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Staying With Feelings In Relationships May 21, 2018

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Staying with feelings in relationships In the last podcast we ended with a point about how it’s always okay for people to have the feelings they have, and that it’s important to cultivate the ability to stay with other people’s feelings: whether that be our friends, partners, or other people in our lives. Staying with feelings is an idea MJ has written a lot about including this zine which goes through the reasons why it is important to learn to stay with our own feelings, and how we might go about it. Juz has also written about the important of staying with feelings when supporting people in our lives. Generally if we can stay with feelings - or ourselves or another person - those feelings can be experienced and expressed and move through us. If we can’t stay with feelings then we often layer more feelings on top of the existing feelings as we try to eradicate or repress them, e.g. guilt about feeling sad, then worry about feeling guilty, then frustration about how anxious we feel. Trying to deny or get away from tough feelings often leads to way more tough feelings. The basic idea to come back to is that all feelings are sensible and rational. It’s vital to let them be experienced. On the podcast we suggested that, perhaps, level 1 staying with feelings is staying with our own strong or difficult feelings, level 2 is staying with those feelings of somebody else when they’re upset about something unrelated to us, and level 3 is staying with the feelings of somebody else when they’re upset about something we’ve done ourselves. So imagining a scenarios where a friend or partner has strong feelings: what do we do? Why is it hard to stay with their tough feelings? If their strong feelings are about us we can feel responsible for them and not want the strong feelings that invokes in us (e.g. guilt/shame) We may feel enmeshed or entwined with that person and want them to feel the same way we would in that situation, or struggle with the fact their feelings reveal that their values aren’t the same as ours We’re generally not comfortable around ‘negative feelings’ in our culture and want to fix or eradicate them so that everyone is feeling - or at least pretending to feel - happy How can we stay with their tough feelings? Park the issue (if there is one between us) and focus on the feeling. Let them fully express it without trying to allocate blame onto us or to them Be on their side and really listen to what they have to say. Don’t think about how we might feel in that situation, but recognise that this is how they feel (with their life experiences and world view) Know when we have this to offer and when we don’t. For example, if we’re triggered too or too tired. Don’t try to do it then but make time when do have it to offer.

Changing Relationship Agreements Over Time May 09, 2018

Show notes

Changing relationship agreements over time We were inspired to do this podcast by a Dan Savage podcast where Dan suggested that a non-monogamous person starting a relationship with a monogamous person could always try a monogamous agreement for a while and then shift to a non-monogamous one. We liked the ideas of seeing monogamy to non-monogamy as a spectrum that people could move around on over time. This is very much how we see it ourselves - check out our zine for more on this. The rules or agreements that we make in our relationships can and should be constantly shifting, not something we lock into place forever. This is because both individuals and relationships change over time in all kinds of ways. More on this in MJ’s book Rewriting the Rules. In the podcast we unpack two key ideas in relation to this: It’s okay for rules to change over time We should let others know if the rules are likely to change 1. It’s okay for rules to change For example there are many reasons that we might decide that we have no capacity for further erotic and/or emotionally deep relationships right now. We might feel that all our capacity is taken up with one or more relationships that we already have. This might happen when we’re in new relationship energy, or when we have maxed out on the number of close relationships we can handle, for example. Or it might be that we have an illness, someone to care for, a big work project, or a trauma to deal with. During that time we might decide to be single, monogamous, polyfidelitous, or to only have casual encounters, in order to navigate that period. But it might well be that we want to open up more, or change the rules, once that period is over. 2. We should let others know if the rules are likely to change Sometimes we have a pretty good idea that the rules or agreements we currently have in a relationship are likely to have to change at some point in the future. For example, we might be planning to have a kid or to move to another country, or we might be a monogamous person who is having friends-with-benefits relationships but only until we meet ‘someone’. It can be very painful to others in our lives if we don’t let them know that these things are on the cards, particularly if the change will mean a significant shift - or even ending - in our relationship. If you know that a change is likely to happen it’s good to be clear on that. The final major point we discussed on the podcast is that it’s important to allow people to have the feelings they have around such changes. We often avoid telling people changes are coming, or avoid making changes that we need to make, because we feel hurting or angering people. Actually the trick is to get to a point where we do listen to our needs and make changes, and we communicate compassionately about that, because we can handle other people having their feelings: even if this thing we’re doing is resulting in sadness, grief, fear, or anger for them. It’s okay for you to change the rules, and it’s also okay for the other person to feel how they feel. More on this in the next podcast on staying with other people’s feelings.

Toilets and Sex May 01, 2018

Show notes

We tried to think of a really easy question for us to answer like 'what do I do if I need to fart whilst getting a blowjob?' But this being us, we unpacked this to talk about how we might navigate our use of the toilet when it comes to sex and relationships

How To Get Laid Apr 20, 2018

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This podcast covers the different ways to go about getting laid - having unpacked what that means, and how it might mean different things for different people of course.

Queer Eye Hot Take Apr 10, 2018

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Here's a bonus podcast with our hot take on Queer Eye (which is a show on Netflix that's right up in our wheel house - although Justin has no idea what a wheel house is, a house made of wheels?). What does it open up and what does it close down? This is one of those 'chatty chatty chats' rather than a 'trying to answer a question chat.' We'll be back with another more regular podcast next week.

Deliberate Non Consent Mar 29, 2018

Show notes

Content warning: In this post - and podcast - we discuss deliberately non-consensual behaviour. We don’t give any detailed descriptions, but we do touch on things like rape culture, the low conviction rate for sexual assault, and how people often make excuses for other peoples’ non-consensual behaviour. If these things feel live for you at the moment do please think about how to engage with this in a way that is kind and gentle with yourself - if you want to engage at all.

How To Give Sex Advice Mar 23, 2018

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Hear our panel discussion with Girl On The Net about how to give sex advice (full title, how to give *responsible* sex advice). Read the blog here http://megjohnandjustin.com/sex/give-sex-advice/

Feeling Better About Our Bodies Mar 16, 2018

Show notes

We discuss how we might feel better about our bodies. So we touch on the social messages we get about bodies and this includes us talking about fatphobia, diets, 'health', disablism, but we don't go into much detail. It's a long one -- sorry about that.

What Is Romance? Mar 06, 2018

Show notes

In this podcast we decided to unpack romance… and kind of put it back together in a different form. By the end of the podcast we realised we’d followed a similar line to the line we follow with sex in our book Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To).

Dealing With Trauma on a Hook Up Jan 31, 2018

Show notes

This week we answered a question about trauma and hookups on the podcast. A content note up front is that this episode does cover issues of sexual abuse/assault and trauma responses/PTSD. So if those things are live for you right now you might want to think about whether you want to listen or not. FYI we don’t go into any description of abuse or assault, we do have a bit more detail about possible trauma responses (fight, flight, and freeze) and what those can look like.

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