April 25, 2025 • 30 mins
Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers is a licensed sex and gender feminist psychotherapist, best-selling author, researcher, emeriti professor, and media personality whose expertise spans sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine, and social justice.
Her revolutionary perspectives have been expressed on platforms such as Spirituality & Health, Refinery 29, Vocal, Medium, and Bust Magazines, along with many podcasts, radio, news, and TV outlets. Known for exposing the impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability to securely attach to our partners, and instruct our children to attach to theirs, Dr. Sellers’ book Sex, God, & the Conservative Church – Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has had a global impact. Her latest book, Shameless Parenting – Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident, Kids and Heal Your Shame Too! was a New Release Bestseller in eight categories.
She speaks throughout the world on how to heal, and how to raise shame-free relationally confident children. In 2015, Dr. Sellers founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy, a post-graduate institute to train psychotherapists, educators, clergy, and physicians in sexual health, healing sexual shame and trauma, and understanding their sexual biases. In 2023, Dr. Tina founded InannaRising.org - A private membership community for psychedelic-assisted therapists and medical providers to get ongoing clinical consultation, collaboration, training, and support in creating scholarships for the under-resourced, and participation in an Indigenous reparation fund. Dr. Tina can be followed on Instagram @DrTinaShameless.
Her revolutionary perspectives have been expressed on platforms such as Spirituality & Health, Refinery 29, Vocal, Medium, and Bust Magazines, along with many podcasts, radio, news, and TV outlets. Known for exposing the impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability to securely attach to our partners, and instruct our children to attach to theirs, Dr. Sellers’ book Sex, God, & the Conservative Church – Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has had a global impact. Her latest book, Shameless Parenting – Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident, Kids and Heal Your Shame Too! was a New Release Bestseller in eight categories.
She speaks throughout the world on how to heal, and how to raise shame-free relationally confident children. In 2015, Dr. Sellers founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy, a post-graduate institute to train psychotherapists, educators, clergy, and physicians in sexual health, healing sexual shame and trauma, and understanding their sexual biases. In 2023, Dr. Tina founded InannaRising.org - A private membership community for psychedelic-assisted therapists and medical providers to get ongoing clinical consultation, collaboration, training, and support in creating scholarships for the under-resourced, and participation in an Indigenous reparation fund. Dr. Tina can be followed on Instagram @DrTinaShameless.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Cynthia James, and this network is about changing lives,
one woman at a time. Hello, and welcome to Women Awakening.
I'm your host, Cynthia James, and I am so excited
(00:22):
that I have the opportunity and the honor of introducing
you to fabulous women. These are women that aren't exceptions.
They're just examples of what it looks like to be
in their dharma, to be in that space of bringing
forth the things that they're passionate about and inspiring others
(00:43):
to do the same. And so they're way showers and
they're game changers. Actually, every single woman that I interview,
you know, has great insights, awesome wisdom and really, you know,
you can take notes because there's always things that you
can take away and use. We do these every week,
you know, and we're on all the platforms Spotify, iTunes, Iheartspeaker,
(01:06):
Amazon Video, on YouTube. You just look for Women Awakening
with Cynthia James. You can also go to Cynthia James
dot net. That is my website. Let you know all
the things I'm doing in my world, and there's lots
of gifts and things to inspire you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Tell you I have someone I don't know today, but
I'm very excited to interview her. Her name is doctor
Tina Shermer Sellers, and she's a licensed sex and gender
feminist psychotherapist. She's a best selling author, a researcher, ameriti professor,
and a media personality whose expertise spans sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine,
(01:52):
and social justice. You know, she is known for exposing
the impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability
to securely attach to our partners and instruct our children
to attach to theirs. So doctor Seller's book Sex God
and the Conservative Church, Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has
(02:16):
had a global impact, and her latest book, Shameless Parenting,
Everything you Need to Know to raise shame free, confident
Kids and Heal Your Shame Too, was a new release
bestseller in eight categories, and in twenty fifteen, doctor Sellers
founded the Northwest Institute of Intimacy, a postgraduate institute to
(02:40):
trained psychotherapists, educators, clergy and physicians and sexual health healing
sexual shame and trauma and understanding their sexual biases. Tina,
thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thank you so much. Cynthia for having me. I'm so
glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, I want to start with how you grew up.
Chances are you didn't come on the planet to be
a sex therapist.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, I did not at all. But you know, as
I look back, I can see where the universe, however
you want to think about it, was guiding me in
a very particular way. I grew up in a Swedish
immigrant home. And while my family had its bones in
its closets, and of course was like any family. You know,
(03:27):
there's no such thing as a perfect family or a
perfect human were radically valuable and radically imperfect. My family
was the same. But one of the gifts that my family,
my extended family, gave me is there had been generations
of openness around talking about sexuality and sexual health, emotional health,
(03:48):
relational health, and there were no topics that were off limits.
And so I grew up being able to ask my grandparents,
my great aunts, my uncles, my parents question as they
came up. I listened to them banter and talk about
sexual things or relationship things or teasing or whatever, just
(04:08):
throughout growing up, and I thought every family was like mine,
and I was literally in my thirties teaching in a
marriage and family therapy program, teaching the human sexuality class
because I thought, well, why not, that would be fun?
Right when I started learning from students and from clients
(04:28):
that my upbringing actually was very rare in the United States,
and the vast majority of people that I was either
treating or teaching had grown up in homes that were
silent or silent and shaming around their bodies and sexuality,
even emotional health and relational health like boundaries and autonomy
(04:52):
and you know, just knowing how to navigate what's it
being a good friend and what does it mean to
be a good friend and so on and so forth,
And so many people in their development in their sexuality
and relational development had really gotten the bulk of their
knowledge from friends and from media and very little actual information.
(05:15):
So I had the good fortune of learning about sexuality
and bodies and reproduction and how you treat people and
you know, what exploitation is and isn't all of that,
Just like I learned about recipes, Swedish recipes and how
to take care of yourself and how to brush your teeth,
And I learned about it all in a very collaborative,
(05:40):
you know, open kind of way, and the vast majority
of people that I later came to treat and teach
that was not their experience. And it was heartbreaking to me.
And it was out of that and out of the
gratefulness that I had for the family that I grew
up with, and then really studying the Northern European countries
and how different they were from America, that I decided
(06:02):
I needed to do more speaking and writing about it
because so many people were dealing with so much pain
and difficulty in their lives and in their intimate relationships,
the relationships that were most meaningful to them, and I thought,
I need to do what I can to support people
living fully into their beauty and their desire to love
(06:23):
and attach.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, well, I grew up in the fifties and no,
we were not having those conversations. In fact, there was
a whole tie to it around religion and what it
was so interesting you were supposed to be this beautiful
virgin until you got married, and then you were supposed
(06:45):
to be this sexual goddess and it's like, well, what's
the bridge?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay, And so.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I totally get what you're saying. So I want to
just I want to talk about your first book before
we get to the latest one, because I just the
title was so beautiful to me. It was like sex
God and the Conservative Church erasing shame from sexual intimacy,
(07:12):
and I first of all, huge topic, but a big
topic because it's like, if you're not taught to be open,
if you're not taught to share intimacy without shame, then
you're just mucking around trying to figure.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It out that's right, and often having experiences that are
less than ideal, sometimes hurtful, sometimes traumatic, and then that
then informs other experiences that you have. You've not been
given the language to talk about it, so you often
don't even know how to talk about it or express yourself.
You've been absorbing the messages of culture, which might not
(07:57):
be helpful. They might be you know, men like this,
women have to protect themselves from men, or if men
act out their desire because desiro is bad, then it
must be your fault. I mean, they just messages that
aren't always helpful to our relationships. So I mean, I
love that you started there, because that's really where I
(08:18):
started to I started to say, well, has America ever
been sex positive? Ors has always been sex is dangerous,
you know. And I mean I worked on this book
for eleven years, that's how long it took me to
really ask some of these questions. And so we first
started really looking at history, like what's been happening historically
(08:40):
in America, and then on the Abrahamic line longer than that,
you know. And what I found was there had been
all these tides of being super conservative or ascetic almost
you know, just it's dangerous, shut it down, separate body
from from spirit, right, you can't try anything, you know,
(09:00):
a lot of that. And then there were other times
where people were asking more questions and there was more
openness in the culture. And what I found was when
a culture was frightened, there had been a famine, there
had been an illness, a plague, there had been an
economic during downturn. For us, the latest time was it
around nineteen eighty, between seventy five and eighty eighty one,
(09:24):
and we had an economic downturn in eighty we had
a reaction to second wave feminism, and then aids hit
the East coast in eighty and the West coast in
eighty five. So there ended up being kind of a
frightened public and the powers that be were really trying
to push a capitalist agenda. In order to do that,
(09:45):
they needed to get their people in. So they formed
the Religious Rite and the Moral Majority, and they put
forward a thing called family values. It didn't have anything
to do with family values. It had to do with
increasing the power of corporations and people. But when they
put that forward, they were able to re And then
what they did is they made abortion the issue. So
(10:07):
most people don't know that the Southern Baptist Church was
Proro v Wade from the passage of it in seventy four,
even before that through nineteen seventy nine. But there also
had been segregation in the religious schools that was now
no longer federally allowed. So they had to come up
with another issue to rally the people. Really again, it
(10:29):
was racial issues in a lot of ways, and so
they did around abortion that it had always been, you know,
biblical to not have abortion, which is not true. They
did all of that and rallied this group of people
to be sort of pushing this agenda forward. This agenda
has been being pushed forward now for forty five years,
(10:49):
you know. And but what it did as far as
sexuality goes. It was sex is dangerous. So now it's
not just don't have sex until marriage, which like you
were talking about, but it went further. It was don't
think about sex, be pure and tell your marriage your
heterosexual marriage. Don't think about sex, don't want sex, don't
(11:11):
do anything sexual with yourself or anyone else, or you
will ruin your chance of a good relationship in the
future and ruin your relationship with God. And this was
what began the purity movement in the United States. But
it also began the abstinence only movement in the United States,
which was federally funded religious education in our public schools.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, but okay, but hold on. But in the meantime, yeah,
people were doing all kinds of shady stuff behind closed
doors with prostitutes and all kinds of other stuff and
rape and incest and all this other stuff. While they're
saying don't do.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That, right, absolutely, there's no real accountability to what does
it mean to live in integri what does it mean
to treat people with respect and mutuality? You have to
realize by pushing a capitalist agenda, we began pushing the
agenda that it doesn't matter what you do. It just
matters that you make money for your stockholders. Right, So
(12:16):
let me give you an example. In nineteen eighty five,
we remove the regulations in our media in the FCC,
the Federal Communication Commission, So now media could say and
do anything it wanted as long as it was making
money for the stockholders. So what did we start selling?
Violence against women? TV movies, then the internet and music videos,
(12:43):
video games, especially targeting boys against violence against women? So
we see an increase in rape and violence. We have
a plea to the Congress every single year since nineteen
seventy two to pass laws protecting women. We don't pass
any laws protecting women. So yes, yes, yes, all of
(13:05):
this acting out behavior was going on because people are silent,
they're underground with it, and they're acting out because they're
bringing in all this. I can do whatever i want.
I'm not accountable right now, this is right in front of.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Us, right and the women are supposed to, no matter
what happens, have these babies that they don't want and
are ill prepared to take care of.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And so the thing that's really what I love about
what you're saying is that that whole arena does not
open to spiritual intimacy, no no, no and connection.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
No no.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's like no, no no. And so so if you're
out here having sex, you're ashamed of it and hiding
it or you're just out of control and right, and
so from your point of view, right, what what that
book that you wrote? Yeah, what do you think was
(14:08):
the most important tool or piece of information that women
could connect to to open to the fact that our
sexuality is a beautiful thing?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Right? Well, first, what I did is I showed what
had been happening historically, Like, this isn't about you and
something being wrong with you, whatever your experiences have been
that have been hurtful or painful, you were inside a
system that was allowing this to happen and actually put you,
putting you in harm's way. You know, everybody was put
(14:43):
in harm's way, you know, in different ways. They were
put in harm's way, and so they had, you know,
unfortunate many people, most people had unfortunate experiences. But then
after saying so, this is what's been happening historically, then
I went into so what was the effect what's been
the effect of religious sexual trauma sexual trauma in general
in people's lives and how do you heal. I also
(15:06):
put a chapter in there about how all of these
ideas played into what was happening culture that was selling people,
selling goods and saying you can use people to get
whatever you want. So a consumer based capitalist culture like
ours was saying there's no accountability in there at all,
(15:29):
and so so for people to see that basically the
church was in bed with capitalism in a particular way
that was hurtful to people and to relationships and families
and communities and neighborhoods. Right, and so to say, okay,
so this all happened, it was you weren't caught in
a system. Here's how it's likely affected you. This is
where you're noticing that you're struggling. Here's how you heal.
(15:54):
And then the book ends with here's some practices, some
things you can do to begin to align your heart
and your soul with your behaviors, like with how you
want to touch and be touched, how you want to
be listened to and you want to listen. So how
to create safe relationships so you can bloom and others
can bloom. So we talk about so I just kind
(16:16):
of give the whole story that take them there. And
then the other book came about because I had people
that were saying, Okay, that was so helpful, thank you
so much. I see, and I've been working on my healing.
Here's been what I've been doing. Now I've got kids
in my life and I just don't want to do
to them what was done to me. So I know
what not to do, but I don't know what to do.
(16:39):
And I said, I got you, I got you. I
will hold your hand. And that book Shae was Parenting,
which really is about reparenting yourself and walking alongside little ones,
is really put together in such a handholding way. It's
like birth to two, two to four, four to six.
Here's what those are going to be curious about. Here's
(17:00):
how they're likely going to express it. How will that
be for you? Do you feel yourself going like this?
You know, just put your hand on your heart and say,
that's shame. I got that from somebody who loved me
but didn't know what to do right And then take
a deep breath. And then here's the top books, here's
the top websites, here's the things to say, here's the
(17:22):
things to say to yourself. And I just do that
in these tiny two year increments all the way through
the books. So I say to people, just be two
years ahead of whatever little ones you have in your life,
and you'll be fine because you don't have to have
it figured out. But I'm going to show you what
to do, and you can change the legacy right here,
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, I love that, And I want to talk about
the social media, and I want to talk about how
women have been through especially music, you know, have been sexualized.
(18:02):
And so what I'm watching, what I watch with my
own grandchildren and stuff is like, well, I want to
be sexy and I want, you know, but then I
don't like the attention I get the way I get
the attention, And so there's this, there's and then they're
shaming that happens in their social media groups, and so
they're trying to figure out who am I and is
(18:23):
it okay to be sexual? And do I have to
be a hot mama with my cleavage showing and the
tiny little skirts?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Right? Yeah? Well, and I think there's so many conversations
to be having along the way. And that's another reason
that that book can be so helpful, because we want
to be developing in kids so by the time they're eight,
nine and ten, they've got some what i'd call media literacy.
So they're asking, well, who's producing this thing I'm watching,
(18:53):
who's benefiting, who's included, who's excluded? Right, And they start
just developing the awareness that everything we're consuming is produced
and someone's benefiting, but someone is not. And so you
help them think critically, right, You affirm the fact that
they want to feel good and they want to look
(19:14):
pretty or they want to look strong. You affirm that,
But then you're like, how do you know, regardless of
what anybody else think, what feels right on you putting
tattoo two on with your sweatshirt and your football helmet.
Does that all feel good to you? Great? Okay, So
how do we learn to hold on to ourselves even
(19:34):
though we live in a world that is trying to
get us to think we're not good enough if we
don't look like this. And that's helping them know that
that's about selling. Right. When kids look at media and
nobody's there to have these conversations with them or help
them filter some of this stuff and even help them
to turn it off, you know, sometimes then what ends
(19:57):
up happening is they absorb the meatia as messages. And
we know from research that right now we have fifty
percent of six year old girls, two thirds of nine
year old girls, and ninety percent of fifteen year old
girls that modify their diet because they already know from
media that they're not good enough the way they are, right,
(20:20):
But they need somebody who's been saying all along, sweet pee,
this is your background, this is the way bodies work
in our family, you know, and yours is spectacular. And
do you know what, there as never ever, ever in
how old the earth has had people on it, that
there's been a you. You are just the way you're
supposed to be, and you're not gonna look or sound
(20:43):
or think exactly like anyone else. And the world needs
your authenticity. That's what we need, you know. So we
need they need a lot of other voices in their
lives reminding them that what's happening in media is about
selling and running our economy and it's not about them.
It's not always got their best interest at heart.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Right well, And I love this whole concept of conversations,
you know, because here's the thing though, I think with
so many families, both parents working and the kids are,
you know, being raised by computers or TV or whatever.
You know, it's a lot of them aren't even eating
together anymoregan when I grew up, eating together was a
(21:27):
big deal. We all ate dinner together.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
But I think the.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Importance of having that kind of conversation because I don't
you know, you're you're so blessed. I mean, I was
sitting there listening to You're, going, wow, that's really great.
In my family, you know, African Methodist Episcopal, that's how
I grew up. I mean, there was so much sin
around your sexuality and being sexual or having those feelings
(21:55):
that everybody hid the conversations, and then there were all
kinds of secrets instead of saying, well, let's talk about
how you feel, and let's talk about how you can
use that for your benefit to be healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right exactly. One of the things I talk about in
the book is when I had asked that question, it
had America and Christianity it had ever been sex positive,
and I kind of came to a no, it hasn't.
I think Jesus was pretty body positive. But as soon
as we get to the formation of the Christian Church
in the fourth century, then it's very much spirit is
(22:31):
separated from body. People are the men are competing for
places in this new church by denying the body all
of that, and then we get to where we are now,
you know. But really so I said, well, because I
had worked with enough people that are like, I can't
go to the Eastern thinking like that doesn't feel good
to me. And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to find
out if on the Abrahamic line, like going into Jewish writing,
(22:54):
if there was ever anything positive. And then I found
all these beautiful body positive, sex positive, deep intimate relationship
positive kinds of messages and stories and whatnot. And one
of them that I talk about, because I give about
eight in the book, is that sexuality or desire was
(23:18):
seen as the breath of God, the breath of God,
you know. And there's a story from like five hundred
BC and it talks about that the rabbis of this
town were just so worried and people sexuality seemed out
of control, and they were just, you know, kind of
frantic about it. And they went into the Holy of
(23:39):
Holies and they begged God, please please take this away,
and God said no. And they begged and God said no, No,
went back and forth like this for a little long time,
and then finally God says fine, and then out from
the from the Holy of Holies jumps this spirit of
the Lion of Fire and it goes across the whole village.
(24:00):
And then the next day the hens stop laying eggs,
the artists stop creating. Everyone basically falls into a deep depression,
like the whole town stops. And so they go back
into the Holy poolist and they're like, Okay, can you
just turn that one back on and just turn the
(24:21):
sexuality one off? And God says no. With all great gifts,
the gift of creativity, the gift of creation, the breath
of me, with all great gifts, desires a gift, you
must learn to manage it. You manage it so that
it's serving love and justice. You make decisions like, is
(24:45):
how does this serve me and serve another? If it's
going to affect another, how is this a just way
to be? But desire, the feeling of desire. I want this,
I want to make this, I want to create this,
I want to do this. I want to love you,
I want to touch you. That is the breath of God.
And there's another story that they talk about when babies
(25:05):
are born that the first breath is the coursing of
the breath of God, the creative breath of God in
and through your body, and that's inspiration in spirit until
your last breath, which is expiration, the spirit leaving your body.
(25:25):
That's a very different way to think about desire. So
now in a family, you can say, oh, sweetie, I
love that you have that desire. Let's talk about how
you manage it in a way that makes you feel
good about you and makes you feel good about how
you're treating other people because we have a responsibility to both.
It's a very different and ongoing conversation that you have.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
One hundred percent, and it creates such a safe space
to be able, especially you know when you're growing up,
adolescents or whatever, there's confusion and there's all kinds of
conflicting feelings. To be able to talk about that is incredible.
I want to know how people find you, How do
they get your books? How do they how do they
(26:09):
like get your wisdom?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Right? Well, you can find the books really easily on Amazon.
You can just use my whole name, Tina Shermer Seller.
So that's t I. N A. S. C H E
R M E R and then S E L L
E R S. You can look me up that way.
I have a website with that as well. If you
want to buy the books at a bookseller and if
(26:31):
they don't happen to have it, just ask them to
get it for you. They'll be glad to go get
them and it'll probably take a week or whatever, but
you can get them that way. I'm on Instagram at
doctor Tina Shameless so d R T I N A
and then shameless, and you're welcome to reach out. If
at any point somebody wants a copy of one of
(26:52):
the books and they can't afford it for any reason,
just DM me. I'll send you a promo code so
that you can listen to it. I don't want anybody
to not get it when they really want it because
they can't afford it or for some reason, so just
let me know. Yeah, So those are probably the primary
rays of you know, my website, Instagram. I'm on Twitter,
(27:13):
but not as much anymore because I don't really like
what's going on with it, you know. And then my
books are there and I really love engaging with people
around the books questions that they have love being a
part of people's healing, you know, so that they can
have the relationships and the life of thriving that they
want and deserve. I believe so. Well, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay, ladies, I would say run, do not want to
get these books because I think it's important for us
on a whole lot of levels. Well, I asked the
same last question on this show. The show is called
Women Awakening. What do you think is the most important
thing about women awakening in this moment?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I really think learning to listen to your heart and
trust the voice within. I believe we have lots of
forces of love in our world that are trying to
speak to hearts that are open to what love and
justice are and what it means to live in that.
(28:19):
And I really believe in the feminine force of that.
Women often have been practicing so epigenetically through history, have
been practicing listening to others, and they need to and
that's given them a lot of wisdom. Right They can
see a lot of patterns of what's been going on,
and they need to listen to themselves and in the
(28:42):
wisdom that comes into their own hearts, use that to
bring forward, you know, practices of love and justice in
all the ways that that is now going to begin,
I believe, emerging and have more power over the sort
of selfish, capitalistic kinds of things that have been so
(29:02):
hurtful for so long, that really have been a part
of patriarchy. And it's time for that to close. It's
time for that chapter to close. And women are there
going to be the ones, and actually I think Black
women in particular are going to be the ones to
lead that charge, and Indigenous women, and I think that's
where we need to listen and listen within and join
forces together. So there you go. That's what I think,
(29:23):
and that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Well, Tina, you are inspired and inspiring. I'm so honored
to know you and to get to feel your energy
and your heart and your wisdom. Thank you so much
for being here.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yes, thank you so much for having me, Cynthia, it
was wonderful to be with you.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Okay, Ladies, I close this show the same way with
different words. You are unique, you are unrepeatable. You are
a vessel of love and a vessel of beauty and
grace in all its forms, including your sexuality. So what
(30:10):
I want to say is whatever has happened to you
doesn't define you. You get to choose how you want
to move forward. You get to choose how you want
to bring your voice, You get to choose how you
want to stand in your power. Because the world needs you,
We need you, and you know there should not be
any form of patriarchy that defines who you are and
(30:30):
who you've come here to be because you are fantastic.
Thank you so much for being here. I love you
and I'll see you next time.
I'm Cynthia James, and this network is about changing lives,
one woman at a time. Hello, and welcome to Women Awakening.
I'm your host, Cynthia James, and I am so excited
(00:22):
that I have the opportunity and the honor of introducing
you to fabulous women. These are women that aren't exceptions.
They're just examples of what it looks like to be
in their dharma, to be in that space of bringing
forth the things that they're passionate about and inspiring others
(00:43):
to do the same. And so they're way showers and
they're game changers. Actually, every single woman that I interview,
you know, has great insights, awesome wisdom and really, you know,
you can take notes because there's always things that you
can take away and use. We do these every week,
you know, and we're on all the platforms Spotify, iTunes, Iheartspeaker,
(01:06):
Amazon Video, on YouTube. You just look for Women Awakening
with Cynthia James. You can also go to Cynthia James
dot net. That is my website. Let you know all
the things I'm doing in my world, and there's lots
of gifts and things to inspire you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Tell you I have someone I don't know today, but
I'm very excited to interview her. Her name is doctor
Tina Shermer Sellers, and she's a licensed sex and gender
feminist psychotherapist. She's a best selling author, a researcher, ameriti professor,
and a media personality whose expertise spans sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine,
(01:52):
and social justice. You know, she is known for exposing
the impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability
to securely attach to our partners and instruct our children
to attach to theirs. So doctor Seller's book Sex God
and the Conservative Church, Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has
(02:16):
had a global impact, and her latest book, Shameless Parenting,
Everything you Need to Know to raise shame free, confident
Kids and Heal Your Shame Too, was a new release
bestseller in eight categories, and in twenty fifteen, doctor Sellers
founded the Northwest Institute of Intimacy, a postgraduate institute to
(02:40):
trained psychotherapists, educators, clergy and physicians and sexual health healing
sexual shame and trauma and understanding their sexual biases. Tina,
thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thank you so much. Cynthia for having me. I'm so
glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, I want to start with how you grew up.
Chances are you didn't come on the planet to be
a sex therapist.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, I did not at all. But you know, as
I look back, I can see where the universe, however
you want to think about it, was guiding me in
a very particular way. I grew up in a Swedish
immigrant home. And while my family had its bones in
its closets, and of course was like any family. You know,
(03:27):
there's no such thing as a perfect family or a
perfect human were radically valuable and radically imperfect. My family
was the same. But one of the gifts that my family,
my extended family, gave me is there had been generations
of openness around talking about sexuality and sexual health, emotional health,
(03:48):
relational health, and there were no topics that were off limits.
And so I grew up being able to ask my grandparents,
my great aunts, my uncles, my parents question as they
came up. I listened to them banter and talk about
sexual things or relationship things or teasing or whatever, just
(04:08):
throughout growing up, and I thought every family was like mine,
and I was literally in my thirties teaching in a
marriage and family therapy program, teaching the human sexuality class
because I thought, well, why not, that would be fun?
Right when I started learning from students and from clients
(04:28):
that my upbringing actually was very rare in the United States,
and the vast majority of people that I was either
treating or teaching had grown up in homes that were
silent or silent and shaming around their bodies and sexuality,
even emotional health and relational health like boundaries and autonomy
(04:52):
and you know, just knowing how to navigate what's it
being a good friend and what does it mean to
be a good friend and so on and so forth,
And so many people in their development in their sexuality
and relational development had really gotten the bulk of their
knowledge from friends and from media and very little actual information.
(05:15):
So I had the good fortune of learning about sexuality
and bodies and reproduction and how you treat people and
you know, what exploitation is and isn't all of that,
Just like I learned about recipes, Swedish recipes and how
to take care of yourself and how to brush your teeth,
And I learned about it all in a very collaborative,
(05:40):
you know, open kind of way, and the vast majority
of people that I later came to treat and teach
that was not their experience. And it was heartbreaking to me.
And it was out of that and out of the
gratefulness that I had for the family that I grew
up with, and then really studying the Northern European countries
and how different they were from America, that I decided
(06:02):
I needed to do more speaking and writing about it
because so many people were dealing with so much pain
and difficulty in their lives and in their intimate relationships,
the relationships that were most meaningful to them, and I thought,
I need to do what I can to support people
living fully into their beauty and their desire to love
(06:23):
and attach.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, well, I grew up in the fifties and no,
we were not having those conversations. In fact, there was
a whole tie to it around religion and what it
was so interesting you were supposed to be this beautiful
virgin until you got married, and then you were supposed
(06:45):
to be this sexual goddess and it's like, well, what's
the bridge?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay, And so.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I totally get what you're saying. So I want to
just I want to talk about your first book before
we get to the latest one, because I just the
title was so beautiful to me. It was like sex
God and the Conservative Church erasing shame from sexual intimacy,
(07:12):
and I first of all, huge topic, but a big
topic because it's like, if you're not taught to be open,
if you're not taught to share intimacy without shame, then
you're just mucking around trying to figure.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
It out that's right, and often having experiences that are
less than ideal, sometimes hurtful, sometimes traumatic, and then that
then informs other experiences that you have. You've not been
given the language to talk about it, so you often
don't even know how to talk about it or express yourself.
You've been absorbing the messages of culture, which might not
(07:57):
be helpful. They might be you know, men like this,
women have to protect themselves from men, or if men
act out their desire because desiro is bad, then it
must be your fault. I mean, they just messages that
aren't always helpful to our relationships. So I mean, I
love that you started there, because that's really where I
(08:18):
started to I started to say, well, has America ever
been sex positive? Ors has always been sex is dangerous,
you know. And I mean I worked on this book
for eleven years, that's how long it took me to
really ask some of these questions. And so we first
started really looking at history, like what's been happening historically
(08:40):
in America, and then on the Abrahamic line longer than that,
you know. And what I found was there had been
all these tides of being super conservative or ascetic almost
you know, just it's dangerous, shut it down, separate body
from from spirit, right, you can't try anything, you know,
(09:00):
a lot of that. And then there were other times
where people were asking more questions and there was more
openness in the culture. And what I found was when
a culture was frightened, there had been a famine, there
had been an illness, a plague, there had been an
economic during downturn. For us, the latest time was it
around nineteen eighty, between seventy five and eighty eighty one,
(09:24):
and we had an economic downturn in eighty we had
a reaction to second wave feminism, and then aids hit
the East coast in eighty and the West coast in
eighty five. So there ended up being kind of a
frightened public and the powers that be were really trying
to push a capitalist agenda. In order to do that,
(09:45):
they needed to get their people in. So they formed
the Religious Rite and the Moral Majority, and they put
forward a thing called family values. It didn't have anything
to do with family values. It had to do with
increasing the power of corporations and people. But when they
put that forward, they were able to re And then
what they did is they made abortion the issue. So
(10:07):
most people don't know that the Southern Baptist Church was
Proro v Wade from the passage of it in seventy four,
even before that through nineteen seventy nine. But there also
had been segregation in the religious schools that was now
no longer federally allowed. So they had to come up
with another issue to rally the people. Really again, it
(10:29):
was racial issues in a lot of ways, and so
they did around abortion that it had always been, you know,
biblical to not have abortion, which is not true. They
did all of that and rallied this group of people
to be sort of pushing this agenda forward. This agenda
has been being pushed forward now for forty five years,
(10:49):
you know. And but what it did as far as
sexuality goes. It was sex is dangerous. So now it's
not just don't have sex until marriage, which like you
were talking about, but it went further. It was don't
think about sex, be pure and tell your marriage your
heterosexual marriage. Don't think about sex, don't want sex, don't
(11:11):
do anything sexual with yourself or anyone else, or you
will ruin your chance of a good relationship in the
future and ruin your relationship with God. And this was
what began the purity movement in the United States. But
it also began the abstinence only movement in the United States,
which was federally funded religious education in our public schools.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Okay, but okay, but hold on. But in the meantime, yeah,
people were doing all kinds of shady stuff behind closed
doors with prostitutes and all kinds of other stuff and
rape and incest and all this other stuff. While they're
saying don't do.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That, right, absolutely, there's no real accountability to what does
it mean to live in integri what does it mean
to treat people with respect and mutuality? You have to
realize by pushing a capitalist agenda, we began pushing the
agenda that it doesn't matter what you do. It just
matters that you make money for your stockholders. Right, So
(12:16):
let me give you an example. In nineteen eighty five,
we remove the regulations in our media in the FCC,
the Federal Communication Commission, So now media could say and
do anything it wanted as long as it was making
money for the stockholders. So what did we start selling?
Violence against women? TV movies, then the internet and music videos,
(12:43):
video games, especially targeting boys against violence against women? So
we see an increase in rape and violence. We have
a plea to the Congress every single year since nineteen
seventy two to pass laws protecting women. We don't pass
any laws protecting women. So yes, yes, yes, all of
(13:05):
this acting out behavior was going on because people are silent,
they're underground with it, and they're acting out because they're
bringing in all this. I can do whatever i want.
I'm not accountable right now, this is right in front of.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Us, right and the women are supposed to, no matter
what happens, have these babies that they don't want and
are ill prepared to take care of.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
And so the thing that's really what I love about
what you're saying is that that whole arena does not
open to spiritual intimacy, no no, no and connection.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
No no.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's like no, no no. And so so if you're
out here having sex, you're ashamed of it and hiding
it or you're just out of control and right, and
so from your point of view, right, what what that
book that you wrote? Yeah, what do you think was
(14:08):
the most important tool or piece of information that women
could connect to to open to the fact that our
sexuality is a beautiful thing?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Right? Well, first, what I did is I showed what
had been happening historically, Like, this isn't about you and
something being wrong with you, whatever your experiences have been
that have been hurtful or painful, you were inside a
system that was allowing this to happen and actually put you,
putting you in harm's way. You know, everybody was put
(14:43):
in harm's way, you know, in different ways. They were
put in harm's way, and so they had, you know,
unfortunate many people, most people had unfortunate experiences. But then
after saying so, this is what's been happening historically, then
I went into so what was the effect what's been
the effect of religious sexual trauma sexual trauma in general
in people's lives and how do you heal. I also
(15:06):
put a chapter in there about how all of these
ideas played into what was happening culture that was selling people,
selling goods and saying you can use people to get
whatever you want. So a consumer based capitalist culture like
ours was saying there's no accountability in there at all,
(15:29):
and so so for people to see that basically the
church was in bed with capitalism in a particular way
that was hurtful to people and to relationships and families
and communities and neighborhoods. Right, and so to say, okay,
so this all happened, it was you weren't caught in
a system. Here's how it's likely affected you. This is
where you're noticing that you're struggling. Here's how you heal.
(15:54):
And then the book ends with here's some practices, some
things you can do to begin to align your heart
and your soul with your behaviors, like with how you
want to touch and be touched, how you want to
be listened to and you want to listen. So how
to create safe relationships so you can bloom and others
can bloom. So we talk about so I just kind
(16:16):
of give the whole story that take them there. And
then the other book came about because I had people
that were saying, Okay, that was so helpful, thank you
so much. I see, and I've been working on my healing.
Here's been what I've been doing. Now I've got kids
in my life and I just don't want to do
to them what was done to me. So I know
what not to do, but I don't know what to do.
(16:39):
And I said, I got you, I got you. I
will hold your hand. And that book Shae was Parenting,
which really is about reparenting yourself and walking alongside little ones,
is really put together in such a handholding way. It's
like birth to two, two to four, four to six.
Here's what those are going to be curious about. Here's
(17:00):
how they're likely going to express it. How will that
be for you? Do you feel yourself going like this?
You know, just put your hand on your heart and say,
that's shame. I got that from somebody who loved me
but didn't know what to do right And then take
a deep breath. And then here's the top books, here's
the top websites, here's the things to say, here's the
(17:22):
things to say to yourself. And I just do that
in these tiny two year increments all the way through
the books. So I say to people, just be two
years ahead of whatever little ones you have in your life,
and you'll be fine because you don't have to have
it figured out. But I'm going to show you what
to do, and you can change the legacy right here,
right now.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Well, I love that, And I want to talk about
the social media, and I want to talk about how
women have been through especially music, you know, have been sexualized.
(18:02):
And so what I'm watching, what I watch with my
own grandchildren and stuff is like, well, I want to
be sexy and I want, you know, but then I
don't like the attention I get the way I get
the attention, And so there's this, there's and then they're
shaming that happens in their social media groups, and so
they're trying to figure out who am I and is
(18:23):
it okay to be sexual? And do I have to
be a hot mama with my cleavage showing and the
tiny little skirts?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Right? Yeah? Well, and I think there's so many conversations
to be having along the way. And that's another reason
that that book can be so helpful, because we want
to be developing in kids so by the time they're eight,
nine and ten, they've got some what i'd call media literacy.
So they're asking, well, who's producing this thing I'm watching,
(18:53):
who's benefiting, who's included, who's excluded? Right, And they start
just developing the awareness that everything we're consuming is produced
and someone's benefiting, but someone is not. And so you
help them think critically, right, You affirm the fact that
they want to feel good and they want to look
(19:14):
pretty or they want to look strong. You affirm that,
But then you're like, how do you know, regardless of
what anybody else think, what feels right on you putting
tattoo two on with your sweatshirt and your football helmet.
Does that all feel good to you? Great? Okay, So
how do we learn to hold on to ourselves even
(19:34):
though we live in a world that is trying to
get us to think we're not good enough if we
don't look like this. And that's helping them know that
that's about selling. Right. When kids look at media and
nobody's there to have these conversations with them or help
them filter some of this stuff and even help them
to turn it off, you know, sometimes then what ends
(19:57):
up happening is they absorb the meatia as messages. And
we know from research that right now we have fifty
percent of six year old girls, two thirds of nine
year old girls, and ninety percent of fifteen year old
girls that modify their diet because they already know from
media that they're not good enough the way they are, right,
(20:20):
But they need somebody who's been saying all along, sweet pee,
this is your background, this is the way bodies work
in our family, you know, and yours is spectacular. And
do you know what, there as never ever, ever in
how old the earth has had people on it, that
there's been a you. You are just the way you're
supposed to be, and you're not gonna look or sound
(20:43):
or think exactly like anyone else. And the world needs
your authenticity. That's what we need, you know. So we
need they need a lot of other voices in their
lives reminding them that what's happening in media is about
selling and running our economy and it's not about them.
It's not always got their best interest at heart.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Right well, And I love this whole concept of conversations,
you know, because here's the thing though, I think with
so many families, both parents working and the kids are,
you know, being raised by computers or TV or whatever.
You know, it's a lot of them aren't even eating
together anymoregan when I grew up, eating together was a
(21:27):
big deal. We all ate dinner together.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
But I think the.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Importance of having that kind of conversation because I don't
you know, you're you're so blessed. I mean, I was
sitting there listening to You're, going, wow, that's really great.
In my family, you know, African Methodist Episcopal, that's how
I grew up. I mean, there was so much sin
around your sexuality and being sexual or having those feelings
(21:55):
that everybody hid the conversations, and then there were all
kinds of secrets instead of saying, well, let's talk about
how you feel, and let's talk about how you can
use that for your benefit to be healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right exactly. One of the things I talk about in
the book is when I had asked that question, it
had America and Christianity it had ever been sex positive,
and I kind of came to a no, it hasn't.
I think Jesus was pretty body positive. But as soon
as we get to the formation of the Christian Church
in the fourth century, then it's very much spirit is
(22:31):
separated from body. People are the men are competing for
places in this new church by denying the body all
of that, and then we get to where we are now,
you know. But really so I said, well, because I
had worked with enough people that are like, I can't
go to the Eastern thinking like that doesn't feel good
to me. And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to find
out if on the Abrahamic line, like going into Jewish writing,
(22:54):
if there was ever anything positive. And then I found
all these beautiful body positive, sex positive, deep intimate relationship
positive kinds of messages and stories and whatnot. And one
of them that I talk about, because I give about
eight in the book, is that sexuality or desire was
(23:18):
seen as the breath of God, the breath of God,
you know. And there's a story from like five hundred
BC and it talks about that the rabbis of this
town were just so worried and people sexuality seemed out
of control, and they were just, you know, kind of
frantic about it. And they went into the Holy of
(23:39):
Holies and they begged God, please please take this away,
and God said no. And they begged and God said no, No,
went back and forth like this for a little long time,
and then finally God says fine, and then out from
the from the Holy of Holies jumps this spirit of
the Lion of Fire and it goes across the whole village.
(24:00):
And then the next day the hens stop laying eggs,
the artists stop creating. Everyone basically falls into a deep depression,
like the whole town stops. And so they go back
into the Holy poolist and they're like, Okay, can you
just turn that one back on and just turn the
(24:21):
sexuality one off? And God says no. With all great gifts,
the gift of creativity, the gift of creation, the breath
of me, with all great gifts, desires a gift, you
must learn to manage it. You manage it so that
it's serving love and justice. You make decisions like, is
(24:45):
how does this serve me and serve another? If it's
going to affect another, how is this a just way
to be? But desire, the feeling of desire. I want this,
I want to make this, I want to create this,
I want to do this. I want to love you,
I want to touch you. That is the breath of God.
And there's another story that they talk about when babies
(25:05):
are born that the first breath is the coursing of
the breath of God, the creative breath of God in
and through your body, and that's inspiration in spirit until
your last breath, which is expiration, the spirit leaving your body.
(25:25):
That's a very different way to think about desire. So
now in a family, you can say, oh, sweetie, I
love that you have that desire. Let's talk about how
you manage it in a way that makes you feel
good about you and makes you feel good about how
you're treating other people because we have a responsibility to both.
It's a very different and ongoing conversation that you have.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
One hundred percent, and it creates such a safe space
to be able, especially you know when you're growing up,
adolescents or whatever, there's confusion and there's all kinds of
conflicting feelings. To be able to talk about that is incredible.
I want to know how people find you, How do
they get your books? How do they how do they
(26:09):
like get your wisdom?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Right? Well, you can find the books really easily on Amazon.
You can just use my whole name, Tina Shermer Seller.
So that's t I. N A. S. C H E
R M E R and then S E L L
E R S. You can look me up that way.
I have a website with that as well. If you
want to buy the books at a bookseller and if
(26:31):
they don't happen to have it, just ask them to
get it for you. They'll be glad to go get
them and it'll probably take a week or whatever, but
you can get them that way. I'm on Instagram at
doctor Tina Shameless so d R T I N A
and then shameless, and you're welcome to reach out. If
at any point somebody wants a copy of one of
(26:52):
the books and they can't afford it for any reason,
just DM me. I'll send you a promo code so
that you can listen to it. I don't want anybody
to not get it when they really want it because
they can't afford it or for some reason, so just
let me know. Yeah, So those are probably the primary
rays of you know, my website, Instagram. I'm on Twitter,
(27:13):
but not as much anymore because I don't really like
what's going on with it, you know. And then my
books are there and I really love engaging with people
around the books questions that they have love being a
part of people's healing, you know, so that they can
have the relationships and the life of thriving that they
want and deserve. I believe so. Well, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay, ladies, I would say run, do not want to
get these books because I think it's important for us
on a whole lot of levels. Well, I asked the
same last question on this show. The show is called
Women Awakening. What do you think is the most important
thing about women awakening in this moment?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I really think learning to listen to your heart and
trust the voice within. I believe we have lots of
forces of love in our world that are trying to
speak to hearts that are open to what love and
justice are and what it means to live in that.
(28:19):
And I really believe in the feminine force of that.
Women often have been practicing so epigenetically through history, have
been practicing listening to others, and they need to and
that's given them a lot of wisdom. Right They can
see a lot of patterns of what's been going on,
and they need to listen to themselves and in the
(28:42):
wisdom that comes into their own hearts, use that to
bring forward, you know, practices of love and justice in
all the ways that that is now going to begin,
I believe, emerging and have more power over the sort
of selfish, capitalistic kinds of things that have been so
(29:02):
hurtful for so long, that really have been a part
of patriarchy. And it's time for that to close. It's
time for that chapter to close. And women are there
going to be the ones, and actually I think Black
women in particular are going to be the ones to
lead that charge, and Indigenous women, and I think that's
where we need to listen and listen within and join
forces together. So there you go. That's what I think,
(29:23):
and that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Well, Tina, you are inspired and inspiring. I'm so honored
to know you and to get to feel your energy
and your heart and your wisdom. Thank you so much
for being here.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yes, thank you so much for having me, Cynthia, it
was wonderful to be with you.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Okay, Ladies, I close this show the same way with
different words. You are unique, you are unrepeatable. You are
a vessel of love and a vessel of beauty and
grace in all its forms, including your sexuality. So what
(30:10):
I want to say is whatever has happened to you
doesn't define you. You get to choose how you want
to move forward. You get to choose how you want
to bring your voice, You get to choose how you
want to stand in your power. Because the world needs you,
We need you, and you know there should not be
any form of patriarchy that defines who you are and
(30:30):
who you've come here to be because you are fantastic.
Thank you so much for being here. I love you
and I'll see you next time.
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