Sex Gets Real: Talking Sex, Relationships, And Kink With Dawn Serra

Want to work with me? Join the July cohort of the Power in Pleasure course. Check out details and pre-enroll at dawnserra.com/pleasurecourse. In a Sex Gets Real first, this episode is Part Two of a THREE part series featuring Eve Rickert, Samantha Manewitz, and Aida Manduley. This episode is my conversation with therapist Samantha Manewitz. We build on the conversation I had with Eve Rickert in Episode 261, exploring emotional abuse and gaslighting in relationships. One of the things Samantha stresses in this conversation is how normalized gaslighting is in the world right now. We have the highest levels of power (the US President) gaslighting an entire nation, and none of us are immune. We also explore some things that help reveal behaviors that might lead to emotional abuse and what one word can change the way we enter into relationships. This is an important and powerful conversation about how subtle emotional abuse can be, and how to look out for DARVO which is how emotional abusers position themselves

WHOA! Birth control without a trip to the doctor? YES!!!! Simple Health is generously sponsoring this episode and YOU can get a free prescription for birth control without every leaving your home. That's right, Simple Health has made birth control easier and cheaper than ever. You fill out an online questionnaire about your health, body, insurance, and preferences. They have a doctor review your information and make a recommendation for contraception. Then, they issue a prescription and Simple Health MAILS IT TO YOU at regular intervals, without you ever having to go anywhere or remember anything. If you have insurance, using Simple Health is often totally free. If you don't have insurance, you can get birth control pills for starting around $15 per month. And...Sex Gets Real listeners, YOU CAN GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION FEE WAIVED! Head to simplehealth.com/sgr or enter code SGR at check-out and the $20 prescription fee will be waived. Birth control has never been so easy. More of your questions have poured in,

WHOA! Easy & cheap birth control? YES!!!! Simple Health is generously sponsoring this episode and YOU can get a free prescription for birth control without every leaving your home. That's right, Simple Health has made birth control easier and cheaper than ever. You fill out an online questionnaire about your health, body, insurance, and preferences. They have a doctor review your information and make a recommendation for contraception. Then, they issue a prescription and Simple Health MAILS IT TO YOU at regular intervals, without you ever having to go anywhere or remember anything. If you have insurance, using Simple Health is often totally free. If you don't have insurance, you can get birth control pills for starting around $15 per month. And...Sex Gets Real listeners, YOU CAN GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION FEE WAIVED! Head to simplehealth.com/sgr or enter code SGR at check-out and the $20 prescription fee will be waived. Birth control has never been so easy. So, let's dive into this week's episode. First up,

It's time to deepen your relationship with pleasure. Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 29, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. NEW: Transcript available at sexgetsreal.com/ep258 First, I apologize that this episode is so late. Between traveling, funerals, and getting caught up, it took a few extra days to get this uploaded and out to you. This week, it's your questions! We start with an email from Violet. She was in a relationship that was committed and kinky that turned emotionally abusive. She is working with a therapist to heal, but she's worried about getting back into the kink scene and about healing from the abuse. What can she do to take care of herself and to stay open to honoring her kinkiness? Then Ross sent a short email asking why his girlfriend used to have intercourse with him but now only wants to do hand sex and oral sex.

Is your relationship with pleasure complicated? Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 29, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. On with the show! Anonymous shares how exploring and communicating with a partner can help open new possibilities to feeding your life and your relationship. Miss Submissive is hiring a professional Dominatrix and she would love some help learning how to be a bratty sub. Are there any resources for how to get started both as a submissive and as a brat? Some of the resources I share include Kink Academy's Brat series, "Submissive Fantasy vs Submissive Reality" as well as "Creating a Submissive Training Plan for Yourself" on Sugarbutch.net, plus Sinclair Sexsmith's Submissive Playground online course, Feisty Fox Films has this great post "In Defense of Brats", and Evie Lupine is a YouTuber who featured Brittany Simon on

Is your relationship with pleasure complicated? Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. M'kali-Hashiki is here! Let's talk about erotic healing and more. M'kali-Hashiki works with people's erotic wounds and erotic breathwork. She has such wisdom and experience in exploring the erotic and also being with our bodies in meaningful ways. Our conversation explores the ways we touch our genitals, the ways we become erotically wounded, what presence and breathwork can offer us in reconnecting with our pleasure and erotic sources. We also dive deep into the concept of safety and why safety isn't available to everyone. When we begin to examine the ways we have to armor ourselves to move through our lives, especially if we experience marginalization by the state, we start to see the ways safety may not be availabl

Is your relationship with pleasure complicated? Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. On with the show! I received a doozy of an email recently all about a partner who watches porn and the damage that's caused to their relationship. The story of their relationship is long, complicated, and full of problematic behaviors, so this week, I spend a large portion of the episode slowly breaking down the email and what it looks like when we try to control our partner's behavior. We'll explore: Why snooping and looking at a partner's phone and emails never OK What to do when a partner comments on our bodies and tells us to make them look a certain way What to do when we are doing things we don't want to do sexually for a partner without receiving anything in return Why asking a partner to stop watching porn ac

NOW ENROLLING! Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. On with the show! First up, Graeme Seabrook's latest blog post popped up in my feed a few times this week and caught my eye. It's titled, "Stop Grading Your Husband On A Curve" and spoke so deeply to so many of the questions I receive and the coaching that I do. Check it out, for sure. What would it look like to have everyone in a relationship show up and take 100% responsibility for the household, the chores, the management of scheduled? What would it mean if the women and femmes of the world weren't the ones who managed grocery shopping, meal prep, appointment setting, friend dates, and everything else that contributes to overwhelm and burnout? It's a big question that will require a lot of changes for many of us if we truly want equitable partners

NOW ENROLLING! Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. On to your emails! Adam wrote back after hearing his email on the show with an emotional thank you. Beginning Gusher and Waterboarding Victim both wrote in with the same question from opposite perspectives. How can you prevent squirting? I share some thoughts and advice from other sex educators before weighing in with my thoughts. Essentially, our bodies are going to do what our bodies are going to do, and instead of stopping something natural from happening, a better question is what ELSE can someone do that feels pleasurable and connecting that might not lead to squirting if it must be avoided. Naive Nancy has a question about condoms. Her boyfriend claims that he can't wear condoms because he's circumcised. Is she being naive? Her friends think so

NOW ENROLLING! Check out my new pleasure course which is enrolling now through April 22, 2019 (we'll enroll again in June!). It's called Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with Your Hunger, Desire, and Joy and runs for five weeks online. I'd love to see you there. On to your emails! Kim wrote in with a sweet note about hearing a trauma story on episode 246 and how much it reminded her that she's not alone in her healing and trauma. Thanks for the support, Kim! Katie has a request. As someone who is a sex researcher and who does a lot of work around sex, the thing that shocks people the most is that she didn't have intercourse for the first time until she was 30. She'd love to hear more conversations about people who don't have sex until later in life and the benefits and struggles that presents. I have so many thoughts which include not only the importance of talking about this, but also how it ties to sex work and a sexually equitable future. Future Mrs. is three months from getting married but she's never b

Two important things before we get started: Register for Explore More Summit, my free online conference! It starts February 25th, 2019 and the theme this year is PLEASURE. You do NOT want to miss it. Check it out here at exploremoresummit.com. Support Shine Louise Houston's crowdfunding campaign for her new erotic film, Chemistry Eases the Pain. Details are here. On to your emails! First up, CuriousMom was raised with a lot of sexual shame and body shame. As a mom of two daughters, she is doing her best to raise them in a sex positive way (and it sounds like she's doing a GREAT job), but she doesn't know what she doesn't know. Where can she find resources and support on raising kids in a sex positive home? I cannot recommend my chat with Melissa Carnagey from Sex Positive Families highly enough. It's at this year's Explore More Summit on the VERY FIRST DAY, so get on that. Also, Sex Positive Families is a MUST for all folks with kids in their lives. Check out their recommending reading list, too. It's for k

Before we get started there's a huge thing you should know about: Explore More Summit 2019 is HAPPENING! The 4th annual free online conference is all about pleasure this year. You do not want to miss these conversations. They are incredible. Check out the line-up and register FOR FREE at exploremoresummit.com. Embodiment as our path to pleasure What are the ways we can access pleasure? What if pleasure isn't accessible to us? And how does trauma impact the body? Sage Hayes is here to tell us all about embodiment, trauma, healing, safety, and the phenomenal pleasure available to us when we learn how to listen more deeply. It's a beautiful, deep exploration of what it means to be in a body in a world that isn't very kind to bodies. We also talk about the wisdom of our coping mechanisms, why leaving the body is wise, and ways we create feelings of danger or erode safety in our relationships through unspoken expectations and demands. Rich stuff ahead! Want to hear my bonus chat with Sage all about co-regulation

ONE BIG THING before we get started: Register for Explore More Summit! It starts February 25th, 2019 and the theme this year is PLEASURE. It's free and online, and you do NOT want to miss it. Check it out here at exploremoresummit.com. On to your emails! First up, where can people go for alternatives to Tumblr now that it's banned porn? I found two articles with many of the same recommendations. Check out the Refinery29 piece and the Cosmo piece (this one is by Elle Chase, known as Lady Cheeky). As always, pay for your porn! Francis wrote in because they are struggling with being on top during sex. Is there something wrong? Why doesn't it feel good? They feel like everything is wrong, unsexy, and unfeminine and they are worried their ex broke up with them over not being able to do this position. The short of it is that not every position is for every body. We are all built differently and what we see in movies and in porn is meant to sell pleasure, not be a marker for "normal" or "real" sex. So instead, wha

Before we get started there are three HUGE things: This episode is generously brought to you by LOLA. Listeners get 40% off their subscription at mylola.com using discount code SGR. Have organic cotton pads, tampons, wipes, and even condoms delivered discretely to your door at exactly the interval you need for your body. When you use the discount code it helps the show so so much. We hit 5 MILLION downloads and to celebrate, I made a little video plus a huge giveaway. Three lucky folks will be randomly selected to win three different prizes. Watch the video and put your name in the hat to win at sexgetsreal.com/five. Explore More Summit 2019 is HAPPENING! The 4th annual free online conference is all about pleasure this year. You do not want to miss these conversations. They are incredible. Check out the line-up and register FOR FREE at exploremoresummit.com. How have you been domesticated?   One of my favorite things to do is to have deep, wandering conversations with people I love and admire. It feels inti

Before we get started there are three HUGE things: This episode is generously brought to you by LOLA. Listeners get 40% off their subscription at mylola.com using discount code SGR. Have organic cotton pads, tampons, wipes, and even condoms delivered discretely to your door at exactly the interval you need for your body. When you use the discount code it helps the show so so much. We hit 5 MILLION downloads and to celebrate, I made a little video plus a huge giveaway. Three lucky folks will be randomly selected to win three different prizes. Watch the video and put your name in the hat to win at sexgetsreal.com/five. Explore More Summit 2019 is HAPPENING! The 4th annual free online conference is all about pleasure this year. You do not want to miss these conversations. They are incredible. Check out the line-up and register FOR FREE at exploremoresummit.com. adrienne maree brown is one of my heroes and she makes my heart sing. I am over the moon to get to share this with you. adrienne maree brown is one of

Two things to get started: Grab the official Sex Gets Real recommended reading list now! Not only will you have access to my most recommended books, but it will add you to the show's newsletter which is going to be crucial as social media networks purge sex education from their pages. Enter to win "Girl Sex 101" and "Bad Dyke" by Allison Moon to celebrate the New Year! One lucky winner will be selected at random on January 15th, so enter now. U.S. and Canada folks only. This week's Patreon bonus is some yummy poems (including one that ends with "Yes Mistress"), what it means to be an unchaste woman, and a super exclusive invitation for patrons to share their art for a project that's coming up this spring. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and support the show at $3 or more for exclusive access to this and every week's bonus content. Time for your emails! Heidi wrote in with some thanks. I hope it's clear that what I share on this podcast is an invitation, not a prescription. Take what works and leave the rest.

Enter to win “Girl Sex 101” and “Bad Dyke” by Allison Moon to celebrate the New Year! Cut off for entries is January 15, 2019. One lucky winner will be selected at random , so enter now. U.S. and Canada folks only. Also, if you're looking for support around healing your relationship with your body, deepening your relationship with a partner, unpacking your desire, and finding more pleasure, I'd love to work one-on-one with you. Learn more at dawnserra.com. ALOK is here. It's time to question everything. ALOK is someone I've long admired and learned so much from. Their talk at Explore More Summit 2018 was a fan favorite by a landslide. And for good reason. ALOK is not only an incredible thought-leader, but they are utterly transparent about the violence, harm, and vulnerability of living in the world as someone who is gender non-conforming - the rawness of how they show is important. We start our chat by fielding a listener question from SC who is struggling with HSV, PCOS, and hirsutism which means SC has bod

Three things to get started: Grab the official Sex Gets Real recommended reading list now! Not only will you have access to my most recommended books, but it will add you to the show's newsletter which is going to be crucial as social media networks purge sex education from their pages. Enter to win "Girl Sex 101" and "Bad Dyke" by Allison Moon to celebrate the New Year! One lucky winner will be selected at random on January 15th, so enter now. U.S. and Canada folks only. See me speak FOR FREE about leaving my day job and starting life as an entrepreneur at the True Freedom Symposium starting January 14th. It's for folks who want to quit their day job. Note, some of the talks are super problematic, so watch with a grain of salt. Faves are Pam Slim, Leonore Tjia, Ed O'Neill, and SARK. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! This episode drops New Year's Eve Eve 2018, so just 2 days until 2019 begins to unfold. This week's Patreon bonus is one of my favorites from this year. We are doing a little New Year's ritual with some really

Have you grabbed the Sex Gets Real official book list yet? Not only do you get all of the show's most recommended books, but you'll join the Sex Gets Real newsletter which is becoming more and more important as all sexuality discussions are banned on social media. Grab your goodie and stay in touch by heading to sexgetsreal.com/books Also, if you're looking for support around healing your relationship with your body, deepening your relationship with a partner, unpacking your desire, and finding more pleasure, I'd love to work one-on-one with you. Learn more at dawnserra.com. Chronic pain, erotophobia, non-romantic love, and community-only spaces Andrew Gurza was kind enough to connect Cameron Glover and I recently, and I have to admit as soon as I started diving into the work Cameron is doing, I was excited. Cameron is unbelievably rad and our conversation was so organic and fun. We talk about sex work, SESTA and FOSTA laws, centering the most marginalized, staying in our lane, the diversity of sexual experie

Grab the official Sex Gets Real recommended reading list now! Not only will you have access to my most recommended books, but it will add you to the show's newsletter which is going to be crucial as social media networks purge sex education from their pages. You can also enter to receive a Merry Clitmas card from me to you. Ten lucky winners will be drawn soon. What a great week of listener questions! I can't wait to dive into these with you. But first, the episode ends with a beautiful fat acceptance poem by Angela Braxton-Johnson, who I met at the Body Trust Provider retreat a few months ago. Angela generously agreed to read her poem for the show and to share more about what it means to take up space and find pleasure in a fat body. You do NOT want to miss it. You can learn more about Angela and grab her new book at angelabraxtonjohnson.com/ Now, on to your questions. First up, Tell Me What I Want, What I Really Really Want wrote in to report their orgasms are better than ever because of a discussion we had