What a ripper of a question today. Big thanks to Greg for hitting us up with this one.
To answer it, I’m back with Seani Love, an award-winning sex-worker and workshop facilitator. The conversation comes across like you’ve walked in on a couple of kinky therapists having a chat, which is precisely what it is – a nuanced deep-dive into exactly what emotional safety looks like in practice, from a couple of folks that have made mistakes and learned from them. Seani’s actually back in Melbourne in late June 2018, by the way, check out their website at www.seanilove.com.
Today, we’ve got the second part of a conversation with Lee Harrington and Euphemia Rustle about all sorts of things to do with gender. And in particular, how we can all get along more, regardless of how long we’ve been immersed in gender-diverse thinking. We’re pretty much just going to drop you in in the middle of the conversation. But hey, you’re a smart cookie; you’ll work out what’s going on.
…From there, this conversation rolls into topics relating to trans and queer identities, how we as individuals cope with a world that doesn’t always understand our identities, and how much things have evolved. All this, without creating the illusion that there’s one simple answer to these questions, that we all agree on. Because there’s not.
Rog, from Curious Creatures, is joined by two awesome sexuality educators: Euphemia Rustle www.iwishyouknew.net, and Lee Harrington www.passionandsoul.com.
In this adventurous conversation with sex-worker and workshop facilitator Seani Love, the conversations draws many parallels and connections between therapy and kink. This is a conversation deep in the details of how to use kink for liberation and empowerment in a way that probably isn’t for everyone, but can do laps around ‘talk therapy’ when it is.
Today, we’ve got the third of a three-part conversation about safer sex. Issiah McKimmie and I continue chatting about the detailed pragmatics, as well as the broader communication and psychological issues. We start with dental dams, move onto safer sex strategies for kinky play, and finish on the role of shame in STI conversations.
Today we’ve got the 1st of three parts of a conversation I had with Issiah McKimmie. It started out being about how to do safer sex, but, y’know how these things go… It pretty much just wound up being about sex and communication and a whole bunch of jokes as we got deeper into the material.
Wow. What could possibly go wrong with this sweet, simple little question?
This conversation takes in everything from the mundane (such as giving yourself three days after writing an email before clicking ‘send’) through to the profound (such as how the question inspires an existential crisis and pleas to Buddha).
Getting sometimes confused and humble, but also managing to find some very sensible theories and tangible ideas, are:
Rog, from Curious Creatures;
Dossie Easton – author of The Ethical Slut (and various other progressive sexuality books), and counselor and relationships coach based in San Fransisco (dossieeaston.com); and
Anne Hunter, a relationships coach and polyamory specialist, in Melbourne, Australia (yourrelationshiptoolbelt.com).
In this episode (the final in a three-part series), Aerie (fromBlue Velvet Arts) and Rog (fromCurious Creatures) go through the questions on the Curious Creatures Consent Cards in detail. New and old players alike will find plenty in the way of juicy perspectives and personal stories about lessons learned the hard way.
The questions, are:
How are we doing?
What’s our brief description of what we’re planning to do?
Why is this play interesting to you / me?
What kind of experience are you / am I after?
Have you / I done this kind of play before, or something like it?
Can we check in, mid-play, using the scale of 0-10 to guage how intense it’s going (where 3-4 is warmup, and 6-7 is sustainable play)?
If everything goes well, what is our upper limit for intensity?
Do we have safe-words in place (eg. ‘green’ = all good; ‘orange’ = approaching a limit; ‘red’ = complete stop, debrief, then play may or may not continue…)?
Can we leave marks (such as bruises, teeth-marks, scratches)?
Do you / I have any injuries, health conditions or other body limitations that might be relevant?
Are there any parts of our bodies (such as genitals, bum, chest) that we don’t want to be involved?
Who might be gaining pleasure from this; who is it for?
Is this activity likely to be triggering?
Are you sober (and, if not, how can we make that safer)?
What are our safer-sex practices (in terms of STI transmission), and are there any other safety issues?
Will we need to do specific things to care for each other, afterwards?
Are you happy to proceed? (Check for congruence, question any uncertainty).
In this episode (second in three-part series), Aerie(from Blue Velvet Arts) and Rog (from Curious Creatures) go through the questions on the Curious Creatures Consent Cards in detail. New and old players alike will find plenty in the way of juicy perspectives and personal stories about lessons learned the hard way.
The questions, are:
How are we doing?
What’s our brief description of what we’re planning to do?
Why is this play interesting to you / me?
What kind of experience are you / am I after?
Have you / I done this kind of play before, or something like it?
Can we check in, mid-play, using the scale of 0-10 to guage how intense it’s going (where 3-4 is warmup, and 6-7 is sustainable play)?
If everything goes well, what is our upper limit for intensity?
Do we have safe-words in place (eg. ‘green’ = all good; ‘orange’ = approaching a limit; ‘red’ = complete stop, debrief, then play may or may not continue…)?
Can we leave marks (such as bruises, teeth-marks, scratches)?
Do you / I have any injuries, health conditions or other body limitations that might be relevant?
Are there any parts of our bodies (such as genitals, bum, chest) that we don’t want to be involved?
Who might be gaining pleasure from this; who is it for?
Is this activity likely to be triggering?
Are you sober (and, if not, how can we make that safer)?
What are our safer-sex practices (in terms of STI transmission), and are there any other safety issues?
Will we need to do specific things to care for each other, afterwards?
Are you happy to proceed? (Check for congruence, question any uncertainty).
In this episode, Aerie (fromBlue Velvet Arts) and Rog (fromCurious Creatures) go through the questions on the Curious Creatures Consent Cards in detail. New and old players alike will find plenty in the way of juicy perspectives and personal stories about lessons learned the hard way.
The questions, are:
How are we doing?
What’s our brief description of what we’re planning to do?
Why is this play interesting to you / me?
What kind of experience are you / am I after?
Have you / I done this kind of play before, or something like it?
Can we check in, mid-play, using the scale of 0-10 to guage how intense it’s going (where 3-4 is warmup, and 6-7 is sustainable play)?
If everything goes well, what is our upper limit for intensity?
Do we have safe-words in place (eg. ‘green’ = all good; ‘orange’ = approaching a limit; ‘red’ = complete stop, debrief, then play may or may not continue…)?
Can we leave marks (such as bruises, teeth-marks, scratches)?
Do you / I have any injuries, health conditions or other body limitations that might be relevant?
Are there any parts of our bodies (such as genitals, bum, chest) that we don’t want to be involved?
Who might be gaining pleasure from this; who is it for?
Is this activity likely to be triggering?
Are you sober (and, if not, how can we make that safer)?
What are our safer-sex practices (in terms of STI transmission), and are there any other safety issues?
Will we need to do specific things to care for each other, afterwards?
Are you happy to proceed? (Check for congruence, question any uncertainty).
Discuss: Consent is not ‘sexy’; consent is a human right. You either have it, or you don’t, and saying it’s sexy confuses the issues.
To discuss this topic, Rog (from Curious Creatures) is joined by:
Dossie Easton – author of The Ethical Slut (and various other progressive sexuality books), and counselor and relationships coach based in San Fransisco (dossieeaston.com).
Anne Hunter, a relationships coach and polyamory specialist, in Melbourne, Australia (yourrelationshiptoolbelt.com).
Want to hear some really good, genuine, down-to-earth players talk about what they think makes for a good dominant? …Tune in to this one folks, for some of the most smoothly delivered and honest appraisals of what power-play is all about.
Rog from Curious Creatures is joined by:
Aerie, fromBlue Velvet Arts, who runs accessible and fun workshops on kink and communication in Melbourne, Australia.
Beejay, fromEagle Leather (in Abbotsford, Melbourne) – for all your fetish wear and equipment needs, and some great education / outreach also.
What’s your number one sex move? Is it a little wriggle with your finger at the right time? Something you do with your tongue? Or something entirely psychological?
To answer this question, Rog from Curious Creatures is joined by:
Cath Carter: Renowned sex therapist, counselor, and couples and singles coach. Cath has been in the field of sexuality for thirty years, is a walking embodiment of compassion and sex-positivity, and can be found at www.personalharmony.com.au.
Maureen Matthews: Author of ‘About Last Night’ in the Sunday Age newspaper, and operator of Bliss for Women. Maureen has been advising and coaching people on sexuality and relationship issues for over thirty years, and making a lot of lives better! http://www.bliss4women.com.au/
Getting deep into the subtleties of polyamory (and open-relationships and non-monogamy, generally), tune in to get the combined wisdom of 70 years of combined experience!
This conversation goes into the subtle ways we sometimes use agreements to control one another, or avoid facing what we don’t want to see within ourselves. It also includes information on how to put specific agreements in place that are unique to your relationships and that support all the people in your constellation, and personal stories on how agreements tend to change over time.
Not polyamorous? Fear not! – There’s a lot of information in here that’s just as applicable to monogamous relationship agreements!
Rog, from Curious Creatures, is joined by:
Dossie Easton – author of The Ethical Slut (and various other progressive sexuality books), and counselor and relationships coach based in San Fransisco (dossieeaston.com).
Anne Hunter, a relationships coach and polyamory specialist, in Melbourne, Australia (yourrelationshiptoolbelt.com).
In a conversation including consent (for a change!), safety, techniques, and the psychology of the way different people learn, Rog from Curious Creatures is joined by:
Aerie, from Blue Velvet Arts, who runs accessible and fun workshops on kink and communication in Melbourne, Australia.
Beejay, from Eagle Leather (in Abbotsford, Melbourne) – for all your fetish wear and equipment needs, and some great education / outreach also.
Does sex denial work well as sex education? Can you rely on what your schoolmates tell you in lieu of sex education?
When did you first learn about ‘consent’, and that some of what had been happening to you was ‘non-consent’?
Was it embarrassing, when you realised that what you’d learned from porn was partly amazing, and partly a bum-steer? Was that a bit… awkward?
Let’s have a really frank conversation about what it was like growing up and navigating your sex. Rog, from Curious Creatures, is joined by Dr Linda Kirkman – one of Australia’s foremost specialists in sexuality, and aging in particular. Linda is a counselor who you can see via Skype anywhere in the world, or locally in Victoria, Australia.
What follows is a very special conversation about Vaginismus, from the very personal perspective of three people with direct experience of the condition. Their stories are at times focussed around practical solutions that have worked for them, but mostly the therapeutic and interpersonal nature of their experience. They’re not claiming to be experts on the topic, however they are clearly experts regarding their own experiences.
Rog, from Curious Creatures, is joined by:
Anne Hunter, a relationships coach and polyamory specialist, in Melbourne, Australia (yourrelationshiptoolbelt.com).
Niyati Evers, a psychotherapist and counsellor from Portland, Oregon (alchemy-of-eros.com).
This is one of the great myths about sex – that our sexuality is essentially a wild, out of control beast waiting to consume us whole, the moment we let it off its leash. We have been taught, from so many places, to keep it locked down and not explore our interests.
Which begs a follow-up question: Why is our interest in sex so very different to our interest in – for example – football? Or anything else?
To answer this question, interviews with two people – one of them interested in sex, the other in football – are compared and contrasted in a way that illuminates just what a sex-negative (and, perhaps, a football-positive) world we live in. Prepare to be entertained, as Curious Creatures takes a few steps away from the usual ‘Curious Conversations About Sex’ format.
This episode is brought to you by Rog, from Curious Creatures (www.curiouscreatures.biz), and friends.
If you are seeking support in relation to your own potential sex addiction, in Australia you might want to start with Lifeline (13 11 14), or the counselors on theCurious Creatures resources page.
This conversation takes in aspects of sexuality that are important to everyone, but especially relevant to those of us that are aging (or planning to do so in the future).
Topics range from body positivity, to theoretical constructs around sexuality, to beautifully frank and specific suggestions and strategies.
Rog, from Curious Creatures, is joined by Dr Linda Kirkman – one of Australia’s foremost specialists in sexuality, and aging in particular. Linda is a counselor who you can see via Skype anywhere in the world, or locally in Victoria, Australia.
Why is violence suddenly meant to be okay if someone’s wearing a ball-gag? What’s misogyny / misandry play? How does slut-shaming fit into all of this? And is this going to be another conversation ending in a discussion about consent?
To answer these questions, Rog from Curious Creatures is joined by:
Aerie, fromBlue Velvet Arts, who runs accessible and fun workshops on kink and communication in Melbourne, Australia.
Beejay, fromEagle Leather (in Abbotsford, Melbourne) – for all your fetish wear and equipment needs, and some great education / outreach also.
