go, but sex between two people of the same gender is safer. in some ways. There are no accidental pregnancies for a lesbian couple. Yay. We don’t have to worry about that. Yes, of course you wanna still have it be free from [00:57:00] STIs and things like that, but.
Like we don’t have to worry about those sort of consequences. And so if you’re worried about having babies out of wedlock, lesbians have to work really hard to have kids. I work with some clients who are looking through that IVF process and or surrogacy for gay men. And it’s just, it’s so much work.
And if you’re monitoring because you want people, families created within this eternal structure, they can be sealed together. There aren’t gonna be any babies coming from queer sex. If there’s two people of the same, of course there are different configurations where there might be a trans man who hasn’t had any gender confirmation surgery and having a male partner who, but
Kate: no. I think you’re right. And I think, again, the church, the, then we’ll say, so they’ll move away from, oh, sex means all of this stuff. For queer people. Everything is sex for queer people. That’s how [00:58:00] we’re gonna define it.
Colette: if you’re holding hands or even just doing a quick peck on the lips, that’s sucks. Is it? It could
Kate: breaking right? It’s breaking the law of chastity. Yeah. We’re. We are put in this, these crosshairs of we’re breaking the la of chastity when nobody is gonna say that for a straight couple. And the straight couple has these like very strict parameters of this is the la of chastity line. Again, so if we make these strict parameters of this is the law of chastity line, then we can go back to male orgasm is connected to procreation. Nothing to do with a vulva o’s orgasm, but a penis owner’s orgasm is connected to procreation and therefore this is the line for these folks. So this double standard is completely arbitrary, ridiculous, and doesn’t make any sense even from a church perspective.
Colette: Yeah. Thank you for [00:59:00] that. And that I think is one thing a lot of queer people struggle with in the idea of what is sex? When there is the double standard of I’m gonna get the same amount of in trouble for kissing my same gender partner than if I were to have sex with them. Whatever that means to you. It’s just very interesting that way.
Kate: I think that’s a really important point because what we don’t talk about in the queer community is how prevalent sexual shame has contributed to a lot of abuse and harmful sexual practices within the queer community because there’s all that pent up shame because the church or other purity culture mechanisms have put so much pressure on us that we’re just gonna go out and do whatever then that has become a much danger, a much more dangerous situation than we are.
Already had. So this purity culture is not only setting the stage of don’t do it and otherwise you’re gonna feel shame. But then when you go past maybe where [01:00:00] you wanna go, then it’s just like a free for all. And our statistics for sexual assault for within the queer community are really terrible for this reason.
Colette: A hundred percent. And even not going that far. Like I dated this individual a few years ago and it was not a good relationship for me, but because it was another woman, I didn’t really talk about it with people. And I feel like if that shame and stigma had been not there, I could have talked about more.
And maybe I would’ve realized sooner that this person is a good person, but this is not a good relationship for me with the way that we interacted with each other. But because that shame was there, I couldn’t talk about it. And that gets people into dangerous spots, that gets people potentially back into closets of, I’ve heard and seen stories of individuals whose partners were threatening to out them because they were trying to stay closeted, but as a manipulation tactic, [01:01:00] as an abusive behavior, threatening to out them.
Like what do you do in that situation? That’s really hard. And so being aware of that shame and whatever we can do to help reduce that shame and stigma of talking about it, which is why, partly why we’re doing this episode.
Kate: Yes. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that vulnerability because I think it’s so important. This is a really important talk topic and it’s, it actually really sucks that we can’t even talk about what’s happening with it, our queer community, because we know how heteronormative shame works that once folks outside the queer community get ahold of these sorts of statistics, they’re going to use it against us when actually we really need to help and care for each other within our own community.
Colette: Hundred percent. Thank you so much for pointing that out. Yeah, we’re not saying these things to give people more ammunition of why queer relationships are [01:02:00] bad. Abuse happens in any configuration of relationships, but it’s just compounded in queer relationships potentially, if they’re. That shame piece.
Kate: Yeah. Maybe we can go into some healthy sexuality then.
Colette: Yeah. So one thing I’ve loved in my sex therapy training is the idea of what is healthy sexuality. And I was on an At Last She Said It episode talking about sex and the law of chastity. And I was just thinking like, how different could it be if instead of talking about the law of chastity at church, we talked about healthy sexuality because I remember and I took a sex therapy class in grad school and we read this book called, And They Were Not Ashamed. Is that what it was? Yeah. By Laura Brotherson. Now I’m checking myself. Pretty sure that’s was it. And she talked about this idea of good girl syndrome and I completely identified with it. And it was the idea that your whole life, you’re told good girls don’t have sex. Girl girls [01:03:00] don’t think about sex.
They don’t want sex, they don’t experience arousal, nothing. And then, In Mormon culture, when you get married in the temple, you’re then supposed to suddenly switch this light, and sex is supposed to be great and wonderful and perfect. And I knew reading that, I’m like, oh, that’s me. I’m gonna be married to a guy crying on my wedding night because I can’t make that switch from we’ve gotta be careful about even maybe making out to now we’re having penetrative sex.
Like I did not see that happening easily for me, and I see that happening with clients, it’s really hard to make that transition. And I think that’s partially because we do it’s sex is no. Sex is bad. Don’t talk about, don’t think about it. Don’t watch porn, don’t touch yourself. All these things to suddenly, then you’re supposed to have a positive sexual experience with someone.
Some people can make that transition, but I knew I wasn’t going to be one of those people. And then you add queerness on top of it. So in talking about healthy sexuality, I was just having this thought experiment myself of what [01:04:00] if we. Talked about the principles of he healthy sexuality from the beginning of if you choose to have sex at whatever point, be aware, make sure it’s a healthy relationship.
Talk about healthy relationships. What are green flags in relationships? What are red flags in relationships? And then here are green flags for healthy sexuality. Anyway, so the six principles are consent, non exploitation, protection from unwanted pregnancy and STIs, honesty, shared values, and mutual pleasure.
Like just hearing those words, I’m like, oh yeah, that just sounds and feels good in my body. , but there are plenty of temple married individuals who are not having sex happy, healthy sex lives because it’s not consensual or because it is exploitive or because it isn’t free from unwanted pregnancy or sti.
There isn’t shared values, there’s not mutual [01:05:00] pleasure. And I could go on. And so how can we make sure we have these things in our sex relationships? I think first is one, be aware of these principles and then be thinking about your relationship or relationships. What do these mean? Are these things showing up?
Do you wanna go into each of those a little deeper or was that okay?
Kate: No, that was great. But whatever you want to, if you wanna keep going.
Colette: As far as consent, we’ve talked about consent before when we were talking about ethical porn, but consent is both partners should be wanting it, right? And I see plenty of individuals who are married that are having sex that isn’t consensual, whether it feels coerced because the other partner’s laying, acting very cold when they’re not getting sex.
Kind of manipulating that way. Or one of the partners just giving in because it just feels easier. They don’t necessarily want it. So consent. That’s consent, right? And some people even add like [01:06:00] enthusiastic ongoing consent because again, consent can be withdrawn at any time. And I’ve been very grateful for the partners I’ve had in the past when.
I’ve been making out, and then I freeze and consents, withdrawn, and they stop. Even though I said yes at the beginning. If I then freak out and withdraw my consent, I would hope that my partner then stops interacting with me in the way I didn’t want it anymore. So that’s consent. Anything you wanna add with consent?
Kate: Yeah, just that there is what you’ve just described and there are legal boundaries and I think it’s worthwhile to look up the legal parameters wherever you live, of what these things look like in legal terms, because I think it’s actually pretty shocking to see in legal terms what consent is, what it looks like, what sexual assault is, and what it looks like [01:07:00] because what you just described makes so much more sense.
And yet if those things are violated often that isn’t going to be something that’s going. To be or could be prosecuted. And so thinking about these things in terms of a le legal framework and in terms of a social framework and how do we construct a society that values consent enough that this is going to, that it makes it into our legal parameters.
Colette: I love that. And one thing that also came to mind when we’re talking about consent, if anyone has heard of the FRIES model, it’s just an acronym saying Consent should be freely given, reversible, informed. enthusiastic and specific. That’s the FRIES model of consent. If you want to go through that, that can be helpful to break it down little more as far as freely, given that you are making this choice without pressure manipulation or under the influence of mind [01:08:00] altering substances reversible, that anyone can change their mind about what they feel like doing anytime.
Even if you’ve done it before, even if you were both planning on something, that you can reverse that, even if you are naked in bed with a partner, you can then say, no, that’s reversible. Informed that you can only fully give consent if you have the full story. If someone says they’re using a condom and they’re not, that’s not informed.
If they say, oh, this is what I wanna do, and they do something else that you’re not okay with, that’s not informed. Going back to some of those healthy sexual principles that we’ll talk more about free from STIs and unwanted pregnancy, I think that goes into the informed consent.
Enthusiastic should only do things that you want to do. Of course, sometimes exploring stuff with your partner that maybe you’re not sure of. Maybe not be fully enthusiastic, but do you actually want to, even if there’s a part of you that wants to, cannot be enthusiastic and then specifics saying yes to one thing doesn’t mean [01:09:00] you’ve said yes to others.
And and then there’s also the idea of if you’ve heard of the T and consent model, the idea that someone can say they want tea or I guess in Mormon terms, someone says they want a Diet Coke one time doesn’t mean they always want Diet Coke or just because they said they wanted Diet Coke with breakfast doesn’t mean they want it with lunch.
And you’re not gonna force someone to drink a Diet Coke just because you have it to offer. So going down those thought experience, I think can be helpful When you think about consent and what does consent mean?
Kate: great.
Colette: consent. Non exploitative. So that is the second, another principle of sexual health that people shouldn’t be exploited. They shouldn’t feel that you’ll be in danger or that they’ll be some sort of retribution if you aren’t agreeing to have sex.
Looking at some articles talking about the idea that money, drugs, clothing, shelter, or love are sometimes [01:10:00] used as manipulations for sex. That’s exploitive. If someone is keep holding something over your head, if they’re saying, out you, unless you have sex with me, that’s exploitation.
And I think some people don’t think about how that’s abusive, but it is. And so that is exploitive is not healthy sex. We want non exploitation. Honesty. So being honest with yourself and with your partner or partners. Being able to have that communication to talk about what you want and don’t want figuring out how honest you wanna be about previous partners or what sounds good to you.
That’s honesty. Honesty is important there. Are you able to talk about fantasies and desires? That all fits in with honesty shared values, which some people may be wondering. Why does shared values come into this? But. are people on the same page about what type of sexuality they’re engaging [01:11:00] in?
Does sex to one person mean we’re in a committed relationship and sex to another person just means, oh, we’re just having fun and this feels good. Not saying that’s a bad thing, but again, I think that goes back to the honesty, but also the shared values that it may not be the best encounter if you’re not on the same page about what sex and sexuality means.
Or have you compromised your own sexual values? Are you not being true to yourself and what you want? That sexual values protected from STI/HIV, unwanted pregnancy is another principle of sexual health. So being able to trust that birth controls being used, being able to be honest with your partner about STI testing, where you’re at with that being.
again, a lot of these play together. It’s informed on which is part of consent on if your partner’s being honest about any diseases or anything [01:12:00] that way, and then mutual pleasure like it. I would hope that for healthy sexuality, the pleasure of all people involved is prioritized. It’s not just focused on the penis.
It’s not just focused on one person and what they want though. Maybe you and your partner have decided to take turns on maybe one person being more the giver and one being more the receiver, but that both people are enjoying it and feeling good. I think I went through all six of them.
Kate: Yeah. Great. Thank you for delving into those a little bit more.
Colette: and again, we don’t talk about, just if you wanna have your own thought experiment, how different would life have been if in the law of chastity lessons, we talked about the principles of sexual health instead of the law of chastity? Because there are, again, plenty of marriages and relationships that are following church guidelines that these principles are not in place.
Kate: and I think that’s again where patriarchy, [01:13:00] intermixes with sex in Mormonism. Where Abuse can be prevalent. We, it’s, we can say all we want, we don’t tolerate abuse. But if we’re not talking about what abuse is, if we’re not talking about what consent is, there’s so much room for abuse to take place. And people do not even know that for what they’re being abused or that they’re abusing somebody.
So these are really important concepts. I think Especially consent. Especially consent that if we just had women , I think being able to have some sort of authority within Mormonism to say, to talk about sex, that we would have a very different perspective. I think you’re absolutely right.
Colette: A hundred percent.
Kate: I think the last thing we can talk about is the relationship between sexist sex and marriage. We have a [01:14:00] whole marriage episode, , we can mostly default to that one. I wanted to bring up a book I recently read. It’s published by Common Consent or BC press, which is a Mormon press Mormon publisher.
It’s called East Winds, A Global Quest to Reckon With Marriage by Rachel Rucker. This book I just barely started it and finished it. It was, it’s excellent. It’s a memoir. Rachel is a anthropologist or an yeah. Is an anthropologist and went around the world for her honeymoon to study marriage in all of, all of the different corners of the globe.
And what she’s found is lots of different ways to think about and conceptualize marriage and sex and the relationship between sex and marriage. That the law of chastity, as much as we’re [01:15:00] taught over and over again is the way we’ve done it for thousands of years or whatever. And marriage is this way for thousands of years.
This book is just so good at showing how that is not true. Rachel was a BYU student and so she’s exploring like the ways that her understanding of marriage and sex impacted her entire worldview and how a year living in all of these different places really exposed her to other ways of thinking.
So just wanted to mention that book too.
Colette: Awesome. Thank you. And I think this can also be an interesting thought experiment for people in regards to where are they at with their own sexual values on when, where, with who they wanna have sex. Because growing up Mormon, you have this life path. If you are af F of you get married in the temple, you do not.
You are not a sexual being until [01:16:00] you are married to a man in the temple. And then you’re supposed to have a great sex life, but still make sure you’re popping up babies, right? And that may not fit for you, and that’s okay. So maybe take some time to think about, do I want to reserve sex for marriage? Do I want to have sex only in committed relationships?
Do I want to have sex more freely And just if it feels good and feels right and it meets these criteria for healthy sexuality, that I want to have sex. You get to determine what your values are. And I think that can be pretty scary for some people who have never had that permission to look at. What do you, what is actually important to you?
What do you want? What’s your timeline? But you are in control of your sexuality. You get to decide what it means for you, and do you want to reserve it for marriage? You don’t have to. That’s what you’ve been told and [01:17:00] given, but you get to determine your own sexual values.
Kate: for sure. Thank you. I would like to end with this quote unless you had another thought before you wanted to end.
Colette: No, I think ending with that quote,
Kate: Great. we’re talking about patriarchy and the way that our bodies are part of patriarchy, the way we think about our bodies as part of patriarchy. And we have to think about a feminist reawakening.
We have to think about the ways that feminism sometimes comes up short in terms of straight proximity, in terms of white proximity, all of these different things. And one, the quote I wanna end on. From somebody that both of us really admire that I think every lesbian really, if you don’t know, should know, but most of us [01:18:00] do and most of us really admire Audre Lorde.
And this quote comes from an essay that she wrote in Sister Outsider. And the essay is titled Uses of the Erotic As Power. This is a really powerful essay. I encourage everybody to either read it or listen to it. You can listen to her. actually deliver this on YouTube. But this whole essay,
Colette: I just wanna slip it a Mormon joke and we desire all to receive it.
Kate: So Audrey Lord is a black lesbian womanist. She’s really foundational or emblematic within the womanist movement. And this essay is so good and it talks about the erotic and its relationship to power and the relationship that women have to be able to rethink these power structures that we exist in.
So the quote is, [01:19:00] But the erotic charge is not easily shared by women who continue to operate under an exclusively European American male tradition. I know it was not available to me when I was trying to adapt my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation. Only now I find more and more women identified, women brave enough to risk sharing the Erotics electrical charge without having to look away and without distorting the enormously powerful and creative nature of that exchange.
Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama for not only do we touch our most profoundly creative source, but we do that which is fe female and self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti [01:20:00] erotic society.
Colette: So much to unpack in that quote and in that essay, is there anything you wanted to elaborate on from that quote or essay? Because there really is so much.
Kate: Yeah, there is a lot to unpack, but I think that is the gist of what this episode is about, is that we need to be rethinking these power structures are sexual liberation as Mormon women or queer AFAB Mormon people. Our sexual liberation is part of a powerful, beautiful erotic liberation we’re trying to undo this racist society, a patriarchal society and we can do that through rethinking our ideas about sex.
Colette: Love that. Thank you so much. I don’t know that I have anything else to add, [01:21:00] just. Go listen to that on YouTube or read it. It’s a great essay.
Kate: Great. Thank you. Is there anything else we wanna say?
Colette: I’m happy, I’m just happy we finally did this episode and we are definitely happy to have more Kate and Colette chats in the future. If you have any sex questions or things you want us to talk about, we do doing these topics episodes sometimes in addition to our interview episodes. So definitely feel free to contact us on social media or email.
We can definitely keep talking about this topic and hopefully make it less taboo so that people can have a good, a better relationship with themselves and their bodies and sex. And yes,
Kate: Yeah, maybe an episode that is ask a sex therapist. So send us your questions for Colette specifically,
Colette: Perfect. I’ll do it if you guys ask questions.
Kate: Perfect. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you joining us today. [01:22:00] If you’re liking these episodes, we’d love it if you would rate and review Called to Queer on the podcast player of your choice so that other people are more likely to find us. We’d also love it if you’d, you would share our podcast with a friend who could benefit from hearing these stories. If you’d like to donate to support the ongoing costs of the podcast, you can do that by clicking the donate button at the top of our homepage. If you want to contact us, you can reach us at hello@calledtoqueer.com. You can al also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @CalledToQueer. See you next time.