Loading summary
Transcript221 lines
- [00:08]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:27]
Grow Therapy Announcer
Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more. More support, more clarity, more tools. Grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekend. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growththerapy.com acast growth acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [01:27]
Melody Thomas
Fresh pine, Warm spice all July long. Your favorite holiday fragrances are back. No winter required. Celebrate Christmas in July with Pura. Save 20% on seasonal fragrances, 20% on curated seasonal sets, and get a free blanket when you spend $100 or more while supplies last. Visit pura.com.
- [01:59]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Kia Ora Koutou this episode of the Good Sex Project contains frank discussions of sex and sexual pain, as well as
- [02:07]
Melody Thomas
briefly touching on body image and disordered eating. There's also lots of fun and importantly, some great cackles, so do enjoy.
- [02:18]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This podcast was made with the support of New Zealand On Air
- [02:24]
Melody Thomas
Talk About It. It's a pretty common piece of advice, the foundation of half of modern therapy, and something you've almost certainly heard from me on this very podcast more than once. Talk about things that make you feel vulnerable, ashamed, excited, nervous and alone. Speak them out loud and you might just find that they lose their grip on you. But as advice goes, talk about it can seem intimidating and also a bit vague, like, okay, talking helps, apparently, but how? Talking doesn't actually change anything about what's happened, so what's the point? What does opening up about things, especially vulnerable or embarrassing sex related things even do, aside from airing your dirty laundry? And while we're on the subject, how do you talk about it, especially if you've never even tried before? How are you meant to find the words if they're not Even in your lexicon. What if you mess it up? What if they don't listen? What if they do and they don't like what they hear? In this episode of the Good Sex Project, we're going to talk about. Well, talking about it, we'll hear from one incredible young woman who finally found the words for something she used to carry completely alone.
- [03:48]
May
It's made it less of a mountainous, mysterious thing that I have to deal with in darkness and meet a group
- [03:56]
Melody Thomas
of genderqueer honeys who formed a regular meetup for talking about sex where no question is too weird, too dumb or too personal.
- [04:05]
Sarah
What finger did you use? Where was the bed like? What object? What were you feeling like? How did you know to use that thing? Who was leading and who was following?
- [04:14]
Melody Thomas
Why talking about it is worth the fear and how to actually start doing it yourself right now. In the final episode of the Good Sex Project, season three, Naked Honesty. I'm Melody Thomas. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it.
- [04:34]
Beth
To me, extraordinary sex is vulnerability.
- [04:38]
Melody Thomas
You might remember this voice. It's Beth from our singles episode, the Waiting Room. In that episode, we talked about a whole lot of stuff, but there was one story that I've saved for today about a guy Beth was dating who helped teach her how to put words to her wants.
- [04:54]
Beth
It was both the most incredible thing to do, but at first incredibly hard.
- [05:02]
Melody Thomas
Beth calls the guy she was dating the otter. There's no time to explain that choice, but they were seeing each other casually at the time of our interview, and he'd just made her do an interesting exercise.
- [05:14]
Beth
Write a list of things that I was into and my desires. I didn't know where to start and so just went on a thousand yes, no, maybe lists.
- [05:24]
Melody Thomas
A yes, no maybe list is an awesome resource originally used by sex therapists and counsellors for helping you figure out what you're into or curious about. And it can be a really useful starting point if you can't find the words to share what you like with a partner or if you just don't know how it works, is you're given an inventory of sexual activities and you mark yes if you're interested, no if you're not, and maybe if you're unsure or open to discussion.
- [05:50]
Beth
And so that was such an amazing thing for me to be like, how does that make me feel on my body? And like, I guess, you know, more like into the kink side of things and really just sort of testing what that could look like. There was definitely some where I'm just Like, oh, yeah, interesting. But then, you know, he's like, do you want to talk through your list? And it's like, oh, my God,
- [06:21]
May
I
- [06:22]
Melody Thomas
can't just quietly present this to you and walk away. I had to say this out loud.
- [06:27]
Beth
Yeah. Did you? Yes.
- [06:29]
Melody Thomas
Beth did the scary thing and told the otter all of her personal freaky fantasies and desires. And he was awesome about it.
- [06:37]
Beth
He held me emotionally in that space. So amazingly, something that holds a lot
- [06:44]
Melody Thomas
of us back from saying what we want out loud or how we're feeling is the fear of fumbling it, getting flustered, or losing the thread mid sentence. But when somebody's patient with you, like the otter was with Beth, none of that matters. You don't have to get it right first time. You just have to start. This is Beth starting. And on the otter's advice, she kicked off with her maybes, the things she wasn't too attached to, even still, it
- [07:11]
Beth
was just like, maybe it will be kind of, mmm, cool.
- [07:15]
Melody Thomas
If not her most articulate moment or her sexiest.
- [07:21]
Beth
But actually it shouldn't in that moment necessarily be a sexy conversation, right? And then he came at it from a place of just genuine curiosity. And it was so cool. Like, why do you think? What is it about that in asking questions? So then also me being to like being able to relax into a conversation that isn't like dirty talk that isn't, you know, like trying to get a rise, literally.
- [07:53]
Melody Thomas
Beth said what she wanted out loud and in doing so opened the door to making her desires real.
- [08:00]
Beth
At the end of that conversation, he was like, amazing. Wanna tick some of those off? And I'm like, fuck, yeah, let's go.
- [08:07]
May
Yeah.
- [08:08]
Beth
Like, we all just wanna make each other feel good. What an amazing thing to just be like, I know this will make them feel good. As opposed to being like, what about this? What about this?
- [08:20]
Melody Thomas
How does he know to have these convos like this?
- [08:23]
Beth
He's like a very conscientious fuckboy.
- [08:26]
Melody Thomas
We love a self aware fuckboy. Thank you, Beth. And thank you to the self aware fuckboy, AKA the otter. If you're curious about yes, no maybe lists, I think that sounded like a fun exercise or a scary one that might be worthwhile. Anyway, there's loads to choose from online. Just go have a Google. Our next story starts in a similar key to Beth's with some shared laughs and a bit of silliness. But there is a serious thread, which we'll get to pretty quickly, so buckle up for both.
- [08:58]
May
One of my best friends, she's like, when you have sex, I need you to call me no matter what time it is and I'm gonna bake you a cake and ice a giant vagina on it and then we're gonna have a vagina party. And I'm like, you know what? That's exactly what I want.
- [09:12]
Melody Thomas
Meet May, a 20 year old sweetheart who's gearing up for the dessert of my dreams. A vagina cake baked by a bestie to celebrate a point in her journey that's been on the horizon for years and is now just within reach. Mae grew up in the south island in a little town of less than a thousand people. Her parents are great, but they struggled when it came to sex and relationship conversations. Thankfully, Mae had a sex positive guardian angel.
- [09:38]
May
My auntie was joking one day, like, oh, I'll get you a vibrator for your birthday. And I was like, actually like, that's legendary. If you do, you will be top tier in my life forever. And she was like, right, done. And mum was like, oh, the thought of my daughter doing that. And that was an example of a wee bit of that shame where I was like, you know, you find that yucky. So do I need to find that yucky?
- [10:01]
Melody Thomas
And she got you the vibrator?
- [10:02]
May
Yes, she did.
- [10:03]
Melody Thomas
For her 17th birthday.
- [10:05]
May
She like made me a little bag for it and everything and she gave it to me and she's like, don't open that. And I was shocked. I was like, oh my gosh, she's actually done this. I love her. Yeah, but yeah, that was maybe a year or so before the incident happened.
- [10:21]
Melody Thomas
The incident is where the more serious part of Mae's story begins. But just so you know, going in, this isn't an assault story.
- [10:29]
May
So I was in year 12. I threw a party at my house and my boyfriend at the time, we'd been going out for a few months and we were like sort of planning on attempting to have sex and we ended up sneaking off to my room and attempting. And it wasn't going the way we'd hoped. I was also terrified that my mum was going to walk in on us. So I, like, halfway through, I got up, put my clothes on, went out to check that she was still inside, went back, took them off, like, tried again.
- [10:59]
Melody Thomas
It was relaxing.
- [11:00]
May
Yeah, I know, it was just the perfect environment. But he was kind of poking and prodding around my vagina and it was quite painful and I was like, I don't like this, I think we should just stop. And we stopped, but he was deflated.
- [11:19]
Melody Thomas
May was pretty Deflated as well. This isn't how she imagined it going, but she would have tried again. She really liked him and she wanted to share this with him.
- [11:28]
May
And then a few weeks later we broke up and I heard through one of his friends that he had said that I had a really hairy bush and was saying quite nasty things about my body. And I was like, whoa, that's a shock. It knocked me for sure.
- [11:51]
Melody Thomas
At this point in her life, Mae was already dealing with negative feelings about her body and some linked behaviours like restricting food.
- [12:00]
May
So that kind of again added another layer to that which, yeah, wasn't nice. Like, I'd never really thought I needed to trim the hedges, but then sort of started to worry about that. But, yeah, it hurt a lot. And it took me a wee while to get over.
- [12:18]
Melody Thomas
May's story hit me pretty hard because it's quite similar to my own first time, if you can call it that. Same as her penetration wasn't really working, which I now understand is very normal, given an absolute lack of warm up or lubrication. And eventually we gave up. The next day, he broke up with me. Lucky for me, I never heard from him or about him ever again. If he talked shit about me, I didn't know about it. I can't imagine what that extra layer of cruelty might do for your confidence.
- [12:48]
May
When I started dating my current partner,
- [12:50]
Melody Thomas
this was almost four years ago when she was 17, we tried to have
- [12:55]
May
sex and we tried a lot of times, but it just didn't work. I thought, yeah, I think something's, something's wrong.
- [13:02]
Melody Thomas
Can you tell me when things are not working? Like, what does it feel like? What's happening?
- [13:07]
May
It's basically like there's just a wall. Like there's, there's no opening, it's just the penis kind of just hits it and it just like, I'll say, bounces off. And it's also very like tight and uncomfortable and quite painful initially as well.
- [13:26]
Melody Thomas
And was it just with penetrative sex that it was happening or.
- [13:29]
May
I had been able to like insert one to two fingers like before. Always had struggled with tampons and I went to the doctor about that and she said, oh, something. You just need to get over the tampon thing. I was like, okay.
- [13:43]
Melody Thomas
May didn't know it at the time, but what she was experiencing is a condition shared by a number of women and people with vaginas around the world. Eventually she found a new doctor who
- [13:53]
May
told her, you have vaginismus. It's very, very common, but it's not really talked about.
- [13:59]
Melody Thomas
We mentioned vaginismus briefly in our Purity Culture episode last season, and we've heard other people touch on symptoms that could be aligned with that condition at other points in the series. It's actually what the character Lily struggles with in the TV show Sex Education. And watching that show was actually part of what made Mae seek a second medical opinion about what was going on with her. Vaginismus is a disorder caused by involuntary contractions of the pelvic floor muscles, which makes any form of vaginal penetration painful or impossible. You might also hear it called GPPPD or genitopelvic Pain Penetration disorder, which is the updated clinical term. But because that's a real mouthful, vaginismus is still what most people say. A lot of people describe vaginismus in the same way that Mae just did, like there's a wall inside their vagina and it's one of the leading causes of painful sex. For people with vaginas, though, it's really hard to pin the numbers down exactly. Global estimates range from around 1% to 17% of women. But given how under reported and underdiagnosed it is, the real number could easily be way higher. What's interesting is how these estimates change across different cultures. In Iran, researchers found Vaginismus affects 27% of women. In Turkey, it was 43%, and it goes as high as 68% in Ghana. Because vaginismus isn't just a physical condition, researchers attribute higher rates of vaginismus in certain places to cultural stigma, conservative attitudes around sex, and lack of education. So where there is more shame and silence around sexuality, more people experience vaginismus. Back in that first appointment, when the doctor told me she had vaginismus, she gave her some advice.
- [15:53]
May
She recommended getting your fingers and kind of like just gently, like massaging around and then doing that lots, and then getting, like, my partner's hand and doing that and then slowly working your way up to a penis. But it wasn't quite as simple as
- [16:09]
Melody Thomas
that because it wasn't addressing the psychological side of things.
- [16:13]
May
After a year, I was like, we're going to need to try something else. I then looked into getting therapy in the form of light hypnotism and neuro linguistic programming.
- [16:28]
Melody Thomas
Neuro linguistic programming, or nlp, is based on the theory that we all build these internal maps of the world and that we can tap into those maps to shift how we think, feel, or behave. The science behind NLP is pretty shaky. It's actually become a go to example in Psychology of a Pseudoscience. And reviews looking into it haven't found solid ev that it works as a therapy. But that doesn't mean people don't find value in it personally. May did, and she's gonna specifically mention one NLP technique called Anchoring in a minute.
- [17:02]
May
The first few appointments were quite emotional. Like she used kind of hypnotism at first, and I would find myself crying in the middle of it, just no reason whatsoever. And it was quite intense, but also so relieving at the same time. Cause it felt like a weight was being lifted off me a wee bit. So she was like, we're going to get you into a space where you feel really relaxed and calm and happy and we're going to anchor that with an action. So for me, it was just like rubbing my thigh. And then when you do that action later, it brings on that feeling and just kind of connecting me to my body a wee bit more. Because I kind of had like a sense of my body was betraying me. I was quite angry at my own body. So it was kind of just connecting physically and emotionally and being like, it's actually trying to protect me. It's doing its job, but it doesn't need to anymore.
- [18:05]
Melody Thomas
At this point. Mae and her boyfriend had been together for a few years and they hadn't managed to have penetrative sex, though not for lack of trying. But he never made her feel bad about it, not once.
- [18:17]
May
Never put pressure, never belittled that at all. He was like, we can get through this. But I recognised that this is a blow.
- [18:27]
Melody Thomas
You know, vaginismus shows up differently for everyone and the causes are just as varied. So there's no one single solution. The good news, though, is that the research is really encouraging. One major review found that around 80% of people saw real improvement when they combined treatments together, like physiotherapy and talk therapy. One of the most common treatment methods is with vaginal dilators. These are small, graduated silicon or plastic tools that gently introduce the body to penetration step by step. They're used alongside therapy, like we just mentioned. And the goal isn't to stretch anything, it's to retrain the muscles and the mind to drop the spasm response and break the fear pain cycle. May got her first dilators a few months ago.
- [19:13]
May
And I'm on the largest size, so progressed quite quickly. And I think that's due a lot to improving my emotional state around it as well. There was kind of a point where I regressed a wee bit And I couldn't insert anything. It absolutely terrified me. And I would just burst into tears, basically.
- [19:32]
Melody Thomas
Was anything happening around the time of that regression that you can now be like, oh, that's what was going on there?
- [19:38]
May
Well, I had an infection and I went to the doctors and saw a nurse and she prescribed me a insertable tube initially. And I had to be like, excuse me, that's not gonna work. I have vaginismus and I can't insert anything. And she was like, what's that? And I ended up having to explain it to her, which was a wee bit frustrating because, you know, they're a medical professional and I'm a 20 year old girl.
- [20:08]
Melody Thomas
Yes. It shouldn't be on the patient to educate their doctor or nurse about vaginismus, but unfortunately that's not the first time I've heard a story like this. And research shows it often takes years for women to get a vaginismus diagnosis. Studies have found delays ranging from under a year up to several years, largely because of low awareness and how hard it can be to find the right kind of support. May had a few things on her side through all of this that unfortunately not everyone in her position will have. She had that early exposure to the idea that there was a condition some people have called vaginismus, from the TV show Sex Education because they talked about it. She recognised the symptoms in herself. She had her sex positive aunt. And there was another friend of her mum's who was a pelvic floor specialist who was also really open. She also had or has a gorgeous boyfriend.
- [21:04]
May
One of the things he says to me on the many nights where I was crying because wed failed once again, I was like, you know, it's something I really want to be able to do with you. And he said, I loved you even before any of the sex stuff came about. And if we never have sex, that doesn't matter to me.
- [21:22]
Melody Thomas
The thing is, Mei and her boyfriend do have sex, just not the penetrative type. And from the sounds of it, their sexual connection is wonderful.
- [21:31]
May
We find other ways to connect sexually, which is really great. He just has to fight through the forest, in my opinion. Yeah, he's come along for the ride this far, so.
- [21:43]
Melody Thomas
Yeah, exactly. Some pubes aren't turning him around.
- [21:45]
Beth
Yeah.
- [21:46]
Melody Thomas
Mei even reckons that their sex life is better than it would have been if she didn't have vaginismus because we've
- [21:52]
May
had to find other ways of pleasuring each other and enjoying ourselves. And it also forces us to communicate a lot as well, because my vagina was quite sensitive for a long time. So there was an element of care that needed to be taken. And we're very open and we trust each other a lot, which I think is great. And it will set us up for when I finally can have sex.
- [22:17]
Melody Thomas
Because while it's not the be all and end all, penetrative, sex is still something these two want to do together.
- [22:24]
May
It is a goal for the end of this year, but I genuinely feel like I'm one step away. I have a vibrator and once I think I can insert that comfortably, I think we'll be ready.
- [22:39]
Melody Thomas
Have you put it next to your boyfriend and been like, I have, yeah.
- [22:43]
May
I always do the size comparison and I'm like, yes, we're getting there.
- [22:46]
Melody Thomas
What is a penis but a fleshy diet?
- [22:48]
May
Yeah, exactly.
- [22:49]
Melody Thomas
It's the same thing.
- [22:50]
May
But, yeah, we're very close.
- [22:51]
Melody Thomas
What kind of difference would it have made to you if you had learned about things like genitopelvic pain and vaginismus and the umbrella of things?
- [23:00]
May
I think I would have been a lot less fearful because a lot of my mental struggles over the course of the journey have been not knowing what's going on. The uncertain is the scary thing.
- [23:20]
Melody Thomas
Talking about these things is never going to fix it overnight or give you all the answers in one go. But if you share it with the right person or people, it will help you feel less alone. Sharing in this way, actually turning to the people you love and saying, this is what I'm going through, cracks open the door to finding support and. And to greater connection.
- [23:43]
May
I think it's made it less of a mountainous, mysterious thing that I have to deal with in darkness. For this interview, I wasn't really nervous because I was actually like, I would love to have heard something like this when I was in the throes of trying to work that out with myself.
- [24:04]
Melody Thomas
Do you have any advice or anything to say to the people listening?
- [24:08]
May
Look into dilators. Look into the emotional and psychological aspects of it as well, because they go hand in hand and also, like, not one size fits all. I listen now to classical music before I put my dilator in because that gets me in a nice calm state. So, yeah, just try the wacky things and just try, like, not to be afraid because I never thought I'd be where I am now. I thought I was just going to be like this forever, not even able to insert a finger. But, yeah, it does get better.
- [24:41]
Melody Thomas
I can't wait to hear if you get penetrated for Christmas.
- [24:47]
May
You're gonna have to update us later. You'll get a text. Melody, I just got fucked.
- [24:53]
Melody Thomas
Oh, thank you, May. What a legend. I wish I'd had that confidence when I was 20. Now in the real world, that interview was done in October 2025 and I had to wait a few months for news. But you lucky listener, you're going to find out what happens to May at the end of this episode. A wee while back, I heard about a really special group putting this advice to talk about sex into practice in an incredibly intentional, meaningful and silly way.
- [25:24]
Sarah
Sex, sex, sex, sex.
- [25:28]
Melody Thomas
After the break Sex Chat.
- [25:33]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings by $946 by new customers survey saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.
- [26:09]
Grow Therapy Announcer
Everyone treats summer like it owes you happiness. Long days, pool parties, your best life on a loop. So what does it mean when you feel worse? The summer blues are real. It's why summer is one of the busiest stretches of the year for people starting therapy. Grow Therapy is here for all the moments when you decide you want more support, more clarity, more, more tools. Grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. The therapist you want takes your insurance on. Grow grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growththerapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [27:15]
Melody Thomas
Welcome back. It's time for sex chat.
- [27:18]
Sabrina
I said to Sarah, hey, like, we talk about sex sometimes. Like, should we make this kind of official?
- [27:22]
Melody Thomas
This is Sabrina. Pronouns they she. Sarah's here too.
- [27:27]
Sarah
I was really into it.
- [27:28]
Melody Thomas
Sarah's pronouns are they them, as are Frank's.
- [27:31]
Frank
The timing was just really ideal for me.
- [27:33]
Melody Thomas
And finally, here's Lil she they like,
- [27:36]
Lil
we're all having these same experiences, but we don't feel like, we can talk about it, but everyone's like gagging to talk about it.
- [27:45]
Melody Thomas
These four genderqueer cuties are the founding members of a group they call Sex Chat, though they spell it with numbers in place of vowels because they're cool and younger than me. They're joining me on Zoom because one of them's moved to the uk. And also you should know this interview was scheduled for 8:30am so all this sex chat is happening before anyone's even had breakfast. Sex Chat is an idea that Sabrina came up with over lockdown 2020.
- [28:12]
Sabrina
I was watching way too many TED
- [28:14]
Melody Thomas
talks and they came across a TED talk by a sex and relationship coach called Pamela Joy, who'd been struggling with issues around desire in her own relationship.
- [28:22]
Sabrina
My partner was like, hey, we really need to work on this. And she was like, oh, I think something's about to shift if we don't work on this.
- [28:27]
Melody Thomas
In her talk, Pamela Joyce spoke about some of the things that had helped her and her partner. And one of the things that had the biggest impact.
- [28:35]
Sabrina
She started to talk to her friends about it and then started to notice that her friends sex lives were improving.
- [28:40]
Melody Thomas
So Pamela Joy decided to make it official, turning her own experiences into a real and structured study. Around 100 women in small groups met once a week for a month to talk openly about sex. By the end, self reported sexual function was up by 20%. Distress around sex, shame, anxiety, all of that stuff was down closer to 30%.
- [29:04]
Sabrina
I was like, wow, that's so cool.
- [29:06]
Melody Thomas
So Sabrina asked Sarah if they wanted to make their sex conversations more official.
- [29:11]
Sarah
I was really into it because I just absolutely craved specific details about sex. Not just like what position but like what finger did you use? Or like, where was the bed? Like what object? What were you feeling? Like, how did you know to use that thing? Like what initiative did you take? I just craved such. Yeah, specific details. And I feel like we just don't have the space in our life to really dig in in that way.
- [29:36]
Melody Thomas
It was Lil that joined the group next and they didn't need much convincing. The other one who mentioned feeling like everyone was just gagging to talk about sexual.
- [29:45]
Lil
And I just found that every time I would sort of bravely bring something vulnerable to the table, it would be met with such a lot of enthusiasm and empathy and like, me too, me too, me too. This is what I'm experiencing.
- [29:57]
Melody Thomas
And it was Lil that roped in Frank who didn't know anyone else in the group, which is pretty brave.
- [30:02]
Frank
I was dating someone at the time. Who had a really low sex drive. And I was really surprised at how much this affected me. It really struck something in me. Some insecurities and, yeah, some deep rooted fears. So the timing was just really ideal for me to have a space to unlock that.
- [30:22]
Melody Thomas
Oh, and I imagine the intimacy that results from that vulnerability. You would have been bonded immediately and for life.
- [30:29]
Frank
Here we are, what, three, four years,
- [30:32]
Sabrina
four and a half years later? I checked this morning. Yeah, very much bonded.
- [30:38]
Lil
Like we just all fell into it and it became something extremely valuable. And almost like one of those containers in life where you do this intense thing and then all of these seeds sprout and these flowers grow, you know, are still growing now from that.
- [30:55]
Melody Thomas
Oh, my God, this is my dream, guys. You get one guess as to who's starting off the second Poneke chapter of sex chat. And some of you might be thinking the exact same thing. So how does it work? Is there a structure? Are there rules?
- [31:11]
Sarah
It has evolved, but we got to a good place of starting with what we call a first peel, which is really just a check in with each other.
- [31:20]
Melody Thomas
If you've been to any kind of sharing or talking circle, you might have done something like this. Basically, you go round the circle a few times and you get a bit deeper and more vulnerable or intimate each time. These guys use the metaphor peel because it's like peeling each layer of the onion. And as Sabrina told me, the more peel, the more likely we are to shed tears. Generally speaking, the first peel's pretty chill.
- [31:45]
Sarah
Like, how are we now? What's on top? And yeah, with more of a focus of our sex life. And there are lots of things that come adjacent to that, like gender and trauma and all of that shame and all of that. So, yeah, all sharing uninterrupted.
- [32:03]
Melody Thomas
After that, there's a second peel where they go a little deeper, get a
- [32:06]
Sarah
little bit more specific about what is feeling really ripe and true for us, sex wise and what we're curious about, what we have questions about.
- [32:17]
Melody Thomas
Then they pick a few things that have come up over the first and second peels to dive into even deeper as a group.
- [32:22]
Sarah
And then we usually end with a chant. And that takes about two or three hours.
- [32:31]
Frank
The whole thing, not just the chant.
- [32:36]
Melody Thomas
Something I really love about their sex chat format is that they're all processing in real time, which takes the pressure off of getting the wording exactly right or whatever.
- [32:45]
Sabrina
We've got a few things around. Like, you don't have to sound intelligent. You don't need to know what you're going to say this space is a space to verbalize things, to say them out loud, maybe for the first time. You might disagree with yourself by the end of the sentence. It doesn't really matter. It's a really safe space just to kind of go blur and work some stuff out. And there are occasional times in this group where we specifically say, I would like advice about this. We have found that generally speaking, it's still better not to because then we have whole sessions that are all just advice. And you feel less empowered by the end of the session because you've kind of been told what to do rather than felt into your own experience and figured it out for yourself.
- [33:25]
Melody Thomas
These honeys actually went through a full first peel with me to show me what it actually sounds like. This is Sabrina's.
- [33:31]
Sabrina
I just had a massive weekend, possibly, yeah, one of the biggest openings of my Life. I turned 40 this month and for a few years I've been wanting to have a. A gang bang. And I mean that in terms of like, reclaiming that word and being like, I want the focus of a whole play party to be on me about my pleasure. And we did it. Sarah was the embassy, the host, and did amazing planning with my partner. I had seven friends basically show up and just absolutely shower me with love and affection and sluttiness for a whole evening. And at about 25 minutes in, I had a big cry because I just felt so loved. It was pretty amazing, honestly, like, if I think back to 10 years ago and even just like begin to imagine doing something like this, it's almost impossible.
- [34:48]
Melody Thomas
Okay, I'm not going to lie. This was probably about the point where I chickened out on doing my own first peel. Like, I'm supposed to talk about my vanilla sex life after hearing about Sabrina's cosmic gang bang. But as Lil says, it's a flat hierarchy.
- [35:04]
Lil
All of it is welcome. Like, my first peel of right now today is like I'm like softly, softly moving through what it's like to reawaken my own sexual desire. And parts of it have been locked off to me for a really long time. And it's like, that's a really, for me right now, a vulnerable thing to initiate, to step into that space boldly to feel like, here I am and I want to share my sexuality with you. It's like, fuck. Like, I like, oh, you know, and here's a Rita talking about that experience. I think because there's a lot of love and care between us because we've done this process. I'm able to really centre Sabrina and I'm like, fuck yeah.
- [35:53]
May
Just like.
- [35:53]
Melody Thomas
With the research that Pamela Joy shared in the TED talk that inspired Sex Chat, Sabrina and her friends have all noticed very real benefits to their sex lives, their love lives from simply showing up and talking about things.
- [36:06]
Frank
You gain a lot from speaking to people who have different relationships with sex and have experienced different things.
- [36:12]
Melody Thomas
Here's Frank we are all on our
- [36:14]
Frank
own journey and we're our relationships with our bodies and with our partners and with sex itself is constantly evolving. And so there's no sense in which sex chat is explicitly oriented towards those who have particularly interesting sex lives or particularly successful endeavors. The point is, if you have any thoughts or feelings about sex, the lack thereof, or the abundance of this in your life, then conversation is a great vehicle to explore those feelings and to figure out what it is that you really want from sex.
- [36:49]
Lil
Something there as well about self. This is lil like it's not only the way that we have sex with other people, but like how do we experience desire ourselves? Like, I just think that sex chat on the surface as the rapping can feel like a very specific thing, but actually when you open up the present, there's so many hearts to that. It's so far reaching. I don't think that any person in the world is without an experience or a feeling that they could bring to a conversation like this.
- [37:21]
Sarah
My education of the sex world has just grown since being in this group.
- [37:26]
Melody Thomas
This is Sarah, the other one who wants all the details about what finger went where. And they used to have a lot of questions about sex that mostly went unasked and unanswered, but not only that, when they were asked a question themselves, they weren't always confident enough to answer honestly. And that's all changed.
- [37:45]
Sarah
So I identify as non binary and the first time I had sex with someone who asked me in the moment how do I want my parts to be referred to, that was profound because no one had ever asked me that before, not even myself. To me. And I feel like without sex chat I probably would have been like, oh whatever, you know, and then come back to sex chat to be like, what
- [38:10]
May
should I have said?
- [38:12]
Sarah
But yeah, just the having more confidence to go, oh, sex is not just like let's fucking go. It slows down and it pauses and there's like I need a water break. And there are these things that we name as unsexy that are just part of the whole experience. I remember one day I called Sabrina and I was like, I've only got 10 minutes before I peg a man. I need your top tips immediately. Would you be willing? And Sabrina's like, I'm driving, you're on loudspeaker. And I've got so and so in the car, so I'll just check that they're okay to hear this. And they're like, absolutely, I'm okay to hear this.
- [38:50]
May
And so Sabrina's like, great. So first of all. And I'm like, great. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, thank you.
- [39:00]
Melody Thomas
Even this many years into sex chat with a cosmic birthday gang bang under their belt, and as the go to person in the group for instructions about pegging, Sabrina sometimes still struggles to say things out loud.
- [39:12]
Sabrina
The first time I say something is often so hard and it can be very emotional. And so getting to say some things for the first time in this group before maybe I bring it to a sexual partner has been quite game changing because I've had the opportunity to practice saying those words out loud.
- [39:30]
Melody Thomas
It's like an in real life version of the yes, no, maybe list. Or as Frank puts it, I think
- [39:36]
Frank
sometimes you don't know what you want until you've heard yourself say it out loud. I've personally had a lot of revelations of the types of relationships that I'm cravings and then feeling empowered to pursue them because those desires are not met with shame or horror or any form of judgment, but with openness and tenderness and often delight. I think when I left the uk, Sabrina and Sarah blessed my journey with a kind of agnostic prayer for a bounty of bi boys. And I did not know that I needed a bounty of bi boys until
- [40:11]
May
it was prayed upon me also, like,
- [40:14]
Lil
how awesome is it to have a team with you on your escapade?
- [40:19]
Melody Thomas
This is Lil again.
- [40:20]
Lil
And just to be like, okay, I've got this. Like, these people totally back me. Like, I'm not alone.
- [40:25]
May
And I think like also having that
- [40:27]
Lil
space to come back and being like,
- [40:29]
Melody Thomas
guys, this is what I did. Thank you so much to Lil Frank, Sarah and Sabrina, you legends. I hope you've inspired dozens of new chapters of sex chat. You've definitely inspired one.
- [40:42]
Frank
I just think as more people are turning to chat bots to figure these
- [40:48]
May
things out, the more you know you
- [40:50]
Frank
need a sex chat.
- [40:52]
May
If you're asking OpenAI what to do
- [40:55]
Frank
with your dildo, you got to get a sex chat on the books. Yeah.
- [40:59]
Melody Thomas
Get the humans involved. I ain't.
- [41:02]
Frank
It's like the advert for KitKat, right? Have a chat. Have a sex chat.
- [41:09]
Melody Thomas
All right, time to finish. As they Always do with the chant.
- [41:12]
Sarah
Okay, so it's important to bring your hands into fists. We haven't really talked about the fists being part of it, but I always feel like the fists are part of it. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex,
- [41:27]
Melody Thomas
sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.
- [41:32]
May
Beautiful.
- [41:33]
Melody Thomas
My face hurts from smiling. Is that usual after sex chats?
- [41:37]
Sabrina
Probably, yeah, very much so.
- [41:38]
Frank
Oh, my gosh.
- [41:39]
Sabrina
I'm grinning from ear to ear.
- [41:43]
May
Oh, lovely.
- [41:45]
Melody Thomas
I hate to say it, but it is nearly time to wrap up this episode and this season, but thankfully we've got a few more people to hear from quickly first, starting with this sweetheart.
- [41:56]
Frank
Hi.
- [41:57]
Melody Thomas
I know she said she'd text, but I wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Did Mae get penetrated in time for Christmas? Well,
- [42:07]
May
it's interesting because leading up to this day, when we were kind of getting it on in my head, I'd go, if we tried it, how do I feel? And usually there'd be like a wave of anxiousness and I'd be like, okay. Like, I'd know deep down that it wasn't the day.
- [42:24]
Melody Thomas
But then came a day when things felt different.
- [42:27]
May
I felt good and I got a wee bit excited. I was just like, you know what? What if we tried? And then, yeah, we were successful. It was quite a day, put it that way. A big celebration for us. Yeah. Like a crazy moment, truly.
- [42:48]
Melody Thomas
Was it emotional?
- [42:50]
May
Very emotional, yeah. I was crying in the middle of it. My boyfriend was just like, are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine. Just keep going. I'm so happy.
- [43:02]
Melody Thomas
Who of us has not cried during sex? That's fine. And by successful, do you also mean, like, no pain or was there A little bit. But it was manageable.
- [43:11]
May
The overall experience was pretty pain free. And it's still very much a work in progress, but it was just like finally, like, the biggest hurdle had been overcome. So now it keeps getting better and better. It felt pretty surreal. I was just like, man, like, this has been one of the most important things to me. Like, years of my life have been spent kind of wanting this to come. So, yeah, it was very, very nice afterwards.
- [43:39]
Melody Thomas
And May has a message to anyone listening who felt the themselves reflected in her story.
- [43:44]
May
There is hope for people with vaginismus because I myself felt that there wasn't for a very long time. So, yeah, that's what I hope people will take away. And just make sure that if you do go to someone to get hands on treatment, that that person is very qualified because it's a very personal thing. And you deserve to have someone that knows their stuff and will take really good care of you.
- [44:10]
Melody Thomas
And did your friend bake you a vagina cake?
- [44:13]
May
Yes. Yes. Have you got a photo? I do, yeah. Because I actually. The day it happened, I just showed up to her door and I was like, you're gonna need to make me that cake. And she was like, what? And I was like, the cake for. You know. And she was like, oh, my God.
- [44:31]
Melody Thomas
May showed me a photo of the cake, which we'll share on our Instagram, if you're curious. Yes, it's pretty special. It's so good because I guess the point of this episode has been really, like, we need to tell people. So we have the support network, so people feel seen, but it's also really cool to have people to celebrate those successes with.
- [44:51]
May
Yeah, it can feel quite isolating when you feel like you can't talk to anyone about it. So, yeah, having amazing people around you is super important.
- [45:02]
Melody Thomas
Thank you so much, May, and congratulations to you and your lovely boyfriend. Okay, before we sign off, one last thing. Because while we've heard from heaps of gorgeous humans in this episode about the ways that talking about sex vulnerably and openly has helped transform their lives, they're actually far from the only people that we've talked to this season who've specifically mentioned that. We've got one last little montage now kicking off with Charlie. Speaking openly about these topics for me has released me from fear. I think there's a lot of shame, but there's also, like, this weird fear and this idea that you're the only
- [45:47]
May
person who experiences certain things.
- [45:49]
Melody Thomas
It's very cathartic to kind of recognize that we're all on these journeys and we're all. We ain't so different, you and I. Speaking openly about sex and intimacy has
- [46:03]
Beth
helped me reclaim so much confidence in
- [46:05]
Melody Thomas
even my own boundaries being a huge people pleaser. I find that I will give someone everything of me before I save anything for myself.
- [46:15]
Beth
So the empowerment that I feel from having a voice, I feel like I actually matter in that equation.
- [46:23]
May
I couldn't have done that without those conversations.
- [46:25]
Melody Thomas
I have a very strong belief that communication is everything. Because if you can't have a conversation
- [46:34]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
about something and you can't talk about
- [46:35]
Melody Thomas
sex or a penis in a vagina or whatever else, then it gets this
- [46:41]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
air of mystery, which then leads to misinformation. And if we want to make people
- [46:47]
May
smarter and better people, so we need to talk about the things we don't
- [46:51]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
want to talk about.
- [46:53]
Melody Thomas
It's been really wonderful to talk about my experience.
- [46:57]
Grow Therapy Announcer
It's important to talk in honesty. Maybe if we talked about how we
- [47:01]
Melody Thomas
feel a little bit more, life wouldn't be so harsh. Let's finish now. As we started with Beth, who made me cry with this next bit.
- [47:14]
Beth
I mean, they're doing the right thing by listening to this podcast. It's healed me. It's helped me. You had that episode on like shitty relationships and I was just ugly crying in the car. Because when you hear your own experiences, that then gives you the courage to reach out and to talk about it. I just think how important this series is. It definitely has changed lives and what a gift. So thank you.
- [47:57]
Melody Thomas
Thank you Beth. Thank you Charlie, Reece, Madeline and Matt. Thank you sex chat cuties Frank, Lil, Sarah and Sabrina. And thank you, May. Thank you to everyone who shared their story in this season of the Good Sex Project. We've covered so much ground, traversed some highs and a fair few lows together, and I just know that each of you who shared will have made someone listening feel less weird and less alone simply by speaking your truth out loud. We're so grateful to you and thank you, finally, dearest listener, for tuning in. Thank you for coming along on this journey with us, for Your texts and DMs and reviews, for telling everyone you know to listen to this podcast and anyone who you think will benefit from listening. It's been a delight to do this all over again. I miss you already. See you next time. The Good Sex Project was made by PopSoc Media. It was written and developed by me, Melody Thomas. Our producer and audio editor is Kirsten Johnstone, co producer is Elena Bates, and our junior producer this season was Kay Heke. Thank you to Adam Dudding at Te Pu Rongo Productions for invaluable script advising. Our social media and publicity gurus are Lou Delavaux and Anna Dean. Phil Brownlee recorded me in the studio and Mark Chesterman did the sound mix. Patty Bleakley assisted with editing and sound design on some episodes as well as making most of the music for the series. Additional music is from Epidemic Sound. Thank you Emil Donovan for recording our incredible content warnings. Thank you, Lily Paris west for your beautiful love bites and good sex project artwork. And thank you, Timothy Armstrong for your lovebites animations which people can find on our Instagram. Thank you, finally to New Zealand on Ear for funding the Good Sex Project. We really appreciate your continued support. And to RNZ for helping us to get this series out to more ears. If you want to get in touch with me or the team. You can send us a message on Instagram oodsexproject or email goodsexprojectmail.com we really love to hear from you, especially if you have a story of your own to share. And of course, if you enjoy the series, please tell your friends. Give us some stars and some kind words on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks so much.
- [51:01]
Grow Therapy Announcer
Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitor monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety protect yourself now@aura.com safety
- [52:16]
Melody Thomas
Acast powers
- [52:17]
May
the world's best podcast.
- [52:20]
Beth
Here's a show that we recommend.
- [52:24]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Ten years after Troy, Odysseus is still lost. I'm Tristan Hughes and all of this month on the Ancients I'm going to be sailing through Homer's treacherous world of monsters, witchcraft and tempestuous gods, exploring the real archaeology and history beneath the myths. Join us on the Ancients from History Hit Listen now and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
- [52:55]
Beth
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [53:01]
May
Acast.com.