December 3, 2024 • 50 mins
In this week's episode, we discuss how sex and intimacy can change over time in long-term queer relationships- from pre-wedding to post-wedding and beyond!
Thank you SO much to this week's guest: Calvin Hauer. You can find out more about Calvin, his practice and his email by visiting this site: https://www.calvinhauertherapy.com/
The intro and all instrumentals were written, sung and recorded by @JaynaDavisMusic
Queerly Beloved, I'm so glad you joined!
Please keep the community going by checking me out on instagram @wildlyconnectedphoto and come say hi! I'd love to hear from you! :)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Microphone (Yeti Stereo (00:00):
Hello, my beloved queer folks.
(00:03):
How is everybody doing?
It is.
Starting to feel like winter.
Here in the Midwest and I alwayshave mixed feelings about it.
But.
Other than that, I hope thateveryone has continued to find
ways to.
(00:23):
Pope and.
Process and do what you need todo.
Um, In the weeks.
Since the election and, andleading up to an Accuration day,
I know it's such a weird time.
Yeah.
I wish I was better.
With the words and I.
Find myself saying that probablytoo often for somebody who has
(00:46):
their own podcast, but.
I just wanted to quickly come onand give a personal hello to
everybody.
That's keeping up with thepodcast.
And I also just wanted to kindof give a forward to this week's
episode.
I, we talk about it a lot.
Um, the guests I have on thepodcast, we talk about.
(01:07):
Consenting and giving folksplenty of time to decide if they
want to listen or not to thisepisode, but just giving folks a
heads up that we are talkingabout sex and this episode,
which for me personally, Ireally had to put my big girl
pants on and, uh, and get readyfor this episode.
And it was so great.
(01:29):
It's just.
Wow.
I'm realizing I've come a longway since, uh, being a little
pastor's kid who.
Was taught that, even sayingthat word out loud was, uh,
sinful.
So, um, I'm just, yeah.
And he decided for you all tolisten.
But I also really encourage youto.
(01:53):
Maybe find a time when you canlisten to this with like a paper
and pen or some way to takenotes, just because I feel like.
The guests I have on, he justhas so many valuable points and
also kind of offers like someresources and some ideas and
some questions that you can askyourself and your partner.
(02:13):
And so.
I just think it'd be reallycool.
Uh, to be able to kind of takenotes or, you know, maybe just
be willing to listen to itmultiple times and kind of pick
up the parts that.
That really stuck out to you.
So.
Without further ado, let's getinto the episode.
Cruelly Beloved.
(02:34):
Welcome back to this week'sepisode.
I have a super awesome guesthere.
I have Kelvin with me here and Iam going to pass it over to
Kelvin to kind of introduce andwe'll go from there.
Hi friends, my name is CalvinHauer.
I'm a licensed marriage andfamily therapist in the state of
Minnesota.
I'm a sex positive therapist.
(02:54):
I'm a part time professor, andI'm a full time nerd.
So I specialize in working withsex and sexuality.
And that comes in a lot ofdifferent varieties.
I focus on a lot of differentaspects of those topics within
my, uh, office.
And, like I said, uh, part timeprofessor, I teach, uh, other
(03:17):
marriage and family therapistsabout sex and sexuality.
I teach the, what is it?
systemic assessment andtreatment of sexual concerns
class at one of our localuniversities.
It's a mouthful.
I just call it sex class wow.
It sounds so official though.
Very cool.
It sounds like you do so muchfor people and for the
community.
So thank you so much for all youdo.
(03:40):
I mean, I try to give tocommunity, but community
supports me, right?
It's a simple thing.
So as much as I try to work withfolks, you know, recognizing
community supports me, they paymy bills.
So, you know, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I know we kind of chattedabout this, um, but I was kind
(04:03):
of sharing that.
Both myself and I know fromspeaking with people who
listened to the podcast, there'sa lot of folks here who have
like religious backgrounds andwho have expressed, you know,
both the feelings of, so even ifthey're in like a happy and
secure queer relationship,there's still like those
(04:24):
feelings of shame and unlearningthings from our past.
And, um, Some of that comeswith, like, some
uncomfortability when it comesto discussing sex and intimacy.
So, um, I was just wondering ifyou could kind of touch on that
and Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean, baseline, right?
(04:45):
Informed consent.
We're talking about sex today.
I'm going to be talking aboutsex.
I'm going to be using languagethat specifically centers sex,
um, and we can get into that alittle bit around, you know, how
we talk about this and why it'simportant to talk about it the
way we do.
I really want to name though, ifsex is a hard subject to listen
(05:07):
to, to engage with, it's totallyokay to just tap out on this
one, right?
Skip this one.
It's just some, some dudetalking about sex, whatever,
right?
Know that there's plenty ofresources out there.
I'm always happy to talk tofolks, be it by email, schedule
sessions, whatever, right?
It's, Again, we're leaning intocommunity.
(05:29):
I want to support the communityas much as possible.
And if that means just beingsome guy that maybe you engage
with when you feel ready,totally fine.
Uh, what else should Iacknowledge?
I think just really, you know,I'm going to talk about some of
the things that come up aroundsex, especially within queer
relationships and queermarriages.
(05:51):
Uh, some of the historicalcontext around, uh, queer
marriage and some of thediscussions around that when it,
in centering sexuality andtalking about some of the
explicit stuff.
So if you don't got that in you.
No, no shame on that.
Please take care of yourself andknow that I'm always available
(06:14):
via email.
Uh, it's just Calvin atCalvinHowardTherapy.
com.
Again, that's Calvin atCalvinHowardTherapy.
com and that's C A L V I N H A UE R.
Perfect.
Yeah, I can definitely link thatin the show notes for sure.
Yeah, no, that's so great.
I really appreciate you sayingthat.
And yeah, obviously no shame inthe game.
(06:35):
If this episode isn't for you,um, yeah, do you have obviously
again, I know people can canreach out to you for like the
specifics, but do you have anythoughts for just kind of.
Maybe some good starting placesfor folks who might still kind
of be working through this.
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely I'm gonna pull it upon my side just so I get it
(06:57):
right though my favorite personis regarding like sex and
religious backgrounds is RevBev.
So Reverend Beverly Dale is ascholar and Reverend, uh, who
studies sexuality and differentinterpretations of religious
(07:18):
teachings through a sex positiveand queer lens.
She does amazing work.
I know she was running the, Ithink, Incarnation Institute.
I may have missed messed thatup, but you can you can Google
her.
She's great.
Rev.
Bev and she does a lot of greatwork around centering queerness
(07:42):
in religious texts.
Um, and she does a lot of reallycalling out some of the sex
negative teachings orchallenging some of the sex
negative teachings from some ofour, uh, religious institutions,
specifically from herperspective, Christianity, but
she has a cohort of folks withother, uh, religious backgrounds
(08:04):
that she also engages with.
So, if you, if that's part ofyour story, you know, check out
her stuff.
She does amazing work and justknow that.
Just because you were taughtsomething, or you were told that
the Bible says this, or thisreligious script says this, know
(08:25):
that before the printing press,religious scripts were changed
by scribes, right?
So, the people who held powerchanged our religious texts.
And then the people who holdpower now, interpret the
religious texts within a certaincontext.
(08:45):
Believe what you, what you needto believe, right?
And recognize that your creatoror God or whomever, however you
refer to them, they want you tohave really awesome sex.
They want you to be yourauthentic self.
They want you to center joy,right?
And So many of our religiousbackgrounds and teachings around
(09:10):
sex are misguided ormisinterpreted or could be
interpreted a different waythrough specific historical
contexts and specific historicalcontext about who was changing
our religious texts.
So that's a whole vibe, but justknow that like, you know,
(09:32):
there's a lot that goes into it.
And my genuine belief is that,you know, God wants you to have
amazing sex.
Wow.
I'm like, we could just end thepodcast right here.
Like that was so beautiful.
And so I, yeah, I just, I don'tknow if I've ever heard it
(09:52):
articulated so well.
So thank you for saying that.
Totally.
Let's talk about sex.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I know when we kind of firststarted chatting, um, you, uh,
kind of presented the idea thatThere's a lot that goes on in
like the different stages ofqueer relationships, um, from,
(10:15):
you know, dating to engagementto wedding, all of that.
So, kind of take it away.
Totally, totally.
So, I'm going to talk a littlebit about, some of this stuff is
in context to heterosexualrelationships too.
But, I can speak to it from aqueer lens.
Um, I'm a bisexual.
(10:36):
I work with primarily queerfolks.
I do have a few straights that Iwork with and, but like they're
queer straights.
So when we, one of the traps Isee are not traps, but one of
the difficulties I see withinrelational development is kind
of the ongoing next thing.
(10:56):
Um, um, I don't know if you havedogs, but one of the things that
I always think about.
Oh, there we go.
You know, when your dog getsreally impatient and wants to do
the next thing, even if you'redoing something that the dog
likes in my household, we callit onto the next thing.
I think we get like that withinour relationships, not to equate
(11:17):
relationships with dogs, but tosay, I think we get into this
place of forever looking for thenext dopamine drop, right?
All those good endorphins anddopamine, all the good feelings
that come with the new thingonto the next thing, right?
And when we're talking aboutrelationships, when we start a
(11:42):
relationship, we enter that newrelationship energy.
So, the polyamorous and nonmonogamous really call this out,
right?
When you start a newrelationship, you're in NRE, or
New Relationship Energy.
And that's that, like, amazingfeeling that your body just is,
like, buzzing because you'retalking to someone, and you're
(12:03):
like, there's new things, you'relearning about them.
You can share the same storiesyou share all the time, but
they're new to them, too.
So, like, it's just all thatgood, good, good and that
continues for some say likethree months to two years,
depending on the relationship,that new relationship energy,
all this feels so good.
And there's all of these likemicro.
(12:27):
Escalations that occur.
So, you know, when you firststart talking to someone, you're
flirting, it can feel reallynice, like, oh, the back and
forth.
And at the escalates to hangingout, going on dates, doing
romantic things, that firstkiss, all of those things are
gonna be really rewarding to ourbodies and our brains, right?
(12:48):
Your brain is literally saying,connect with this person.
You like them.
Keep talking to them.
Keep engaging with them.
And that's new relationship.
Energy is probably the stagewhere I see people fall into the
most trouble folks in earlyrecovery tend to relapse in N.
(13:09):
R.
E.
because if they're meeting upwith someone new and they offer
them a drink or something likethat, their brain is buzzing
with so many neurochemicals thatthey're just like, yes, I don't
care.
I can do this.
Yes, trouble, but it's also Isee it like affect work, right?
I stayed up too late texting mynew sweetie.
(13:32):
I have can't focus at work oryou know, I am like not focusing
on other like familyrelationships or friend
relationships because I'mfocused on.
This new person that N.
R.
E.
escalates more and more and moreuntil you're really, really
established, right?
(13:53):
Say cohabitating, um, and likeseeing each other all the time.
Now, what do you do?
The next best escalation isengagement, right?
And that kind of restart some ofthat new relationship energy.
You get a lot of kudos, you geta lot of excitement.
(14:14):
You're engaging with a lot ofpeople around, you know, this
new step.
And that kind of continuesthrough the wedding process.
And then you kind of run intothat thing that, I don't know if
you've heard this, uh, Olympicgold medalists fall into a huge
depression.
Right.
(14:34):
They've been training for thisthing.
And then what now?
Well, I see that with, withmarriage, people put all of this
energy into this relationshipinto this event, right?
Like, we're bringing thefamilies together.
We're doing all this stuff.
(14:54):
And that can go a number ofdifferent ways, right?
It's funny, I was talking to mywife, uh, prior to coming to my
office to record, and I waslike, well, we're talking about,
uh, queer marriage, and One ofthe things that are like, what
(15:15):
are the things that you thinkabout with that?
Like, what are some pro tips?
And she's like, that you don'thave to have sex on the night of
your wedding.
Absolutely.
Right.
It's okay to just want to fallasleep and not.
engage in a sexual connection,right?
It's a lot that's happened thatthere's so much pressure.
(15:37):
I think on the wedding night andthen the honeymoon to be like
super sexual or whatever.
Right?
And that's kind of entrenched inget pregnant.
Now go have babies and for folkswho can't do that unassisted.
Now we're just focusing on thesex piece, but maybe not.
Maybe we're not acknowledgingthat.
(15:58):
I don't know.
Right?
And But post, post wedding, nowwe're looking at, you know, do
we buy a house?
Unless they already have ahouse, right?
Do we start a family?
What do we want to do with thenext parts of our life?
I've seen a lot of straightcouples fall into onto the next
(16:21):
thing, onto the next thing,start a relationship,
cohabitate.
Get engaged, get married, havekids.
And then the having kids processis so traumatic and
disconnecting for the couplethat by the time that they can
actually reconnect and reallyform like a sexual bond together
(16:45):
again, the kids 18 and themarriage isn't feeling really.
Disconnected.
And that's often where I, youknow, I'm doing work with, you
know, some folks say like, whatdo you want out of this marriage
now?
And with gay marriage beingstill relatively new, uh,
(17:08):
legally, We are starting to see,like, the, well, what is the on
to the next thing piece?
How do we keep people together?
What do we invest in to maintainthe relationship?
So we're not relying on newrelationship energy.
We're not relying on therelationship escalator and all
(17:29):
of those, like, dopamine hitsalong the way.
Yeah.
Wow.
That is, yeah, it's like, I'mlistening.
I'm like, Oh, this all is makeso much sense and is very true,
but I feel like it's probablynot something that all of us
like recognize, right?
It's so easy to get kind of justcaught up in it.
(17:51):
So, Oh, yeah.
And like, why wouldn't you wantto get caught up in it?
It feels great.
You know, it's just, it's anatural high, just, you know,
all the time.
And It's, it's an awesomefeeling, right?
As much as I'm maybe I amcritiquing this or, you know, we
will continue to critique it.
(18:12):
Like, I really want toacknowledge it feels awesome.
All these steps feel great.
And I am such a don't overthinkwhat feels good person.
If it feels good.
And those are these steps allare bringing you two together
more and more like that'sawesome.
Embrace it.
Enjoy it.
(18:32):
Right?
Really?
Just like the world sucks.
Enjoy the nice things, right?
And let's look at thesustainability because
sustainability is really key andmaintaining happy, healthy
relationships.
Yeah.
I did have a question pop intomy mind and Maybe it's too broad
(18:54):
of a question, or maybe it's notthe right question, but I'm, I
think, hearing you talk aboutsome of these things, I'm like,
but I feel like this has tomanifest differently for
different kinds of couples, andI don't mean it in, like, a
stereotyping way, but, like,lesbians, obviously, we do have
a stereotype of moving veryquickly, and, like, you hauling
(19:18):
and all of those stereotypes,But lesbian bed death, right?
Like that's the, like, that'sthe other stereotype, you
hauling and then lesbian, uh,bed death, this is, you're not
familiar with that.
I'm a lesbian and I'm notfamiliar.
(19:38):
This, so it's, it's, uh, it'sreferencing like long term
lesbian relationships where sexbecomes less and less
prioritized to a point wherethere just isn't a sexual
relationship.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just curious.
Cause like that, you know, it'sa stereotype.
(20:02):
It may not always happen, butlike from our perspective,
that's not necessarilyunhealthy.
Whereas like for another couple,maybe it is, or like it
manifests differently in adifferent kind of relationship.
So.
Kind of curious about that.
Totally, totally.
I think it's so important torecognize every relationship as
(20:23):
its own thing, right?
And yes, we're talking about,um, we're maybe talking about
some stereotypes here and, youknow, we can acknowledge that
stereotypes can be reallyharmful and, you know,
disclaimer, disclaimer.
But to say that, like, there's alot of considerations that go
into all different types ofdynamics, right, so be it a
(20:47):
lesbian relationship, gay malerelationship, bisexual for
bisexual relationship, straightfor bisexual relationship, it
all gets complicated, right?
Recognizing that there's justgoing to be dynamics that show
up within every relationshipthat are going to provide some
(21:07):
strengths and provide somechallenges.
I think that when we talk aboutlike the idea of like gay
marriage as like a legalconcept, there's so many reasons
why we needed that, right?
Specifically, historicallylooking at You know, who gets,
you know, in on the will and whogets to visit you in the
(21:28):
hospital.
Like, these are really importantthings, especially for our
communities.
And some of the critiques were,if we're going to assimilate.
and we're going to, you know,kind of model ourselves after a
straight marriage, that's goingto cause problems.
(21:48):
Um, and so we need to do itdifferently.
And I think that over the last,you know, was it 11 years now?
Uh, the, the dynamics areshifting and evolving.
How we talk about marriagewithin queer community is
shifting and changing.
How we talk about some of thesedynamics and some of these like,
(22:12):
Things that just kind of pop upas jokes or whatever, um, are
starting to shift too.
Right?
We're acknowledging you hauling.
We're acknowledging, uh, youknow, circuit gays who are maybe
ready to settle down.
We're acknowledging all of thesedifferent things and it becomes
important for all of us toreally Talk about what do we
(22:37):
want this relationship to looklike it's so easy again in that
new relationship energy stage.
It's so easy to fall into justlike falling madly in love with
somebody, right?
Who doesn't want a sapphicromance?
God, that's like forever, right?
But, you know, eventually someof that has to subside.
(23:00):
You got to do other things.
Got to pay the bills, right?
You got to go live your life.
Yeah.
How do you keep that quoteunquote spark going?
How do you, you know, drawattention to, oh, wow, we moved
in with each other reallyquickly.
How do we feel about that?
How do we embrace again, thechallenges of the relationship,
(23:21):
right?
It's so easy to minimize those,it becomes increasingly
difficult to actually, like, sitdown and say, hey, we both want
to move really fast right now.
Maybe we need to slow down or,hey, You know, we are avoiding
really difficult conversationsabout sex, and we should really
(23:44):
set some intentions aroundtalking about that.
I don't know if I answered yourquestion.
I went on, like, 4 side quests.
Stereotypes are there for, youknow, a number of reasons and
stereotypes can be funny.
Stereotypes can be true to acertain degree.
And it can be harmful, right?
And so, you know, with whateverwe want to embrace around them,
(24:07):
also acknowledging that itdoesn't have to be your fate.
Yeah, totally.
So is that kind of one of thegeneral principles as you're
talking about couples movingthrough the different stages
and, how life changes and all ofthat?
Is that kind of a generalprinciple of you want it?
(24:27):
Yeah.
Couples to figure out what isgoing to be sustainable for
them.
Or what do you kind of helpcouples through these different
stages?
Oh my gosh.
Yes, absolutely.
Right.
You know, unfortunately, and youcould ask any, like any couples
therapist, this question, likehow many of your couples
actually stay together, more ofour couples break up and stay
(24:51):
together because they're comingto us in active, right?
Like.
Shit has gone off the rails.
We're doing, you know, we'retrying to repair some major
ruptures, right?
It's always funny when I have acouple coming in where
everything's going well, butthey want to work on
sustainability because sometimesI'm like, What are we going to
(25:13):
do?
And then Calvin, get out of thatmode.
We're not in firefighter modenow.
We're in, you know, like,foundation laying mode, right?
Let's, let's embrace carpentryand not firefighting.
So.
With, like, with looking atsustainability, it's, the work
(25:35):
that I do is a lot of askingsome of the hard questions,
right?
So, typically, with, like, allof my copy out in the world or
how I advertise myself, I reallylean into, I work with sex.
Mm hmm.
I work with sex specifically.
Uh, I'm not an intimacy coach.
I'm not a, you know, I don'tfocus on intimacy.
(25:57):
Intimacy per se, because Ireally want to say I work on
work with sex.
Now, side note, going on a wholeside quest here.
Language is super duperimportant, right?
That's why I like reclaimingqueer is really important to our
communities.
Uh, why bridging away from justgay to like gay.
(26:20):
Uh, lesbian, bisexual, like,being able to talk about all the
nuances of different experiencesis really important, right?
And when we use catch all termslike intimacy, we actually do a
few disservices to ourselves.
Because intimacy is manydifferent things.
Intimacy can be holding handsand talking about, you know,
(26:45):
growing up.
Intimacy can be making foodtogether.
Intimacy is sharing resources.
Intimacy is connection.
And there are so many ways to beintimate with somebody.
And to equate sex with intimacy,we actually Minimize all the
other ways that we're intimatewith folks around us.
(27:08):
It is true that they're likesexual intimacy is a form of
intimacy and sexual intimacy canbridge like mental, emotional
and physical intimacies and likea few other intimacies as well.
Time.
But sex itself needs to betalked about.
We have to say sex, uh, I workwith sex or sexuality because,
(27:33):
You're modeling to your clientsor the people that you're
talking to that I take thisreally seriously and This is an
important and legitimate part ofyou How many of us are walking
around feeling illegitimateabout our sexuality or who we
are as a sexual person?
We all have a complicatedrelationship with sexuality,
(27:54):
right?
And so when folks come to me, Inever want them to be able to be
working with me and say, Hmm, Ithink I need to work with a sex
therapist, bro.
You're with me.
We're doing it, which hashappened in the past when I've
worked in clinics where theydidn't talk about sex as much in
like their advertisements,despite the fact that they were
a sex therapy clinic, itconfuses people.
(28:16):
And so.
I put it out there.
We're working with sex.
We're talking about sex.
I'm going to model asking youabout sex.
We're going to say sex a milliontimes.
We're going to talk aboutpenises.
We're going to talk aboutvulvas.
We're going to talk about allthe parts.
We're going to talk about wayspeople are going to be sexual.
That's all important because ifwe can model that it's okay to
talk about, In a safe space,it's going to be talked about
(28:40):
elsewhere, so come to me,oftentimes they want to work on
maybe desire discrepancies orexploring different ways to make
their sexual relationship moresustainable, because maybe the,
you know, again, the quote,unquote spark has died and I
(29:01):
have to do a lot of work around.
All right.
How do we build an active,sustainable sex life amongst
these people?
What feels on, you know, whatfeels on brand for them, or
like, you know, good for them?
And what doesn't?
How do we explore those things?
And how do we just talk aboutit?
(29:22):
You know, the two of themthrough a third party, like
myself.
So that was a lot of sidequests.
I'll totally acknowledge that.
I don't know if I even touchedon your question, but when they
come to me, right, we're goingto talk about like, Hey,
sustainability, you know, whatmakes you feel good as a sexual
person?
What makes you feel good as asexual person?
(29:43):
If there's a third person, whatmakes you feel good about being
a sexual person?
What feels good in your body?
What feels good in your brain?
Where, when is sex intimate?
When is sex not intimate?
How do we talk about that?
How do we invite our whole bodyinto a sexual situation?
How do we acknowledge trauma?
(30:04):
We put it all on the table andsort through it so that we're
not avoiding it.
Because that's the thing that Isee happen with so many folks is
the avoidance of the topic ofsex.
That can lead to total avoidanceof sex as a concept within the
(30:27):
relationship that can lead to,you know, an affair or sleeping
around that can manifest a lotof different ways.
So do you then find itbeneficial to talk about?
Sex differently in these kind ofdifferent stages, or do you kind
(30:48):
of try to figure out how to, youknow, keep it the same?
Or do you kind of individualizeit based on?
Oh, my gosh, great question.
I'm going to answer yourquestion with a question.
Uh, name for me a relationshipthat has not evolved or changed
in your life.
(31:08):
Sorry, can you say it one moretime?
Name for me a relationship thatyou have that has not evolved or
changed over time.
None.
Right?
Our relationship with sex is thesame way.
Right?
What feels good and sexy whenwe're 18 maybe doesn't feel good
(31:30):
and sexy when we're 80, right?
And I don't know about you, butI don't want to retire as a
sexual being.
I don't think many of yourlisteners want to retire as a
sexual being, right?
We want to be sexual throughoutour lives.
And so if I were to approach itfrom the standpoint of, Let's
(31:51):
set, let's set the post andlike, let's keep that forever.
We can't, we run into the issueof, well, it's going to work for
now until it doesn't.
So what we're doing isoftentimes I'm meeting clients
where they're at, right?
If it's a newer relationship,we're leaning into the NRE and
(32:11):
we're leading into, What feelsgood about this?
And also, let's acknowledge thehard pieces now, right?
If they're maybe in that two tolike six to eight years
together, we're starting to lookat, all right, what are our next
(32:32):
goals?
And how does your relationshipwith sexuality maybe work in
conjunction with those goals ornot?
And then kind of that 10 yearsplus area now, we're really
looking at how do we keep therelationship erotic as this
(32:54):
person is now your family.
Yeah, yeah, that's so real.
And I know that it's can be kindof such a big overarching
question and obviously it'sgoing to look a little bit
different for for everybody.
But do you have some kind ofgeneral things that you can
offer to folks as they're.
(33:16):
You know, in their differentstages of maybe they're, they're
in a committed relationship,maybe they're engaged, or maybe
they're about to get married.
Oh, my goodness.
So, one of my favorite tools forfolks is filling out a yes, no,
maybe list.
Okay.
So, this is, If you want to be,like, hyperclinical about it,
(33:41):
it's called a sexual interestinventory, but I like Yes, No,
Maybe list more.
Google Yes, No, Maybe lists.
Uh, you will find a number ofthem.
The Scarlet Teen one, I reallylike, especially for, like,
newer relationships.
There's, like, some that, inthat list, There's, like, some
subject matter that just willnot apply to certain
(34:02):
relationships.
Acknowledging that, but a yes,no, maybe list is just a list of
different, like, sexualsituations, or sexual acts, or
relationship styles, or how youhandle difficult situations,
like birth control stuff, ifthat's part of the process for
(34:25):
folks.
And.
What happens is, uh, I'm goingto talk about it from a couple's
standpoint.
I work with a number of couples,too.
But, uh, you know, a couple willindividually fill out their yes,
no, maybe list and it's thatlist and for things that are
like yeses, you circle yes.
If it's a no, you circle no.
(34:46):
If it's a maybe, you circlemaybe.
Very self explanatory.
And the idea is you bring ittogether and you compare.
You know, and you're looking atthe lists, right?
So each person fills out theirown and then you compare and a
lot of it's probably going tofeel like, Oh yeah, I knew this
about you.
But there's going to be a fewwhere someone's got a going to
(35:06):
have a yes.
And maybe their partner is goingto have a maybe, or there's
going to be maybe some yesesthat have never been stated.
Or there's going to be newsexual acts that people have
never considered.
And I'm like, I don't even knowwhat muffing is, let's, let's
Google it.
Not at work.
(35:28):
being able to go through thatand do that every five-ish
years, maybe more often, is agreat way to keep talking about
sex and our individualrelationships with sex and how
we share that with our partnerbecause.
(35:49):
We need to be able to continuethe conversation beyond just
that initial fumbling in thebedroom.
Does that feel good?
Yes.
Right.
We need to, we need to optimizeit.
We need it.
We need it to feel good foreverybody.
So I like to use a tool likethat.
I really like talking aboutspontaneous versus responsive
(36:13):
desire.
The tool control model from theKinsey Institute is that, is
that idea.
And the idea that in a newrelationship, we're going to
have a lot more spontaneousdesire.
It's that desire, just like thelightning bolt, as Emily Nagoski
says, the lightning bolt to yourcrotch, like, oh, my gosh, like,
(36:35):
that's awesome.
Right?
Like, us who experiencedspontaneous desire.
That's amazing.
And there's so many factors thatgo into that spontaneous desire
and.
Unfortunately, culturally,really, we really norm that
that's the desire we're supposedto have versus the responsive
desire, which is that, like,setting intentional time
(36:58):
together, sharing time in bed,just, you know, massaging each
other or, like, holding eachother, talking about our days.
Physical intimacy, the emotionalintimacy, and checking in, do
you feel like you would want tobe sexual tonight or not?
Being able to coach peoplethrough that can help them
(37:21):
continue to engage in sex.
Again, sex really getsdeprioritized.
It's that this weird thing and,you know, not to be this guy and
also to be this guy, right?
Like, we live in a capitalistculture and sex, especially
queer sex, doesn't, doesn'tcreate money making
(37:48):
opportunities, right?
Now, you could argue thatheterosexual sex creates babies
and that, you know, Supports theeconomy and blah, blah, blah,
blah, right.
But queer sex inherently doesn'tfit within a patriarchal
capitalist system.
And so it's easy to really avoidit or to like deprioritize it
(38:11):
when you have, you know, you'reworking 70 hours a week and
you're dealing with family stuffand you have to mow the lawn
again because apparently thegrass has grown and Oh my God,
something's happening with ourhouse.
Right?
Like.
Life gets really unsexy, andwhen you don't have that
spontaneous desire anymore, oryou're not as aware of it, sex
(38:36):
really kind of can fall off, andunfortunately that's where we
see the avoidance occur, andthe, well now if I, you know,
it's been too long, if I try tobe sexual with my partner, it's
gonna feel awkward.
Well, sex is awkward.
That's okay.
Sex is goofy.
Sex is silly and dumb, right?
(38:57):
Like, it's the most importantand least important thing we do
and we have to prioritize it.
We have to prioritize it morethan we do.
And that's a lot of the workthat I do.
Especially with my queerclients.
I love kind of the things thatyou recommended because they're
(39:17):
so, it's so simple, but I lovethat it, I can meet you where
you are at in different, indifferent stages of your
relationship.
Um, I think kind of my lastquestion is my partner and I,
when we do something like this,we're like, yes, we very much
want to talk to somebody who isat least queer themselves or has
(39:42):
experience working with thequeer community, even just from
the aspect of, like, they're notgoing to be like, wait, how do
you guys have sex?
You know, just like baselinethings, of course.
Right?
Um, but I'm kind of curious ifyou, if you Notice like big
differences between the topicsand issues within the queer
(40:02):
community, or if there's a lotof overlap in just relationships
in general.
I'm trying to think that's sucha big question.
I mean, every community, likequeer community is such a big
umbrella, right?
So to approach, to approach.
(40:23):
Different sub communities, or,you know, just communities, I
should say, uh, as though theumbrella will justify working
with everybody the same way is ahuge disservice, because the
concerns within certaincommunities may not be as much
(40:45):
of a concern in a differentcommunity.
And that doesn't mean that thoseconcerns aren't legitimate or
anything.
It's really just like showing upand saying, like, You know,
what's going on and how can I beeffective, you know, from a
therapeutic lens anyway, how canI be effective in supporting
these folks?
So, you know, kind of likezooming out for a second, you're
(41:08):
acknowledging, like, you don'treally want to, you wouldn't
want to work with a therapistwho is going to ask how do you
have sex, right?
Now, I actually do ask thatquestion, but not in that way,
right?
Like, I understand how lesbians.
can be sexual with each other,right?
I understand how various peoplecan be sexual with each other.
(41:29):
And when I ask that question,I'll ask like, hey, what does
sex look like within thisrelationship?
How do you, how do you talkabout sex?
How do you communicate, youknow, prior to, during, and
after sex?
What does aftercare look like?
Is there a prioritization ofthis or not?
(41:49):
And really kind of engaging inthose conversations to get at
more of the nuance of what's thepresenting problem.
The other, like, question thatoften I will ask is, what is
sex?
Right, because the like, tired,boring joke of, you know,
lesbians are always virginsbecause they're never having
(42:10):
sex, fuck you, first off, and,you know, like, how we
conceptualize sex through apenetrative lens is not helpful.
Right?
Sex can look so many differentways.
It can involve all of our body.
It can involve, you know, ourbrain.
I mean, it has to involve ourbrains, but like, it can involve
(42:33):
so much.
And oftentimes, I see peoplereally segmenting themselves
into sex is this act or thisact.
Nothing else.
And if you are working with atherapist who asks, who is like
trying to support you in sex andis super act for focused and not
(42:56):
inquisitive of sex as a largersystemic piece.
That's a big red flag, in myopinion.
Not talking shit about yourtherapist, and also to say, it's
important to have a therapistwho's curious, who wants to know
about your relationship with thesubject, but is not asking you
(43:19):
to educate them about it.
Basics around what sex is aslike, you know, from an act
standpoint, also, but also likelisteners, please don't fall
into that trap either.
Right?
Like, don't fall into the, thisisn't sex or, you know, I don't
(43:39):
count like this.
This act isn't sex, but this actis sex.
Acknowledge that there can be asexual charge in many different
acts.
And it's important to talk toyour spouse or your partner
about, you know, whatconstitutes cheating, what, you
know, when, like, what are thedynamics around an affair, what
(44:04):
that, what counts as that ornot, right.
I've worked with many, now thisis, sorry, total side, but this
is something I work with a lotwith more heterosexual folks is.
Um, folks getting caughtmasturbating and looking at porn
and coming to me saying I'm asex addict and one sex addiction
(44:28):
is controversial in sex therapyfields, we don't need to get
into it.
I take a more out of controlsexual behavior model
standpoint.
Um, but when I asked them like,Hey, what's, you know, tell me
about the problematic sex.
They will talk about, Oh yeah, Imasturbate once a week and my
(44:49):
wife found me or my husbandfound me or whatever.
And then the question becomes,okay, like why, tell me about
how that's a problem within yourrelationship.
That's very normative within,you know, it's actually a little
bit lower, but, you know, uh,it's, it's relatively normative.
(45:10):
Right?
So now we have to look at like,what are you looking to get out
of in this space?
Do you need me to like, say,you're okay, or do you want
support?
Right?
And I think that to kind ofexpand that to, um, all
relationships, it, there is areally important discussion that
needs to happen around.
(45:31):
What is.
What constitutes an affairconstitutes cheating is looking
at porn cheating is read isreading erotica cheating is You
know, flirting with somebodycheating or is, you know, oral
sex cheating, like what countsor not?
And how do you co create thatagreement?
(45:56):
All relationships are cocreation.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for taking mybig question.
Broad question and running withit, you know, I ran with it.
I don't know that I really, uh,I hit it, but you know, we're
going to, we're going to go withit just to say, right, this is
such a sensitive subject, right?
And I know that this is just ateaser.
(46:17):
Like I think we could keepgoing.
I know I keep going all day, butyou know, talking about this for
another two hours, easy, right?
I really want to stress tolisteners.
Talk about it now.
Right?
Have that internal conversation.
What is your relationship withsex like?
(46:38):
You know, what informs thatrelationship for you as an
individual and within yourdynamic with your partner, what
do you want it to look like?
And how do you talk to yourpartner about that, about those
dynamics?
If you don't talk about it, it'snot going to change and it's
just going to be avoided.
Yeah, and I'm going to say itnow, but I think I'm going to
(46:59):
need to kind of go back in termsof front and say it that people
should really have, like, apaper and pen or like note
taking somehow, because I feellike there were so many good
little tidbits in here, but alsoreally good questions to be
asking and hopefully encouragesome, some conversations and,
um, With each other.
(47:19):
So totally, totally.
And just know that there's somany resources out there and
there's so many qualityresources out there.
Don't settle for your bestfriend who knows nothing about
healthy relationships, right?
Like, or, you know, don't settlefor somebody who's just trying
to sell you something, right?
There's so much great communitybased knowledge, especially
(47:43):
within our communities.
Queer community had toacknowledge sex, we had to own
our sexuality, and one of thegreatest things about being
queer is that queer communityshows up for each other and will
educate.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
Thank you so much, Calvin.
(48:05):
It has been such a joy and toDiscuss sex with you, which I
never thought I would be sayingas a little bastard's kid, but
it's been, it's been so, sogreat.
So thank you for sharing andthanks for all you do.
Thanks for having me.
And thanks for taking the chanceon me.
I'm just some goober who waslike in your DMs being like, in
(48:26):
your podcast.
Yes.
Hello, my beloved queer folks.
(00:03):
How is everybody doing?
It is.
Starting to feel like winter.
Here in the Midwest and I alwayshave mixed feelings about it.
But.
Other than that, I hope thateveryone has continued to find
ways to.
(00:23):
Pope and.
Process and do what you need todo.
Um, In the weeks.
Since the election and, andleading up to an Accuration day,
I know it's such a weird time.
Yeah.
I wish I was better.
With the words and I.
Find myself saying that probablytoo often for somebody who has
(00:46):
their own podcast, but.
I just wanted to quickly come onand give a personal hello to
everybody.
That's keeping up with thepodcast.
And I also just wanted to kindof give a forward to this week's
episode.
I, we talk about it a lot.
Um, the guests I have on thepodcast, we talk about.
(01:07):
Consenting and giving folksplenty of time to decide if they
want to listen or not to thisepisode, but just giving folks a
heads up that we are talkingabout sex and this episode,
which for me personally, Ireally had to put my big girl
pants on and, uh, and get readyfor this episode.
And it was so great.
(01:29):
It's just.
Wow.
I'm realizing I've come a longway since, uh, being a little
pastor's kid who.
Was taught that, even sayingthat word out loud was, uh,
sinful.
So, um, I'm just, yeah.
And he decided for you all tolisten.
But I also really encourage youto.
(01:53):
Maybe find a time when you canlisten to this with like a paper
and pen or some way to takenotes, just because I feel like.
The guests I have on, he justhas so many valuable points and
also kind of offers like someresources and some ideas and
some questions that you can askyourself and your partner.
(02:13):
And so.
I just think it'd be reallycool.
Uh, to be able to kind of takenotes or, you know, maybe just
be willing to listen to itmultiple times and kind of pick
up the parts that.
That really stuck out to you.
So.
Without further ado, let's getinto the episode.
Cruelly Beloved.
(02:34):
Welcome back to this week'sepisode.
I have a super awesome guesthere.
I have Kelvin with me here and Iam going to pass it over to
Kelvin to kind of introduce andwe'll go from there.
Hi friends, my name is CalvinHauer.
I'm a licensed marriage andfamily therapist in the state of
Minnesota.
I'm a sex positive therapist.
(02:54):
I'm a part time professor, andI'm a full time nerd.
So I specialize in working withsex and sexuality.
And that comes in a lot ofdifferent varieties.
I focus on a lot of differentaspects of those topics within
my, uh, office.
And, like I said, uh, part timeprofessor, I teach, uh, other
(03:17):
marriage and family therapistsabout sex and sexuality.
I teach the, what is it?
systemic assessment andtreatment of sexual concerns
class at one of our localuniversities.
It's a mouthful.
I just call it sex class wow.
It sounds so official though.
Very cool.
It sounds like you do so muchfor people and for the
community.
So thank you so much for all youdo.
(03:40):
I mean, I try to give tocommunity, but community
supports me, right?
It's a simple thing.
So as much as I try to work withfolks, you know, recognizing
community supports me, they paymy bills.
So, you know, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I know we kind of chattedabout this, um, but I was kind
(04:03):
of sharing that.
Both myself and I know fromspeaking with people who
listened to the podcast, there'sa lot of folks here who have
like religious backgrounds andwho have expressed, you know,
both the feelings of, so even ifthey're in like a happy and
secure queer relationship,there's still like those
(04:24):
feelings of shame and unlearningthings from our past.
And, um, Some of that comeswith, like, some
uncomfortability when it comesto discussing sex and intimacy.
So, um, I was just wondering ifyou could kind of touch on that
and Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean, baseline, right?
(04:45):
Informed consent.
We're talking about sex today.
I'm going to be talking aboutsex.
I'm going to be using languagethat specifically centers sex,
um, and we can get into that alittle bit around, you know, how
we talk about this and why it'simportant to talk about it the
way we do.
I really want to name though, ifsex is a hard subject to listen
(05:07):
to, to engage with, it's totallyokay to just tap out on this
one, right?
Skip this one.
It's just some, some dudetalking about sex, whatever,
right?
Know that there's plenty ofresources out there.
I'm always happy to talk tofolks, be it by email, schedule
sessions, whatever, right?
It's, Again, we're leaning intocommunity.
(05:29):
I want to support the communityas much as possible.
And if that means just beingsome guy that maybe you engage
with when you feel ready,totally fine.
Uh, what else should Iacknowledge?
I think just really, you know,I'm going to talk about some of
the things that come up aroundsex, especially within queer
relationships and queermarriages.
(05:51):
Uh, some of the historicalcontext around, uh, queer
marriage and some of thediscussions around that when it,
in centering sexuality andtalking about some of the
explicit stuff.
So if you don't got that in you.
No, no shame on that.
Please take care of yourself andknow that I'm always available
(06:14):
via email.
Uh, it's just Calvin atCalvinHowardTherapy.
com.
Again, that's Calvin atCalvinHowardTherapy.
com and that's C A L V I N H A UE R.
Perfect.
Yeah, I can definitely link thatin the show notes for sure.
Yeah, no, that's so great.
I really appreciate you sayingthat.
And yeah, obviously no shame inthe game.
(06:35):
If this episode isn't for you,um, yeah, do you have obviously
again, I know people can canreach out to you for like the
specifics, but do you have anythoughts for just kind of.
Maybe some good starting placesfor folks who might still kind
of be working through this.
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely I'm gonna pull it upon my side just so I get it
(06:57):
right though my favorite personis regarding like sex and
religious backgrounds is RevBev.
So Reverend Beverly Dale is ascholar and Reverend, uh, who
studies sexuality and differentinterpretations of religious
(07:18):
teachings through a sex positiveand queer lens.
She does amazing work.
I know she was running the, Ithink, Incarnation Institute.
I may have missed messed thatup, but you can you can Google
her.
She's great.
Rev.
Bev and she does a lot of greatwork around centering queerness
(07:42):
in religious texts.
Um, and she does a lot of reallycalling out some of the sex
negative teachings orchallenging some of the sex
negative teachings from some ofour, uh, religious institutions,
specifically from herperspective, Christianity, but
she has a cohort of folks withother, uh, religious backgrounds
(08:04):
that she also engages with.
So, if you, if that's part ofyour story, you know, check out
her stuff.
She does amazing work and justknow that.
Just because you were taughtsomething, or you were told that
the Bible says this, or thisreligious script says this, know
(08:25):
that before the printing press,religious scripts were changed
by scribes, right?
So, the people who held powerchanged our religious texts.
And then the people who holdpower now, interpret the
religious texts within a certaincontext.
(08:45):
Believe what you, what you needto believe, right?
And recognize that your creatoror God or whomever, however you
refer to them, they want you tohave really awesome sex.
They want you to be yourauthentic self.
They want you to center joy,right?
And So many of our religiousbackgrounds and teachings around
(09:10):
sex are misguided ormisinterpreted or could be
interpreted a different waythrough specific historical
contexts and specific historicalcontext about who was changing
our religious texts.
So that's a whole vibe, but justknow that like, you know,
(09:32):
there's a lot that goes into it.
And my genuine belief is that,you know, God wants you to have
amazing sex.
Wow.
I'm like, we could just end thepodcast right here.
Like that was so beautiful.
And so I, yeah, I just, I don'tknow if I've ever heard it
(09:52):
articulated so well.
So thank you for saying that.
Totally.
Let's talk about sex.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I know when we kind of firststarted chatting, um, you, uh,
kind of presented the idea thatThere's a lot that goes on in
like the different stages ofqueer relationships, um, from,
(10:15):
you know, dating to engagementto wedding, all of that.
So, kind of take it away.
Totally, totally.
So, I'm going to talk a littlebit about, some of this stuff is
in context to heterosexualrelationships too.
But, I can speak to it from aqueer lens.
Um, I'm a bisexual.
(10:36):
I work with primarily queerfolks.
I do have a few straights that Iwork with and, but like they're
queer straights.
So when we, one of the traps Isee are not traps, but one of
the difficulties I see withinrelational development is kind
of the ongoing next thing.
(10:56):
Um, um, I don't know if you havedogs, but one of the things that
I always think about.
Oh, there we go.
You know, when your dog getsreally impatient and wants to do
the next thing, even if you'redoing something that the dog
likes in my household, we callit onto the next thing.
I think we get like that withinour relationships, not to equate
(11:17):
relationships with dogs, but tosay, I think we get into this
place of forever looking for thenext dopamine drop, right?
All those good endorphins anddopamine, all the good feelings
that come with the new thingonto the next thing, right?
And when we're talking aboutrelationships, when we start a
(11:42):
relationship, we enter that newrelationship energy.
So, the polyamorous and nonmonogamous really call this out,
right?
When you start a newrelationship, you're in NRE, or
New Relationship Energy.
And that's that, like, amazingfeeling that your body just is,
like, buzzing because you'retalking to someone, and you're
(12:03):
like, there's new things, you'relearning about them.
You can share the same storiesyou share all the time, but
they're new to them, too.
So, like, it's just all thatgood, good, good and that
continues for some say likethree months to two years,
depending on the relationship,that new relationship energy,
all this feels so good.
And there's all of these likemicro.
(12:27):
Escalations that occur.
So, you know, when you firststart talking to someone, you're
flirting, it can feel reallynice, like, oh, the back and
forth.
And at the escalates to hangingout, going on dates, doing
romantic things, that firstkiss, all of those things are
gonna be really rewarding to ourbodies and our brains, right?
(12:48):
Your brain is literally saying,connect with this person.
You like them.
Keep talking to them.
Keep engaging with them.
And that's new relationship.
Energy is probably the stagewhere I see people fall into the
most trouble folks in earlyrecovery tend to relapse in N.
(13:09):
R.
E.
because if they're meeting upwith someone new and they offer
them a drink or something likethat, their brain is buzzing
with so many neurochemicals thatthey're just like, yes, I don't
care.
I can do this.
Yes, trouble, but it's also Isee it like affect work, right?
I stayed up too late texting mynew sweetie.
(13:32):
I have can't focus at work oryou know, I am like not focusing
on other like familyrelationships or friend
relationships because I'mfocused on.
This new person that N.
R.
E.
escalates more and more and moreuntil you're really, really
established, right?
(13:53):
Say cohabitating, um, and likeseeing each other all the time.
Now, what do you do?
The next best escalation isengagement, right?
And that kind of restart some ofthat new relationship energy.
You get a lot of kudos, you geta lot of excitement.
(14:14):
You're engaging with a lot ofpeople around, you know, this
new step.
And that kind of continuesthrough the wedding process.
And then you kind of run intothat thing that, I don't know if
you've heard this, uh, Olympicgold medalists fall into a huge
depression.
Right.
(14:34):
They've been training for thisthing.
And then what now?
Well, I see that with, withmarriage, people put all of this
energy into this relationshipinto this event, right?
Like, we're bringing thefamilies together.
We're doing all this stuff.
(14:54):
And that can go a number ofdifferent ways, right?
It's funny, I was talking to mywife, uh, prior to coming to my
office to record, and I waslike, well, we're talking about,
uh, queer marriage, and One ofthe things that are like, what
(15:15):
are the things that you thinkabout with that?
Like, what are some pro tips?
And she's like, that you don'thave to have sex on the night of
your wedding.
Absolutely.
Right.
It's okay to just want to fallasleep and not.
engage in a sexual connection,right?
It's a lot that's happened thatthere's so much pressure.
(15:37):
I think on the wedding night andthen the honeymoon to be like
super sexual or whatever.
Right?
And that's kind of entrenched inget pregnant.
Now go have babies and for folkswho can't do that unassisted.
Now we're just focusing on thesex piece, but maybe not.
Maybe we're not acknowledgingthat.
(15:58):
I don't know.
Right?
And But post, post wedding, nowwe're looking at, you know, do
we buy a house?
Unless they already have ahouse, right?
Do we start a family?
What do we want to do with thenext parts of our life?
I've seen a lot of straightcouples fall into onto the next
(16:21):
thing, onto the next thing,start a relationship,
cohabitate.
Get engaged, get married, havekids.
And then the having kids processis so traumatic and
disconnecting for the couplethat by the time that they can
actually reconnect and reallyform like a sexual bond together
(16:45):
again, the kids 18 and themarriage isn't feeling really.
Disconnected.
And that's often where I, youknow, I'm doing work with, you
know, some folks say like, whatdo you want out of this marriage
now?
And with gay marriage beingstill relatively new, uh,
(17:08):
legally, We are starting to see,like, the, well, what is the on
to the next thing piece?
How do we keep people together?
What do we invest in to maintainthe relationship?
So we're not relying on newrelationship energy.
We're not relying on therelationship escalator and all
(17:29):
of those, like, dopamine hitsalong the way.
Yeah.
Wow.
That is, yeah, it's like, I'mlistening.
I'm like, Oh, this all is makeso much sense and is very true,
but I feel like it's probablynot something that all of us
like recognize, right?
It's so easy to get kind of justcaught up in it.
(17:51):
So, Oh, yeah.
And like, why wouldn't you wantto get caught up in it?
It feels great.
You know, it's just, it's anatural high, just, you know,
all the time.
And It's, it's an awesomefeeling, right?
As much as I'm maybe I amcritiquing this or, you know, we
will continue to critique it.
(18:12):
Like, I really want toacknowledge it feels awesome.
All these steps feel great.
And I am such a don't overthinkwhat feels good person.
If it feels good.
And those are these steps allare bringing you two together
more and more like that'sawesome.
Embrace it.
Enjoy it.
(18:32):
Right?
Really?
Just like the world sucks.
Enjoy the nice things, right?
And let's look at thesustainability because
sustainability is really key andmaintaining happy, healthy
relationships.
Yeah.
I did have a question pop intomy mind and Maybe it's too broad
(18:54):
of a question, or maybe it's notthe right question, but I'm, I
think, hearing you talk aboutsome of these things, I'm like,
but I feel like this has tomanifest differently for
different kinds of couples, andI don't mean it in, like, a
stereotyping way, but, like,lesbians, obviously, we do have
a stereotype of moving veryquickly, and, like, you hauling
(19:18):
and all of those stereotypes,But lesbian bed death, right?
Like that's the, like, that'sthe other stereotype, you
hauling and then lesbian, uh,bed death, this is, you're not
familiar with that.
I'm a lesbian and I'm notfamiliar.
(19:38):
This, so it's, it's, uh, it'sreferencing like long term
lesbian relationships where sexbecomes less and less
prioritized to a point wherethere just isn't a sexual
relationship.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just curious.
Cause like that, you know, it'sa stereotype.
(20:02):
It may not always happen, butlike from our perspective,
that's not necessarilyunhealthy.
Whereas like for another couple,maybe it is, or like it
manifests differently in adifferent kind of relationship.
So.
Kind of curious about that.
Totally, totally.
I think it's so important torecognize every relationship as
(20:23):
its own thing, right?
And yes, we're talking about,um, we're maybe talking about
some stereotypes here and, youknow, we can acknowledge that
stereotypes can be reallyharmful and, you know,
disclaimer, disclaimer.
But to say that, like, there's alot of considerations that go
into all different types ofdynamics, right, so be it a
(20:47):
lesbian relationship, gay malerelationship, bisexual for
bisexual relationship, straightfor bisexual relationship, it
all gets complicated, right?
Recognizing that there's justgoing to be dynamics that show
up within every relationshipthat are going to provide some
(21:07):
strengths and provide somechallenges.
I think that when we talk aboutlike the idea of like gay
marriage as like a legalconcept, there's so many reasons
why we needed that, right?
Specifically, historicallylooking at You know, who gets,
you know, in on the will and whogets to visit you in the
(21:28):
hospital.
Like, these are really importantthings, especially for our
communities.
And some of the critiques were,if we're going to assimilate.
and we're going to, you know,kind of model ourselves after a
straight marriage, that's goingto cause problems.
(21:48):
Um, and so we need to do itdifferently.
And I think that over the last,you know, was it 11 years now?
Uh, the, the dynamics areshifting and evolving.
How we talk about marriagewithin queer community is
shifting and changing.
How we talk about some of thesedynamics and some of these like,
(22:12):
Things that just kind of pop upas jokes or whatever, um, are
starting to shift too.
Right?
We're acknowledging you hauling.
We're acknowledging, uh, youknow, circuit gays who are maybe
ready to settle down.
We're acknowledging all of thesedifferent things and it becomes
important for all of us toreally Talk about what do we
(22:37):
want this relationship to looklike it's so easy again in that
new relationship energy stage.
It's so easy to fall into justlike falling madly in love with
somebody, right?
Who doesn't want a sapphicromance?
God, that's like forever, right?
But, you know, eventually someof that has to subside.
(23:00):
You got to do other things.
Got to pay the bills, right?
You got to go live your life.
Yeah.
How do you keep that quoteunquote spark going?
How do you, you know, drawattention to, oh, wow, we moved
in with each other reallyquickly.
How do we feel about that?
How do we embrace again, thechallenges of the relationship,
(23:21):
right?
It's so easy to minimize those,it becomes increasingly
difficult to actually, like, sitdown and say, hey, we both want
to move really fast right now.
Maybe we need to slow down or,hey, You know, we are avoiding
really difficult conversationsabout sex, and we should really
(23:44):
set some intentions aroundtalking about that.
I don't know if I answered yourquestion.
I went on, like, 4 side quests.
Stereotypes are there for, youknow, a number of reasons and
stereotypes can be funny.
Stereotypes can be true to acertain degree.
And it can be harmful, right?
And so, you know, with whateverwe want to embrace around them,
(24:07):
also acknowledging that itdoesn't have to be your fate.
Yeah, totally.
So is that kind of one of thegeneral principles as you're
talking about couples movingthrough the different stages
and, how life changes and all ofthat?
Is that kind of a generalprinciple of you want it?
(24:27):
Yeah.
Couples to figure out what isgoing to be sustainable for
them.
Or what do you kind of helpcouples through these different
stages?
Oh my gosh.
Yes, absolutely.
Right.
You know, unfortunately, and youcould ask any, like any couples
therapist, this question, likehow many of your couples
actually stay together, more ofour couples break up and stay
(24:51):
together because they're comingto us in active, right?
Like.
Shit has gone off the rails.
We're doing, you know, we'retrying to repair some major
ruptures, right?
It's always funny when I have acouple coming in where
everything's going well, butthey want to work on
sustainability because sometimesI'm like, What are we going to
(25:13):
do?
And then Calvin, get out of thatmode.
We're not in firefighter modenow.
We're in, you know, like,foundation laying mode, right?
Let's, let's embrace carpentryand not firefighting.
So.
With, like, with looking atsustainability, it's, the work
(25:35):
that I do is a lot of askingsome of the hard questions,
right?
So, typically, with, like, allof my copy out in the world or
how I advertise myself, I reallylean into, I work with sex.
Mm hmm.
I work with sex specifically.
Uh, I'm not an intimacy coach.
I'm not a, you know, I don'tfocus on intimacy.
(25:57):
Intimacy per se, because Ireally want to say I work on
work with sex.
Now, side note, going on a wholeside quest here.
Language is super duperimportant, right?
That's why I like reclaimingqueer is really important to our
communities.
Uh, why bridging away from justgay to like gay.
(26:20):
Uh, lesbian, bisexual, like,being able to talk about all the
nuances of different experiencesis really important, right?
And when we use catch all termslike intimacy, we actually do a
few disservices to ourselves.
Because intimacy is manydifferent things.
Intimacy can be holding handsand talking about, you know,
(26:45):
growing up.
Intimacy can be making foodtogether.
Intimacy is sharing resources.
Intimacy is connection.
And there are so many ways to beintimate with somebody.
And to equate sex with intimacy,we actually Minimize all the
other ways that we're intimatewith folks around us.
(27:08):
It is true that they're likesexual intimacy is a form of
intimacy and sexual intimacy canbridge like mental, emotional
and physical intimacies and likea few other intimacies as well.
Time.
But sex itself needs to betalked about.
We have to say sex, uh, I workwith sex or sexuality because,
(27:33):
You're modeling to your clientsor the people that you're
talking to that I take thisreally seriously and This is an
important and legitimate part ofyou How many of us are walking
around feeling illegitimateabout our sexuality or who we
are as a sexual person?
We all have a complicatedrelationship with sexuality,
(27:54):
right?
And so when folks come to me, Inever want them to be able to be
working with me and say, Hmm, Ithink I need to work with a sex
therapist, bro.
You're with me.
We're doing it, which hashappened in the past when I've
worked in clinics where theydidn't talk about sex as much in
like their advertisements,despite the fact that they were
a sex therapy clinic, itconfuses people.
(28:16):
And so.
I put it out there.
We're working with sex.
We're talking about sex.
I'm going to model asking youabout sex.
We're going to say sex a milliontimes.
We're going to talk aboutpenises.
We're going to talk aboutvulvas.
We're going to talk about allthe parts.
We're going to talk about wayspeople are going to be sexual.
That's all important because ifwe can model that it's okay to
talk about, In a safe space,it's going to be talked about
(28:40):
elsewhere, so come to me,oftentimes they want to work on
maybe desire discrepancies orexploring different ways to make
their sexual relationship moresustainable, because maybe the,
you know, again, the quote,unquote spark has died and I
(29:01):
have to do a lot of work around.
All right.
How do we build an active,sustainable sex life amongst
these people?
What feels on, you know, whatfeels on brand for them, or
like, you know, good for them?
And what doesn't?
How do we explore those things?
And how do we just talk aboutit?
(29:22):
You know, the two of themthrough a third party, like
myself.
So that was a lot of sidequests.
I'll totally acknowledge that.
I don't know if I even touchedon your question, but when they
come to me, right, we're goingto talk about like, Hey,
sustainability, you know, whatmakes you feel good as a sexual
person?
What makes you feel good as asexual person?
(29:43):
If there's a third person, whatmakes you feel good about being
a sexual person?
What feels good in your body?
What feels good in your brain?
Where, when is sex intimate?
When is sex not intimate?
How do we talk about that?
How do we invite our whole bodyinto a sexual situation?
How do we acknowledge trauma?
(30:04):
We put it all on the table andsort through it so that we're
not avoiding it.
Because that's the thing that Isee happen with so many folks is
the avoidance of the topic ofsex.
That can lead to total avoidanceof sex as a concept within the
(30:27):
relationship that can lead to,you know, an affair or sleeping
around that can manifest a lotof different ways.
So do you then find itbeneficial to talk about?
Sex differently in these kind ofdifferent stages, or do you kind
(30:48):
of try to figure out how to, youknow, keep it the same?
Or do you kind of individualizeit based on?
Oh, my gosh, great question.
I'm going to answer yourquestion with a question.
Uh, name for me a relationshipthat has not evolved or changed
in your life.
(31:08):
Sorry, can you say it one moretime?
Name for me a relationship thatyou have that has not evolved or
changed over time.
None.
Right?
Our relationship with sex is thesame way.
Right?
What feels good and sexy whenwe're 18 maybe doesn't feel good
(31:30):
and sexy when we're 80, right?
And I don't know about you, butI don't want to retire as a
sexual being.
I don't think many of yourlisteners want to retire as a
sexual being, right?
We want to be sexual throughoutour lives.
And so if I were to approach itfrom the standpoint of, Let's
(31:51):
set, let's set the post andlike, let's keep that forever.
We can't, we run into the issueof, well, it's going to work for
now until it doesn't.
So what we're doing isoftentimes I'm meeting clients
where they're at, right?
If it's a newer relationship,we're leaning into the NRE and
(32:11):
we're leading into, What feelsgood about this?
And also, let's acknowledge thehard pieces now, right?
If they're maybe in that two tolike six to eight years
together, we're starting to lookat, all right, what are our next
(32:32):
goals?
And how does your relationshipwith sexuality maybe work in
conjunction with those goals ornot?
And then kind of that 10 yearsplus area now, we're really
looking at how do we keep therelationship erotic as this
(32:54):
person is now your family.
Yeah, yeah, that's so real.
And I know that it's can be kindof such a big overarching
question and obviously it'sgoing to look a little bit
different for for everybody.
But do you have some kind ofgeneral things that you can
offer to folks as they're.
(33:16):
You know, in their differentstages of maybe they're, they're
in a committed relationship,maybe they're engaged, or maybe
they're about to get married.
Oh, my goodness.
So, one of my favorite tools forfolks is filling out a yes, no,
maybe list.
Okay.
So, this is, If you want to be,like, hyperclinical about it,
(33:41):
it's called a sexual interestinventory, but I like Yes, No,
Maybe list more.
Google Yes, No, Maybe lists.
Uh, you will find a number ofthem.
The Scarlet Teen one, I reallylike, especially for, like,
newer relationships.
There's, like, some that, inthat list, There's, like, some
subject matter that just willnot apply to certain
(34:02):
relationships.
Acknowledging that, but a yes,no, maybe list is just a list of
different, like, sexualsituations, or sexual acts, or
relationship styles, or how youhandle difficult situations,
like birth control stuff, ifthat's part of the process for
(34:25):
folks.
And.
What happens is, uh, I'm goingto talk about it from a couple's
standpoint.
I work with a number of couples,too.
But, uh, you know, a couple willindividually fill out their yes,
no, maybe list and it's thatlist and for things that are
like yeses, you circle yes.
If it's a no, you circle no.
(34:46):
If it's a maybe, you circlemaybe.
Very self explanatory.
And the idea is you bring ittogether and you compare.
You know, and you're looking atthe lists, right?
So each person fills out theirown and then you compare and a
lot of it's probably going tofeel like, Oh yeah, I knew this
about you.
But there's going to be a fewwhere someone's got a going to
(35:06):
have a yes.
And maybe their partner is goingto have a maybe, or there's
going to be maybe some yesesthat have never been stated.
Or there's going to be newsexual acts that people have
never considered.
And I'm like, I don't even knowwhat muffing is, let's, let's
Google it.
Not at work.
(35:28):
being able to go through thatand do that every five-ish
years, maybe more often, is agreat way to keep talking about
sex and our individualrelationships with sex and how
we share that with our partnerbecause.
(35:49):
We need to be able to continuethe conversation beyond just
that initial fumbling in thebedroom.
Does that feel good?
Yes.
Right.
We need to, we need to optimizeit.
We need it.
We need it to feel good foreverybody.
So I like to use a tool likethat.
I really like talking aboutspontaneous versus responsive
(36:13):
desire.
The tool control model from theKinsey Institute is that, is
that idea.
And the idea that in a newrelationship, we're going to
have a lot more spontaneousdesire.
It's that desire, just like thelightning bolt, as Emily Nagoski
says, the lightning bolt to yourcrotch, like, oh, my gosh, like,
(36:35):
that's awesome.
Right?
Like, us who experiencedspontaneous desire.
That's amazing.
And there's so many factors thatgo into that spontaneous desire
and.
Unfortunately, culturally,really, we really norm that
that's the desire we're supposedto have versus the responsive
desire, which is that, like,setting intentional time
(36:58):
together, sharing time in bed,just, you know, massaging each
other or, like, holding eachother, talking about our days.
Physical intimacy, the emotionalintimacy, and checking in, do
you feel like you would want tobe sexual tonight or not?
Being able to coach peoplethrough that can help them
(37:21):
continue to engage in sex.
Again, sex really getsdeprioritized.
It's that this weird thing and,you know, not to be this guy and
also to be this guy, right?
Like, we live in a capitalistculture and sex, especially
queer sex, doesn't, doesn'tcreate money making
(37:48):
opportunities, right?
Now, you could argue thatheterosexual sex creates babies
and that, you know, Supports theeconomy and blah, blah, blah,
blah, right.
But queer sex inherently doesn'tfit within a patriarchal
capitalist system.
And so it's easy to really avoidit or to like deprioritize it
(38:11):
when you have, you know, you'reworking 70 hours a week and
you're dealing with family stuffand you have to mow the lawn
again because apparently thegrass has grown and Oh my God,
something's happening with ourhouse.
Right?
Like.
Life gets really unsexy, andwhen you don't have that
spontaneous desire anymore, oryou're not as aware of it, sex
(38:36):
really kind of can fall off, andunfortunately that's where we
see the avoidance occur, andthe, well now if I, you know,
it's been too long, if I try tobe sexual with my partner, it's
gonna feel awkward.
Well, sex is awkward.
That's okay.
Sex is goofy.
Sex is silly and dumb, right?
(38:57):
Like, it's the most importantand least important thing we do
and we have to prioritize it.
We have to prioritize it morethan we do.
And that's a lot of the workthat I do.
Especially with my queerclients.
I love kind of the things thatyou recommended because they're
(39:17):
so, it's so simple, but I lovethat it, I can meet you where
you are at in different, indifferent stages of your
relationship.
Um, I think kind of my lastquestion is my partner and I,
when we do something like this,we're like, yes, we very much
want to talk to somebody who isat least queer themselves or has
(39:42):
experience working with thequeer community, even just from
the aspect of, like, they're notgoing to be like, wait, how do
you guys have sex?
You know, just like baselinethings, of course.
Right?
Um, but I'm kind of curious ifyou, if you Notice like big
differences between the topicsand issues within the queer
(40:02):
community, or if there's a lotof overlap in just relationships
in general.
I'm trying to think that's sucha big question.
I mean, every community, likequeer community is such a big
umbrella, right?
So to approach, to approach.
(40:23):
Different sub communities, or,you know, just communities, I
should say, uh, as though theumbrella will justify working
with everybody the same way is ahuge disservice, because the
concerns within certaincommunities may not be as much
(40:45):
of a concern in a differentcommunity.
And that doesn't mean that thoseconcerns aren't legitimate or
anything.
It's really just like showing upand saying, like, You know,
what's going on and how can I beeffective, you know, from a
therapeutic lens anyway, how canI be effective in supporting
these folks?
So, you know, kind of likezooming out for a second, you're
(41:08):
acknowledging, like, you don'treally want to, you wouldn't
want to work with a therapistwho is going to ask how do you
have sex, right?
Now, I actually do ask thatquestion, but not in that way,
right?
Like, I understand how lesbians.
can be sexual with each other,right?
I understand how various peoplecan be sexual with each other.
(41:29):
And when I ask that question,I'll ask like, hey, what does
sex look like within thisrelationship?
How do you, how do you talkabout sex?
How do you communicate, youknow, prior to, during, and
after sex?
What does aftercare look like?
Is there a prioritization ofthis or not?
(41:49):
And really kind of engaging inthose conversations to get at
more of the nuance of what's thepresenting problem.
The other, like, question thatoften I will ask is, what is
sex?
Right, because the like, tired,boring joke of, you know,
lesbians are always virginsbecause they're never having
(42:10):
sex, fuck you, first off, and,you know, like, how we
conceptualize sex through apenetrative lens is not helpful.
Right?
Sex can look so many differentways.
It can involve all of our body.
It can involve, you know, ourbrain.
I mean, it has to involve ourbrains, but like, it can involve
(42:33):
so much.
And oftentimes, I see peoplereally segmenting themselves
into sex is this act or thisact.
Nothing else.
And if you are working with atherapist who asks, who is like
trying to support you in sex andis super act for focused and not
(42:56):
inquisitive of sex as a largersystemic piece.
That's a big red flag, in myopinion.
Not talking shit about yourtherapist, and also to say, it's
important to have a therapistwho's curious, who wants to know
about your relationship with thesubject, but is not asking you
(43:19):
to educate them about it.
Basics around what sex is aslike, you know, from an act
standpoint, also, but also likelisteners, please don't fall
into that trap either.
Right?
Like, don't fall into the, thisisn't sex or, you know, I don't
(43:39):
count like this.
This act isn't sex, but this actis sex.
Acknowledge that there can be asexual charge in many different
acts.
And it's important to talk toyour spouse or your partner
about, you know, whatconstitutes cheating, what, you
know, when, like, what are thedynamics around an affair, what
(44:04):
that, what counts as that ornot, right.
I've worked with many, now thisis, sorry, total side, but this
is something I work with a lotwith more heterosexual folks is.
Um, folks getting caughtmasturbating and looking at porn
and coming to me saying I'm asex addict and one sex addiction
(44:28):
is controversial in sex therapyfields, we don't need to get
into it.
I take a more out of controlsexual behavior model
standpoint.
Um, but when I asked them like,Hey, what's, you know, tell me
about the problematic sex.
They will talk about, Oh yeah, Imasturbate once a week and my
(44:49):
wife found me or my husbandfound me or whatever.
And then the question becomes,okay, like why, tell me about
how that's a problem within yourrelationship.
That's very normative within,you know, it's actually a little
bit lower, but, you know, uh,it's, it's relatively normative.
(45:10):
Right?
So now we have to look at like,what are you looking to get out
of in this space?
Do you need me to like, say,you're okay, or do you want
support?
Right?
And I think that to kind ofexpand that to, um, all
relationships, it, there is areally important discussion that
needs to happen around.
(45:31):
What is.
What constitutes an affairconstitutes cheating is looking
at porn cheating is read isreading erotica cheating is You
know, flirting with somebodycheating or is, you know, oral
sex cheating, like what countsor not?
And how do you co create thatagreement?
(45:56):
All relationships are cocreation.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for taking mybig question.
Broad question and running withit, you know, I ran with it.
I don't know that I really, uh,I hit it, but you know, we're
going to, we're going to go withit just to say, right, this is
such a sensitive subject, right?
And I know that this is just ateaser.
(46:17):
Like I think we could keepgoing.
I know I keep going all day, butyou know, talking about this for
another two hours, easy, right?
I really want to stress tolisteners.
Talk about it now.
Right?
Have that internal conversation.
What is your relationship withsex like?
(46:38):
You know, what informs thatrelationship for you as an
individual and within yourdynamic with your partner, what
do you want it to look like?
And how do you talk to yourpartner about that, about those
dynamics?
If you don't talk about it, it'snot going to change and it's
just going to be avoided.
Yeah, and I'm going to say itnow, but I think I'm going to
(46:59):
need to kind of go back in termsof front and say it that people
should really have, like, apaper and pen or like note
taking somehow, because I feellike there were so many good
little tidbits in here, but alsoreally good questions to be
asking and hopefully encouragesome, some conversations and,
um, With each other.
(47:19):
So totally, totally.
And just know that there's somany resources out there and
there's so many qualityresources out there.
Don't settle for your bestfriend who knows nothing about
healthy relationships, right?
Like, or, you know, don't settlefor somebody who's just trying
to sell you something, right?
There's so much great communitybased knowledge, especially
(47:43):
within our communities.
Queer community had toacknowledge sex, we had to own
our sexuality, and one of thegreatest things about being
queer is that queer communityshows up for each other and will
educate.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
Thank you so much, Calvin.
(48:05):
It has been such a joy and toDiscuss sex with you, which I
never thought I would be sayingas a little bastard's kid, but
it's been, it's been so, sogreat.
So thank you for sharing andthanks for all you do.
Thanks for having me.
And thanks for taking the chanceon me.
I'm just some goober who waslike in your DMs being like, in
(48:26):
your podcast.
Yes.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.