Shadeen Francis - Foundations Of Sexual Intimacy

Everything in life is about sex except for sex. Sex is about power. Oscar Wilde. So joining me today is Shadeen Francis and we are going to talk about sex. Shadeen is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's a professor and she specializes in sex therapy. She has been featured on numerous platforms like cbc, the New York Times, Huffington Post, the Cosmopolitan to share her unique expertise on relationships and wellness. And because of her ability to tackle difficult subjects with warmth and humor, she is often sought internationally to speak on topics such as sexual self esteem building, intimacy and boundary negotiation. So whether in her office, on TV or a community event, all of her work is inspired by her commitment to helping people live lives full of peace and pleasure. And just give you a context for what we are going to dive into. In this episode on Shadeen's Instagram bio, it says, everyone wants to know how to fuck. Let me remind you how to feel. And so she's got a very, I think, powerful approach, one that I've seen a few different times in different areas, from Esther Perel to a few of the other top sex therapists that are out there. And so we are going to explore a few different areas, one of which is how to bridge the gap when it feels like we might be incompatible sexually with our partner, how to have these conversations with our partner when there's something that we desire, how to explore within ourselves what we are actually wanting or craving. And not just incompatibility, but how we navigate through these times of the pandemic where maybe we are locked up in a home with just our partner or we're separated from our partner. And so these conversations about how to expand and explore our sexual desire can be quite confronting and challenging. And so Shadeen has a very wonderful perspective, I think, that can offer a lot of support for the people that are wanting to have these conversations, for the people that are wanting to explore. How do I go deeper into my sexual intimacy? How do I start to explore what I desire and want with my partner? What do those conversations look like and sound like? And she does a really good job of creating a distinction between certain things like what's a fantasy and what's a fetish. So this is a great conversation. There's a lot in it. This is certainly a conversation that if you are in a relationship, I would encourage you to listen to with your partner or have even better have them listen to it separately and then discuss, set aside a very specific time to discuss and discuss what we really focus in on in this episode, which is how do you want to feel during sex. So more about that as you listen to this episode. So without any further delay, please welcome Shadeen Francis.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. I think this is going to be good. We are going to go down a few rabbit holes, I'm sure, when it comes to pleasure and feelings and sex and all the wonderfully glorious topics. But before we do so, I have to give you the question that I ask everyone, which is tell me. Tell us a defining story in your story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

Yeah, that's such a good question. And maybe I will tell a story that will require me to start the story and then jump backwards to give context for what happened. A defining moment in my life. I was on the Marvel Wiki, as one does, the Marvel Universe wiki pages, and I was looking up just different characters, different backstories, again, as one does. And I ended up discovering that empathy was then formally being recognized as a superpower. And that was a particularly defining moment for me because unlike other professionals, I got into this work as, like, the backup for my backup plan, right? So even though I decided very, very early that I wanted to be a sex therapist, my actual original career trajectory was to be a member of the X Men. And so my backup plan for that was to join the circus. I figured, you know, as I waited for my powers to manifest, it made a lot of. It made reasonable sense to me as a young child that, like, you know, I would be a circus performer, right? Until, you know, my mutancy kicked in. And I waited a really long time. I thought, you know, at the time, I thought I was still. I thought I was still waiting, but I was very deeply certain that there was no way that all of what I had going on was, like, normalcy. I was like, no, I'm. I'm certain I am a mutant. And that moment was really, really transformative for me to see empathy listed as a superpower. This is me already having, like, a degree in neuroscience, and I burst into tears, like literal tears, because it was such a core part of my introduction to this work. Caring really deeply about other people's experiences and really wanting transformative change for folks. And I didn't really know how else to get that. I didn't know how else to organize that desire. So as a small child, you think about what. What my values are, and how do I manifest that in the world? And the only thing that made sense to me at the time was I have to be with a collective of other people that want some form of, like, transformative liberation, right? And that was the X Men to me, right? And they're all, like, studious and nerdy, and they went to this big, awesome school. And I was like, great. This is absolutely my brand. So to, in some ways, not necessarily give up on that, but to, you know, sort of put some of that early visioning aside and then to have this, you know, coming together where I'm, like, in the middle of, like, a Master's of science degree and, like, you know, just blowing off some steam. And I was sitting. I happened to be sitting in my childhood bedroom, and so I had a picture of childhood me, like, right there. And I remember just looking at her and saying out loud, like, we did it, and just bursting into tears. So a really tender moment, you know, sort of a. You know, in some ways, sort of silly moment, but really meaningful to me, you know, to have this experience of seeing myself in this way that the things that we believe and want for ourselves are real and that even if maybe sort of the. The way they happen might not be the way we anticipated, I think that when we stay true to, like, what is it that I want? Right. And really caring deeply about something really shapes your entire existence around that. And so I'm. I'm a big believer in dreaming. I'm a big believer in wanting things and wanting things actively and wanting them without shame and just allowing ourselves to lean deeply into it. So that was a big gift for me and definitely informed the kind of clinician I am and the way I work with people.

So you ask people which X Men they want to be.

Absolutely.

I was a big Wolverine fan.

Oh, I could see it.

I love the beard.

You definitely have a Hugh Jackman beard.

Yeah, I got the. Got the beard going on right now. I mean, I resonate with that a lot.

You don't have enough unresolved trauma, though.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think I dealt with a good amount of mine.

You've done too much shadow work.

I know I've done. I've done too much shadow work. Yeah. I'd have to take on a different X Men character Persona.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, I love that idea. I like that. That connection. You know, I think there's a. Very often time, there's a very fine line between what is in the realm of fantasy, what's in the realm of myth, and. And sort of our personal mythology and the direction that we're going. You Know, I think Jung. Jung talks a lot about that and just that idea of like exploring the realm of fantasy, even with like our conscious fantasy as a means of sort of like self personal actualization and being able to understand ourselves or what the unconscious aspects of ourselves are trying to bring forward. So I love, I love what you're saying. It's all. All good stuff. So you kind of. Would you say that you stumbled your way into your profession or it was just sort of like a natural progression for you? Like, were you always curious about sex and intimacy or like, what. What about that specific part of it?

Yeah, I would say both. So the way that I found out about my career trajectory, because it's definitely not what they put on the brochures, you know, like, you could be a sex therapist.

What those brochures look at, like, exactly.

Like envisioning something like you could be a paralegal. Right? Yeah, you know, like just the, you know, the standard sort of, you know, jobs that get marketed. Right. Like sexuality professions are not, you know, what they're marketing to high school is.

And so I found out about sexuality work through television, particularly late night television. So my cousins and I, when we were being babysat, because we used to be babysat together, we would play this game where it wasn't really a game, but it felt competitive at the time. We would see how many consecutive hours you could stay awake for. And we would watch all of the television shows that we weren't allowed to watch at our own houses. So Beavis and Butthead, the Simpsons, all of that. And I was probably maybe 11 or 12. It was the summer before the sixth or seventh grade. And so you stumble into all of the shows that you don't want your 11 or 12 year old to be watching. You know, Cat House and all of that. Ren and Stimpy, Right, right. I loved Ren and Stimpy.

What a show. What a crazy show.

Looking back, it's actually incredibly gruesome. But it was a great show at the time. Mostly for the taboo of it, right? Mostly because, you know, you're not supposed to be watching this. But I fell into the work because I ended up seeing an episode of Talk Sex with Sue and I had next to no idea what she was talking about. But Sue Johansen was a nurse practitioner who is kind of like Dr. Ruth, if that languaging is familiar to anyone. She had a late night sex talk show where she answered listener questions and demonstrated different things. So on this particular episode, she's waving a big blue or purple dildo. And I knew that that was a penis. And I was like, what is this lady doing? And she was answering questions and to connect it back to that X Men theme, because at that time, I still felt pretty committed to that goal. She answered a listener question. Someone called in and said, you know, I actually don't have a question for you, but I just want to say that your work saved my life. And that particular phrasing, right, coming from that place of like, I want to help people, I want to do something that's transformative, to have someone call into this woman's show and say at a very precocious time for me, like, your work saved my life. I was like, oh, shit. Okay, I'll just. I'll just do this then.

And so, you know, I was in recovery for a pretty wicked, you know, acrobatic injury. And so I figured, you know what? Like, maybe I should have, like, a backup backup plan just in case I, like, can't perform anymore. And so that's literally how I became a sex therapist. You know, I joke often that, you know, if we were watching, like, the Great Canadian Bake off or something. I'm Canadian. If we were watching the Great Canadian Bake off or something, like, I would have been making muffins for the rest of my life. But, you know, that's. That's essentially how I got into the career. So by the time I was in the seventh grade, I didn't know what the title was. I didn't know exactly what this woman was doing, but I knew that sex was a conversation that was changing lives. And I organized my entire life around that. Right. So if you see my resume, my cv, everything is just tinted with sex, just all over it.

I like that maybe, that maybe the title will be just Sex Changes Lives.

I mean, it does, so it would be truthful.

Yeah, well, let's. Let's. Let's start to get into that. In that area, into that topic, because I feel like sex is one of those things where depending on your background, depending on the environment that you grew up in, it's like, taboo parts of it, or maybe you don't talk about it. And I'm always shocked how few couples really engage in these conversations or engage in them, you know, in a way where they. Where they feel connected through them, you know? And so I. I think this is going to be an interesting topic. I think there's a. A few different pathways that we could go down. But maybe let's just start with what have you been seeing couples.

Trying to navigate during these times, Right. I think a lot of people are quarantined. Some people are quarantined together, Some people are separated, and they've been separated for months at a time. Um, so let's just talk about the sort of sexual implications of the pandemic and, like, how. How you've seen people sort of struggling. And then we can navigate maybe a little bit into how. How do we best navigate these times where, you know, we are restricted or constricted in our ability to have social lives. And there are some obstacles that I think a lot of people are facing right now. So let's just start there.

Yeah, absolutely. And so it depends a lot, of course, on the individual relationship and where folks are. What I see or hear a lot for folks who are in cities or states or provinces that have had pretty significant shutdowns and lockdowns and they're with their partners, it's really navigating, okay, where is sex in our priorities around all of this transition and chaos that we suddenly have lots of health anxiety, the context and the flow of our entire lives change, right? That a lot of folks are transitioning from whatever their usual kind of routines are to if they have kids, how do we get kids connected to, like, online systems or hybrid schools if there are essential workers in the home? Like, how are we managing, right? Like, our individual safety with exposure versus exposure to other people in the home? Or like, how are we navigating our schedules for folks who are working from home? Like, how do we even do that? Right? Like, people are really trying to budget and barrier their energy and their attentional resources to still be able to participate in sex in a way that feels like, fun or accessible or, like, reliable. So we have this conflation of increased stress disruption in our timing, in our schedule. And we know that for a lot of folks, even before the pandemic, carving out, like, time, quality time for your partner or time to have the kind of sex that you want can sometimes be a challenge. How do we coordinate schedules? How do we negotiate with one another? What do I do when, like, I'm actually tired of being around you, but we live in a 900 square foot condo in the middle of the city. And so there's really nowhere else for us to go and nothing else for us to do. And that's just for people who are with one another, right? Folks who are not with one another are now facing all many of those same challenges with the added barrier of how do I find a way to be with you safely? Especially if folks Are, you know, having to cross state lines figuring out, okay, how do we, you know, extend or expand our relationship to now consider what connection and intimacy looks like in an ongoing way if we can't be in one another's physical presence in the way that we used to?

Well, let's maybe break these down just a little individually, because I feel like there are a few different scenarios that I've seen people experiencing. And I've been getting a ton of questions about this, as I'm sure you have been getting over the course of the last 10, 12 months. Let's just start with the people that are together. Right. And I think before we jumped on, I used the term stuck together.

Yeah.

Some people are like, they're like, you know, man, I can't. There's just no space. You know, you talk about that 900 square foot apartment. How do people keep pleasure, desire, arousal alive when they're around one another constantly? Right. They're working within the proximity of one another. They see one another constantly. They're, you know, it's like maybe it's the one of the only other people that they're talking to. What does it look like to keep desire and arousal alive in that space?

Yeah, I think it's important. As I talk about desire, I want to be specific about how I think about desire.

So desire to me is an embodied wanting.

So the process of wanting something, but in a way that, like, feels tangible, like you recognize, like, I feel like I feel called to that. I feel drawn to that. Maybe it's intense, like a craving. Maybe it's just an openness. Like, yeah, that could be cool. But the sense of being able to recognize and claim naming. I want that. I want that. And part of what helps facilitate desire one is having enough space to be able to check in with yourself. So as our lives get busier and as our time gets more pressured or as we feel more stressed, it gets harder and harder to stay really clear on what are the things that we want and, and figure out how to prioritize them. And so if we're saying, like, how do we maintain desire in our relationship, really thinking about or noticing, like, what is my stress load? What is my actual threshold? Like, when was the last time I actually paid attention to me? Right. That we can, you know, really get caught up in responsibilities and duties and we want to be good partners. And so there's lots of ways in which we, you know, work really hard on the performance of that or the maintenance of that, but we can very quickly move away from an attention to, like, how am I actually feeling? Right. And I see that in men a lot. You know, we, we give men the stereotype of, you know, being less emotionally attuned. Right. Because there's just a lot less sort of space and support, right. For men to actually engage like in a, an intentional practice of attending to themselves. Right. How am I feeling? What am I needing? And then what do I want? So it starts there, I think it starts there for each individual person to get really clear on what is it that they want in the big picture. And then we fine tune that into our connection. What do I want to feel in my connection to this other person? Those can be emotion words.

Happy, excited, joyful, content. Those can be maybe more nuanced feeling words. So I want to feel useful, I want to feel powerful, I want to feel nervous, I want to feel humiliated. Right. There's all sorts of things that we might want to feel. And how does my sex life, you know, make opportunities for that or not? Right. So we can start to think about this with some strategy.

Yeah. Say, say more about the connecting to what we're wanting to feel as a, as a bridge to not just desire, but to, to sexual exploration with our partners. Because I, I think that that's sometimes not necessarily what a lot of people have, have necessarily been told, right. It's like you, you feel arousal, you feel horny, and you go for it. Right. So I think people have a very, it's like sometimes we have a very like limited context because there's not comprehensive sexual education. I would say that, that a lot of people experience in their lifetime. So think what you're saying is, is beneficial. So can you just elaborate on that a bit more?

Yeah. If sex for most people was not in some way also about connection, no one would complain about not having enough sex with their partners because they could just have sex with themselves. And so we know that there is some piece of the connection that matters. There's some piece of the connection that matters because truthfully, there are enough tools and products and videos and audio that if there is something specific that's just sort of in the physical or sort of, you know.

Sort of manual range, that you could piece together those things a la carte, Right. You would be surprised what some lubed up silicone can feel like. Right? So it's not just about like, I want to put my penis in a thing or I want to look something, you know, I want someone to touch me in these way ways, although that matters. There is something that is also Happening beyond just that connection. And it doesn't have to be like a deeply sort of emotional, like, I'm in love with this person. But there is something that it makes you feel some way that it makes you feel about yourself that is beyond just the physical sensation. Right. And so that isn't often the thing that we think about, but is worth thinking about, because then we can also be really clear with our partners on what it is that we're getting. And this shows up a lot. I know we're sort of bridging a lot of conversations, but they all have so much overlap for me when I work with folks around, like, desire discrepancy, right? So, like, I want sex more than my partner does. If you happen to be a partner who, you know, has a greater interest, a more frequent interest in sex than your partner, sometimes it's really helpful to be able to translate to them or what it is you are getting out of the experience. And so the more that you can say something like, you know, I want to feel desired by you, or I want to feel excited with you, or I want to feel, you know, powerful or submissive or engaged or seen or whatever language actually resonates with. With you. Right? Like, what does having sex do for you? Right. How do you. How do you want to be seen as a sexual being? Like, what do you want your partner to be thinking about you as you're connecting with them? Right. That the more you can get clear with yourself and your partner about that, it creates more opportunities for someone who might have been, like, on the fence to at least have more empathy or understanding around what it is that you're trying to create that is different than what you can just do with yourself?

Yeah, I think that's a really valid perspective that I think will open up a lot of gates for people. I think the sort of immediate confrontation that I think that that brings us into is then having to own how we actually want to be experienced in a sexual encounter. Right. Which is. I think a lot of people then have shame around that, right? Like, just to. Just for some people to say, I want to feel powerful during sex, or I want to feel submissive, or I want to, you know, feel desired or whatever the case may be. Even that, for I think some people is sort of like a place to meet their edge in that moment. And so. And. And maybe the sort of first obstacle in being able to bridge that gap in discrepancy. Can you say a little. Can you say just a little bit more about that? Like how meeting that part of ourselves and owning that part of ourselves, that desire that how we want to be perceived or seen or encountered sexually in that way can be an access point for healing in some capacity.

Yeah, I hope that we can have self compassion in this conversation, although I know that that's a lot of labor. Because what we're doing is we're actively resisting the shame fueled messages that we got around who we are, around how we are, around who we are supposed to be. What it will confront is your beliefs around what you deserve. Right? And from my vantage point, that is sort of the seat of shame. That's where your shame will sit. That's the nest where shame sort of has made its home. What you believe you deserve. And that's why I think this practice of wanting and actively wanting, although it can sound really superficial, is actually really deep work, can be really deep work. Allowing yourself to really just be accepting of your desires as long as they are not causing harm. Right? So anything that no one else, you know, has not consented to is not just free, open permission for you to like, want something from someone just because you want it. Right. You actually have to have active consent. Consent, right. But for you to reflect on and to make peace with in some way or to just notice, you know, this is how, this is what I want, this is how I want to feel. This feeling is meaningful, pleasurable to me in some way. Even if it's a word that has a connotation that maybe is surprising to you or different to you than what people typically talk about during sex. Right. That I'll name some, and some might resonate with folks, and some, you know, might be curious for folks or not land for them. And if it doesn't lend for you, then it's just not yours. Right? But sometimes people want to feel indulgent. They want to feel out of control, they want to feel used, they want to feel.

Submissive, they want to feel scared, they want to feel dirty, they want to feel denied. Right. And so just recognizing, you know, what words come up for you around, like what is it that I, that I want out of this sexual experience? Or what is it that I want out of these connections in general? If this conversation for you expands beyond sex, it's a really powerful bridge to some of the work that we need to do. Because whatever comes up for you, you're gonna have a reaction to that too. That's the fun thing about feeling work is that it just constantly regenerates on itself, right? That as you feel your feelings, you're gonna get kind of meta and have feelings about your feelings, and then you're gonna have feelings about having feelings about your feeling.

Right.

It's layers.

Right. And so, you know, this. This is, you know, work that, you know, leaves a lot of opportunity. You get to decide where you want to start and where you want to stop. Right. But that there's a lot of really good and meaningful and powerful stuff here. And people often use the word intimacy. Intimacy is this connection. Intimacy is the willingness to not only engage with others, but also engage with yourself. I like Esther Perel's phrasing around intimacy being into me. See, and so when people use intimacy as a euphemism for sex, I like to be very clear with them that this is what you are asking for. You are saying, I want to be in a state of emotional openness with you and be sexual in that place.

Yeah. I think it's a powerful context. And I think that in. For many of us, there's. I think for many people, there's a lot of blocks in being able to find ourselves in a place or a relationship where we are willing to have that kind of sexual openness and transparency, emotional openness and transparency, the safety that goes into that. And so, you know, I think what I appreciate about what you're saying is that there's sort of a tactical piece to that because, you know, we have. There's a lot of analytical, linear, logical listeners.

Yeah.

On this show who are like, okay, I'm listen. I hear. I hear what you're saying. What do I do?

Yeah, yeah. And let me. Let me also name that, especially because, you know, I have. I have the warm, you know, tones in the voice, and I'm a therapist, and I talk about feelings. You know, people, I think, you know, sort of assume that I am, you know, sort of. I am tender. I am. But I think people often assume that I come into. Come into this work from a very different place. I had and often still do have tons of blocks, you know, around feelings, around feeling work. That's why I work in it. I needed to do the work. I needed. I needed to do the work. I literally got my neuroscience degree in order to figure out how we can get out of feelings. Because on my journey of deciding, like, I'm going to find a way to help people, I'm like, oh, obviously, feelings are the problem. My feelings are fucking everybody up, and we should not have them or have them differently in a way that is more productive and reasonable, and it'll be better for everybody. And it took me, you know, three and a quarter, you know, years out of my, you know, four year, very intensive science degree to realize, like, oh, that's not. That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. We need these for survival, right? That our lives don't have, you know, organizable purpose or meaning without feelings. Feelings are the best and worst things that could ever happen to us. We have no direction without them. Right. That when we don't have feelings about things, look at how malleable we are. Right. When you genuinely don't care about something. Right. That, like, yeah, some there are times when that can be, like, really freeing. Like, I could go either way. But, like, look at how little organization that has, you know, on your movement through the world. And it's almost impossible to get anything right, anything meaningful out of that experience if we don't have some sort of emotional response to it. Right. Because beyond our feelings, your only other purpose is stay alive. Right. It's just. It literally is don't die.

Yeah. So. So I guess what you're saying, if I could summarize this, is don't take the feelings out of fucking. Yeah.

You have to, literally. And it's fun. I love that.

There's a book title for you. Don't. Don't take the feelings that I'm fucking. Yeah.

You know, it's funny. So I do have a thing in the works, so I won't spoil it. But even in, like, my bios and my handles, I'll name, like, people always want to talk about how to fuck. Like, my work teaches you how to feel. I think it's really important for us to be able to blend these spaces. And again, it doesn't mean that it's like, transforming, you know, whatever sexual behaviors or habits you have. Like, if you, like, like a quick aggressive fuck, like, great, right? And like, what does that make you feel? Right? How do you feel about what you're doing? How do you feel about yourself? How do you want to feel? Right? And that actually unlocks so much more than any particular, you know, like, technique, Right. That we could talk about. You know, this is what you can do with your tongue. And, like, this is how you should arch your fingers. And like, here's how you increase your stamina. And like, everyone's like, ye, yeah, she didn't talk about that now. Right. That's not what's going to happen on this podcast. Right, Right. But that, you know, more transformative than any of that, especially because everybody's body is different. The thing that makes good sex is feeling good.

Right? If you feel good, then it was good. If everybody left the experience feeling good, then it was good. If they feel great, then it was great. And so again, more than, you know, skill or technique or, you know, whatever else, like, if we organize around, like, how do we want this to feel, then we are incredible lovers.

I think that, I think there's an inherent challenge in that, that we as men face. At least I found on my, myself, on my journey that I've, I faced along the way, which was bringing those feelings into sex, like bringing that, that ID that idea that just that concept of like, how am I feeling during sex besides the pleasure, the physical pleasure of it and how do I want to feel? You know, Because I think for, for a long time when it was sort of unconscious, sex was a means for me to feel better about myself. It was a confidence booster, it was a validation mechanism. It was a place where I could feel in an immense amount of control. And so, but there those things were being expressed for a long time unconsciously. And then, you know, eventually shit fell apart and I started to figure that stuff out and I started my own work and I was like, oh, that's why I'm doing all that, you know, okay, I got it. So. But I think what I think you're saying and what I'm coming in contact with is that there's a deep value in asking ourselves the question of how do I want to feel during sex outside of the pleasure and what is a priority for me? And maybe we don't know, right? Maybe we don't know what that is. But the exploration of it is something that, with the right partner, with somebody that we feel safe with and that, you know, we trust, that we respect and there's that respect back, we can start to explore those dynamics within ourselves. And I think that's what I hear you saying, being very important. But I do think that the block for us as men is often that we, a lot of us have been educated by things like pornography, which is not bad, but. And it teaches a very performance based version of what sex should look like as a man. And so I think that a lot of men are sort of bucking up against this thing internally where it's like, I shouldn't be vulnerable, I shouldn't have feelings during sex, and I should perform like the dudes that I've seen in porn. And that's not always the case, but I think lingering in the background, it's pretty common based on, based on all the Men that I've worked with over the years. And so can you maybe just speak to that a little bit? Like, with the men that you've worked with, what would you say one of the main obstacles that they have to move through in order to really step into the kind of sexual connection and exploration that they're actually craving? What does that look like?

Yeah, the men that I work with. And this might surprise folks. This sometimes surprises folks. The biggest obstacles that I see, like, first are about language. It's actually not that men don't know what they want to feel. It's finding language that feels like it fits to describe it. Right. And so that's just a fluency concern, Right? We can absolutely work on that. We can absolutely build vocabulary. And then the bigger obstacle tends to be how do they express that in a way that they feel like they can be received? Right. And to expand on that a little bit more, quite often what folks are worried about or unfortunately, what sometimes happens is that people express what they want, men express what they want. And because we have pigeonholed a lot of men into not having feelings, people don't really know what to do when a man says, this is how I feel, right? And it's. It is. It is the exact thing that a lot of men are worried about in doing this work. So I want to. I want to validate the truth in that, right. I think that sometimes people, you know, think that their fears are unreasonable. And so I just want to be clear that, yeah, there. There is some danger in that, right? Danger being sort of a big heavy word, but that's what it feels like. So I use the word on purpose, right. That men are often worried about being labeled as either sort of not a man. So people who identify as men, people who are men, are worried about have, you know, naming feelings and subsequently receiving the violence, that you are not a man, right. Less of a man, whatever, or to be treated as an aggressor because you have named a feeling. So I'm not talking about acting out the feeling, but even when we put words right to feelings because of how we have, you know, sort of socialized, you know, men, and because of the power socially that men have overall, what they represent beyond the exact individual, that sometimes men will say things like, I am angry or I am hurt or I am sad, and then to receive the reaction that people are feeling aggressed or oppressed or attacked by an expression of feelings.

Those tend to be the biggest barriers. Finding language and then also working on the relational context of how does this relationship actually make sense? Space for the growth and the healing that took place by this individual being able to name their experiences.

So what are, what would you say are some of the ways in which a couple can start to, like, are there certain pieces that need to be in place in order for a couple to explore these conversations and, like, bring this dialogue forward? Because I, I do think, you know, one of the, you know, a big, A big challenge within relationships for a lot of couples is the discrepancy of, you know, the perceived discrepancy of. Of sexual desire or drives or even like the incompatibility question, like the kind of sex that someone's wanting to explore versus the other person. Maybe there's a big discrepancy there. And again, I think what is valuable, what you're saying is that we often, sometimes don't have the language to explore this. So what are some of the precursors or what would you say needs to sort of be in place? How do, how do couples start to explore this conversation of, this is what I want to feel during sex, this is what I want to. This is what I am craving or what I desire to explore? Are there certain pieces that need to be there? Or what does it look like for a couple to start to go down that path who maybe hasn't had the tools or the resources to have those conversations?

Yeah. If this is going to be couples work, then we actually have to start with mutual agreement that we are working on this. And as simple as that sounds, that often is the thing that is missing. Right. Once one person's like, we're working on this, and the person is like, I don't want to work with this. Right. Like, I'm not interested in this. I don't have the availability for that. It's a pandemic outside. I don't have time to be thinking about this or talking about this. Right. They're like, where we ideally start. If we're saying this is a couple's shift, then we start together. And it doesn't mean that we're doing the same thing thing at the same time. We're just in agreement that we are willing and wanting to work on this. And in some form or fashion, we are working on this together, even if it's like, I am going to do this exercise or I am going to do some research or I'm going to work with a therapist or I'm going to buy this literature or whatever. Right. But an agreement, you know, that, that we are, that we are working on this, right. To shift something in our relationship. Then the next piece is to find support. To find support that could be in the context of therapy and maybe in particular sex therapy or working with a sex educator or a sex counselor. That might mean doing a workbook or an exercise, taking an online program, reading more about what it is that you're concerned about. So about desire, about desire discrepancies.

I think that feeling work that we talked about earlier, right. Each of us getting clear on what is it that we want to feel, in my experience as a therapist does actually a lot of the work that us getting clear on what is it that we want to feel. Because folks often think that this desire discrepancy only matters for the moment that we are about to have sex with each other. But foreplay is all of the time that leads up to the time that we decide we are going to have sex with each other.

Right? So like the time at which you start having oral sex is like not the start of foreplay, right. Like foreplay is all of the time that came before we started, you know, doing anything that was more air quotes, explicitly sexual with one another. And sex really can be anything, right. So like what is it that I want to feel? And again, the feelings that you want to have like during sex might not be the same way that you want to feel in the other context of your life. Right. You might want to feel very in control of sort of the other ways in your life and sex is the place where you would decidedly like to feel out of control.

Yeah. So can you say more about that? I know where I'm going to deviate just a little bit. Can you say more about that? I feel like that's a common thing for people and there can be a lot of self judgment and shame around that for people. So can you just address that quickly?

Can, can you tell me sort of the, the where?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, the component of people wanting to be treated differently sexually than they are maybe in their everyday life. Because I think that that's something that again I've seen quite commonly in a lot of people, men and women alike, where, you know, maybe how they're showing up at work or in their day to day life and the, the role that they occupy is sort of radically different than they want to, what they want to explore or experience within sex. And so I was wondering if you could just. That for people.

Thank you for that clarity. We, you know, are pretty simple creatures living complicated lives, right. And there are a wealth of experiences that can Feel pleasurable to us that we might not have access to in the course of our day to day lives, right? So if you are, you know, a person with a ton of responsibilities, you don't have a lot of context in your life that would allow you to feel irresponsible or that would let you sort of not be in charge. And so sex could be a safe container for you to access that feeling. And that can feel really pleasurable and really rewarding. And it might not be the only thing that ever gets you off, right. But might be a special treat, like a special flavor. Right. Think about the way that we, you know, eat that you might, you know, eat, you know, a meal that's full of, you know, healthy grains and, you know, healthy fats and, you know, whatever else. And it can still feel good to you to eat something that you're not eating every single day. Not necessarily as a reward, but to acknowledge that, like, we are not necessarily creatures that are designed to live sort of a very narrow life. And so even if this is something that you only want sometimes that you have a taste for, like, can you allow yourself, you know, like, yes, this is the way I live my life. This is my usual diet. And I still love a Big Mac every now and then, right? Like, yes, I want to feel, like, adored and accepted in my usual life. And sometimes I want to feel humiliated and debased because it's not something that's going to happen in my usual life. And to have some level of autonomy to create these experiences, the agency, to create container for even some of those, maybe more air quotes, dangerous or intense, you know, or otherwise unpleasant experiences can also actually be really healing. Right. For me to be able to know, like, I decide when this starts and stops, that that can feel really good.

Can you say more about. And then I do want to come back to the, the idea of like incompatible sexual partners because I can, I can almost like hear my audience go in on that, go deeper in on that.

But can you say a little bit more about just the idea around maybe some of like the quote unquote. I'm using air quotes now, taboo fetishes and, and the idea of like, you know, because I think people might hear, you know, I want to be debased or humiliated. And I think that there's often a perspective around that. There's a judgment around that. And so can you speak to maybe a little bit of like, not just where that desire might come from, but.

It'S interesting. I think probably some people are listening to this and to hear a therapist say that, is that something that should be normalized? Is that something that, you know, is. Is. Should be explored? Like, yeah, I just, I think I would love for you to say a little bit more about some of those areas because I think some people listening to that might be like, oh, is it okay for me to want that? Is it okay for me to want to explore that? So, yeah, I'll just, I'll stop. I'll stop asking the same question and let you, let you answer it.

Yeah. Okay, so I'll sort of.

It's a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. I feel like we could have a whole podcast.

Absolutely.

You could have, might, we might have to.

Yeah, we, we might. Depending on, you know, what the follow up questions are, you know, we end up talking about a lot of things because sex is a very big space. Okay, so you had used the word fetishes. I'm actually going to sort of center it more on fantasy because that connects kind of more closely to like us wanting something. So. And since now I've said it, now I feel like I have to define it. So, you know, a fetish is something that is necessary for you for your sexual practices, right? So something very specific or ritualized that you said, like, I need this. Right? So like, if you need to have shoes present, right. In order to take sexual pleasure out of this experience, then you might have a shoe fetish. A fantasy is sort of any mental image that connects to desire. So anything that makes you say in any way, like, ooh, that's exciting to me, ooh, I might want that. It doesn't actually have to be something that you want to act on. Doesn't mean that you have to have any intentions on doing it. Just means that it's something that is arousing to you in some way. And so fantasies, the things that we want more often than not come from a place of unmet, an unmet need, Right. Something that was not met or addressed adequately. Right. Think about what that means in the rest of your life, right? That you, if you already have it, you probably don't still want it. You might still like it, you might still want to keep it. But if you already have dinner in front of you, you're not going to be like, oh, I want dinner. You have dinner. You might say, I want to eat my dinner now. And that's great. But there is a way in which our wants are attempting to bridge the gap between what we have and things that we might need or things that we might be interested in exploring places we haven't gone yet or been before. And so getting needs met, getting wants, methods, build satisfaction. So even just indulging in the fantasy, right? Being able to imagine something our brain doesn't actually know, the concrete difference between a story that actually happened and a story that you have imagined. And so there is also something that just brings satisfaction in a fantasy. The same way that remembering pleasurable sexual experiences can feel really gratifying. So the things that you fantasize about are probably a lot more common that you than you think. When we talk about things being normal or not normal. Normal is just frequency data, right? So the more you hear about something, the more normal it is. However, we have a lot of sexual censorship. And so because we don't hear about a lot, right? We start to wonder, am I normal? Is it okay? We will police the boundaries of other people's normal based on our own familiarity, right? The things that we recognize or understand, right? The things that are normal according to our values, according to our culture, according to our community, our religions. Our religions, exactly right? So really common fantasies. And this is research by Justin Le Miller. Les Miller. Most common fantasies. Top seven group sex, power play. So dominance or submission or roleplay or sadism or masochism, adventure. So anything that is new or even risky, consensual, non monogamy. So letting a partner be with other people, you being with other people, but with some level of consent. So then we have things like fetishes or kinks. So fantasizing about like some particular object, some particular position, right? Very specific to not so much the relationship, but like this item and how that item might add to your sexual experiences. Number six, passion or romance. So feeling appreciated, being taken care of, being doted on, maybe being worshiped. And then anything that has to do with like sexual fluidity. So like gender play, orientation play. But those are the seven most common sort of umbrellas of fantasy. And already you can start to imagine all of the stories that you could create along those themes. But when people are holding shame about what it is that they're interested in, right? Most likely it is because they have either not heard of, not found the community of people who are also actively, you know, playing in that space, fantasizing in that space for it to feel within the range of normal. And trust me, it is really hard at this point. This world has, you know, billions of people in. It was like 7 billion or something like that over that, right? That we are all unique and special snowflakes. And I guarantee you that there. There are other people fantasizing about the thing that you fantasize about. There are other people who want the things that you want, even if you don't know them or haven't talked to them. Right. So frequency as an issue, but also, even if you have heard about it, what was the response or how did people receive it? Because again, other people's perception of normal would influence what we think. We want to feel accepted. We don't want to think that we are bad people. Our shame monsters will, you know, really latch into that. Right. And use that as fodder for why we don't deserve things. Right. And so you might have heard that, oh, well, anyone who, you know, wants to be dominant during sex is an abuser. Right. Or anyone who wants to be submissive during sex, you know, is weak or, you know, not a man. Whatever man means to you. Right. And so being able to be a part of communities that have different narratives around these things makes a huge difference because you can also start to see that, oh, this isn't about normal or abnormal. This is about people's individual judgments. And there's nothing wrong with me for wanting things or for desiring things, that if I can be in a relationship with someone who is open to exploring this. Right. Someone who is consenting to us playing with this or me sharing this with them if I choose to do that. Because sometimes your fantasies are just for you. The same way that you have food that you're like, I have no interest in sharing this with anybody. Like, this is my snack and I'm gonna eat this by myself. Right. That the more we can create some of that community around our experiences, the less we actually have space for shame.

Yeah. I mean, I think you've. You've brought out some really good context. I like that you created a bit of a distinction between fetishes and fantasies and, you know, outline some of the top parts there. I think what I'm really hearing you say, because we're going to have to unfortunately wrap this up and we will continue this later on this year. But I think what I hear, hear you saying is, you know, as a, as a couple, if you're exploring this as a couple, step one, make sure that both parties are. Are wanting to explore this and are committed to that. Step two, start to connect with some of the feeling components of, like, how you actually want to feel in that sexual connection. And three, explore the fantasies. Explore the what. What's there and notice where there's. Where there's shame. And I'M sure that there's a whole other conversation to be had around navigating the murky waters of sexual shame. So any final thoughts that you want to leave the listeners with before, before we wrap up today?

Yeah, let me, let me also do sort of my version of a, of a condensing and see if I can touch some of these pieces. So the original conversation, or at least a place where we started, one of the places where we started was around what folks can sort of take out of this conversation. Their lives in the pandemic, whether they are, you know, with a partner, maybe they're unpartnered, maybe they are long distance with a partner. And so really starting with, you know, this is the same way our brain works, right? Feel, think, do. Right? So feel. We feel first. Our feelings bias and influence our thoughts. Our thoughts help us, you know, put intention and organize our behavior. So no matter what sort of relationship formation you're in, as you, you know, named. Right, us. Starting with, okay, like, what is it that I want? That desire piece. How do I want to feel? And if there are other people involved, you also get that information from them. And then we move into the thought piece, the thinking, okay, so what is it that I know? What is it that I don't know? Who knows what I don't know? And how do I get their support and their buy in? Who can help us strategize or learn more about how to create the feelings or how to create the context for the feelings that we want to have. And then we put it into action, right? We've started to build that map and then we put it into action. So that's also the same map that happens with desire discrepancy. How do you want to feel? How do I want to feel? Often when we take it out of like how often we want to have sex or do you want to have sex and start to think of like, how do we want to feel with each other? We actually start to see that the gaps aren't always so big. Right? Like I want to feel appreciated and you want to feel useful. Like, oh, okay, like we can, we can come up with a space for that. We can come up with a mutual context for that. If it's, I want to feel in control and you want to feel in control. Like we can create that. Like it just might be some turn taking like today is my turn and tomorrow is your turn. Right, but, but you know that once we can get connected to what it is, we want the outcome to be beyond what package we want it to be in. We can be a lot more creative and negotiate a lot more easily for mutually pleasurable experiences.

I love that. I like that, that context because I think it, it takes a lot of the pressure off of the, like, the when and the how many times and the, the sort of like logistical components that I think a lot of couples get wrapped up on. You know, my partner only wants to have sex once a week and I want to have sex three times a week. And is this, you know, is that fixable? Is it ever going to work? And so I think those types of conversations and I think what you're alluding to is that when we take this approach, a lot of those gaps start to dissolve away and we, and we're able to find a better rhythm within the relationship. So I love that. Well, listen, Shadeen, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Great conversation. I think we're definitely going to have to have you back on in the future and talk about this again. For people that want to learn a little bit more about you, where is the best place for them to follow along?

Yeah, I think the best place for folks to track me these days would be on my website, shadeemfrances.com all of the links to sort of all of the other things will emanate from there. So there are platforms or there are channels on there if you have questions that you'd like me to answer. So you can submit your questions if you want to follow the Instagram, if you want updates or the newsletter, all of that. The hub is shadeenfrancis.com awesome.

And we'll have the links for all that in the show, notes for everyone that's out there. Maybe listen to this with your partner, maybe send to a friend that you know will enjoy it. Either way, spread the love, spread the message and don't forget to leave a rating and review on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.

Sam.