Episode 27: Embracing Softness: Redefining Erectile Disappointment

Welcome to the Sex Ed for the Modern Bad Show. I'm your spicy host, Tara Rose, and I'm here every episode to expose, uncover, and share what I know about S E S. This isn't what you find in your typical sex ed class. Juicy sex talk is under-discussed and I'm doing what I can to change it. Sex is evolving. People are empowered more than ever to detach from their cultural norms and design the sex life they crave. Just like to move into a land acknowledgement as we embark on this conversation today.

It's essential to recognize and honor the sacred land on which we gather. I stand on the traditional territories of Treaty Seven, a land rich in history, wisdom, and resilience. This expansive landscape carries the stories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Soutina Nation, and Stony Nakota Nations. The Metis Nation of Alberta further contributes to the vibrant cultures and experiences present in this territory.

May this acknowledgement deepen our connection to the earth beneath us and foster a spirit of respect for the soil of Treaty 7. So in today's episode, we're discussing a topic that touches many lives but is often whispered about in hushed tones, the intricacies of soft cock and erectile disappointment. In this episode, we're embracing softness, redefining what some may call erectile dysfunction, and dismantling the stigma that surrounds it.

Joining us in this conversation is Michelle Renee from Soft Cock Week, a dedicated sex educator specializing in navigating the landscape of Softcock. We'll journey through the emotional and psychological dimensions of these experiences, debunking myths and addressing societal stigmas that may contribute to the weight of disappointment. So buckle up for an episode that invites us all to embrace softness, challenge societal norms, and redefine the narrative around erectile challenges.

This is a safe space where vulnerability meets empowerment and we're thrilled to have you along for the journey.

Welcome, Michelle. Thank you for having me. What a great introduction. Oh. Thanks. So should I do a little intro of of like what brings me to soft cock, right? Yes, I would love to hear more about that. So I started out in professional cuddling in twenty fifteen.

And thinking that was a stopover for doing hands-on sex education, because that's where I was really headed. I had I crossed paths with the great Betty Dodson and done a lot of my own personal work and sitting in her Manhattan apartment. I was just like, I want to do this work. I want to be impactful like Betty was on me. And I lived in in West Michigan at the time. And I thought there's no way I'm going to get a bunch of ladies to get naked and masturbate with me. So

I went on a journey to figure out what my version of sex ed would look like. And I did this stopover with professional cuddling and Figured out I was doing a lot of sex education. I was teaching people the foundational skills to a healthy relationship in general, let alone a healthy sexual relationship, which was a lot around communication, identifying our wants and needs, being able to to address them, to, to ask for what we want, to hold boundaries, all these great, you know,

I think juicy topics. I found myself turning from like self-proclaimed sex geek to more like maybe I'm a relationship. Right. And um I ended up moving out to San Diego and thought I'm in Southern California. I could probably do surrogate partner therapy, which is in in in its most condensed form. It is where a a single client is working with a talk therapist and they're really struggling with emotional and physical intimacy and or physical intimacy. And so they've got some block happening.

And they've been in therapy for a while and they bring me in to kind of create a relationship, a surrogate relationship with the client, and we get to work through what's holding them back. It's a it's a really It's a slower process. It's not like going to a sex worker and you get a couple of sessions. This is a really kind of drawn-out process of building a a real structured relationship between us. It takes usually a year or so of work. And so

Here I okay, this is hands-on sex education. This is exactly what I wanted to do. And when you put yourself on the internet as a surrogate partner, you often get requests for I'm gonna call it run-of-the-mill sex work, but maybe with a an educational slant to it. And I was totally down for that. So so I started building myself as an intimacy guide. And I kept getting a lot of

Questions around why can't my penis stay hard the whole time during sex? Something is wrong with me. And I was like, You're clearly basing what you think sex is supposed to be, probably off the porn you're watching, which is a very curated, edited. You know, it's not what real real sex looks like. It's the it's the the edited version of sex.

At best, right? And so um I was on a couple of different podcasts where I found myself saying, I just want to start like a soft cock appreciation month, right? And enough people kind of poked at me to like put my money where my mouth is. And so um in 2022, we launched Softcock Week. It's always in November. We went with a week instead of a month.

I'm glad we did. It's a lot of work. I believe you. Yeah. Last year in 2023, um I launched a podcast just for that week where we launched or we dropped a different episode every day. And I took on a new director this year, Erica LeRoy, who's a sex bod up in Portland, Oregon. I think though moving to California.

Um, she has a passion for it too. And so we connected and she just seemed like the perfect person to put new life into it. As my work has kind of shifted a bit, and I'm not working as much in that traditional surrogate partner. field, I'm I'm focused more on working with survivors of childhood sexual assaults. And so the the presenting issues could overlap. And I've certainly had clients

that overlap that. But it it's the focus of who the clientele is that shows up at my door is a bit different now. But I love talking about it. So it's good to be here with you to kind of break this down. Wow. That's quite a journey.

It's been amazing. Yeah. Wow. Oh my goodness. Surrogate partner therapy. Um, I think I found out about that a couple of years ago and I was like, this is such a a fantastic. Profession to have around for people who are just like it's great work for people that have a a really involved therapist.

who can help them, right? Because sometimes if you come into the work and your therapist isn't quite engaged enough with your work outside of the surrogate partner therapy, kind of lacks a little lesser. It's still useful. It's still really powerful work. But when you bring in a great talk therapist, with the surrogate partner, there's some really super power work that happens in that space.

Yeah, there's definitely some clients that I've worked with where I'm like, you would benefit so much from something like this. And Unfortunately here in Alberta. I don't know any. Anybody there's not a lot of us and it really there's a financial burden to this kind of work. It's it's really it's it's expensive and especially when you add the need for travel. And because we there's only so many of us and we're pretty spread out.

We're working on that. I'm I'm co-founder of an organization called Embrace Surrogate Partner Resource Group, and we have a couple of missions. One is to diversify our field. We're a very white industry. We want to see that diversification, but also get us more spread out, right? A lot of times it's around metropolitan areas.

And so we we help raise money to help support the training, the financial burden of that training. Um, but also we're we're raising money to eventually be able to have a client fund. that would help support people in marginalized communities access the work because it is incredibly It's expensive and it just shouldn't be something that only the privileged get access to.

Right. And it it is it's a long time. Like you said, you know, it could be over the course of a year and you're going through everything from like the initial beginning of a relationship to breaking up. Essentially. Absolutely. There is a breakup and and that's, you know, the work doesn't end there, right? The therapist is there to help them go through that process. Yeah. And it's really, it's been magical to be a part of.

And it's also a lot, right? Like holding that kind of relationship with a partner for well over a year sometimes. Even in the best case scenarios, it's just as a as the practitioner, it's also just a lot to carry. So I'm personally on a what I'm calling my sex work cleanse this year, where I'm not doing any erotic contact with clients this year. Just'cause I need a space to decide where my yes is.

And it's kinda like I have to do a cleanse to to clear that out because I wanna be helpful. Right. I'm a the the the wounded healer is real, right? And it's hard to make the differential or differentiate differentiation between Am I a yes to to this work with the client because I really want to or because I feel like I need to?

I feel that so deeply in my SSE bones, in my spod bones. I'm like, hmm, is this for me? Do I want to work with men? I don't know. Yeah. And I I love working with all genders, but I've been really fortunate to get to work in a platonic space, still building that relationship and still seeing the client get a lot of benefit from that. And then what's been really cool is I've been able to source the erotic work out.

So they're still getting access when it's when it's needed. Yeah. But I get to hold a very specific relationship with them that which is a lot less muddy to be really clear. Like how do you get really emotionally close to someone as a professional and then switch that hat to an erotic hat. I don't do that switch well. Yeah, I mean neither.

I can relate. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. And it I know it disappoints clients at times. Yeah. Right. But I I keep saying, look how close we are emotionally. Do you see how messy this could be? Yeah. If we also had a sexual So yeah, the containers are are real. And trying to like move between them, I I also struggle with that. So I can

Yeah, yeah. We all have little even though our work can be different, it's there's so much overlap. And I know SSE is getting much more into the relational side of the work where it used to be surrogate partner therapy was kind of the little niche that that did the relational side. Um so We gotta stick together and support each other. Yes, absolutely. We need a lot of support.

So speaking of Empowered Choice and Voice, you had a somatic offering for us today. Are you still willing to lead that? Absolutely. Thanks for asking for this. Yeah. One of my favorite I learned this exercise in cuddle party. I'm a cuddle party facilitator, though I haven't facilitated a cuddle party in a lot of years. When I got into surrogate therapy, I was really Surprised I guess not maybe not surprised, but excited to see that this

same exercise that I got from Cuddle Party is used in surrogate therapy in a much deeper way. So if you've been to a cuddle party, you probably know the yes-no game. And in surrogate partner therapy, we tend to call it will you, may I? And um we're just gonna play with just the the the the very top surface of this exercise because there's lots of layers that we can get into at this. So

How we're going to do this today is that I'm just going to I'm going to play the role of the person asking the questions. I'm going to ask for things, make requests. or invitations and you're just going to answer no to everything. So if you're at home listening, just practice with the no, say the no, right? And so Do you have any questions before we get started? Am I actually gonna respond or should I just say it like internally? Uh I think.

I don't know. What do you think the people at home would benefit from? I think it would be More beneficial for them to not hear my no. Okay. Then let's not have you say it. I'll just say it out loud. Okay. Okay. And I'm gonna ask really goofy things. I love it. You're just gonna have to say no to everything. And trust me, I'm gonna tempt you with some things you're gonna wanna say yes to. Okay. All right. Um, will you make me a sandwich? May I brush your hair? Can I give you a million dollars?

Will you pick my nose? May I paint your toenails? Can I borrow your car? Okay, so you probably had some things that you're really easy knows to. And then there was probably at least one thing that you were like, yes, right? Could you feel a difference in your body? Oh. Okay, so now we're gonna swap it around. Normally I would then have you ask me questions like that and I would do it too, because it's important to learn to ask for things and it and and it's important to to learn to

say no. So on the the asker gets to hear no in this exercise usually. So that's also really valuable. So this time we're going to switch and I'm going to ask you pretty similar questions and you're going to say yes to all of Clearly we're not going to do any of them and we would not do any of them in this initial phase of this exercise. But I want you to again notice when you want to say no, but you have to say yes. Right. So here we go. Can I take you to the movies tonight?

Will you clean my house? May I scratch your back? Will you give me a million dollars? Can we eat ice cream together? Um may I borrow your dog? Can I see your Right. Okay. So again, probably some things you wanted to say no to. And could you feel that in your body? Yeah, big time. I think you even saw my face. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and this is the thing. If we slow down when people are are requesting from us.

We know what the answer is. We have that somatic awareness. Here's the thing, some people don't. Sometimes I do this exercise and and it can be very diagnostic in a sense of if you come from a background of child abuse. That inner knowing has been trained out of you a lot of times. So I this is a place where in my work I get to gauge where are we starting from. Right? Because if I get to the point where I want to ask something of you, I need to know that you're capable.

Of one expressing your yes or no, but can you tell what your yes and no is? Right? So this is like baseline, this is where we all start. Yeah. I love it. I do this one with my clients too and It from such a simple exercise, so much information. They're like, wow, I never really tuned into what it feels like to say yes to something when it's actually enough.

And you're right, like it gives you so much information back of like, okay, where are they with their somatic awareness and empower choice and voice? Because those are really the foundational pieces when it comes to somatic. Sex bot work, surrogate partner, intimacy. That's like the jumping off point for. Yeah. Even in professional cuddling, I work under Cuddleist. I'm their director of training.

We have a very specific method for cuddling and you have it has to be client led as one of those things. So when a client comes in, I'm not giving them the menu of like we're gonna do spooning and then we're gonna do mama bear and then we're gonna That's not how it works. I say, how do you want to connect today? And they have to start answering that question right from the beginning of what do I want?

Because if I was to make them offers and I don't have any idea on whether they're able to tell me no. Real quickly, I can end up in the weeds where they're saying, eh, Michelle asked me to do this thing and I didn't really want to do it, but I didn't know how to tell her no. Right? Yes. Don't want to be there. Yes. In that client-led space.

It may it may be slow moving. The client might feel it like it's moving slowly, but we're building up that that voice and the trust in our relationship. So mm-hmm. Yeah, and slow moving can also be something that triggers stress responses, especially in people who Experience childhood sexual abuse.

I chatted with Rahi about this, but they're so used to like everything going fast and big emotions and that's like how they thrive in life. And so actually slowing down is really it's scary. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, but that's why we have the laboratory space where they get to do that in a protected environment, right? I love that term, the laboratory space. That's I call this the human connection lab because I I got to the point in my work as a surrogate partner where I was like

I had this client and I was really struggling with how I was going to connect with them erotically. And I was talking to a colleague and and she goes, I like to call it lab time. Amazing. Because it it lowers the expectations of what that space is going to feel like. that I'm not coming in as like this. fully erotic like self, like we're coming in to like Play. Right? And it just it it's it's it's

How how would this feel? How would this feel? It's just a lot of experimenting. And so I was like, oh, that's that's gonna save my like whole internal world where I was like. How this is hard work. How do you show up and put your body and and your your all your energy into that space when you're not You wanna help, but you're not like feeling the same kind of connection that you might organically. Out in the regular. So here we are, the lab. Love that.

I usually say every offering or exercise we do is an experiment. There's no pass or fail. The only time we're not doing the experiment properly is when we're not gathering. Yeah. Yeah.'Cause even if you even if you you like self self betrayal is kind of one of my words this year of like or Maybe trail is not the right word, but self-abandonment, right? Sometimes I I put other people before myself, right? And and that could happen in the lab, right? But it's acknowledging that it happened.

And not pretending it didn't and doing some kind of repair process with ourselves and with the other person. Like those are all great things to experience, even though they suck at the time. Right.

Yeah. It's still like learning and growing and taking away Mm-hmm. Yep. So shifting gears. Yes. Soft cock. Soft cock. I remember. Okay, I have a little story. I I come from the lifestyle non-monogamy. And my partner and I for 10 years, we've been to some degree non-monogamous. Which erectile disappointment's a huge part of that, right? It's like shame, men are embarrassed about it. And I've seen Everything from injections into penises to popping pills.

to not have it happen to them. And I went for lunch this one time with a woman in the lifestyle and she was like soft cocks need love too. Like we need to do a better job at holding space for them and not just like Oh, you can't get hard. Like you don't deserve me kind of thing. And that resonated with me for a long time because Yeah, like our our normal societal how we are in our culture is just not It doesn't hold space for that. And that can be hard. A lot of the the partners

of the people with I'm I'm I move from erectile disappointment to erectile differences. That's my next I I keep having these little upgrades. Somebody brought that to me, I think during one of the podcast episodes last year, and I was like, ooh, that's even better than a rectile disappointment. Like it's just a difference. Yeah. Right. But sometimes the partners.

They think it's they've also been trained that it's about them and that they're failing somehow. And there's just a there's a lot of crossing of communication differences or expectations or like rather than just have a real conversation, like I I remember telling a client who I was working with around this.

You're it once in a blue moon, I get a client that's also very sexually savvy and is playing in all the the worlds that that some of us play in once in a while. And I said, I know a friend who goes to sex parties. Almost always has erectile difference issues, right? And they just is part of their elevator speech, right? It's part of their safer sex conversation that, hey, the first time I play with a new partner.

It's probably not going to show up the way that we want it to. And I'm totally okay with that. We're still going to have a really great time. And like getting ahead of it. Like, I'm okay with this. There's no need for you to not be okay with this either from a place of like it's not about you. Right. Right. We can take that out of the way. Yeah. And this is just something I know about my body. Right and getting confident to just bring it into the room when

Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a great way to to navigate like the sex of parties because Man, it just it spirals really quickly. You know, it happens once and then it happens the next time. And then it's like, I um I don't know what's happening to me. Like what's going on and it the shame, the shame spiral is real. Yeah. And and it happens for different reasons, right? Like, yeah. You know, I always say first things first, you should talk to your doctor.

Absolutely. Erica LeRoy, who I mentioned is my new director for Soft Cock Week, her personal experience with this is losing a partner to undiagnose diabetes that could have been caught because of things that were happening. Right. And so always, you know, talk to your doctor, get get things checked out from a medic Yeah. Right. And then it's things like anxiety shows up or a lack of safety.

Right. There's there's there's things in your relationship that might be causing, you know, problems to show up there, even though you don't think of them as directly connected. Right. There's lots of things. And that I think was one of my frustrations in my work was getting primarily like heterosexual cis men who were like, I want to see if it works with you. And I was like, but how does that change, how does that affect your relationship that you're actually currently in?

Right. It doesn't solve that. This should be solved being solved with your partner. Right. And I understand you want to know if it works. And and to be fair, people show up in cuddle space and they're like, you don't have to worry about me. I'm never going to have an erection. I don't have erections. And when once in a while, one pops up.

Cool. We don't we don't have to do anything to celebrate it, right? We can be like, wow, look at that. There's still some life there, right? One of my favorite stories in cuddling was a an older man. Who um after our first session, he he says, Does anything weird ever happen to your clients? And he was like, probably in his 70s. And I go, you have to define weird, right? And so I he says, we'll talk about it in our next session. So I come in for my for our second session. He says,

So I woke up in the middle of the night with an erection. I haven't had one in years. And I was like, that's amazing. I'm like, I bet you probably had a neurotic dream or something. Who knows? I'm not, I'm not gonna take any credit for it. Right. And he's like, and then I like. I tried to masturbate because I just

I haven't masturbated in so long. And then we got to talk about well, you can masturbate with a soft penis. You can. He didn't know anything about um vibrators, lubricants. Like we just got to roll that into let Michelle the sex geek show up. And and he's he was of an age where he never talked to anybody about sex. Oh my goodness. And so we got to create that space with us to to be able to explore that. Right. Erections are all part of my work, I guess, whether I'm focused on them or not.

It's uh if he didn't have you to be like, oh my god, this happened the other night, like he would have never known that there's That you solo sex practice doesn't have to involve a hard card. Yeah. And that came up in year one. That was like number one. Okay, so every year I seem to learn a couple lessons. Okay. Right. Year one I learned I am way, way, way enthusiastic about soft penises and it really bothers people that are still in the green. Yes, Michelle, you are a little too exuberant.

Right. Which my clients love because they get to have this reparative process or experience of me showing up and being like, I think soft cocks are the funnest to play with, honestly. Like I think they're cute and they're soft and they're just, I mean, they're velvety. Like I can wax poetically about my love of a soft penis.

That's super awesome for some people. And for some people, they're not ready for that. So that was like lesson number one first year. Lesson two was so many people did not realize that you could masturbate. Right. So that was like, okay, we gotta make sure we get programming in for year two around pleasure and soft penises. And me, I know my role now. I know that I get to be very

excited about soft penises, but I have to know where to bring that in and where not to, right? Mm-hmm. That when we're in a space of we do like a an opening event called um the soft opening and it was like a town hall and people get to talk about their experiences and me jumping in like, oh my God, they're so amazing was not what that space really was ready for. And and so I learned that I needed a new director.

That's that's one of those things of like I'm really great at starting things and keeping the energy going is a little harder for me. So uh that was the the the big takeaway for me was like continuing to follow my yes. Mm-hmm. And I really felt like a yes to the podcast, but not a yes to so much of like creating programming for it. And so um yeah, here we are. It's still alive and kicking. And needed. I'm so happy.

Somebody stopped me at um Psych Networkers this big therapy conference on the East Coast. It's like forty seven years going. And I was there standing in the exhibitor hall waiting to talk to a therapist. And this woman walked up to me and she said, she's looked at me with like big eyes.

And she's like, I follow you on social media. And I was like, Oh, that's great. And she goes, I have to tell you, I've sent so many people to Soft Cock Week and it's really helping people. And I was like, Yes, you can tell me that all day long.

Right.'Cause you just don't know how it's having an effect. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more about what the grieving Well, I mean, think about how I'm just gonna I'm gonna refer to this as like very binary. We're just gonna use like men. Yeah. Even though lots of different genders can have penises. But let's just talk about the standard.

I I don't even it doesn't have to be even heterosexual man, but the standard man like their process of sex is oh, I'm hard. I must do something with the selection. I should either masturbate or I should do the sex. I mean that's the gener oversimplified version of this, right? Do the penetration. Right. The real sex, right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.

And and I re I was talking to Joe Court, who's a sex uh therapist out of Detroit, and um he was one of my guests, and we were talking about um he interviewed Barry McCarthy, who does some really great books. premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction. And he shared that in heterosexual relationships, it's generally actually the man that stops initiating sex and it's because their erections become

Wow. And they're too afraid to start something that doesn't look that doesn't go the way they think it's supposed to go. Okay. Right. They don't know about responsive desire. They're so used to having spontaneous desire. There's all these little components that come in. But like there's a book out called The Existential Importance of the Penis. Haven't finished reading it. Dan Waters is the the author. And I'm writing this down. It's so much of our livelihood.

Right. Is connected for some people to their sex life. Right. And I think there's this real like I think a lot of times people have affairs, right? Because it makes them feel alive again. Mm-hmm. Right. It's it brings all the juices are flowing and we have all those these endorphins and And and when your your penis becomes unreliable or your erections become unreliable What does that mean, right? Like there's there's mortality that we're thinking about. There's How do we do the second?

Right. If we only have a very narrow vision of what sex looks like. And that's most of our our our practice at Soft Cockwig is to expand our definition of sex. there's still so much sex to be had if we get out of this penetration model.

It's frustrating. I used to my goodness. When when this whole conversation was starting on these podcasts uh about me doing this week, I was like, Yeah, I'm low-key querying my client's sex. I can't tell them I'm querying their sex because that might be contagious. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But like we don't ask the I mean, I think we don't ask the questions anymore, like how do lesbians have sex? Right. But what we do know looking at the orgasm gap.

Is that the people that are losing is the heterosexuals and it's the the female partner of the heterosexuals. Right. And so what if, what if. We quit having penis centered sex. I'm down. I'm down. If I could give up, I I'd say of all the different forms of sex there are, I I don't want to say I would if I could give up one. My favorite is hands. Yeah. Me too. If I could take one form of sex for the rest of my life, it would be hand sex.

I agree. They're they can they they can they they fit all the things. Like they move exactly where you want them and like it's just Yeah. Yeah. I also really like Volvon. That's eliminating the whole erection issue.

Oh okay. So When you do your soft cock weight. What are some things that a person might learn to help navigate? Okay, I'm identifying that from time to time or all of the time.

It's soft cock. And what are some ways that I can? I mean, you gave some great examples already with like the elevator pitch at the beginning. Um, but what are some other ways or tools that somebody could Could hear right now that might help them on their softcock journey and reclaiming their sexuality and their erotic self again.

Yeah, I think being around people that are open to talking about it and I think that's where I'm really loving the podcast portion of this week and and Erica's gonna turn it into a more year-round podcast instead of just Yeah, yeah, the week of Soft Cop Wake. Yeah. I think hearing people normalize these conversations is so important because I don't know how many guys have stood around talking with each other about their frustrations in the bedroom, other than my wife isn't.

Right. Like that seems to be the only thing that I hear I hear publicly complained about, right? Everyone needs to find community to have these conversations in. Like it it it yes, it can happen in your therapist office, but it could also happen by just starting a men's group. Right. They don't have to be they can just be

facilitated by the people that show up, right? Get get your talk to your best friend. Bring it up somehow. And I bet you you wouldn't feel so alone. Talk to your partner about it. Like They may be not telling you that they're also feeling a certain way about it. Right. And those conversations I say are really, you know, they're easy for me, but that's where finding a therapist, a sex therapist could come in really handy, a coach, somebody who can help you facilitate those conversations.

Everybody's probably hurting in their own way from just disappointment because things are changing. Maybe if you have a a a cancer diagnosis, that plays into it in a whole nother Right. And, you know, we've we've brought different people in from different areas. We did uh we had public floor PT person there talking about, you know, yes, you know.

for for prostate cancer, there are some things you can do ahead of time is like pre pre work before surgery. But if you're having um ED issues, you might want to check out a public floor therapist or a sexological body. Erica is a sexological bodyworker and she has this world of knowledge that I don't have. Right. Right. When people come to me, I'm all about let's help you feel comfortable showing up for a sexual situation, no matter how you're peeing.

I don't come in from a place of let's see if we can fix it. Like my world is all about self-acceptance and I'm this soft place to land and let's make this okay. Where I know Erica comes in when she talks about this side of it, she's talking about masturbation techniques and all these much more actionable items, right? So finding the right person to work with, super important. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. A team. A support circle. Support network. I I often ask in my first session with clients, I'm like

So who knows that you're here? And they're like, oh nobody. And I'm like, okay. I feel like if I'm the only person that's in your support circle right now, that might feel That's not enough for you. So maybe starting to get curious about who you can talk to or share, even if it's a little bit, it doesn't have to be everything. Working with a professional, you're likely gonna notice some shifts, even if it's querying your sex or, you know.

Noticing how past or childhood trauma is impacting how you're showing up today. And if you don't have anybody to talk to, it's gonna feel really lonely. It's gonna feel like a lot for me. And it's gonna feel like not enough. Yeah. So most I I I'm sure in your work it's very similar to mine that yeah, we do things in session, but a lot of what happens is outside of session. Yes when that processing is happening.

Right. And and I know for me, that's why I love working in collaboration with talk therapists is because there's somebody else for them to do that processing with that is not connected to the 'Cause those two things don't necessarily have to be done by the same people. And I prefer that my clients do that processing with somebody else. Yeah. Same here. And I'm lucky that I found somebody here in Calgary who is totally on board for the work I do and understands it and is willing to

I feel would benefit from working with both of us. Going back to the men's group, it's funny you mentioned that because we were at a lifestyle event last November. I was doing some workshops, wheel of consent stuff, and my husband was like, I'll do a men's group, and he's not an SSE or anything like that. But I mean, he's around me enough for ten years that

There's a sense of right. I'm noticing that. You know. They become really good. My husband, I think, is better than I am at times. I'm like, you're so good at this. Right. Right. And uh yeah, soft cock came up and premature ejaculation came up and The men who attended it, they were like, this was amazing, like so valuable and so empowering for them. And I think there is so much.

value in men coming together. Women and and again, I'm being very binary with this, but women tend to come together more. And I love that. I love my women's circles. I love workshops I go to and it's women. But men, there's so much stigma around it or just like we need to be tough, we can't talk about our feelings and our problems, only if they're positive things. I always wonder

Uh I was talking with a local sex therapist last week. We're at lunch and we're talking about kind of rekindling what used to be here in San Diego a group called the sexual sexual empowerment.

And it was really just a space to come and ask questions. Like we had like a bowl of people would write their questions on a card and put it in the bowl and we would go around and answer the questions throughout our time together. And it was a nice mix of lifestyle people like from the B D S M world and the swinger world and the Tantra world and

And then there was also some people that weren't from those spaces, more monogamous, like more traditionally minded. And it was just really good to have those conversations. And we were talking about getting something like that started again. And it not for I think we want to focus on the people that don't have access to those worlds. Like the lifestyle people, we have lots of people to talk to about this stuff, but more of the the

the normies, the the the the people that's Muggles I call them. Yeah. The ones that aren't out, you know, hitting, you know, swinger parties on the weekends and shit like that, right? And in and I question like, okay, I think some of that space should be held for people that are not cis men. And then people that, you know, having times where it's integrated, but also like men's only. And can a can a ciswoman facilitate that space?

Is it better than nobody facilitating that space? Some men would probably come because there's a woman facilitating the space. Yeah. Right? It's an interesting thing to consider and play with and what could that do? Yeah, that is a thought that goes through my head all the time. I'm like, can I do this? Am I? Am I am I taking too much by trying to do something, right? Am I taking it away from the men? This is men.

I think that I remember being in uh foundations of facilitation training for cuddle party years ago. And I was in this space and I don't identify as very woo-woo. Like I don't run the Tantra world and I'm pretty much just G give me the facts, ma'am. Like and I remember somebody there was like they're talking about how to navigate conflicts at a party or something. And and somebody's like, Well, I would ask them like what color

does this represent or what color they see or whatever and I was just like oh no I'm never gonna be that person right and I had this like fear of like I'm not good enough. Yeah. Then I was like wait a minute there's gonna be people that really want that but there's gonna be people that really don't And so I think it's a matter of, you know, try it. Hmm. And it might be the right fit for some people.

down some notes. Maybe it graduates them into it. Maybe it graduates them into another men's circle. Yeah. That is facilitated by other men. Right. But if that's their entry point, because let's face it, a lot of times we are seen as really soft and comfortable and easy to talk to. And it'll be a step for them just to be in another space with more men in the space, but you being the anchor person might be the perfect. Mm-hmm. The perfect combination for them to get started.

Thank you. Yeah. I gotta take my own medicine. Right. We're so good at that. But then it's like logistics of like how do you find space? You know. But but I think it's I I don't think there could be too much of it. I usually like to end with. asking some questions I received on Instagram. Cause I'll usually for each podcast, I'm like, what questions do you have about this topic? And I I of course received quite a few for this one.

So are you willing to go through them and maybe answer them? Okay. Hit me with it. I will do my best and I will tell you when I can't. Okay. Okay. Love it. All right. So I have three. First one is how do you get a woman to trust it's not a reflection of attraction to her? That's not all your job, right? Yes. Yeah. I can say, you know, we have our own body image shit to work on and our own like self-worth and self-esteem stuff. I think you you say it and then you let that sit. Mm-hmm.

like that's some one of those things you can't control. You can communicate it. I think it's important to communicate it and you can assure, but I it's not something you can force Her to understand. Like make happen. And I'm thinking about wheel of consent, the domain. I mean, the woman has a right. and a responsibility to who she trusts and what she's trusting and you can go into her domain and influence that trust. Right. I love domain work. I know. I do too. It comes up so much, but

Yeah. I mean, this is it. Here it is. And it's like hearing a no. If you say no and somebody gets mad, it's not your no, it's what they with them. And this is one of those if you bring it up ahead of time as a possibility. Get ahead of it. Yeah. Right. Because then it's not a reaction. It's more, it's more preventative. Not preventative, but proactive. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Question two. How do I not let it happen?

Well, thinking about it and worrying about it is like a hundred percent almost guaranteed that it will. Yeah. So, you know, that's like coming in from the right direction of being open to anything. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thinking about it's gonna make sure that it's a problem. Like your nervous system starts to respond and

Yeah. Right. Then you create that. Cortisol is not going to help. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And then you're training your body basically. Which is why when you have it happen once, it tends to can become a regular problem because now we're worried about it. Yeah. Same with like pain involvas during penetration. It's it's a loop, right? Happens once and then oh the next time, oh the next time and then There's vagin vaginismus is diagnosed, right? So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

You know, one thing I would say to that is explore more queer sex. By yourself What if you took your penis off the table altogether? What if you tried to an experiment? Of what if we played and we didn't put penetrative sex on the table? Which I have done the last two almost three years in the lifestyle.

No penetrative sex. And you know what? I still have a really, really good time. Mm-hmm. And also As somebody who works in the platonic space, not that I bring sexual energy into my platonic work, but I I was at recently at a conference and I was playing I playing.

No, Michelle, I was not playing. I was cuddling with a friend who we happened to have some chemistry, right? And I did not have an agreement with my husband. We were we're kind of in this space where we're like We're always renegotiating what our what our boundaries are and and I I shot him a message that was like, Hey, what would it look like if I made out with this dude?'Cause like

We had a lot of chemistry and I didn't want to necessarily have sex, but I wanted to know how far I could kind of go. And uh he didn't get back to me. I tried calling him, he didn't he just almost broke. Like I was like, Okay, it's fine. Longing is so fun. Yes. So you could even long for that penetrative sex. And that is like a different kind of yumminess on its own because we don't live in a sp like a lot of people live in a space of scarcity.

Right. And in if you're attending sex parties, you're living in a space of abundance or or you could be in your mental world. Definitely, I wish everyone lived in a space of abundance, but that's just But how great is it to think that you could want that penetrative sex and not go. Yes, I've had some really hot. fantasies come up while I'm like masturbating alone and I'm like

thinking about those people that I've played with but not had penetration with, but then they're penetrating me and I'm like, oh, this is so hot. And And sometimes the fantasy is better. Like I mean, I'm su I don't know if we had if me and this guy had got to go farther. Um, would it have been as good as

it felt like the chemistry was. I don't know, but I got left with this amazing, like, ooh, it probably would have been really hot. You know what I mean? Like that's a great place to sit in. Mm-hmm. Ooh, love it. All right. Last one.

Tell us about the ego bruising it can actually cause women, not only a downer for men. I think that goes back to that story that about that it's a reflection of us. I think we also are raised with this. unfortunate message that erections are our responsibility. So getting him hard is our responsibility. Keeping them hard is our responsibility. Finishing him is our responsibility.

So much responsibility. Betty Dotson, that was one of her first messages to me, right? To the world was I am responsible for my own orgasm. Right. You are never responsible for the penises. Anything, right? And and that means that I'm not responsible on whether you're hard. Yeah. But we have that messaging and it takes a lot of of deprogram.

I'm I'm wondering in your softcock week, is there any like is there a specific podcast or or something for women? Well, I mean Pulling off the top of my head, a lot of the conversations um i i remember i had a conversation with adelina adler and we talked about our love of soft cock yeah as you know to to i believe she identifies as a cis woman Like we modeled that, right? We talk about it.

It's one of those spaces where we're always looking for more voices, right? More specific programming. So you or anybody listening to this, if you've got, if you're an educator and you want to put something together. for this this group of people, please reach out. You can find us at softcockweek.com and there's like a contact form for the

Yeah. Thank you. Okay, I had one more. I lied. Sorry. I didn't know there was four here. Uh-huh. Will it slash does it ever get back to normal? Ooh, the trouble in normal. Here's the thing about aging. We're always changing. There's no way to not be changing. And sometimes we're going to be thrilled with those changes. Right. I love turning 40. My 40s have been great. Right? And my libido has changed. Sex is is something I still value and I I have to put more work in

Yeah. Right. Spontaneous desire is definitely not in my wheelhouse these days. Which means I have to know what my recipe is, right? My kind of like what is my erotic recipe? Everybody's is different. I like to say you gotta you gotta get that owner's manual figured out and it's ever changing. So like You could choose to be

Like standing still in that change, or you can choose to roll with it and figure out what does work for you. Right. Like we're not gonna be having the same sex we did when we were 20. No, I'm glad I'm not. Yeah, say it was really bad. I'm glad I'm not. But if i again, if you're if you'd ever had to work for desire to show up or for erections to show up, like That it's a change. It's a change. And this is where I say everyone should go recome as you are. I don't care what body you're attached to.

Whether it's to learn more about how you have sex or how your partners have sex. Mm-hmm. Get that education and that book is I it really made me understand that I wasn't broken. Yeah. Right. My first marriage was a lot of why can't you be like this? Why is sex why why do you not want sex? Why, why, you know, like And a a lot of me giving in to sex I didn't know.

Right. And being told there was something wrong with me. And I remember even I was well into doing the work that I'm doing, I didn't finally read the book till like during COVID. I'd I'd watched the TED Talks, right? I'd had the the the the the Cliff Note version and reading the book, I just, oh, what a healing space for me to realize I'm it's this is normal. Right. This word normal, like there's so many variations of normal. Right. And do we wanna be normal?

What is normal? What is normal? A patriarchal colonizer mindset. Like the things I have learned about myself just in the last two years. Right. Right. It's not that those things weren't always there. It's I'm still learning about myself, right? This this last year I figured out I don't have sexual attraction. Mm-hmm. Well, that's really fascinating, Michelle. How do you have sex? Right. How does masturbation work for you? If you I have a fantasia, I don't see pictures, so I don't fantasize.

How does masturbation work? Well, I thought everybody just masturbated based on sensation. No, people don't do that. Is this why my clients looked at me like I had three heads when I would suggest that they just masturbate from sensation and not go to fantasy. Well now it all makes sense to me, right? But until you click those things together, right? So it's it's I look at this stuff as like new information. Yeah. Wow. And what do we do with it to make it work for us? Yeah.

That's how do you say that word? Amphantasia? Afantasia. Afantasia. I had no idea people didn't see images. So there's me. Imagine you're walking down this pathway. Like some clients are like, oh my God, I saw all this stuff. And some are like I didn't see nothing. Like, well, how how? And then I I realized, oh, not everybody sees images or can picture things. Um, and it's actually way more common than you think.

It's so common. The more I talk about it, the more people really like I learned about it at a fun like a kinky board game weekend. Somebody was saying, like, I don't get into DD. And the other person says,

Do you see pictures? And she's like, no, what do you mean? And like, if I said red truck, what do you see? And she's like, I see the words. And like, that's probably why you don't like DD. And then my partner comes running into me and he's like, oh my God, Michelle, you're gonna love this. You're such a geek.

If I say red truck, what do you see? And I go, I see the words. And he's like, No way, you're the you're the thing I was just gonna teach you about. Right. And then like all of a sudden I'm like, Oh shit. If I start to look back at my world. Well that makes sense now why I feel like I'm a bad rope top. I can never figure out what I want to do with a rope bottom, right? Like or or just kink in general. I love to top, but I I I have to just go with the flow. I can't plot something out.

Hmm, arguing with my husband at the rock climbing gym because I can't tie a knot. Cause he's like, just just there's only three ways you could tie this. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, because he can see a picture of that knot. Yeah. I can't see a picture of the nod. Wow. Right. But looking back, it's like, oh, it's so weird. Yeah. Like why why am I only just learning about this now? Yeah. Or like the asexuality thing. Like.

I I'm like, oh shit, you're right. I don't think I I think I've had sexual attraction one time and it scared the shit out of me because it was such a foreign feeling to me. And I can look back in retrospect and go, Oh yeah, that must have been what that was. At the time I didn't know what it was. So my normal was without it. Yeah. Right. I would have sex with people because I was curious or

A lot of compulsory sexuality, like I'm supposed to have the sex. Right. And then you add that responsive desire. So desire shows up eventually, but that's not sexual attraction. It's a very different piece, right? I had to learn all these things. People don't know this. Right. And then the more I talk about it, people go, oh.

Well that sounds kind of like me too, right? And I just I think maybe that's my job in the world is to just figure myself out so I can talk about it and other people can learn through my own. Trials and errors, I guess. That's usually how sex educators bring the medicine though. It's like, hey, I'm living this life. I'm noticing these things. Yeah.

Here it is. And then people are like, oh my God, I relate. Yeah. And that's what I like about my work being so relational is that I get to bring a lot of my own personal experience into my work where I think if I was doing maybe more talk therapy, I would uh be encouraged not to do that. Right. You know, and so I like being kind of more mentor.

And like I relate to you, let me see what we can do to get you a few steps ahead. Right. Yeah. Building trust, building intimacy through relation. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This was such a fabulous conversation. I'm so happy we made this happen. And how can folks find you? Um, well, softcockweek.com. Um, we're saying this year, I think our tag is like take a penetration vacation. It can be soft cock week any week.

Yes. Erica's Erica's brilliant. We've got we've got some new graphics over there that are pretty cute. You'll have to go check'em out. I will. And then I'm at Meet Michelle Renee on social media at meetmichellerene dot com and uh the human connection lab dot com is another is another spot for me. But yeah, I'm around.

Great. Well, thank you so much. And thank you to all the amazing listeners for tuning in today. You can find me on my show Instagram at thhe.sexed.show or my individual Instagram at sex ed for the modern. Until next time, claim your pleasure, own your body, and stay in peace.