August 20, 2025 • 70 mins
What happens when kink becomes the key to healing religious shame?
In this raw and redemptive episode I sit down with Lauren Elise Rogers, a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator who grew up in a high-control religion. Together, we unpack how purity culture distorts sexuality—and how kink can actually be a path to freedom, power, and deep healing.
Lauren shares her personal story of leaving behind religious indoctrination, rediscovering her body, and exploring kink as a way to reclaim desire. We break down:
- The four cornerstones of eroticism and how they show up after religious trauma
- Why fantasy, taboo, and power dynamics can be healing (not harmful)
- How writing and playing out a kinky “scene” can renegotiate trauma
- The difference between reenacting pain and reclaiming power through play
- How to identify safe vs. unsafe partners or spaces for exploration
Whether you’ve lived through purity culture, survived religious trauma, or love someone who has—this episode gives you tools to rewrite your sexual story and step fully into your pleasure.
👉 Stay tuned to the end for a powerful exercise on creating your sexual values mission statement—a game-changer for anyone reclaiming their erotic power.
Find Lauren Here: https://sexedforyou.com/
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My spicy OF handle is @talksexwithannette
My free spicy handle is @annettetalkssex
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here.
Nothing's off limits.
These are the kinds ofconversations we save for our
boldest group chats, our mosttrusted friends and, of course,
the women's locker room.
Think raw, honest and sometimesunapologetically raunchy.
If you've been here from thebeginning, thank you, and if
(00:40):
you're new, welcome to mypodcast.
Where desire meets disruptionand pleasure becomes power.
Now let's talk about sex Cheers.
Today's Talk Sex with Annette.
Topic is kink after religioustrauma.
Today we are going to talkabout something that's both
(01:02):
tender and taboo.
What happens when someone whogrew up in purity culture or
under religious controldiscovers kink?
For a lot of people, kink feelsterrifyingly sinful.
For others, it's the first timethey've ever felt free in their
body.
It can be both erotic andredemptive.
(01:22):
My guest, lauren Elise Rogers,knows this journey intimately.
She's a certified holisticsexuality educator and embodied
intimacy coach, and she grew upin a high control religion
herself.
Today, she helps people unpacksexual shame, reclaim pleasure
and yes, explore kink in a waythat heals rather than harms.
(01:46):
So let's dive into howreligious trauma intersects with
kink and why what you oncethought was simple might
actually set you free.
Now, before we dive in, I haveto remind you that I'm over on
OnlyFans and there I'm sharingmy sex and intimacy how-tos,
demonstrations and audio guidedself-pleasure meditations.
(02:06):
You can find me there with myhandle at TalkSexWithAnette.
You can also find me over onSubstack doing a whole lot of
the same by the same handle, sofind me there.
You can scroll down also to thelinks below and you're going to
be able to find me wherever youwant to hang out with me.
I'll look forward to seeing youthere, but for now, I would
love to give Elise a moment totell you guys a little bit more
(02:30):
about her.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me, annette.
I am Larnalise Rogers, as waspreviously stated, and yes, I
have not always been a certifiedholistic sexuality educator.
I grew up inside of highcontrol religion, a deep
believer in all of the tenets ofpurity culture, and it wasn't
(02:53):
until I found myself alone onthe floor of my basement
apartment, having lost my firstmarriage, my whole community and
my whole religion, that I beganto dig into who I was as a
sexual being, and I was reallyperplexed by the idea that if I
was no longer a virgin, did thatmake me a whore?
And who was I as a sexual woman?
(03:18):
And I began to dig and I beganto play with my sexual body and
with sexual partners and I trulyset myself free.
I learned that I could be akinky, loving, sex-positive
human being, while also aligningmyself with my sexual values
(03:39):
and my ethics, and it truly wastransformational for me.
So friends began to say what areyou doing?
You seem so different.
What are the books you've beenreading?
Tell us about your journey.
And that's what started me downthe road to going back to
school, to now working withindividuals both in person and
around the world on Zoom, asthey, too, heal from purity
(04:02):
culture or religiousindoctrination, or for any of us
out there who feel that we gotan incomplete and inaccurate
understanding of sexuality.
I work with a lot of folks whofeel like the sex ed they got in
middle school or high schoolisn't enough.
So we work together on thingseven like the topic we're
(04:22):
discussing today, to really stepinto worlds such as
non-monogamy or kink places withan ethic and values that feel
juicy in their bodies.
So thank you so much for havingme here today.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Thank you for being here.
I'm just going to say it.
I get a lot of compliments onmy podcast voice and how sexy it
is.
But I mean, Lauren, I amconfident you've gotten the same
.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I have gotten the same.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Oh, melting a little bit myself.
I'm excited to talk about thisNow.
I want to be clear.
There is high control, cult,cult like religious experiences,
and I want to differentiatethat from my upbringing, which
also in my in my, I guess,experience I felt I was raised
(05:17):
Catholic like during the week.
I was going to, you know,church on the weekends and was
educated under that completely.
And even though people say it'sdifferent and I don't know,
I've never been in a religiouscult but it felt pretty fucking
cult-liked to me and so myupbringing around sex was also
(05:40):
very like you wait till marriage, you only do it under these
circumstances, it's for havingbabies and all that stuff.
So I'm excited about thisconversation because clearly you
and I have left the flock, ifyou will to find a new flock,
and I want my listeners to stayto the end Because whether you
(06:01):
yourself are coming out ofreligious trauma, as so many of
us have, whether on the level ofliterally coming out of a cult,
a religious cult, or coming outof a small or religious cult
Catholicism, evangelicalreligious situation, or someone
(06:22):
you know that you want topartner up with has you are
going to have some tools by theend of this podcast to start
dealing with that right andknowing how to heal yourself and
embrace your sensuality andexplore your sexuality and
define for yourself what thatgets to be.
This is a very importantconversation because so many of
(06:44):
us and I would venture to saythe majority of us have at least
a tiny bit of that purityculture ingrained into our
sexuality and we want to undothat for you right, so you can
step into your full sexual self.
So I'm ready.
Are you ready?
I'm so ready.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm so ready selves.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So I'm ready.
Are you ready?
I'm so ready, I'm so ready.
All right, let's get ready totalk about religion and kinky
religion, kink and yeah, cheers,cheers.
All right, I want to start here.
When you think back to yourreligious upbringing, what was
the messaging around sex, kinkor even fantasy that you
received?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think there was no messaging around each of those
three topics sex, kink andfantasy.
What was left was for youngpeople to stumble into
disciplinary measures when theyexperimented or asked a question
.
There's some cute meme outthere on the internet that says
(07:50):
there's three rules of purityculture.
One you don't know the rules.
Two, you'll only find out therules when you stumble into them
.
And three, the punishment forbreaking the rules is that
you're an evil person for therest of your life.
It's so vague and so I've toldmy story all the time, and it
includes that I received zerosexuality education until the
(08:12):
night before my wedding.
As my mother is dying ofpancreatic cancer, she says to
me Lauren, take care of yourhusband's needs and everything
else will be fine.
The joke goes on that two yearsafter our divorce my husband
came out as gay.
So for a decade I was spendingmy life trying to meet the
(08:34):
sexual needs of this man thatwere never going to be met
because he wasn't attracted tomy body.
Then it was interesting whenyou mentioned kink, I was given
this messaging within my sect ofreligiosity that sex between
one man and one woman inmarriage could be as salacious
(08:56):
as you wanted it to be going tobe some switch that was flipped,
wherein you would be a sexgoddess for your husband.
How I don't know, but it wasgiven to you that that was the
expectation.
And so there was, I think, alittle bit and we'll circle back
(09:20):
to this of this erotictitillation that I experienced
in my body for whatever thisunknown was.
But then your third question wasbeautiful.
This idea of fantasy wasequivalent to cheating, was
equivalent to cheating on yourfuture husband if you were using
fantasy in masturbatorybehavior or, equivocated, to
cheating inside of a marriage aswell.
(09:42):
You were to be in belonging toGod and your father if you were
in a female body, and God andyour future spouse if you're in
your male body until yourwedding day, and then you belong
to your spouse, and any form offantasy was a high no-no.
And they would always use theverse of he whosoever looks at
another man's wife is committingadultery, and they would always
(10:03):
use the verse of he who so everlooks at another man's wife is
committing adultery, and all ofthese things about lust and
cutting your eyes out, whichI've gone on to learn are poorly
(10:24):
translated, but yeah, sexspecifically how kink can be
used in a way to reclaimsexuality and to heal from
religious trauma.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So for someone coming out of religious trauma, what
are some specific kinks ordynamics that can be redemptive?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So one of my favorite authors is Dr Jack Moran and he
wrote this beautiful book, theErotic Mind, and, if listeners
have not picked up this copy,either on Audible or a paperback
, highly recommend.
If you are coming out of anyform of high control religion or
if you feel that educationmight have been willfully
(11:04):
withheld from you because,friends, that's unethical.
You deserve to know about yoursexual body now and the bodies
of others, and you deserve tomake highly informed decisions.
So Dr Jack Moran would say thatpleasure is the greatest
antidote to pain, and so theseincredible erotic minds of ours
(11:24):
will contrive fantasies,situations, ideas, scenes that
could be incredibly, incrediblyerotic to us.
And so for myself and many ofmy clients who have come out of
religious spaces, we have foundthat we fall into one of four
(11:45):
categories that Dr Jack Morancalls the cornerstones of
eroticism.
Would it be okay if I justhighlighted each of the four?
So the first one isanticipation and longing.
So this idea that we arereaching for that thing that is
just out of reach, that we arelonging, which, for those of us
(12:07):
raised with this idea that wewere a princess in a tower
waiting for our knight inshining armor, we sometimes got
highly identified with this typeof narrative.
We'll get to how this could beincredibly kinky later, right?
Then we have this search forpower being number two this idea
(12:27):
of power over or power under,which, of course, many of us
would draw a direct line to kinkand BDSM.
Search for power Number threethis idea of violating
prohibitions.
So, interestingly enough, somany of my clients had their
first kiss or their firstblowjob, either like behind the
(12:48):
baptismal or in the car afteryouth group.
So we had a lot of thenaughtiness factor going on
inside of religious spaces,because young people who are
healthy sexual beings are stilldeveloping, but it's developing
in the shadows.
So it's this idea of the tabooor what's just out of reach.
(13:08):
Then number four is overcomingambivalence, this idea that we
get turned on by the human whois ambivalent towards us.
This is my highest kink.
This idea that no one has thetime of day for me.
This idea that I need to drawsomeone's attention to me, which
(13:31):
is interesting because referearlier to the gay husband.
Before my gay husband, I had afirst crush who was also gay,
and my first kiss, who was alsogay.
I had been so cultured to beafraid of the boy who only wants
one thing and to be so pure andchaste that I became turned on
(13:53):
by the boys who were ambivalenttowards me.
So while this could be highlyerotic, it's highly problematic
in the relational sphere.
And yet those four tend to besomething that I see a lot of us
, having come out of religiousspaces, enjoy very much.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That is interesting.
I recently had a very short butintense intimate relationship
with a woman who was coming outof and I think it's I mean, I
(14:37):
think you can confirm it's along process to come out of and
deprogram yourself from a highcontrol religious situation.
And she had discovered that shewas queer in that coming out
process.
And so I'm going to be explicithere this was fascinating to me
.
Of course, I have known I'mqueer for a very long time.
I date people of all gendersand I'm well practiced at it.
(15:00):
But she was a first for me.
She was a handful of years outof this high control situation,
still kind of figuring out.
She was married with kids,supportive spouse, figuring out
her queerness, this big love,but ambivalent towards her
(15:29):
seemingly.
And I ended up unknowinglybecoming a second sexual
experience.
And this now brings me toanother modality you talked
about.
We were having sex and shereally wanted to give oral sex
to me and I was like, all rightif I must allow you to do that,
okay, and I've never experiencedthis in my entire life, because
(15:52):
she was not touching herself oranything like that, and she
couldn't stop herself fromorgasming while giving me oral
sex.
I was like I was, like I wasmore fascinated, like what
Really?
Like I wanted to stop and like,study it Like I had never I was
like holy shit.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
First of all, I'm jealous.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I want this superpower of yours.
It was also incredibly hot forme, but after it I was really
caught up thinking about thisexperience.
How in the world does someonehave an orgasm just from doing
(16:34):
giving oral sex?
And it's the taboo nature of it.
And I bring this up because, asyou are going through these
different, what did you callthem?
What did you call them?
Cornerstones, the cornerstonesof eroticism?
Yes, I'm like oh, there's oneright the taboo that you should
not be doing this.
Not only should you not bequeer, you definitely shouldn't
(16:57):
be going down on another girl.
And I'm like I think that'sjust so erotic that it created
this scenario that I got towitness, which is beautiful, but
then also we ended up notcontinuing on because I'm not a
very ambivalent person Like once.
I'm like I'm into it, let's doit.
And for her, it created thisconfusion inside of her because
(17:21):
she couldn't let go of thisambivalent person and she didn't
know how to deal with directyou connection, like either
let's do not yes, and so Iexperienced as a partner.
I want to share my experience asa partner to someone coming out
of that, um, the amazingness,sexiness of that, that journey,
(17:45):
but at the same time, as apartner to someone, or someone
who's trying to be a partnerwith someone, who's dealing with
some deconditioning and trauma,the hardship of it as well, yes
, and you brought up such abeautiful point, which is the
(18:07):
sex was magical, if notexplosive, due to the nature of
the erotic content.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Jack has a erotic equation that goes like this
attraction plus obstacle equalsexcitement, plus obstacle equals
excitement.
We can think back to the daysof a cookie jar.
Right, we're attracted to thecookie.
There's an obstacle it's highup on a shelf.
That makes it more exciting.
Okay, attraction plus obstacleequals excitement, which makes
(18:36):
for incredibly, incrediblymagnetic, electric sex.
That makes for incrediblyunhealthy relationships between
human beings.
And what is so interesting fornerds like us, who love sex and
love humans and love dynamics,is no, you study just a little
(18:58):
bit, my friends, and you'll findthat we all deserve earned,
secure attachments and secureconnections.
We deserve to know that someoneis going to text us back when
they say they're going to.
We deserve to know that someoneis going to be at the date on
time or cancel in enough inadvance.
Those are healthy humandynamics that actually can make
(19:19):
a sexual container feel more fun, more safe, more electric,
wonderful.
We can titrate in as mucheroticism as we desire to, but
what is so sad and you'rebringing this up for so many of
us who had our sexualitysuppressed inside of religious
orthodoxy, it was shut into theshadows.
(19:39):
What happened was we began toeroticize deceit, we began to
hyper-eroticize this naughtinessfactor, and so those obstacles
became the very nature of thething that brings us pleasure.
So I am so excited that thishuman being got to experience
(19:59):
orgasm while being the one doingthe oral facts on you.
How magical, how magical thiscan happen.
It's just highly.
And I'm sitting here going yeah, of course that was happening
in the brain.
This idea of, oh my God, Ican't believe I get to do this
is literally causing theseneurons to fire and all of this
(20:22):
blood to flow to the genitals.
I mean, it's magical.
I'm so, so excited.
And what's wild is there's apoint of diminishing return Once
something has been not illicit,once we have given something
the approval, well then itceases to be exciting, which is
interesting.
(20:42):
Jack calls this a troublesometurn on, when the things that
used to turn us on are nowtroublesome.
They're rude, and that isactually a point that many
people come and find me.
They get free of religion.
They are sowing their wild oats.
They, like me, are on theirslut era.
They are so happy to besleeping with whomever they want
(21:02):
to sleep with and then all of asudden they can't orgasm
anymore.
All of a sudden they're havingerectile issues.
All of a sudden they found apartner.
That is everything they thoughtthey wanted and the sex was
great in the beginning.
But now they're starting to seethese old relational patterns,
or they start to see oh, the sexis boring again.
(21:23):
Lauren, am I broken?
Is this trauma coming back up?
Is this karma?
Is this my religious oppressionFascinating?
You just brought up like thebest case study in the world.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Right.
It was interesting because then, um Me being at a more healed
place in my life, seeing kind ofwhat she was going to need to
feel turned on and connected,which was somebody who was going
to pull away and push and pullher and sort of fulfill those
(21:59):
cornerstones in an unhealthy way, I was just like.
I was like this is not whereI'm at.
And I do understand, though,because for a long time I needed
to be in an anxious space tofeel turned on.
Or I thought the connection wasboring or I thought I wasn't
falling in love.
(22:19):
And with all of the work I'vedone now like I crave security
and eroticism in security, right, experimentation within
security and consistency, andthe minute I start to see
inconsistency, I'm like I'm nothere for that, but it's hard to
teach your nervous system thatright.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yes, this feels like a perfect segue into how kink
can be so helpful for thosewho've come out of religious
trauma.
So do you mind if we just go?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
right there.
I would love it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Okay, because what I would literally be saying to
someone with this exact tale,which is hi, hello me and also
so many of my clients, is thatthe power of knowing our erotic
minds is absolutely untold.
And so, friends, if you arelistening, do me a favor and sit
(23:13):
down and think back throughyour most likely to arouse you
fantasies and your most excitingsexual encounters and the porn
you go to most often, and therom-coms or the romance novels
or the sitcoms that you grew upon.
(23:35):
That turned you on.
I just want you to make a list,a little list for yourself.
Then, as we're talking throughthese cornerstones, I want you
to think through, oh my goodness, which one is most present.
Is it a touch of that ambivalentfactor?
There are so many sitcoms thatwe grew up in with where there's
(23:55):
a teenager walking down thehall and they just want Johnny
to notice them type of ideasthere's a ton of.
You know, I grew up saying thisI am a sinner in the sight of
God, justly deserving of hisdispleasure.
That was a first catechism thatI had to memorize.
I grew up thinking that theloving God that we're all taught
(24:16):
about didn't like me and I wasjustly deserving of his
displeasure.
So that idea, right that he'skind of ambivalent unless I work
to be loved, was in my bones.
So wouldn't you know?
Some of my favorite storylines,my favorite movies, my favorite
erotic materials all involvethis idea of ambivalence.
(24:37):
So again, go through, makethose lists.
Now here's the really beautifulthing about claiming our CETs
core erotic themes.
Once we know them, would theybecome like a superpower.
So I have fully disclosed thatovercoming ambivalence is one of
my greatest turn-ons.
(24:57):
Well, I have gone on to find anincredible partner who is
anything but ambivalent towardsme as we were just talking.
He supports my nervous system,he is there when he says he's
going to be, he goes to bed atan okay time, he talks to me
like a human being.
He is anything but ambivalent.
And yet we are able to titrateambivalence into our erotic
(25:22):
encounters, into my turn-ons, indifferent ways.
One of them goes like this ifit's a weekend and I'm horny and
I'm really wanting him and I amcoming on to him and I'm like,
hey, baby, what you doing laterhe can do this and I swear it is
the most funny and arousingthing.
(25:42):
He will look at his pretendwatch and he'll go oh babe, I
just really don't think I havetime for you today and I will
start clawing his clothes off,ripping at him, because what
this does is stoke my eroticfire in a way that sure you
(26:03):
could roll your eyes and sayit's playful.
Or you could say, wow, that manknows what turns her on.
She knows what turns her on,and it's a way that we can play
with ambivalence in our dynamicin a way that is still healthy.
Also, if sometime I'm flirtingwith him through text, he'll
just say Also, if sometime I'mflirting with him through text,
(26:23):
he'll just say shoo, it's ourlittle communication of I don't
have time for you right now, andit is lovingly worded in a way
that I know exactly what we'redoing.
We are playing with my eroticlanguage in.
You could argue a kinky way.
You could argue it's a brat way, right, you could go down each
of these angles and find adirect route to kink.
(26:44):
So if I found a client whoreally loved this search for
power, which I have a bit of too, I am highly turned on by this
idea of teacher-student.
I swear it is because of myentire life.
I was second because I'm in afemale body and men were first.
I grew up in the middle ofpatriarchy.
(27:04):
There was so much misogyny, sothis idea of the student turning
the teacher on and kind ofmorphing them and being so
desired by them that they takethe power over huge erotic kink
of mine.
Now I am a teacher, thisstudent-teacher dynamic,
incredibly unethical, would notbe good for me to go out and
(27:26):
have sex with my students, myclients no, and yet erotic
fiction, my friends, my favoritesubject matter, and so the way
we will play with this in kinkis sure.
Do I have school girl outfits?
You bet I do, and I will oftenread an erotic story and send it
to my partner and let him readit, and then in the bedroom
(27:48):
later we'll be whispering thefavorite parts of the story back
and forth to each other.
We will titillate right.
We will sprinkle it's likeerotic sprinkles on top of our
sexual encounters that lean into, not away from, the things that
turn me on.
There is no shame, not at all.
(28:08):
Friends, we are the people thatwe are because of our positive
and negative lived sexualexperiences, and it's okay when
we can claim them as our own.
So, so fun and so empowering wecan claim them as our own.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
So so fun and so empowering.
Can you talk about exactly howembracing kink leads to the
healing from the trauma?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes.
So Peter Levine, one of my veryfavorite trauma experts, talks
about this idea of reenactingtrauma versus renegotiating
trauma through play.
So let me give a brief exampleof the differentiation here.
I live in central Virginia,just a couple miles away from
Appomattox, virginia, which iswhere the Civil War ended.
(28:59):
I am not kidding.
Every year, those Civil Warreenactors put on some costumes
and they go out to the field andthey reenact the end of the
Civil War.
My friends, the ending alwaysstays the same.
That is how I want you toenvision the idea of reenacting
your trauma.
So earlier we saw a reenactment.
(29:22):
Right, it was very exciting.
There was some way that thislover wanted to have this
push-pull dynamic, wanted tohave this inconsistency, which
is, in essence, reenactment.
We all do it, my friends,whether you have religious
trauma or not.
Our brains are so brilliant.
They want to close the loop.
They want to Now.
Here's what Jack.
(29:42):
They want to close the loop,they want to Now.
Here's what Jack not Jack Peterfound when he studied trauma
and found that through this ideaof neoteny, this idea that we
have these juvenile minds thatare incredible creators,
incredible at pretending andplaying, we can, through the
work, through scene work, likewe would use in a kink space in
(30:05):
a dungeon.
We can change the ending.
So this is what's so cool bywriting out a kinky scene.
Writing out a scene such aswe'll use my search for power
scene, this idea that men werein charge of me from the
beginning of my life.
We could write out ateacher-student scene to play
(30:28):
with my partner in the bedroom,or if you're near a dungeon or
something of the like, you coulddo the same type of thing and
we'd write out the dynamic who'sin power?
Well, in a kinky scene wherethere's a sub and a down dynamic
, the submissive is always goingto have the power.
So this would be my scene.
We're writing it out, the wholething.
And then this is how I want tobring the teacher to me, and
(30:50):
then this is the oral sex I wantto receive, this is the oral
sex I want to give, and we'rerenegotiating the way that I was
the one who was being punished.
I was second, I was small, andwe are letting the scene be
different, the ending bedifferent, where the power is
(31:10):
given to me, not the teacher.
I'm the one who gets to sit indesire, which is really
interesting.
Also when we study.
Trauma is that a gazelle ifit's been chased, it freezes and
then, after there's no morethreat from the lion, it shakes.
It does this like really coolsomatic shake.
You know what also shakes theorgasmic body.
(31:33):
So it's really fascinating to me, as a person who works in this
pleasure world, when my clientshave been able to write out a
scene that centers theircornerstone.
This is going to happen, thenthis, then this, then this, and
then I would like to experiencean orgasm and then the scene
will end.
(31:53):
But this is the aftercare thatI want.
I want to cry, I want to beheld, I want to be stroked, I
want a cup of hot chocolate, Iwant my hair touched, I want to
be told I am beautiful and wholeand I have power just because I
exist in this body.
And then I want to look at youand I want to say all done the
(32:19):
stories that my clients comeback with when they write out a
scene that centers thecornerstone that was given to
them by folks who did not havegood intentions inside of
religious spaces.
But they have reclaimed andrenegotiated this trauma through
play, through kinky play, andthen sat in the aftercare and
(32:41):
basked in it, then sat there andtalked with their partners
about the things that were mostbrilliant to them.
I have had clients come backand say that healed the original
source wound by creating ascene following it all the way
through, including the aftercare.
I feel more powerful than Ihave ever felt more powerful
(33:06):
than I have ever felt.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
That's amazing and makes so much sense.
I don't think I've ever heardthat explained so beautifully
and perfectly before.
Thank you, and I've had a lotof these conversations.
I talk personally about sexualassault and healing.
That's more of my journey andit really is like learning to
reclaim power over your agencyin relationship to sex, which
(33:31):
brings me to something that Iknow, that you say regularly and
you're going to have to correctme because I know I'm going to
mess it up but you say sex isn'teverything, but it's in
everything.
Did I do that correctly, soclose?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
That works too.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I say sex is not everything, it's just a part of
everything, and I talk aboutthat on this show all the time
Because if I'm imagining and Icould be wrong, but I'm
imagining if, like me, you'vedefinitely gotten feedback from
the people in your life and Iconstantly get the question and
(34:09):
that why does everything have tobe about sex?
Why, why sex, sex, sex?
And my response is because sexis part of everything.
It's like it is part of everypart of our life.
Sexual energy is not just inthis little corner where you
take it out, even though youguys try to do this, you try to
put it over here and take it outwhen the lights are off and
(34:32):
you're hiding in your bedroom.
Sexual energy is in every partof your life, right, yes, and
what you are suggesting throughkink, in particular for people
who have had religious trauma,is basically reclaiming that
energy as part of your whole andnot as something that is
(34:54):
controlled by people who don'thave good intentions towards you
.
Right, this messaging we'vegotten from the patriarchy in
general, but we can drill thatdown into religion, high control
religion I would maybe say allreligion, but it was it.
There was no good intentionbehind it for most of the people
(35:16):
, meaning women and children andso on and so forth.
Right, yes, it was used tocontrol us and it was very
effective, because when womenembrace their sexual power, well
, there's a little script flipon who is in control?
Right, that's the reality.
(35:37):
But I love that you talk aboutyou take the scene and writing
the scene, because in kink andI'm sure you can explain this
even better than I do the sceneis sort of the container for a
lot of kink play.
And then how allowing theperson who's healing from trauma
(36:01):
to get control of the scene,because in life you can kind of
look at our life and thedifferent scenes in our life,
right?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yes, just that.
Let's just like dwell in thatidea that so many of us not so
many, all of us our lives aremade up of so many scenes.
They're all just little scenes,and so many of us could say,
uh-huh.
I understand that when we thinkback of a memory that replays
and replays, when we can drillit down to a scene and then we
(36:34):
can say wait a second, what if Irewrote it?
What would that look like?
What if that one time theneighbor boys were bullying me?
What if I turned this around?
What could this look like?
What if this centered mypleasure?
And what if pleasure is thegreatest antidote to pain?
What would that look like?
What if my chief cornerstone isanticipation and longing?
(36:56):
What is it like for me to writea scene for myself and my
long-term sexual partner, for meto be bound and teased and for
that thing that I want to bejust out of reach?
And what if I'm played withlike that?
And what if there is abeginning, middle and end?
And what would they be?
How could I take control back,reclaim and reaccess what was
(37:22):
always mine to begin with, bybecoming the author?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
of this.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
So, yes, in Kinky Spaces, we love scene work.
We love having your wants putforward.
What do you want?
What would you love to feel andexperience tonight?
And I would say, one of thenumber one things that most of
my clients, when they come intowork, cannot do is tell me what
they want.
So many of us, whether it wasin a high-control religious
(37:47):
space or just existing in thisworld, have been conditioned to
be human givers and we don'tknow what it's like to want.
And yet it's a prerequisite formost kinky spaces to be able to
put forward your greatestdesire and then to also be able
to clearly state your boundaries, which is why a scene is such a
(38:09):
juicy experience too.
And maybe going to a dungeon ora kinky space is not even an
interest of yours.
Maybe you're listening to thispodcast today again, as Annette
said so beautifully earlier,because you're involved with
someone who's come out of areligious space and you don't
intend to take them to a kinkspace to play, but you want to
involve some of these dynamicsin your play.
(38:33):
In the safety of your ownbedroom, you can sit down, talk
about an event that maybe wentawry, that your lover would like
to reclaim.
How would they like that endingto change?
Get silly, get playful.
Some of my clients find iteasier to draw a picture first.
To engage that piece of ourmind, like a child, to draw a
(38:57):
picture out, do it.
Use stick figures, my friends.
Stick figures are my friend.
I am no artist and it's okay.
It is okay to sit there anddraw first.
Maybe then you can share itorally with your lover.
I'd like this to happen, thisto happen, this to happen.
I recommend doing all of thesepre-negotiations with your
clothes on.
Do it while you're sharing adrink, a cup of coffee or water.
(39:20):
Sit there, imagine what itcould be, and make sure you talk
through the aftercare.
So many of us skip this veryimportant part, which is what
will I need when the scene isdone?
Which is what will I need whenthe scene is done?
For many of us, it is some formof being held or space to sit
there.
(39:40):
You might cry.
That's beautiful.
That is a completion of thestress response cycle.
You might need a warm blanket,you might need a bite of
chocolate, you might need somewater.
What is it that you might wantto have access to?
Interestingly enough, I also dothis type of work with
individuals who are not inrelationship and they are doing
a healing practice with theirown hands, with a
(40:02):
self-masturbatory practice.
They are bringing themselves toorgasm, using fantasy to
renegotiate the trauma.
Works the same Works the same.
Here's the most fascinatingpart when we write the scene and
we follow it through and wechange the ending and we
practice the aftercare, I haveclients who tell me Lauren, I'm
actually scared to lean into thescene because I haven't visited
(40:25):
that particular trauma in awhile.
And I say this is all I have totell you.
When I have done this practicemyself and when every client has
told me they've done it, when Ihave done this practice myself,
and when every client has toldme they've done it, the scene
releases its hold on you.
Almost every single one of myclients say that the moment they
worked through it, poof, itlost its grip.
It lost its grip because wechanged the ending.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It is so powerful.
I love that you bring upmasturbation and self-love as
also a way to go through.
You can be kinky with yourselfand people don't realize that we
all think we need somebody else, and I talk about self-love,
self-pleasure, masturbation allof the time.
(41:14):
I would say most of my sexualhealing work has been done alone
and it's so wonderful to beable to do that and it also is a
way to maintain your power.
It's not like you're saying Ineed this person to heal me,
it's like I'm going to healmyself.
I'm the magic that's showing uphere, right, and using fantasy
(41:39):
because your mind is so powerful, because really that's all
you're doing with someone else,right, you're still just
fantasizing.
You just got another human toparticipate with you in it and,
I think, also pointing out thatit is interesting when I look at
my sexual journey and I'm surethat this will resonate with you
(41:59):
I had all of these turn-onswhen I was younger or before I
did the work, things that likejust thinking about it, I would
get so turned on and thenallowing myself to fantasize
fully about those things withoutshame and without concern, and
even talk about them.
(42:20):
Suddenly, it was like one day Iwent to like fantasize and
masturbate to one of thosethings and I was like, oh, it
doesn't do it anymore for me.
I got a next level, this shit.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I got a next level, this shit All the time, time and
again.
Attraction plus obstacle equalsexcitement, and so sometimes,
when we eradicate the obstacle,sadly we lose the ability to be
able to drop in to the pleasurein the same way that we were
(42:54):
used to, because we havenormalized it, which is such a
beautiful point to bring intothis, because I think that so
many of us raised inside ofthese high-control religions
were told that on the other sideof the door was depravity, was
hedonism, right, that it was aslippery slope out there and you
better watch out.
(43:14):
And so I want everyone to hearus that sometimes I have run
into folks who got free, gotdeconstructed, started going
after all of these things andneeded to continue to heighten
the risk because of exactly whattalking about.
And I would caution here thatwe can start to expand our
(43:40):
understanding, and I would hopethat we are doing it at the same
point as we are developingsexual values and sexual ethics,
that there are ways to continueto turn on our erotic minds,
there are things that we canharness, there are ethical ways
that we can be involved withothers and with ourselves and in
(44:00):
our fantasies, and I have seenand have had clients come to me
who were like Lauren.
I just kept going darker anddarker and darker and riskier
and riskier because I had beenso conditioned to chase that
secretive thing, to chase thedeceitful thing.
And it was fascinating, youjust brought up a very very
interesting point.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
So that is a good, you know a good point for us to
talk about, though, becausepeople might say, well, see, it
does lead to something bad,because you keep doing more and
more.
I love to share this story.
I had done a lot of work beforeI went to a sex club for the
first time, and I mean, I go tothe sex club and I am ready, I'm
(44:45):
ready to walk into somethinglike crazy.
And I walk into the sex cluband about an hour into it I
looked at my friend.
I'm like Jesus, do I watch toomuch porn?
Because this is not what Ithought.
This feels PG to me, right.
I was like what is wrong with me?
This is like such adisappointment, and it's just
(45:07):
that I had really already undonea lot of things that I had
thought were shocking.
When you start to do your workand heal and embrace things as
not problematic or awful or evil, then it becomes normal, right,
oh, two people fucking on acouch, whatever, right, could
(45:29):
you guys do somethinginteresting, like I don't know?
Ramp it up a little for me, youknow, but some people might say
well, see, that is proof You'redescending into like this
terrible place.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
How do you speak to that?
So in school we were presentedwith this amazing chart and on
one end was legalism and on theother end was hedonism, and I
was so glad to see somebody wasputting it on.
Amazing chart.
And on one end was legalism andon the other end was hedonism,
and I was so glad to seesomebody was putting it on a
chart.
And I have colleagues andfriends who practice hedonism
Great.
So there are hedonists and Ithink in every culture, for all
(46:06):
of time, we're going to havethose who enjoy hedonism, who
lead with pleasure Great.
Then, right smack dab in themiddle of the chart, was this
novel idea rationalism.
And that, my friends, is wheremost of us are going to fall In
this space of.
Oh, I do want to know moreabout sex, I do want to play in
(46:31):
these kinky ways at home or at asex club or in a dungeon, and I
want to go to work and I wantto go play pick-up soccer with
my friends after work and I wantto sip coffee with my best
friend by the lake, and I wantand I want and I want.
This idea of rationalism justreminds me of our human right to
(46:53):
self-determination and informeddecision-making, which is so
interesting because in order tomake an informed decision, we
need information.
And so even the fact that youwere going into this sex club
and you had done so muchpreparation on your own, you
were going into this adultconsenting space expecting to
(47:15):
see adults doing consenting acts, and then you were like, oh
yeah, this is, this is sex, itis.
And, yes, sure, sometimes wecould make something a little
more titillating for us.
Great, there are ways to dothat for ourselves.
Maybe we do want a more um,created, curated space,
wonderful, wonderful.
(47:35):
Then maybe you start to workwith someone to really create a
wonderful space just for you.
I guess most sex clubs ortantra parties or this or that
that you would go to would havea ton of instruction about
boundaries and limits and wantsand desires and disciplinary
measures of how, if you areviolating someone's boundary,
(47:59):
you're gone.
A lot of things that we'venever even learned.
So, yes, I would argue thatsure, there is hedonism, there
is that slippery slope, but thebeautiful middle ground that
involves informeddecision-making and values-based
ethics is rationalism, and Ithink that is where the majority
(48:19):
of humans fall, if givencomprehensive sexuality
education and learningmodalities such as your podcast
to start to expand theirunderstanding of what they'd
actually want.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
And I liked how you spoke about as you're exploring
different scenes and this kinkyside of healing in your life.
At the same time, you'redeveloping your sexual, moral
and ethic code, which we allhave to do for ourselves, and
that's really important.
No-transcript, that there wasno conversation happening about
(49:23):
consent, about safety, aboutboundaries, about what would
happen when boundaries werebroken, and so on and so forth,
right, but so I would ask you totell my listeners how can
someone know when the kinkexploration they're using to
(49:46):
heal or the partners they'rechoosing, when it is safe and
it's healing versus.
You've somehow ventured intosomething where kink can be used
and some people do use it, justlike people use anything they
can to harm or control people,right?
Especially, I think, when youget into people who are into a
(50:09):
little bit more hardcore dom subkink play, which also perfectly
fine, but there are bad playersin that arena.
So how would someone be able togo oh, this isn't part of my
healing journey.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, and I love that you said you'll find this in
any space, because you will.
If you are in corporate America, you are going to find people
who abuse power.
If you are in church spaces,you are going to find people who
abuse power.
If you are in church spaces,you are going to find people who
abuse power.
And so this argument is soflawed that it is kinky spaces
that are dangerous.
(50:45):
I say bullshit.
It is also other places likechurch that we see such an abuse
of power.
So I just am so thankful thatyou said that.
Yes, it is sadly a trial anderror process for so many of us,
including myself.
I was involved in a tantraspace at one point where the
(51:06):
things that I'm about to share,that I now use to teach, were
not present.
They were not present.
I would number one hope that ifyou were going into a space
where there was a leadershipteam of some kind, right, there
were facilitators, there was ahost all kinds of different
names for these folks in thesespaces but that your person in
(51:29):
charge was able to clearly statewhat the boundaries of this
space included.
It should be things like timewhen is the beginning, when is
the end?
How are we going to open thecontainer and close the
container?
Container is a word that we useoften in these spaces, and I
just think it's helpful and youneed to be listening, for are
(51:51):
they aware of that too?
How are they going to send mehome?
For are they aware of that too?
How are they going to send mehome?
In kinky spaces?
We have these terms subspaceand topspace and drop.
These are literally the spaceswhen our parasympathetic system
goes off.
Parasympathetic nervous systemgoes offline.
Our bodies descend into thislike juicy space.
(52:11):
My friends, it's so fun.
It can happen in yourmasturbatory practice, but it
often happens in these scenetype settings, because we're
able to drop into our nervoussystems that much more.
But it's dangerous to then justgo home to have it just
abruptly end.
It is actually dangerous.
Do a little bit of Googling.
It's fun.
It feels like you're under thepower of a morphine-like drug.
(52:34):
It's really fascinating tostudy and it can be beautiful.
I'd argue that sometimes atchurch people drop into subspace
and they don't even know it.
It's when their hands are up,they're singing, they're going
into the space Making in tongues.
Yep, it's the same thing, myfriends.
So, I would be listening for.
How is the container openingand closing, and then what are
the disciplinary measures?
(52:55):
And this was what happened atthe Tantra space that I was in.
We were playing a game whereeveryone's eyes were closed or
you're blindfolded.
You were feeling your wayaround the room with the backs
of your hands.
There was to be no front handtouching, no groping, no
grabbing, and I was grabbed notonce but four times by another
person in the space and I wasobeying the rules and was
(53:17):
definitely going into fawn andflight trauma response because
of subspace, and thefacilitators of the event did
not remove this human.
When I brought it up to them,they were very confused and
wanted to kind of shut me off inthe corner, not do collective
repair, which is a term I havebeen given and trained in.
(53:39):
They then had no plan fortaking care of me none at all
and I was only asked if I wantedto leave.
He was going to get to stay.
I was asked if I wanted toleave.
Then I could see all of thestaff whispering about me and
the tone that everyone used wasoh, are you okay?
(54:01):
This very victim, blameyyuckiness that I would hope none
of my clients ever had toexperience.
So I would ask right up frontwhat happens if someone doesn't
play by the rules?
What's our process?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I do now.
I do now Because, again, Ithink restorative justice is
very important in this world.
I do not believe that we justneed to cast someone out, I do
not.
But what's the process?
How are we calling to account?
How are we protecting thepeople who have come to play
with their bodies, so sexy?
So those are things that I havelearned, as Annette said,
(54:43):
through trial and error with mybody that matter to me.
So my body that I get to playwith, I only want to play with
folks who are interested incoming with their minds and
their hearts and their listeningears.
So I don't care to be in aspace where people can't talk
with me on my level and playwith me on my level, and that's
(55:06):
just me.
But everybody gets to come upwith their own things that
matter to them.
I would Google talk about atake-home, a list of values, and
I would go through this list ofvalues and I would circle the
ones that mean a lot to you as ahuman being and then I would
write and this is an exercise Ido with my clients, with my own
worksheets a sexual valuesmission statement and this
(55:29):
aligns with you.
I would do it like this.
My sexual practices, both withmyself and with others, exist to
fill in the blank.
So that fill in the blank, Iwant that first line to be all
you focused, oh, gentle,listener, all you focus.
Because our sex that we havewith ourself and with others
(55:51):
should benefit us.
It absolutely should.
It should increase our pleasure, it should be bountiful, it
should be juicy, it should bedelicious.
Then I want the so that thatfill in the blank to be
others-centered.
Because call me crazy, but thething we were saying earlier,
sex is not everything, it's justa part of everything.
And what the World HealthOrganization says is that sexual
(56:12):
health is fundamental to thewell-being of individuals,
families and communities.
And I'd argue that if Annetteand I are having great sex on
our own and with the folks thatwe want to play with, the world
benefits.
So how do you want the world tobenefit?
How do you want the other folksat a play party to benefit?
How do you want a casual loverto benefit?
(56:35):
I'm all here for casual sex andhow do you want to come away?
And how do you want to leavesomeone?
This is so cool to just sitthere and go.
Oh, I want people to leave mefeeling respected, protected and
honored Cool, awesome.
How do you want to leave?
Oh, I want to leave, full ofjoy and life, cool, cool.
(56:58):
When we do that, then we canstart to filter out spaces that
are for us and not for us.
That's okay, it's super fun.
And it is also through trial anderror.
And so, at this Tantra partythat went south, I was able to
say why am I so disturbed, whydoes this not work?
South, I was able to say why amI so disturbed, why does this
not work?
And then I was able to go backto my sexual values mission
(57:19):
statement and go ah, this one,this is what was off.
This is not okay with me andit's okay.
It's okay.
I was able to get the help thatI needed.
Peter Levine says that trauma isonly stored in our body if
there's the combination of fearplus helplessness.
So I highly recommend that, ifyou are interested in dabbling
(57:43):
in kink as a healing modalityfor coming out of high control
religion or purity culture orsemi-control religion, that you
have someone in your corner,someone you could go to,
podcasts like this one that youcould listen to if something
goes south, because trial anderror is a part of the learning
journey and it's okay.
It doesn't mean that this isnot for you, but you do deserve
safe spaces to unpack potentialharm.
(58:05):
That could happen in thoseinstances, that's okay.
But trauma would not be storedin your body if the presence of
helplessness was not there.
So just make sure you're nothopeless.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
God damn, I was going to do takeaways, but that is a
really good one.
I just love listening to yourvoice, also Very soothing.
I was also, as you were talkingabout creating that sort of
mission statement, I wasthinking to myself.
(58:38):
I was thinking back to thatexperience I had with that woman
, yes, and how it?
Because it went south for us.
I had to, we, I had a like oh,you are, you're not in a place
to be doing any of this.
And I thought to myself, whenyou are reading that off, if she
had already worked that out,she would have had so much
(59:00):
clarity for why the wholesituation for her was so
unnerving, and you know what Imean.
That would have given her aplaybook with me, Right?
And also, if she had sharedthat information with me, then I
(59:20):
would have been like I knowwhat we're doing here.
Yes, because I certainly am.
I am not an expert in healingfrom high control religious
trauma, for sure.
I was just like, oh my God,what am I?
You know what is happening.
How do I deal with this human?
So I love that you leave uswith that, because whether
(59:45):
you're the person who's comingout of this, you know the purity
culture and really beingcreated and baked and then put
into the earth.
You know in this way or you'rethe person who, like me,
ventured into relationship withone If you know these things
(01:00:05):
ahead of time, if that missionstatement is created, that
creates clarity.
And I always say, especially inintimacy and sex clarity is
kindness.
The absence of clarity isunkindness to one person or the
other.
So I love that.
Thank you so much for that.
So I'm just going to ask youthis.
(01:00:27):
Any last words, then, for mylisteners, since you gave us
such a wonderful, usefultakeaway my listeners, since you
gave us such a wonderful,useful takeaway.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yes, if you are a person coming out of high
control religion or a lover toone, I want you to know that you
can do this work, curiosity,play, you can heal and have the
(01:01:04):
best sex of your life.
It's not too late.
In fact, myself and those of uswho've come out of these
religious spaces tend to haveinvigorating, tend to have
invigorating, life-giving sexfor a really long time, and so I
just want to inject a littlehope into the end of this that
(01:01:24):
your kinkiest, most fun days areahead, and there are
individuals out there, like meand so many others, who adore
walking alongside those of you.
So you're not alone and there'shope.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
I love that I actually have a sexy someone out
there I'm sending this episodeto.
I already know I'm like, andyou know who you are I'd like to
put my hands on your body.
I'm going to send this personthis episode just because I
think this is going to resonateso much with them.
We talk about their own comingout of religious trauma and I
(01:02:04):
think this is going to be veryhelpful.
Can you please let everyonelistening to this know exactly
where they can find you, listento your lovely voice and learn
from you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Yes, you can go to sexed4ucom forward slash connect
.
Sexed4ucom forward slashconnect.
There on that page I have alink to my Instagram, a link to
my podcast, all of those typesof things.
I was telling Annette before webegan that I have a podcast
with my partner, trey, calledthe Partnership Podcast, where
(01:02:37):
we talk extensively about whatour sex is like and we often
dabble in the ways in whichreligious trauma still impacts
me today and the things we'vedone to overcome it.
So if you are a lover tosomeone who sounds a lot like me
, feel free to listen and feellike you got some people in your
(01:02:58):
corner.
It could be very encouraging toyou and you could probably just
search through the podcast tofind those specific episodes,
but it's pretty much constantlytalked about.
So, yeah, go to sexed4ucomforward slash connect.
Please find me on Instagram aswell.
You can see that on that page.
I'm very active over there.
That's the only social platformI'm on.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Great, great.
Well, now you guys know whereto find her.
I hope you got as much out ofthis conversation as I did and
as it does as much as it doesrelate to healing from religious
trauma, I want to say, as asurvivor of sexual trauma, I see
so many parallels and how someof these same techniques can be
(01:03:48):
used for people like me, andalso for people like me who have
, you know, definitely religioustrauma, but there are different
levels, I would say, of it.
But still, you know, Catholicschool girl syndrome is real.
It's so real.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
It is so real I think , yes, you'd still be on there
on the scoring sheet, on thescoring chart, Would.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I score on there.
Is there a scoring sheet?
No, but I should make one.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
You should make one, I should make one and say what
score would you give yourself?
Or like, yeah, I should,because I have a lot of clients.
Yeah, no, lots of Catholicschoolgirl trauma that I work
with yet.
Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Okay, All right.
Well, so there you go, guys.
I just learned something aboutmyself today.
I love it.
All right, guys, I could keeptalking.
(01:04:51):
Now I have all these questionspopping up, but we are out of
time and hopefully I will get achance to talk to you again on
my show I'm sure a lot of you do.
If you are a listener, you cango to my YouTube channel at
TalkSexWithAnette, find thevideo that goes along with the
audio and drop your questionbelow in the comments section,
or you can email me at Annetteat TalkSexWithAnettecom.
(01:05:12):
You can also scroll down to thenotes section below this
episode and click on my speakpipe and send me a voice note
question.
There's a lot of ways to get ahold of me and I will try and
get your specific questionaddressed.
And until next time, thank youagain.
So much, Lauren, for joining meand listeners, until next time.
(01:05:34):
I'll see you in the locker room.
Cheers.
Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here.
Nothing's off limits.
These are the kinds ofconversations we save for our
boldest group chats, our mosttrusted friends and, of course,
the women's locker room.
Think raw, honest and sometimesunapologetically raunchy.
If you've been here from thebeginning, thank you, and if
(00:40):
you're new, welcome to mypodcast.
Where desire meets disruptionand pleasure becomes power.
Now let's talk about sex Cheers.
Today's Talk Sex with Annette.
Topic is kink after religioustrauma.
Today we are going to talkabout something that's both
(01:02):
tender and taboo.
What happens when someone whogrew up in purity culture or
under religious controldiscovers kink?
For a lot of people, kink feelsterrifyingly sinful.
For others, it's the first timethey've ever felt free in their
body.
It can be both erotic andredemptive.
(01:22):
My guest, lauren Elise Rogers,knows this journey intimately.
She's a certified holisticsexuality educator and embodied
intimacy coach, and she grew upin a high control religion
herself.
Today, she helps people unpacksexual shame, reclaim pleasure
and yes, explore kink in a waythat heals rather than harms.
(01:46):
So let's dive into howreligious trauma intersects with
kink and why what you oncethought was simple might
actually set you free.
Now, before we dive in, I haveto remind you that I'm over on
OnlyFans and there I'm sharingmy sex and intimacy how-tos,
demonstrations and audio guidedself-pleasure meditations.
(02:06):
You can find me there with myhandle at TalkSexWithAnette.
You can also find me over onSubstack doing a whole lot of
the same by the same handle, sofind me there.
You can scroll down also to thelinks below and you're going to
be able to find me wherever youwant to hang out with me.
I'll look forward to seeing youthere, but for now, I would
love to give Elise a moment totell you guys a little bit more
(02:30):
about her.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Welcome.
Thank you so much for having me, annette.
I am Larnalise Rogers, as waspreviously stated, and yes, I
have not always been a certifiedholistic sexuality educator.
I grew up inside of highcontrol religion, a deep
believer in all of the tenets ofpurity culture, and it wasn't
(02:53):
until I found myself alone onthe floor of my basement
apartment, having lost my firstmarriage, my whole community and
my whole religion, that I beganto dig into who I was as a
sexual being, and I was reallyperplexed by the idea that if I
was no longer a virgin, did thatmake me a whore?
And who was I as a sexual woman?
(03:18):
And I began to dig and I beganto play with my sexual body and
with sexual partners and I trulyset myself free.
I learned that I could be akinky, loving, sex-positive
human being, while also aligningmyself with my sexual values
(03:39):
and my ethics, and it truly wastransformational for me.
So friends began to say what areyou doing?
You seem so different.
What are the books you've beenreading?
Tell us about your journey.
And that's what started me downthe road to going back to
school, to now working withindividuals both in person and
around the world on Zoom, asthey, too, heal from purity
(04:02):
culture or religiousindoctrination, or for any of us
out there who feel that we gotan incomplete and inaccurate
understanding of sexuality.
I work with a lot of folks whofeel like the sex ed they got in
middle school or high schoolisn't enough.
So we work together on thingseven like the topic we're
(04:22):
discussing today, to really stepinto worlds such as
non-monogamy or kink places withan ethic and values that feel
juicy in their bodies.
So thank you so much for havingme here today.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Thank you for being here.
I'm just going to say it.
I get a lot of compliments onmy podcast voice and how sexy it
is.
But I mean, Lauren, I amconfident you've gotten the same
.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I have gotten the same.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Oh, melting a little bit myself.
I'm excited to talk about thisNow.
I want to be clear.
There is high control, cult,cult like religious experiences,
and I want to differentiatethat from my upbringing, which
also in my in my, I guess,experience I felt I was raised
(05:17):
Catholic like during the week.
I was going to, you know,church on the weekends and was
educated under that completely.
And even though people say it'sdifferent and I don't know,
I've never been in a religiouscult but it felt pretty fucking
cult-liked to me and so myupbringing around sex was also
(05:40):
very like you wait till marriage, you only do it under these
circumstances, it's for havingbabies and all that stuff.
So I'm excited about thisconversation because clearly you
and I have left the flock, ifyou will to find a new flock,
and I want my listeners to stayto the end Because whether you
(06:01):
yourself are coming out ofreligious trauma, as so many of
us have, whether on the level ofliterally coming out of a cult,
a religious cult, or coming outof a small or religious cult
Catholicism, evangelicalreligious situation, or someone
(06:22):
you know that you want topartner up with has you are
going to have some tools by theend of this podcast to start
dealing with that right andknowing how to heal yourself and
embrace your sensuality andexplore your sexuality and
define for yourself what thatgets to be.
This is a very importantconversation because so many of
(06:44):
us and I would venture to saythe majority of us have at least
a tiny bit of that purityculture ingrained into our
sexuality and we want to undothat for you right, so you can
step into your full sexual self.
So I'm ready.
Are you ready?
I'm so ready.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm so ready selves.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So I'm ready.
Are you ready?
I'm so ready, I'm so ready.
All right, let's get ready totalk about religion and kinky
religion, kink and yeah, cheers,cheers.
All right, I want to start here.
When you think back to yourreligious upbringing, what was
the messaging around sex, kinkor even fantasy that you
received?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think there was no messaging around each of those
three topics sex, kink andfantasy.
What was left was for youngpeople to stumble into
disciplinary measures when theyexperimented or asked a question
.
There's some cute meme outthere on the internet that says
(07:50):
there's three rules of purityculture.
One you don't know the rules.
Two, you'll only find out therules when you stumble into them
.
And three, the punishment forbreaking the rules is that
you're an evil person for therest of your life.
It's so vague and so I've toldmy story all the time, and it
includes that I received zerosexuality education until the
(08:12):
night before my wedding.
As my mother is dying ofpancreatic cancer, she says to
me Lauren, take care of yourhusband's needs and everything
else will be fine.
The joke goes on that two yearsafter our divorce my husband
came out as gay.
So for a decade I was spendingmy life trying to meet the
(08:34):
sexual needs of this man thatwere never going to be met
because he wasn't attracted tomy body.
Then it was interesting whenyou mentioned kink, I was given
this messaging within my sect ofreligiosity that sex between
one man and one woman inmarriage could be as salacious
(08:56):
as you wanted it to be going tobe some switch that was flipped,
wherein you would be a sexgoddess for your husband.
How I don't know, but it wasgiven to you that that was the
expectation.
And so there was, I think, alittle bit and we'll circle back
(09:20):
to this of this erotictitillation that I experienced
in my body for whatever thisunknown was.
But then your third question wasbeautiful.
This idea of fantasy wasequivalent to cheating, was
equivalent to cheating on yourfuture husband if you were using
fantasy in masturbatorybehavior or, equivocated, to
cheating inside of a marriage aswell.
(09:42):
You were to be in belonging toGod and your father if you were
in a female body, and God andyour future spouse if you're in
your male body until yourwedding day, and then you belong
to your spouse, and any form offantasy was a high no-no.
And they would always use theverse of he whosoever looks at
another man's wife is committingadultery, and they would always
(10:03):
use the verse of he who so everlooks at another man's wife is
committing adultery, and all ofthese things about lust and
cutting your eyes out, whichI've gone on to learn are poorly
(10:24):
translated, but yeah, sexspecifically how kink can be
used in a way to reclaimsexuality and to heal from
religious trauma.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So for someone coming out of religious trauma, what
are some specific kinks ordynamics that can be redemptive?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So one of my favorite authors is Dr Jack Moran and he
wrote this beautiful book, theErotic Mind, and, if listeners
have not picked up this copy,either on Audible or a paperback
, highly recommend.
If you are coming out of anyform of high control religion or
if you feel that educationmight have been willfully
(11:04):
withheld from you because,friends, that's unethical.
You deserve to know about yoursexual body now and the bodies
of others, and you deserve tomake highly informed decisions.
So Dr Jack Moran would say thatpleasure is the greatest
antidote to pain, and so theseincredible erotic minds of ours
(11:24):
will contrive fantasies,situations, ideas, scenes that
could be incredibly, incrediblyerotic to us.
And so for myself and many ofmy clients who have come out of
religious spaces, we have foundthat we fall into one of four
(11:45):
categories that Dr Jack Morancalls the cornerstones of
eroticism.
Would it be okay if I justhighlighted each of the four?
So the first one isanticipation and longing.
So this idea that we arereaching for that thing that is
just out of reach, that we arelonging, which, for those of us
(12:07):
raised with this idea that wewere a princess in a tower
waiting for our knight inshining armor, we sometimes got
highly identified with this typeof narrative.
We'll get to how this could beincredibly kinky later, right?
Then we have this search forpower being number two this idea
(12:27):
of power over or power under,which, of course, many of us
would draw a direct line to kinkand BDSM.
Search for power Number threethis idea of violating
prohibitions.
So, interestingly enough, somany of my clients had their
first kiss or their firstblowjob, either like behind the
(12:48):
baptismal or in the car afteryouth group.
So we had a lot of thenaughtiness factor going on
inside of religious spaces,because young people who are
healthy sexual beings are stilldeveloping, but it's developing
in the shadows.
So it's this idea of the tabooor what's just out of reach.
(13:08):
Then number four is overcomingambivalence, this idea that we
get turned on by the human whois ambivalent towards us.
This is my highest kink.
This idea that no one has thetime of day for me.
This idea that I need to drawsomeone's attention to me, which
(13:31):
is interesting because referearlier to the gay husband.
Before my gay husband, I had afirst crush who was also gay,
and my first kiss, who was alsogay.
I had been so cultured to beafraid of the boy who only wants
one thing and to be so pure andchaste that I became turned on
(13:53):
by the boys who were ambivalenttowards me.
So while this could be highlyerotic, it's highly problematic
in the relational sphere.
And yet those four tend to besomething that I see a lot of us
, having come out of religiousspaces, enjoy very much.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That is interesting.
I recently had a very short butintense intimate relationship
with a woman who was coming outof and I think it's I mean, I
(14:37):
think you can confirm it's along process to come out of and
deprogram yourself from a highcontrol religious situation.
And she had discovered that shewas queer in that coming out
process.
And so I'm going to be explicithere this was fascinating to me
.
Of course, I have known I'mqueer for a very long time.
I date people of all gendersand I'm well practiced at it.
(15:00):
But she was a first for me.
She was a handful of years outof this high control situation,
still kind of figuring out.
She was married with kids,supportive spouse, figuring out
her queerness, this big love,but ambivalent towards her
(15:29):
seemingly.
And I ended up unknowinglybecoming a second sexual
experience.
And this now brings me toanother modality you talked
about.
We were having sex and shereally wanted to give oral sex
to me and I was like, all rightif I must allow you to do that,
okay, and I've never experiencedthis in my entire life, because
(15:52):
she was not touching herself oranything like that, and she
couldn't stop herself fromorgasming while giving me oral
sex.
I was like I was, like I wasmore fascinated, like what
Really?
Like I wanted to stop and like,study it Like I had never I was
like holy shit.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
First of all, I'm jealous.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I want this superpower of yours.
It was also incredibly hot forme, but after it I was really
caught up thinking about thisexperience.
How in the world does someonehave an orgasm just from doing
(16:34):
giving oral sex?
And it's the taboo nature of it.
And I bring this up because, asyou are going through these
different, what did you callthem?
What did you call them?
Cornerstones, the cornerstonesof eroticism?
Yes, I'm like oh, there's oneright the taboo that you should
not be doing this.
Not only should you not bequeer, you definitely shouldn't
(16:57):
be going down on another girl.
And I'm like I think that'sjust so erotic that it created
this scenario that I got towitness, which is beautiful, but
then also we ended up notcontinuing on because I'm not a
very ambivalent person Like once.
I'm like I'm into it, let's doit.
And for her, it created thisconfusion inside of her because
(17:21):
she couldn't let go of thisambivalent person and she didn't
know how to deal with directyou connection, like either
let's do not yes, and so Iexperienced as a partner.
I want to share my experience asa partner to someone coming out
of that, um, the amazingness,sexiness of that, that journey,
(17:45):
but at the same time, as apartner to someone, or someone
who's trying to be a partnerwith someone, who's dealing with
some deconditioning and trauma,the hardship of it as well, yes
, and you brought up such abeautiful point, which is the
(18:07):
sex was magical, if notexplosive, due to the nature of
the erotic content.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Jack has a erotic equation that goes like this
attraction plus obstacle equalsexcitement, plus obstacle equals
excitement.
We can think back to the daysof a cookie jar.
Right, we're attracted to thecookie.
There's an obstacle it's highup on a shelf.
That makes it more exciting.
Okay, attraction plus obstacleequals excitement, which makes
(18:36):
for incredibly, incrediblymagnetic, electric sex.
That makes for incrediblyunhealthy relationships between
human beings.
And what is so interesting fornerds like us, who love sex and
love humans and love dynamics,is no, you study just a little
(18:58):
bit, my friends, and you'll findthat we all deserve earned,
secure attachments and secureconnections.
We deserve to know that someoneis going to text us back when
they say they're going to.
We deserve to know that someoneis going to be at the date on
time or cancel in enough inadvance.
Those are healthy humandynamics that actually can make
(19:19):
a sexual container feel more fun, more safe, more electric,
wonderful.
We can titrate in as mucheroticism as we desire to, but
what is so sad and you'rebringing this up for so many of
us who had our sexualitysuppressed inside of religious
orthodoxy, it was shut into theshadows.
(19:39):
What happened was we began toeroticize deceit, we began to
hyper-eroticize this naughtinessfactor, and so those obstacles
became the very nature of thething that brings us pleasure.
So I am so excited that thishuman being got to experience
(19:59):
orgasm while being the one doingthe oral facts on you.
How magical, how magical thiscan happen.
It's just highly.
And I'm sitting here going yeah, of course that was happening
in the brain.
This idea of, oh my God, Ican't believe I get to do this
is literally causing theseneurons to fire and all of this
(20:22):
blood to flow to the genitals.
I mean, it's magical.
I'm so, so excited.
And what's wild is there's apoint of diminishing return Once
something has been not illicit,once we have given something
the approval, well then itceases to be exciting, which is
interesting.
(20:42):
Jack calls this a troublesometurn on, when the things that
used to turn us on are nowtroublesome.
They're rude, and that isactually a point that many
people come and find me.
They get free of religion.
They are sowing their wild oats.
They, like me, are on theirslut era.
They are so happy to besleeping with whomever they want
(21:02):
to sleep with and then all of asudden they can't orgasm
anymore.
All of a sudden they're havingerectile issues.
All of a sudden they found apartner.
That is everything they thoughtthey wanted and the sex was
great in the beginning.
But now they're starting to seethese old relational patterns,
or they start to see oh, the sexis boring again.
(21:23):
Lauren, am I broken?
Is this trauma coming back up?
Is this karma?
Is this my religious oppressionFascinating?
You just brought up like thebest case study in the world.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Right.
It was interesting because then, um Me being at a more healed
place in my life, seeing kind ofwhat she was going to need to
feel turned on and connected,which was somebody who was going
to pull away and push and pullher and sort of fulfill those
(21:59):
cornerstones in an unhealthy way, I was just like.
I was like this is not whereI'm at.
And I do understand, though,because for a long time I needed
to be in an anxious space tofeel turned on.
Or I thought the connection wasboring or I thought I wasn't
falling in love.
(22:19):
And with all of the work I'vedone now like I crave security
and eroticism in security, right, experimentation within
security and consistency, andthe minute I start to see
inconsistency, I'm like I'm nothere for that, but it's hard to
teach your nervous system thatright.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yes, this feels like a perfect segue into how kink
can be so helpful for thosewho've come out of religious
trauma.
So do you mind if we just go?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
right there.
I would love it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Okay, because what I would literally be saying to
someone with this exact tale,which is hi, hello me and also
so many of my clients, is thatthe power of knowing our erotic
minds is absolutely untold.
And so, friends, if you arelistening, do me a favor and sit
(23:13):
down and think back throughyour most likely to arouse you
fantasies and your most excitingsexual encounters and the porn
you go to most often, and therom-coms or the romance novels
or the sitcoms that you grew upon.
(23:35):
That turned you on.
I just want you to make a list,a little list for yourself.
Then, as we're talking throughthese cornerstones, I want you
to think through, oh my goodness, which one is most present.
Is it a touch of that ambivalentfactor?
There are so many sitcoms thatwe grew up in with where there's
(23:55):
a teenager walking down thehall and they just want Johnny
to notice them type of ideasthere's a ton of.
You know, I grew up saying thisI am a sinner in the sight of
God, justly deserving of hisdispleasure.
That was a first catechism thatI had to memorize.
I grew up thinking that theloving God that we're all taught
(24:16):
about didn't like me and I wasjustly deserving of his
displeasure.
So that idea, right that he'skind of ambivalent unless I work
to be loved, was in my bones.
So wouldn't you know?
Some of my favorite storylines,my favorite movies, my favorite
erotic materials all involvethis idea of ambivalence.
(24:37):
So again, go through, makethose lists.
Now here's the really beautifulthing about claiming our CETs
core erotic themes.
Once we know them, would theybecome like a superpower.
So I have fully disclosed thatovercoming ambivalence is one of
my greatest turn-ons.
(24:57):
Well, I have gone on to find anincredible partner who is
anything but ambivalent towardsme as we were just talking.
He supports my nervous system,he is there when he says he's
going to be, he goes to bed atan okay time, he talks to me
like a human being.
He is anything but ambivalent.
And yet we are able to titrateambivalence into our erotic
(25:22):
encounters, into my turn-ons, indifferent ways.
One of them goes like this ifit's a weekend and I'm horny and
I'm really wanting him and I amcoming on to him and I'm like,
hey, baby, what you doing laterhe can do this and I swear it is
the most funny and arousingthing.
(25:42):
He will look at his pretendwatch and he'll go oh babe, I
just really don't think I havetime for you today and I will
start clawing his clothes off,ripping at him, because what
this does is stoke my eroticfire in a way that sure you
(26:03):
could roll your eyes and sayit's playful.
Or you could say, wow, that manknows what turns her on.
She knows what turns her on,and it's a way that we can play
with ambivalence in our dynamicin a way that is still healthy.
Also, if sometime I'm flirtingwith him through text, he'll
just say Also, if sometime I'mflirting with him through text,
(26:23):
he'll just say shoo, it's ourlittle communication of I don't
have time for you right now, andit is lovingly worded in a way
that I know exactly what we'redoing.
We are playing with my eroticlanguage in.
You could argue a kinky way.
You could argue it's a brat way, right, you could go down each
of these angles and find adirect route to kink.
(26:44):
So if I found a client whoreally loved this search for
power, which I have a bit of too, I am highly turned on by this
idea of teacher-student.
I swear it is because of myentire life.
I was second because I'm in afemale body and men were first.
I grew up in the middle ofpatriarchy.
(27:04):
There was so much misogyny, sothis idea of the student turning
the teacher on and kind ofmorphing them and being so
desired by them that they takethe power over huge erotic kink
of mine.
Now I am a teacher, thisstudent-teacher dynamic,
incredibly unethical, would notbe good for me to go out and
(27:26):
have sex with my students, myclients no, and yet erotic
fiction, my friends, my favoritesubject matter, and so the way
we will play with this in kinkis sure.
Do I have school girl outfits?
You bet I do, and I will oftenread an erotic story and send it
to my partner and let him readit, and then in the bedroom
(27:48):
later we'll be whispering thefavorite parts of the story back
and forth to each other.
We will titillate right.
We will sprinkle it's likeerotic sprinkles on top of our
sexual encounters that lean into, not away from, the things that
turn me on.
There is no shame, not at all.
(28:08):
Friends, we are the people thatwe are because of our positive
and negative lived sexualexperiences, and it's okay when
we can claim them as our own.
So, so fun and so empowering wecan claim them as our own.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
So so fun and so empowering.
Can you talk about exactly howembracing kink leads to the
healing from the trauma?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes.
So Peter Levine, one of my veryfavorite trauma experts, talks
about this idea of reenactingtrauma versus renegotiating
trauma through play.
So let me give a brief exampleof the differentiation here.
I live in central Virginia,just a couple miles away from
Appomattox, virginia, which iswhere the Civil War ended.
(28:59):
I am not kidding.
Every year, those Civil Warreenactors put on some costumes
and they go out to the field andthey reenact the end of the
Civil War.
My friends, the ending alwaysstays the same.
That is how I want you toenvision the idea of reenacting
your trauma.
So earlier we saw a reenactment.
(29:22):
Right, it was very exciting.
There was some way that thislover wanted to have this
push-pull dynamic, wanted tohave this inconsistency, which
is, in essence, reenactment.
We all do it, my friends,whether you have religious
trauma or not.
Our brains are so brilliant.
They want to close the loop.
They want to Now.
Here's what Jack.
(29:42):
They want to close the loop,they want to Now.
Here's what Jack not Jack Peterfound when he studied trauma
and found that through this ideaof neoteny, this idea that we
have these juvenile minds thatare incredible creators,
incredible at pretending andplaying, we can, through the
work, through scene work, likewe would use in a kink space in
(30:05):
a dungeon.
We can change the ending.
So this is what's so cool bywriting out a kinky scene.
Writing out a scene such aswe'll use my search for power
scene, this idea that men werein charge of me from the
beginning of my life.
We could write out ateacher-student scene to play
(30:28):
with my partner in the bedroom,or if you're near a dungeon or
something of the like, you coulddo the same type of thing and
we'd write out the dynamic who'sin power?
Well, in a kinky scene wherethere's a sub and a down dynamic
, the submissive is always goingto have the power.
So this would be my scene.
We're writing it out, the wholething.
And then this is how I want tobring the teacher to me, and
(30:50):
then this is the oral sex I wantto receive, this is the oral
sex I want to give, and we'rerenegotiating the way that I was
the one who was being punished.
I was second, I was small, andwe are letting the scene be
different, the ending bedifferent, where the power is
(31:10):
given to me, not the teacher.
I'm the one who gets to sit indesire, which is really
interesting.
Also when we study.
Trauma is that a gazelle ifit's been chased, it freezes and
then, after there's no morethreat from the lion, it shakes.
It does this like really coolsomatic shake.
You know what also shakes theorgasmic body.
(31:33):
So it's really fascinating to me, as a person who works in this
pleasure world, when my clientshave been able to write out a
scene that centers theircornerstone.
This is going to happen, thenthis, then this, then this, and
then I would like to experiencean orgasm and then the scene
will end.
(31:53):
But this is the aftercare thatI want.
I want to cry, I want to beheld, I want to be stroked, I
want a cup of hot chocolate, Iwant my hair touched, I want to
be told I am beautiful and wholeand I have power just because I
exist in this body.
And then I want to look at youand I want to say all done the
(32:19):
stories that my clients comeback with when they write out a
scene that centers thecornerstone that was given to
them by folks who did not havegood intentions inside of
religious spaces.
But they have reclaimed andrenegotiated this trauma through
play, through kinky play, andthen sat in the aftercare and
(32:41):
basked in it, then sat there andtalked with their partners
about the things that were mostbrilliant to them.
I have had clients come backand say that healed the original
source wound by creating ascene following it all the way
through, including the aftercare.
I feel more powerful than Ihave ever felt more powerful
(33:06):
than I have ever felt.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
That's amazing and makes so much sense.
I don't think I've ever heardthat explained so beautifully
and perfectly before.
Thank you, and I've had a lotof these conversations.
I talk personally about sexualassault and healing.
That's more of my journey andit really is like learning to
reclaim power over your agencyin relationship to sex, which
(33:31):
brings me to something that Iknow, that you say regularly and
you're going to have to correctme because I know I'm going to
mess it up but you say sex isn'teverything, but it's in
everything.
Did I do that correctly, soclose?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
That works too.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
I say sex is not everything, it's just a part of
everything, and I talk aboutthat on this show all the time
Because if I'm imagining and Icould be wrong, but I'm
imagining if, like me, you'vedefinitely gotten feedback from
the people in your life and Iconstantly get the question and
(34:09):
that why does everything have tobe about sex?
Why, why sex, sex, sex?
And my response is because sexis part of everything.
It's like it is part of everypart of our life.
Sexual energy is not just inthis little corner where you
take it out, even though youguys try to do this, you try to
put it over here and take it outwhen the lights are off and
(34:32):
you're hiding in your bedroom.
Sexual energy is in every partof your life, right, yes, and
what you are suggesting throughkink, in particular for people
who have had religious trauma,is basically reclaiming that
energy as part of your whole andnot as something that is
(34:54):
controlled by people who don'thave good intentions towards you
.
Right, this messaging we'vegotten from the patriarchy in
general, but we can drill thatdown into religion, high control
religion I would maybe say allreligion, but it was it.
There was no good intentionbehind it for most of the people
(35:16):
, meaning women and children andso on and so forth.
Right, yes, it was used tocontrol us and it was very
effective, because when womenembrace their sexual power, well
, there's a little script flipon who is in control?
Right, that's the reality.
(35:37):
But I love that you talk aboutyou take the scene and writing
the scene, because in kink andI'm sure you can explain this
even better than I do the sceneis sort of the container for a
lot of kink play.
And then how allowing theperson who's healing from trauma
(36:01):
to get control of the scene,because in life you can kind of
look at our life and thedifferent scenes in our life,
right?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yes, just that.
Let's just like dwell in thatidea that so many of us not so
many, all of us our lives aremade up of so many scenes.
They're all just little scenes,and so many of us could say,
uh-huh.
I understand that when we thinkback of a memory that replays
and replays, when we can drillit down to a scene and then we
(36:34):
can say wait a second, what if Irewrote it?
What would that look like?
What if that one time theneighbor boys were bullying me?
What if I turned this around?
What could this look like?
What if this centered mypleasure?
And what if pleasure is thegreatest antidote to pain?
What would that look like?
What if my chief cornerstone isanticipation and longing?
(36:56):
What is it like for me to writea scene for myself and my
long-term sexual partner, for meto be bound and teased and for
that thing that I want to bejust out of reach?
And what if I'm played withlike that?
And what if there is abeginning, middle and end?
And what would they be?
How could I take control back,reclaim and reaccess what was
(37:22):
always mine to begin with, bybecoming the author?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
of this.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
So, yes, in Kinky Spaces, we love scene work.
We love having your wants putforward.
What do you want?
What would you love to feel andexperience tonight?
And I would say, one of thenumber one things that most of
my clients, when they come intowork, cannot do is tell me what
they want.
So many of us, whether it wasin a high-control religious
(37:47):
space or just existing in thisworld, have been conditioned to
be human givers and we don'tknow what it's like to want.
And yet it's a prerequisite formost kinky spaces to be able to
put forward your greatestdesire and then to also be able
to clearly state your boundaries, which is why a scene is such a
(38:09):
juicy experience too.
And maybe going to a dungeon ora kinky space is not even an
interest of yours.
Maybe you're listening to thispodcast today again, as Annette
said so beautifully earlier,because you're involved with
someone who's come out of areligious space and you don't
intend to take them to a kinkspace to play, but you want to
involve some of these dynamicsin your play.
(38:33):
In the safety of your ownbedroom, you can sit down, talk
about an event that maybe wentawry, that your lover would like
to reclaim.
How would they like that endingto change?
Get silly, get playful.
Some of my clients find iteasier to draw a picture first.
To engage that piece of ourmind, like a child, to draw a
(38:57):
picture out, do it.
Use stick figures, my friends.
Stick figures are my friend.
I am no artist and it's okay.
It is okay to sit there anddraw first.
Maybe then you can share itorally with your lover.
I'd like this to happen, thisto happen, this to happen.
I recommend doing all of thesepre-negotiations with your
clothes on.
Do it while you're sharing adrink, a cup of coffee or water.
(39:20):
Sit there, imagine what itcould be, and make sure you talk
through the aftercare.
So many of us skip this veryimportant part, which is what
will I need when the scene isdone?
Which is what will I need whenthe scene is done?
For many of us, it is some formof being held or space to sit
there.
(39:40):
You might cry.
That's beautiful.
That is a completion of thestress response cycle.
You might need a warm blanket,you might need a bite of
chocolate, you might need somewater.
What is it that you might wantto have access to?
Interestingly enough, I also dothis type of work with
individuals who are not inrelationship and they are doing
a healing practice with theirown hands, with a
(40:02):
self-masturbatory practice.
They are bringing themselves toorgasm, using fantasy to
renegotiate the trauma.
Works the same Works the same.
Here's the most fascinatingpart when we write the scene and
we follow it through and wechange the ending and we
practice the aftercare, I haveclients who tell me Lauren, I'm
actually scared to lean into thescene because I haven't visited
(40:25):
that particular trauma in awhile.
And I say this is all I have totell you.
When I have done this practicemyself and when every client has
told me they've done it, when Ihave done this practice myself,
and when every client has toldme they've done it, the scene
releases its hold on you.
Almost every single one of myclients say that the moment they
worked through it, poof, itlost its grip.
It lost its grip because wechanged the ending.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It is so powerful.
I love that you bring upmasturbation and self-love as
also a way to go through.
You can be kinky with yourselfand people don't realize that we
all think we need somebody else, and I talk about self-love,
self-pleasure, masturbation allof the time.
(41:14):
I would say most of my sexualhealing work has been done alone
and it's so wonderful to beable to do that and it also is a
way to maintain your power.
It's not like you're saying Ineed this person to heal me,
it's like I'm going to healmyself.
I'm the magic that's showing uphere, right, and using fantasy
(41:39):
because your mind is so powerful, because really that's all
you're doing with someone else,right, you're still just
fantasizing.
You just got another human toparticipate with you in it and,
I think, also pointing out thatit is interesting when I look at
my sexual journey and I'm surethat this will resonate with you
(41:59):
I had all of these turn-onswhen I was younger or before I
did the work, things that likejust thinking about it, I would
get so turned on and thenallowing myself to fantasize
fully about those things withoutshame and without concern, and
even talk about them.
(42:20):
Suddenly, it was like one day Iwent to like fantasize and
masturbate to one of thosethings and I was like, oh, it
doesn't do it anymore for me.
I got a next level, this shit.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I got a next level, this shit All the time, time and
again.
Attraction plus obstacle equalsexcitement, and so sometimes,
when we eradicate the obstacle,sadly we lose the ability to be
able to drop in to the pleasurein the same way that we were
(42:54):
used to, because we havenormalized it, which is such a
beautiful point to bring intothis, because I think that so
many of us raised inside ofthese high-control religions
were told that on the other sideof the door was depravity, was
hedonism, right, that it was aslippery slope out there and you
better watch out.
(43:14):
And so I want everyone to hearus that sometimes I have run
into folks who got free, gotdeconstructed, started going
after all of these things andneeded to continue to heighten
the risk because of exactly whattalking about.
And I would caution here thatwe can start to expand our
(43:40):
understanding, and I would hopethat we are doing it at the same
point as we are developingsexual values and sexual ethics,
that there are ways to continueto turn on our erotic minds,
there are things that we canharness, there are ethical ways
that we can be involved withothers and with ourselves and in
(44:00):
our fantasies, and I have seenand have had clients come to me
who were like Lauren.
I just kept going darker anddarker and darker and riskier
and riskier because I had beenso conditioned to chase that
secretive thing, to chase thedeceitful thing.
And it was fascinating, youjust brought up a very very
interesting point.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
So that is a good, you know a good point for us to
talk about, though, becausepeople might say, well, see, it
does lead to something bad,because you keep doing more and
more.
I love to share this story.
I had done a lot of work beforeI went to a sex club for the
first time, and I mean, I go tothe sex club and I am ready, I'm
(44:45):
ready to walk into somethinglike crazy.
And I walk into the sex cluband about an hour into it I
looked at my friend.
I'm like Jesus, do I watch toomuch porn?
Because this is not what Ithought.
This feels PG to me, right.
I was like what is wrong with me?
This is like such adisappointment, and it's just
(45:07):
that I had really already undonea lot of things that I had
thought were shocking.
When you start to do your workand heal and embrace things as
not problematic or awful or evil, then it becomes normal, right,
oh, two people fucking on acouch, whatever, right, could
(45:29):
you guys do somethinginteresting, like I don't know?
Ramp it up a little for me, youknow, but some people might say
well, see, that is proof You'redescending into like this
terrible place.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
How do you speak to that?
So in school we were presentedwith this amazing chart and on
one end was legalism and on theother end was hedonism, and I
was so glad to see somebody wasputting it on.
Amazing chart.
And on one end was legalism andon the other end was hedonism,
and I was so glad to seesomebody was putting it on a
chart.
And I have colleagues andfriends who practice hedonism
Great.
So there are hedonists and Ithink in every culture, for all
(46:06):
of time, we're going to havethose who enjoy hedonism, who
lead with pleasure Great.
Then, right smack dab in themiddle of the chart, was this
novel idea rationalism.
And that, my friends, is wheremost of us are going to fall In
this space of.
Oh, I do want to know moreabout sex, I do want to play in
(46:31):
these kinky ways at home or at asex club or in a dungeon, and I
want to go to work and I wantto go play pick-up soccer with
my friends after work and I wantto sip coffee with my best
friend by the lake, and I wantand I want and I want.
This idea of rationalism justreminds me of our human right to
(46:53):
self-determination and informeddecision-making, which is so
interesting because in order tomake an informed decision, we
need information.
And so even the fact that youwere going into this sex club
and you had done so muchpreparation on your own, you
were going into this adultconsenting space expecting to
(47:15):
see adults doing consenting acts, and then you were like, oh
yeah, this is, this is sex, itis.
And, yes, sure, sometimes wecould make something a little
more titillating for us.
Great, there are ways to dothat for ourselves.
Maybe we do want a more um,created, curated space,
wonderful, wonderful.
(47:35):
Then maybe you start to workwith someone to really create a
wonderful space just for you.
I guess most sex clubs ortantra parties or this or that
that you would go to would havea ton of instruction about
boundaries and limits and wantsand desires and disciplinary
measures of how, if you areviolating someone's boundary,
(47:59):
you're gone.
A lot of things that we'venever even learned.
So, yes, I would argue thatsure, there is hedonism, there
is that slippery slope, but thebeautiful middle ground that
involves informeddecision-making and values-based
ethics is rationalism, and Ithink that is where the majority
(48:19):
of humans fall, if givencomprehensive sexuality
education and learningmodalities such as your podcast
to start to expand theirunderstanding of what they'd
actually want.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
And I liked how you spoke about as you're exploring
different scenes and this kinkyside of healing in your life.
At the same time, you'redeveloping your sexual, moral
and ethic code, which we allhave to do for ourselves, and
that's really important.
No-transcript, that there wasno conversation happening about
(49:23):
consent, about safety, aboutboundaries, about what would
happen when boundaries werebroken, and so on and so forth,
right, but so I would ask you totell my listeners how can
someone know when the kinkexploration they're using to
(49:46):
heal or the partners they'rechoosing, when it is safe and
it's healing versus.
You've somehow ventured intosomething where kink can be used
and some people do use it, justlike people use anything they
can to harm or control people,right?
Especially, I think, when youget into people who are into a
(50:09):
little bit more hardcore dom subkink play, which also perfectly
fine, but there are bad playersin that arena.
So how would someone be able togo oh, this isn't part of my
healing journey.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, and I love that you said you'll find this in
any space, because you will.
If you are in corporate America, you are going to find people
who abuse power.
If you are in church spaces,you are going to find people who
abuse power.
If you are in church spaces,you are going to find people who
abuse power.
And so this argument is soflawed that it is kinky spaces
that are dangerous.
(50:45):
I say bullshit.
It is also other places likechurch that we see such an abuse
of power.
So I just am so thankful thatyou said that.
Yes, it is sadly a trial anderror process for so many of us,
including myself.
I was involved in a tantraspace at one point where the
(51:06):
things that I'm about to share,that I now use to teach, were
not present.
They were not present.
I would number one hope that ifyou were going into a space
where there was a leadershipteam of some kind, right, there
were facilitators, there was ahost all kinds of different
names for these folks in thesespaces but that your person in
(51:29):
charge was able to clearly statewhat the boundaries of this
space included.
It should be things like timewhen is the beginning, when is
the end?
How are we going to open thecontainer and close the
container?
Container is a word that we useoften in these spaces, and I
just think it's helpful and youneed to be listening, for are
(51:51):
they aware of that too?
How are they going to send mehome?
For are they aware of that too?
How are they going to send mehome?
In kinky spaces?
We have these terms subspaceand topspace and drop.
These are literally the spaceswhen our parasympathetic system
goes off.
Parasympathetic nervous systemgoes offline.
Our bodies descend into thislike juicy space.
(52:11):
My friends, it's so fun.
It can happen in yourmasturbatory practice, but it
often happens in these scenetype settings, because we're
able to drop into our nervoussystems that much more.
But it's dangerous to then justgo home to have it just
abruptly end.
It is actually dangerous.
Do a little bit of Googling.
It's fun.
It feels like you're under thepower of a morphine-like drug.
(52:34):
It's really fascinating tostudy and it can be beautiful.
I'd argue that sometimes atchurch people drop into subspace
and they don't even know it.
It's when their hands are up,they're singing, they're going
into the space Making in tongues.
Yep, it's the same thing, myfriends.
So, I would be listening for.
How is the container openingand closing, and then what are
the disciplinary measures?
(52:55):
And this was what happened atthe Tantra space that I was in.
We were playing a game whereeveryone's eyes were closed or
you're blindfolded.
You were feeling your wayaround the room with the backs
of your hands.
There was to be no front handtouching, no groping, no
grabbing, and I was grabbed notonce but four times by another
person in the space and I wasobeying the rules and was
(53:17):
definitely going into fawn andflight trauma response because
of subspace, and thefacilitators of the event did
not remove this human.
When I brought it up to them,they were very confused and
wanted to kind of shut me off inthe corner, not do collective
repair, which is a term I havebeen given and trained in.
(53:39):
They then had no plan fortaking care of me none at all
and I was only asked if I wantedto leave.
He was going to get to stay.
I was asked if I wanted toleave.
Then I could see all of thestaff whispering about me and
the tone that everyone used wasoh, are you okay?
(54:01):
This very victim, blameyyuckiness that I would hope none
of my clients ever had toexperience.
So I would ask right up frontwhat happens if someone doesn't
play by the rules?
What's our process?
Speaker 1 (54:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
I do now.
I do now Because, again, Ithink restorative justice is
very important in this world.
I do not believe that we justneed to cast someone out, I do
not.
But what's the process?
How are we calling to account?
How are we protecting thepeople who have come to play
with their bodies, so sexy?
So those are things that I havelearned, as Annette said,
(54:43):
through trial and error with mybody that matter to me.
So my body that I get to playwith, I only want to play with
folks who are interested incoming with their minds and
their hearts and their listeningears.
So I don't care to be in aspace where people can't talk
with me on my level and playwith me on my level, and that's
(55:06):
just me.
But everybody gets to come upwith their own things that
matter to them.
I would Google talk about atake-home, a list of values, and
I would go through this list ofvalues and I would circle the
ones that mean a lot to you as ahuman being and then I would
write and this is an exercise Ido with my clients, with my own
worksheets a sexual valuesmission statement and this
(55:29):
aligns with you.
I would do it like this.
My sexual practices, both withmyself and with others, exist to
fill in the blank.
So that fill in the blank, Iwant that first line to be all
you focused, oh, gentle,listener, all you focus.
Because our sex that we havewith ourself and with others
(55:51):
should benefit us.
It absolutely should.
It should increase our pleasure, it should be bountiful, it
should be juicy, it should bedelicious.
Then I want the so that thatfill in the blank to be
others-centered.
Because call me crazy, but thething we were saying earlier,
sex is not everything, it's justa part of everything.
And what the World HealthOrganization says is that sexual
(56:12):
health is fundamental to thewell-being of individuals,
families and communities.
And I'd argue that if Annetteand I are having great sex on
our own and with the folks thatwe want to play with, the world
benefits.
So how do you want the world tobenefit?
How do you want the other folksat a play party to benefit?
How do you want a casual loverto benefit?
(56:35):
I'm all here for casual sex andhow do you want to come away?
And how do you want to leavesomeone?
This is so cool to just sitthere and go.
Oh, I want people to leave mefeeling respected, protected and
honored Cool, awesome.
How do you want to leave?
Oh, I want to leave, full ofjoy and life, cool, cool.
(56:58):
When we do that, then we canstart to filter out spaces that
are for us and not for us.
That's okay, it's super fun.
And it is also through trial anderror.
And so, at this Tantra partythat went south, I was able to
say why am I so disturbed, whydoes this not work?
South, I was able to say why amI so disturbed, why does this
not work?
And then I was able to go backto my sexual values mission
(57:19):
statement and go ah, this one,this is what was off.
This is not okay with me andit's okay.
It's okay.
I was able to get the help thatI needed.
Peter Levine says that trauma isonly stored in our body if
there's the combination of fearplus helplessness.
So I highly recommend that, ifyou are interested in dabbling
(57:43):
in kink as a healing modalityfor coming out of high control
religion or purity culture orsemi-control religion, that you
have someone in your corner,someone you could go to,
podcasts like this one that youcould listen to if something
goes south, because trial anderror is a part of the learning
journey and it's okay.
It doesn't mean that this isnot for you, but you do deserve
safe spaces to unpack potentialharm.
(58:05):
That could happen in thoseinstances, that's okay.
But trauma would not be storedin your body if the presence of
helplessness was not there.
So just make sure you're nothopeless.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
God damn, I was going to do takeaways, but that is a
really good one.
I just love listening to yourvoice, also Very soothing.
I was also, as you were talkingabout creating that sort of
mission statement, I wasthinking to myself.
(58:38):
I was thinking back to thatexperience I had with that woman
, yes, and how it?
Because it went south for us.
I had to, we, I had a like oh,you are, you're not in a place
to be doing any of this.
And I thought to myself, whenyou are reading that off, if she
had already worked that out,she would have had so much
(59:00):
clarity for why the wholesituation for her was so
unnerving, and you know what Imean.
That would have given her aplaybook with me, Right?
And also, if she had sharedthat information with me, then I
(59:20):
would have been like I knowwhat we're doing here.
Yes, because I certainly am.
I am not an expert in healingfrom high control religious
trauma, for sure.
I was just like, oh my God,what am I?
You know what is happening.
How do I deal with this human?
So I love that you leave uswith that, because whether
(59:45):
you're the person who's comingout of this, you know the purity
culture and really beingcreated and baked and then put
into the earth.
You know in this way or you'rethe person who, like me,
ventured into relationship withone If you know these things
(01:00:05):
ahead of time, if that missionstatement is created, that
creates clarity.
And I always say, especially inintimacy and sex clarity is
kindness.
The absence of clarity isunkindness to one person or the
other.
So I love that.
Thank you so much for that.
So I'm just going to ask youthis.
(01:00:27):
Any last words, then, for mylisteners, since you gave us
such a wonderful, usefultakeaway my listeners, since you
gave us such a wonderful,useful takeaway.
Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yes, if you are a person coming out of high
control religion or a lover toone, I want you to know that you
can do this work, curiosity,play, you can heal and have the
(01:01:04):
best sex of your life.
It's not too late.
In fact, myself and those of uswho've come out of these
religious spaces tend to haveinvigorating, tend to have
invigorating, life-giving sexfor a really long time, and so I
just want to inject a littlehope into the end of this that
(01:01:24):
your kinkiest, most fun days areahead, and there are
individuals out there, like meand so many others, who adore
walking alongside those of you.
So you're not alone and there'shope.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
I love that I actually have a sexy someone out
there I'm sending this episodeto.
I already know I'm like, andyou know who you are I'd like to
put my hands on your body.
I'm going to send this personthis episode just because I
think this is going to resonateso much with them.
We talk about their own comingout of religious trauma and I
(01:02:04):
think this is going to be veryhelpful.
Can you please let everyonelistening to this know exactly
where they can find you, listento your lovely voice and learn
from you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Yes, you can go to sexed4ucom forward slash connect
.
Sexed4ucom forward slashconnect.
There on that page I have alink to my Instagram, a link to
my podcast, all of those typesof things.
I was telling Annette before webegan that I have a podcast
with my partner, trey, calledthe Partnership Podcast, where
(01:02:37):
we talk extensively about whatour sex is like and we often
dabble in the ways in whichreligious trauma still impacts
me today and the things we'vedone to overcome it.
So if you are a lover tosomeone who sounds a lot like me
, feel free to listen and feellike you got some people in your
(01:02:58):
corner.
It could be very encouraging toyou and you could probably just
search through the podcast tofind those specific episodes,
but it's pretty much constantlytalked about.
So, yeah, go to sexed4ucomforward slash connect.
Please find me on Instagram aswell.
You can see that on that page.
I'm very active over there.
That's the only social platformI'm on.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Great, great.
Well, now you guys know whereto find her.
I hope you got as much out ofthis conversation as I did and
as it does as much as it doesrelate to healing from religious
trauma, I want to say, as asurvivor of sexual trauma, I see
so many parallels and how someof these same techniques can be
(01:03:48):
used for people like me, andalso for people like me who have
, you know, definitely religioustrauma, but there are different
levels, I would say, of it.
But still, you know, Catholicschool girl syndrome is real.
It's so real.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
It is so real I think , yes, you'd still be on there
on the scoring sheet, on thescoring chart, Would.
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I score on there.
Is there a scoring sheet?
No, but I should make one.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
You should make one, I should make one and say what
score would you give yourself?
Or like, yeah, I should,because I have a lot of clients.
Yeah, no, lots of Catholicschoolgirl trauma that I work
with yet.
Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Okay, All right.
Well, so there you go, guys.
I just learned something aboutmyself today.
I love it.
All right, guys, I could keeptalking.
(01:04:51):
Now I have all these questionspopping up, but we are out of
time and hopefully I will get achance to talk to you again on
my show I'm sure a lot of you do.
If you are a listener, you cango to my YouTube channel at
TalkSexWithAnette, find thevideo that goes along with the
audio and drop your questionbelow in the comments section,
or you can email me at Annetteat TalkSexWithAnettecom.
(01:05:12):
You can also scroll down to thenotes section below this
episode and click on my speakpipe and send me a voice note
question.
There's a lot of ways to get ahold of me and I will try and
get your specific questionaddressed.
And until next time, thank youagain.
So much, Lauren, for joining meand listeners, until next time.
(01:05:34):
I'll see you in the locker room.
Cheers.
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