Today, I’m going to share with you an episode of Georgie Wolf’s podcast, where she interviews me on the slightly vexed question of who’s got it easier in the pickup game; men, or women. It’s a wide-ranging, interesting, and juicy conversation.
Georgie’s podcast is called The Art of the Hookup, which relates to a book she’s written of the same name. It’s an awesome book on, as the title would suggest, hooking up, but it goes further into just being a great sex-positive primer, and includes a bunch of stuff on how to be a good person, essentially.
Jessica’s big in the world of porn and sex-work, which, along with her own life story, has given her some fascinating perspectives on sex and sex education.We get into all sorts of details about the difference between entertainment porn and education porn, and how a lack of proper sex education leads people to porn, which we then blame for not being educational.
Jessica’s authority to speak to the topic comes from about 20 years in the game, at every level – from rank amateur, then as a seasoned performer, and then as a producer. Recently she’s been doing some great work around producing educational material and other forms of outreach, and she’s also one of the people that spoke out about the way she was treated by Donald Trump.
We caught up when she was in Melbourne recently for Sexpo; join us for a conversation about sex.
You might recall, back at the end of 2018, we did an episode called ‘secrets from inside a sex-party community’. It was all about what it’s like to attend an event I run called Curiosity, which is hard to describe… But essentially, I guess it fits in the category of ‘sex party’. That episode was told from the perspective of the participants, and I thought it might be fun to have a chat with the hosts, too. So that’s what we’re doing today.
This interview features Linda Kirkman, who you’ve heard on the show before. Linda is a counsellor for singles and couples, with a specialty in diversity and sexuality – which you’ll have worked out for yourself, by the end of this episode. You can find Linda at http://lindakirkman.org/ .
Linda’s based in Bendigo, Australia, but offers video sessions to anyone. She’s across all the quote-unquote ‘lifestyle choices’ that tend to make people reluctant to seek psychological or emotional assistance.
And the second host is Tess, who is also an Occupational Therapist. They run Connectable Therapies, which helps people with sexual development and rehabilitation. Check them out at https://www.connectabletherapies.com/ .
This episode is all about how to recover and restore trust, when there’s been some form of relationship abuse in the past. When we first aired this conversation, in 2017, a number of people asked for specific and practical things that they could do with a partner or client who’s in the process of recovering.
So, after the conversation, I’ll share with you six very specific things you can do.
Rog, from Curious Creatureshttps://www.curiouscreatures.biz/, presents a spoken-word piece about the ongoing effects and impacts of things that happened a long time ago. As well as some more current-day dilemmas.
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 the Curious Creatures ‘other recommended resources’ page.
Today, we’re looking into Restorative Justice again; this is the second in a two-part series, and I hate to do this to you, but I need you to go back and listen to the previous episode, if you haven’t already. Seriously, a bunch of stuff in the following episode won’t make sense, and I’m worried about how some things might sound out of context. It’ll be worth it, because this is a really juicy topic.
– Fiona Landon, from Project Restore, in New Zealand. Project Restore’s vision is for a New Zealand that is free from violence, and they do this through providing world-class Restorative Justice services, tailored to the needs of sexual assault. They can be found at https://projectrestore.nz/.
– David Karp is a professor with Skidmore University, USA. He’s been a researcher, coordinator, and practitioner of Restorative Justice services in the university campus context for 15 years. He can be found at https://www.skidmore.edu/sociology/faculty/karp.php.
Today, we’re talking about one of the only sources of hope, in an area most of us generally feel pretty hopeless about.
When sexual assault occurs, it often changes the lives of the people that are directly involved, and also those around them. It’s like a pivotal event, a moment in time, that patterns everything that comes afterwards, and the thing that’s so hopeless about it is that there seems to be so little in the way of anything resembling a positive outcome, for anyone.
Restorative Justice is a form of mediation where the fundamental idea is that the people that were involved in an incident, actually sit down and try and work out what justice might look like.
– Fiona Landon, from Project Restore, in New Zealand. Project Restore’s vision is for a New Zealand that is free from violence, and they do this through providing world-class Restorative Justice services, tailored to the needs of sexual assault. They can be found at https://projectrestore.nz/.
– David Karp is a professor with Skidmore University, USA. He’s been a researcher, coordinator, and practitioner of Restorative Justice services in the university campus context for 15 years. He can be found at https://www.skidmore.edu/sociology/faculty/karp.php.
How good are you at training a new person in how to kiss you?
More importantly, how do you feel about training this person that’s in front of you, right now, in how to kiss you?
They’re the questions Rog (from Curious Creatures) and Isiah McKimmie front up to for you, in this episode. It’s an intro to kissing like you’ve never heard.
Isiah is a sex-therapist, relationship counsellor, and sexologist, who can be found at www.isiah-mckimmie.com/
Today, we’re having another listen to a conversation with two of the world’s best sex educators and prioneers, about how to introduce more interesting sex into a relationship.
My first guest is Cyndi Darnell, who is an educator and counsellor based in New York. She’s available for sessions via video conferencing.
My second guest is Barbara Carellas, also a sex educator and pioneer, and offering workshops around the world. Among many other achievements, Barbara wrote the book ‘Urban Tantra’, which I warmly recommend; it certainly shaped a lot of my journey.
Is there an art to the act of the hookup? Is it about more than the right outfit, the right opening line, and a bucket of fuck-luck? And what’s all this talk about self-development, and solutions to the world’s problems?
On this episode, Rog (from Curious Creatures) interviews Georgie Wolf, author of a book called ‘The Art of the Hook-up’. It’s a radical read, and it’s got the potential to really positively influence the way the dating game plays out – also sex, and relationships, more generally.
Stay tuned at the end, for responses to listener feedback.
I get asked a lot of questions about what it’s like to go to a sex-party, and in particular, the one I run, called Curiosity.
So to answer your questions, I interviewed four regular Curiosity participants about their experiences, and they offer you a very candid and honest perspective into the little world of sex and self-development they find themselves in; this is like no story on what it’s like to be at a sex-party that you’ll have ever have heard.
Today, Seani Love, award winning sex-worker and sex educator, is back with us. The question we’re tackling gets us into all sorts of interesting spots, such as the process of undoing gender conditioning and socialisation, removing the link between being attractive and being sexy, and a few reflections on the nature of the industry. And life.
You can find Seani at www.seanilove.com. And for those of you near Melbourne, Australia, Seani’s running a 7-day retreat on sex magick at the start of January.
This show’s for pretty much anyone that’s been in a long-term relationship, and had to tackle any of the sex-life challenges that life throws up. Such as busy work lives, health issues, or pregnancy and early parenthood. Focussing on the latter, this episode is all about navigating our often fickle sex lives while preparing for and dealing with a new child on the scene.
Rog, from Curious Creatures, interviews Erika Munton, a birth and relationships coach, in Melbourne, Australia. Erika can be found at birthready.com.au.
Today, we’re switching! Rog (from Curious Creatures) is being interviewed by someone else. Well, sort of; there’s a bit of topping from the bottom going on. Oops.
You may remember Isiah McKimmie from a few episodes back; they chatted about safer sex. It was such fun, that they wanted to interview me about oral sex for their podcast, Love, Sex, and Intimacy (linked to in the show-notes). And we’re now listening to that conversation, here.
We started with Isiah trying to work out whether they actually like oral sex or not…
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.
