Much of our world is designed around certain assumptions, but for those of us who don’t check all the boxes there can be not just a lack of step-stools and accommodations, but often an active campaign to change our identity. Social worker and trans story teller Phoebe Rose returns to the show to walk us through her own experiences and those of trans folx just trying to get by in a cis world and, for the love of Zod, find somewhere to pee.
Read moreWait but... is it therapy?
Brains are tricky, as it turns out. While the field of psychology isn’t new the scientific endeavor to better understand our thoughts and manage our feelings has much to do to build itself out. And while I’m certainly no stranger to adjunct therapies, it can be hard to know if ‘what works for me’ is actually working. This week associate marriage and family therapist Emily Maynard returns to the show to talk pseudo-science, good therapy and how to tell the difference.
Read moreAn Introduction to Mindful Self-Compassion
Find a podcast version here
An exhaustive overview of the foundational components of mindful self-compassion as conceived of by minds like Kirstin Neff, Tara Brach, Paul Gilbert and Christopher Germer.
Read moreVC Resources: Compassionate Minute
This brief mindfulness exercise may help teach the basics of presence, or awareness, that makes up one half of mindfulness. While the other half is acceptance, this exercise emphasizes compassion, a tool to allow for acceptance. Consider this a fundamental building block on your road to a deeper meditation practice, a richer and more self-compassionate thought life or a more balanced wellbeing.
Read moreObjectification and Appreciation
Objectification and sexualization is part and parcel of the porn space but the pain of bigotry and the exploitation of trans performers is a vintage problem with modern trappings. This week trans advocate and performer Arden Hart joins clip queen and porn performer proponent Sinn Sage in a conversation with me about appreciation, dehumanization and erotic media.
Read moreCulturally Bound
Ever catch one of those videos of police sirens from all over the world and realize, ‘holy shit how do people in X find that sound to be Y’? Turns out that there’s a lot in the air- so many of the things we assume are biological facts are really just cultural preferences. This week Laura Magee returns to the show to highlight some of the strange goings-on from the world over and to help us consider our own cultural assumptions and beliefs, plus of course your calls and what’s turning us on this week.
Read moreOn Location with Sinn Sage Productions
It’s a strange kind of cache to trade in for sure but the truth is I’ve never been more proud of the hard work I’ve done to offer something to my community then when I first watched back the tape from my live ON SET interview with Sinn Sage and the team with Sinn Sage productions.
Read moreHow My Ankles Taught Me Self-Compassion
It took me 10 years of running to eventually realize that working out wasn’t about punishing myself into being a better person. Instead it’s something I set aside time for not just because I love/hate it, but because it makes me personally a better version of myself. Instead of trying to beat myself into becoming a harder worker, I’ve found that I am better, faster, stronger the more I’m willing to nurture, nourish and support myself.
Read moreFamily Movie Time
Growing up with a 3 channel antenna (6 if you spin it just right!) in a 6 person home meant that TV was rarely a personal pursuit. Now days I can’t turn on the stereo while cooking dinner for fear of interrupting my partner’s TV show which blares over the kids video games (not to mention the YouTube video I’m probably streaming on my phone). But what are the holidays if not an excuse to force everyone onto the couch together? Between football games, thanksgiving parades and Peanut specials Dianna Anderson returns to the show to suggest a handful of sex positive, queer feminist alternatives to your standard Harry Potter and Holiday Selectins.
Read moreVC Resources: Accepting Anger
“Anger is just the distortion of an unmet need”- Marshall Rosenberg’s famous maxim is meant to remind us of the cost associated with using violence to meet our needs. Violence can come in the form of resistance, avoidance, aggression, coercion and even verbal and physical violence and abuse. While anger has its role to play in our lives it’s effectiveness as a form of inter- and intra- personal motivation grafts an unnecessary layer of violence onto a need-meeting strategy that has simply been distorted. It clouds our judgement and often makes the complex constructs of trust, gratitude and ultimately acceptance too slippery to get a hold of.
Read morePet-Play Pride
Now that you’ve put your lingerie/mouse costume (duh) away for the year roleplay may be the last thing on your mind but there’s more to explore in the wild kingdom of pet-play kink then felt ears and nine-tailed butt plugs. The pet/master dynamic offers us not only a new way to relate to one another but a whole new series of ways to get carpet burn on our knees. Shade Wolf of Pet-Play Pride TX joins Secular Sexuality to discuss pet-play and the phenomenology of pet-space, plus your calls and questions.
Read morePolygamy vs Polyamory
When I was on dating apps as a poly man nothing used to get under my skin more then the constant conflation of polyamory and polygamy, particularly the historical plural marriage of mormonism. How different are these things, really, and why do those differences matter? Dan Beecher of Thank God I’m Atheist joins SecX to talk through his experiences growing up in and and around the modern mormon thinking of monogamy as well as his own journey in to the world of more then two. Catch the episode below and be sure to check back afterwards for some footNOTES!
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex - and How to Get It by Marty Klein
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Janet Hardy & Dossie Easton
The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families by Elisabeth Sheff
Explaining polygamy and its history in the Mormon Church by Joanna Brooks for The Conversation
What Is the Difference Between Polyamory and Polygamy? by Ellsabeth Sheff for Psychology Today
Here’s How Polyamory, Polygamy, and Polyandry Differ — and What to Expect by Sian Ferguson for Healthline
How Mormon Polygamy In The 19th Century Fueled Women's Activism by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich with Terry Gross for Fresh Air
The polygamous town facing genetic disaster by Zaria Gorvett for BBC
The Shadow Self
Over the past century psychology has found a lot of different ways to talk about self-acceptance. One of the oldest is certainly one of the most enigmatic, as Carl Jung’s notions of the shadow-self have continued to influence modern thinking more then 100 years after their introduction. What these mysterious metaphors can teach us about our love, life and sex remains as dark as the ideas behind them. This week Andy Lane returns to the show to talk shadows and sex and to help us understand how to accept each other and ourselves.
Read moreLovin, Touchin, Squeezin with Mindful Touch
As a therapist there’s very little about paying a professional to help you self-regulate and develop your communication strategies that seems foreign to me. Commodified relationships and scholastic training in naturalistic social skills are part and parcel of the therapeutic process so it’s no surprise to me that professional cuddlers have something to offer the world. What that is and what to do with it on the other hand took some examination.
Read moreNeuroqueering; verb
Autism Spectrum Disorder and Gender Theory have a striking number of things in common- increasingly we understand them both to operate on a spectrum and recent years have seen us move from a pathology model to a diversity model. We no longer see minority genders or sexualites as flaws or conditions, but as a fascinating form of diversity, so to are we just beginning to embrace the beauty of neurodiversity. But these two constructs may play with one another even more then we think- fan favorites Shannon Q and Miss O Kissed join the show this week to help me sort through the neuro and the queer in understanding this brave new world.
Read moreQuestioning the Sacred History of Sexuality
I mean, I get it. If there wasn’t something kind of magical about looking deeply into the eyes of someone you love or hearing them shout “oh GOD” at just the right moment, none of us would bother talking about love and sex and god for an hour and a half every week. For literally thousands of years people have insisted that there’s something not just profound, not just spiritual or even transcendent but actually divine about the love we make and share. Melissa Hargrave returns to the show to talk to me about the history of these mystical practices and to join a skeptical conversation about the wonder and power of love.
Read moreM.D.s and Enbies
Providing Affirmative Care for Patients with Non-binary Gender Identities from National LGBT Health Education Center
Why the way we approach transgender and non-binary healthcare needs to change by Rona Carrol for The Conversation
Opinion: For trans, non-binary folk, health care anxieties can make COVID-19 worse by Eric Edward Schell for The Houston Chronicle
Health of Non-binary and Genderqueer People: A Systematic Review
Talking to Your Kids about Secular Sexuality
I get it- talking about kids and sex in the same YouTube video is a really great way to alert the algorithm and end up on a watch list. But kids are in fact sexual beings, with bodies and genders and genitals all of their own. So how do we reconcile +200 years of puritanical squeamishness with a generation born into instant access to the greatest collection of sexually explicit data ever compiled?
Read morePornstar 101
Well if the past week has taught us anything, it’s that Levar Burton belongs on the Jeopardy! stage. If it’s taught us two things it’s definitely that wow are people shitty about sex-work. I’m excited to welcome Sinn Sage back to SecX to talk about Only Fans, sex work and the myths and mysteries of life in porn.
Read moreDeconstructing Purity Culture
If there is one through line between Dr. Darrel Ray’s inception of the Secular Sexuality podcast and whatever porn-star-interviewing home-made-kazooing shenanigans SecX has become, it’s the idea that we can unlearn the destructive myths of our sex-negative culture. In deconstructing purity culture we can better empower ourselves to make and share the love that we deserve.
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