Erotic Energy with Melissa Febos

Author Melissa Febos is here to talk about her book The Dry Season - a memoir of her year of celibacy. Prentis and Melissa explore how to build a true understanding of our interiors, erotic energy outside of sex, and what it means to truly hold power in this world.

• Check out Melissa’s book - The Dry Season and follow her on Instagram @MelissaFebos
• The Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde

Transcript

Melissa Febos 
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Prentis Hemphill
00:06 - 00:38
Hey everyone, this is Prentis and welcome to Becoming the People. So I've thought a lot about refusal or abstinence in our developmental processes, like what it actually gives us to abstain from something. And if I'm just honest for a second, I know that I can be a little bit more prone to the kind of rigor, discipline side of things, but it's mostly because I think rigor and discipline and all of that is a little bit underutilized when we think about our patterns and addictions.

Prentis Hemphill
00:38 - 01:10
I had a year of intentional celibacy when I was probably 27 or 28 where I did not engage sexually with anybody. And I really credit that time in my life as a time where I grew up a lot, where I really could just feel myself a lot more and feel my wants and desires arise, feel my places where I didn't have desire, places where I actually wanted to move away. I could feel all of that a little bit more because I created this space, artificial or not.

Prentis Hemphill
01:11 - 02:14
It gave me a better vantage point where I could view some of my compulsions around sex that actually allowed me to change and reconnect to what I really, really longed for in relationships with other people. It's kind of a weird time to talk about abstinence or discipline around sex or whatever it might be, especially where there's so much trying to control our sexuality and control people's sexuality for other people's aims or interests. And I actually think there's a way that these conversations can help us reclaim our own bodies and desires outside of the reach of those that want to control us and control our every movement and every feeling. So this conversation with Melissa Febos was really exciting to me because I'd read her book The Dry Season and it's about her year of celibacy and her own discovery around self-possession, drawing new boundaries around her body, around attention.

Prentis Hemphill
02:14 - 02:43
And we talk about celibacy in this conversation as a kind of a terrain that's shaped by culture, by gender, and particularly the ways that women's sexuality has always been political ground. I've been a fan of Melissa Febos for a while. I think she uses memoir in some very embodied and interesting ways. She's written a number of books that I suggest you check out, including Girlhood and Body Work, which I really, really loved.

Prentis Hemphill
02:43 - 03:06
And in this newest book, The Dry Season, I think she continues that work of doing memoir in a way that allows us all to see our own stories a little bit more clearly. So this was a fun and deep and rich conversation, and I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks for listening. Melissa, thank you so much for joining me.

Prentis Hemphill
03:06 - 03:10
I'm a fan, actually, of your writing, so thank you.

Melissa Febos
03:11 - 03:12
Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Prentis Hemphill
03:13 - 03:43
I'm really excited to talk about this new project because I think there's so much in it for all of us in developing relationships with ourselves, getting to know ourselves a little bit more. But I actually came across your work when I was writing my book and it ended up being a lot more memoir than I felt comfortable with. Actually, I needed some like affirmation. I was like, is this okay?

Prentis Hemphill
03:43 - 03:57
Is this okay? And I think somebody recommended your book body work to me. And that's sort of how I got into your writing. So first, just thank you for offering that because I think you probably gave more people permission to write their stories and you know, so thank you for that.

Melissa Febos
03:58 - 04:10
Oh, thank you. I'm glad it was a comfort. I mean, it's always pretty disarming at best when memoir comes in and drags us to the desk.

Prentis Hemphill
04:10 - 04:19
Oh, my gosh. I mean, and you do it often. It's not like something that you, you know, did once and, you know, told the story. It seems like it's a format you keep returning to.

Melissa Febos
04:20 - 04:33
Yeah. Would you believe that I feel shocked and dismayed every single time it happens? Wait, what do you think you should be writing? It's not really a matter of should.

Melissa Febos
04:33 - 05:05
I think when I was starting out, it was should because I had some weird unexamined ideal for what serious literature was and it wasn't memoir. Mainly, it's just what I really think I'm about to do or maybe what I want to be doing, which is, I don't know, writing something short and funny and not heavy. I don't want to have to redefine my whole relationship with the past and my own body every time I sit down to write. But apparently that's the work that needs to get done.

Melissa Febos
05:05 - 05:07
So it keeps happening.

Prentis Hemphill
05:08 - 05:21
Yeah, I mean, and we're grateful for it. But you have what seems like a real skill of taking a moment apart. I think that's a lot of what I learned in reading your writing. It's like, when I was writing, I was saying, how do I know what I think I know?

Prentis Hemphill
05:21 - 05:39
You know, I'm making all these assertions in my book, but how do I know? And the way that I know is through some story or experience. And I see you taking those experiences and you really texture them, you really pull them apart. There's a, in a really beautiful way, a kind of granularity to how you do your writing.

Prentis Hemphill
05:39 - 05:51
And a lot of like, It's very, you reference a lot of literature. I mean, you go a lot of literary places in your writing too. That surprises me that memoir feels, you're like, here we go again.

Melissa Febos
05:52 - 06:02
It's true. I mean, I find it really rewarding. I'm glad I do it afterwards. And obviously, I've sort of like, volunteered as a kind of champion for the forum for good reason.

Melissa Febos
06:04 - 06:30
But it's hard. It's hard and it's vulnerable. It's sort of like, you know, every week when I'm about to go to therapy, and this has been happening for like 30 years, I'm like, I really don't think I have anything to talk about. I should probably just like get to this to-do list instead or like do literally anything else because showing up for the work is scary.

Melissa Febos
06:30 - 06:49
And I would just like most people, I would rather not until I'm actually doing it. and I'm like sitting in the good that it does. But I'm by nature a pretty avoidant person, so it's hard for me to walk towards emotional confrontation, which is why I've basically built my life around doing it.

Prentis Hemphill
06:50 - 07:10
Big same. I mean, yeah, shout out to the avoidant people in the world. But I think It's so interesting to me because you do really go back into those experiences and not only that, you then share them in a book that gets widely distributed around the world. It's not like you just wrote it in your journal.

Prentis Hemphill
07:10 - 07:14
You're like, I'm gonna write it and you're all gonna get to read it too.

Melissa Febos
07:15 - 07:28
It's true. I mean, thank God. Everybody's not with me as I'm writing it. I mean, you know, people say to me a lot as they say, I think to memoirists often like, Oh, you're so brave, or you must be so brave.

Melissa Febos
07:28 - 07:54
And like, In one way, that's true. And in another way, I don't have to be as brave as it seems because I get to sit alone in a room for years figuring out how I want to say something before I ever have to say it. And when I do say it, there's nobody actually there listening until I decide to go talk into a microphone. And at that point, I've spent all those years figuring out how I want to say it.

Melissa Febos
07:54 - 08:24
And I'm actually really excited to talk about it. made friends with the subject matter and that's like the main thing that I you know, I always get these like People who are in the middle of the process or sometimes my students and they're like, how do I do it? It's so scary thinking about saying all of this to other people I cannot even say this out loud and to them I always say like you don't have to for so long you don't have to until you're ready, you know, like and And I think it's probably the same in clinical work, right?

Melissa Febos
08:24 - 09:05
Where you don't have to confront anyone, you don't have to even touch the hardest thought until you work your way there and you have marshaled the resources so that you have the tools you need to face that, right? And so the person that I am at the beginning of the process and how I'm relating to those past experiences or whatever it is I'm writing about, the work of writing a memoir is of building a new relationship to those experiences. It's just like any other relationship. I don't want to go on book tour with a stranger, but once we've hung out and had very intimate conversations for three to five years, I'm ready to do anything with you.

Melissa Febos
09:05 - 09:10
That's how I am with my own past at the other side of writing a book about it.

Prentis Hemphill
09:11 - 09:29
Yeah, it's really a cool thing, too, to be able to parcel out those experiences in a way. Because some people write and the audience is always there. The audience is there in the room. And it seems like to get that honest, to do that kind of excavation, you have to kind of kick the audience out of the room so you can tell the truth first.

Melissa Febos
09:29 - 09:49
Yeah. Yeah, I talk about that a lot too, because everyone always wants to bring their parents into the room, right? Or whoever it is, whoever's gaze is like the most scary, that's who they bring into the room with them for good reason. I think it's biological, like we want to protect ourselves so we focus on where the perceived threat is, right?

Melissa Febos
09:49 - 10:18
And our little reptilian brain autonomic nervous system is like responding to that. And so instead of sitting at a desk, trying to tell our story, we feel like we're being chased by a bear through the woods because we're picturing our mom sitting next to us reading over our shoulder or like that bad faith reader on Twitter, whoever we want to terrorize ourselves with. So I always tell people like, kick everyone out of the room except the person who most needs the story that you're trying to tell.

Prentis Hemphill
10:18 - 10:21
That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. The ops are always there.

Prentis Hemphill
10:22 - 10:26
The haters. Always. They're first in line. You got to kick them out of the room.

Prentis Hemphill
10:26 - 10:26
Yeah.

Melissa Febos
10:26 - 10:26
Yeah.

Prentis Hemphill
10:27 - 10:43
For sure. This book, The Dry Season, is about your year of celibacy. I think what I was nervous about this episode in part because I was like, I do not actually talk about sex. I'll listen to people talk about sex, but me talking about sex publicly, I was like, how's this going to go?

Prentis Hemphill
10:43 - 11:04
But I had a similar dry season. And so there was so much that I related to in your book, because I think about my own dry season is actually when I became an adult. It was like 15 years ago. But that period of time, I was like, I needed that in order to mature, actually, to grow up.

Prentis Hemphill
11:04 - 11:15
I feel that a lot in this writing, all the ways that you're kind of meeting yourself, but also taking a certain kind of responsibility for your own experience. Do you feel it like that?

Melissa Febos
11:15 - 11:35
That's right. Yeah, yeah. I definitely see this book as the story of, and certainly the experience as an experience of growing up, for sure. in this one area of my life, but in a way that actually touched every other part of my life, which I guess is a good description of growing up, right?

Melissa Febos
11:36 - 11:59
It's like a maturation that touches every part of your life when you grow your core ideas and beliefs and behaviors so that it changes all of your relationships going forward and the way that you see your own location in community, in history, in relationships and inside yourself for sure. Yeah, like that was a, it was a life changer.

Prentis Hemphill
12:00 - 12:13
Hmm. Did you know, like how soon into it? I mean, I think you talk about this a little bit in the book, but how soon through the process or after the process did you go, I think I want to write about this or something here I want to share with other people?

Melissa Febos
12:13 - 12:27
Oh, so long after. This was one of those experiences. I've written memoirs from inside of experience before. Sometimes I have to like write my way out of something because it's the only way I can think with any kind of clarity, right?

Melissa Febos
12:27 - 12:45
But this was not one of those. This was an experience that I really had because there was an urgency in my life. Like I was completely fucked up and something needed to change. And so I was like, I think I need to change.

Melissa Febos
12:46 - 13:03
But it felt so, it actually felt so vulnerable. And I knew so little about what was really going on with me at the beginning that I couldn't even have imagined writing about it. That would have been so scary to me. I really needed the privacy of just having the experience.

Melissa Febos
13:03 - 13:36
And it also felt like embarrassing and I don't know, I think I felt more ashamed and ashamed of not knowing what I was doing wrong, ashamed of like how I had behaved in the past, ashamed of like needing to grow so much in this particular way at that age after so much therapy and recovery and like all the work I'd done that like I could not imagine. sharing it with anyone I didn't absolutely trust. And so I really had to live the experience.

Melissa Febos
13:36 - 13:48
And it wasn't until, I would say like four years afterwards, that I thought about writing it. And then it was another two years before I actually wrote the book. Wow.

Prentis Hemphill
13:50 - 13:59
And I don't want to give everything away. But will you talk a little bit about like what what the impetus was for the for the season of celibacy for you?

Melissa Febos
13:59 - 14:35
Sure, yeah. I had been in nonstop monogamous committed relationships for about 20 years and they had culminated, this was in my early 30s, with a two-year relationship that was really catastrophic, very addictive. At that time, I had been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for over 10 years or for about 10 years and had been in therapy for a really long time and generally thought I was like doing good. I was doing good in other areas of my life and I, you know, I'd been in a lot of relationships.

Melissa Febos
14:35 - 14:51
I had a big emotional vocabulary. I thought I was I thought I knew what I was doing. I was like the person who had gotten all my previous partners into therapy. And then I got into this relationship, basically treated this woman like a drug.

Melissa Febos
14:51 - 15:08
There was a lot of factors, but the main thing was that it was more devastating to my life and my mental health than even my drug addiction had been in my 20s. I lost friends. I just completely lost myself. I was crying every day for two years.

Melissa Febos
15:08 - 15:18
I crashed my car. It was a mess. And on the other side of it, I thought, who am I? How did this happen?

Melissa Febos
15:19 - 15:49
I just did so many things. that I never saw myself doing, behaved in ways I never saw myself behaving. And it was time for a reckoning because I was terrified that it was going to happen again or that I could surprise myself like that was just core shaking. And so I thought, all right, let me stop and like take stock of what I've actually been doing because I had this story about myself that I was so good at relationships, but if that was true, how had it happened, right?

Melissa Febos
15:49 - 15:59
So I knew I probably needed to like take a closer look at the story of myself that I had been telling myself about who I'd been in relationships particularly.

Prentis Hemphill
15:59 - 16:27
There's such an interesting thing there, because I feel like there's so much vocabulary that I think is available to people to talk about relationships, to talk about their interiors. And the vocabulary is not the same thing as having mastery and familiarity with what's actually going on inside of me. And I think that there can be a really large gap that people just don't know is there until you run straight into a wall.

Melissa Febos
16:27 - 16:57
Yep, it is so true. I mean, I think to some extent, everybody lives through that because we all think we know the hard work that it takes to maintain a relationship or what it means to, like, listen to your body. Like, phrases like that make sense to me intellectually, and I don't know that I don't know them in a lived way until I am humbled by actually living them. until I'm living them and I think, oh, wow, this is what that means.

Melissa Febos
16:57 - 17:35
In some ways, I think growing up and just having a human life and a human consciousness, if you're a person who's interested in growing, maybe even if you're not, it's just a series of realizing what you don't know. But I think particularly now, and I'm sure that you know this even more deeply than I do, You know, it's like with TikTok and Instagram and like people are understanding language that used to just belong to therapists, right? And so they really, people really get the illusion that they're an expert in something that they actually know literally nothing about except the vocabulary, right? So the humbling can be radical.

Prentis Hemphill
17:36 - 17:43
One of my teachers always says, and my friend, she'll always say, you know, you have a map, but the map is never the territory. You know, it's never actually.

Melissa Febos
17:43 - 17:46
That's such a good analogy. That's such a good analogy. It's so real.

Prentis Hemphill
17:47 - 17:51
So you can make those connections, but it's never the same as being inside the experience.

Melissa Febos
17:51 - 18:00
And the distance can be that great. You're like, oh, I'm holding a piece of paper. I understand something, you know, just so you can understand a lot of things from a piece of paper. And then you're like standing on a mountain.

Melissa Febos
18:00 - 18:06
You're like, oh, I didn't. This is this is not that. That's right. That's right.

Prentis Hemphill
18:07 - 18:32
And I think that's what, you know, your work in this book, and I think your work generally does that. And that's why, in some ways, it's really appealed to me as someone who is very interested in the body, forwarding the body as the kind of primary side of experience in life. It feels like you're always sort of writing into that distance. You're like, this is what I thought.

Prentis Hemphill
18:33 - 18:50
Oh, this is what I thought I knew. This is how I saw things. And then when I actually wrote my way back or, you know, got curious about what was happening in my body and my behavior and my longings, something else was revealed to me. And I think writing that space just, you know, it helps people fill that out.

Prentis Hemphill
18:50 - 18:53
And I see you do that a lot. That's why it's so compelling to me.

Melissa Febos
18:54 - 19:05
Is that what's happening with your latest book? Oh, um, you can edit this out later if you want, but I'm curious.

Prentis Hemphill
19:05 - 19:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, in a way, I'm a really heady person in a lot of ways, too. And people don't understand that about me, but writing and practice doing my practices. is the like, let me double back on that.

Prentis Hemphill
19:21 - 19:39
Let me go back into myself and reconnect and understand what's happening. I think that's what practice always is. Now I have more skills where now I can kind of be more present with what's happening. There's more awareness available to me than there once was.

Prentis Hemphill
19:39 - 20:05
But in a way with my writing, I'm trying to, I wonder if you relate to this, because I really see you as a writer. I'm like, I'm a person that wrote a book and probably will write another one. I'm not yet ready to say that I'm a writer all the way. But I do try to write in a way that, like, I was saying this to someone earlier, where you can still feel my heart beating in the words.

Prentis Hemphill
20:06 - 20:24
Like, it still feels alive. And I do that so that you don't feel alone. Like, even as you read the book, you can feel that there's another life. And that's the reason why I write, in a way, is to communicate something that is alive.

Prentis Hemphill
20:24 - 20:29
I really try to keep it... Alive, so that that's why I write to be like I have a body. Can you feel it?

Melissa Febos
20:30 - 20:58
You have one, too You know, yeah, I love that. I love that and um, and I identify with it a lot too. I feel like that's A beautiful way of of saying something i've often felt about writing where it's like i'm i'm here too in this experience um in this confusion in this grief, like i'm here too because I am a very um you know, very avoidant, very secretive person by nature.

Prentis Hemphill
20:59 - 21:05
And I love that you're so honest with that. I keep secrets.

Melissa Febos
21:05 - 21:33
I am. And I have had to work. I mean, I think for me, as someone who has like really strong drives, like I identify as an addict, I'm like recovered, you know, contingent on a set of practices. And, um, And if I, for me, secret keeping can be pretty deadly, you know, like if I'm not talking to other people, if I'm not letting myself be visible in what's going on with me, like my drives can become quite fatal pretty quickly.

Melissa Febos
21:33 - 22:10
And whether it's from like addiction or like depression or whatever. And so And I also know that like secrecy and, you know, keeping quiet about the things that we struggle with are the things that prevent social change, prevent connection, like sharing our stories is like the start of all, every form of change, I think. And so, you know, tell my story and to talk about those things on the page is like very intentionally trying to bring myself into community with other people. who have those experiences so that I can't create a story that I'm alone.

Melissa Febos
22:11 - 22:16
And that I can sort of puncture other people's stories that they might be alone because of shame or whatever.

Prentis Hemphill
22:17 - 22:21
That's right. That's right. That's so powerful. And that shame piece.

Prentis Hemphill
22:21 - 22:35
I mean, when I read this book, I thought, Melissa must not feel that thing that I feel where I try to hide everything and shove it underneath. Melissa must not have that function.

Melissa Febos
22:35 - 22:46
I have it so bad. I have it so bad. I've got it bad. No, it's interesting because I think people often assume that for good reason.

Melissa Febos
22:46 - 22:53
Often when I meet people, first thing, they're like, oh my God, you're so short. I thought you'd be tall. Same with me.

Prentis Hemphill
22:53 - 22:58
Same with me. They're like, oh, that's all I got.

Melissa Febos
22:58 - 23:02
That's funny. I'm like, that's right. I project. I have a tall personality.

Melissa Febos
23:03 - 23:42
That's right. But then they're like, oh, I thought like you were going to be a person who was like constantly doing body scans and like super in touch with yourself and knowing and feeling all your feelings all of the time. And like just like this like therapized sort of Paragon or something and I was like, oh no. No, I am like a messy little Raccoon who's always trying to run away from my feelings like always trying to intellectualize my way away from the heart like emotion I whenever I start work with a new therapist.

Melissa Febos
23:42 - 24:05
I'm always like look I I'm gonna be very slippery. I'm gonna start talking in a very analytical way I'm gonna use the words that you recognize and it's gonna seem like I'm doing really great But I need you to bring me back down so that I can actually feel the thing Because I can talk about it as if I've already felt it, but I haven't yet and I need your help with that, you know Do you relate?

Prentis Hemphill
24:07 - 24:10
I'm not an astrology person. But what is your sign? I

Melissa Febos
24:11 - 24:13
I'm a Libra. I'm a super Libra.

Prentis Hemphill
24:13 - 24:18
Okay. I have my kids a Libra. I know nothing about Libras. But I'm a Sagittarius.

Prentis Hemphill
24:19 - 24:20
And I always attribute that.

Melissa Febos
24:20 - 24:25
My wife is a Sagittarius. Oh, really? And I have a Sag rising, too. Okay.

Melissa Febos
24:25 - 24:26
There's a lot of Sag in this household. Yeah.

Prentis Hemphill
24:26 - 24:41
Yeah, because I'm like, oh, yeah, I can talk all about it. But actually, a lot of what I know comes from the struggle, actually, of doing it, trying to go back to the practice every day. That's how I know what I know is because it's a struggle, really.

Melissa Febos
24:42 - 24:43
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Prentis Hemphill
24:43 - 24:46
Oh, you're married to a Sag. That's awesome.

Melissa Febos
24:46 - 24:48
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well done.

Melissa Febos
24:48 - 24:57
Most of the time. Most of the time it is. Sometimes it's a little harsh. Sometimes the honesty comes flying at you real fast first thing in the morning.

Melissa Febos
24:57 - 24:58
It's like, whoa!

Prentis Hemphill
25:01 - 25:08
It's a gift. I always think, I wonder if your wife feels this way. I'm always like, this is my gift to you. You don't like my gift?

Melissa Febos
25:10 - 25:23
It's the most sad thing ever. Yeah, she's like, I'm just like, I think I've had enough notes on my driving on this trip to the supermarket. And she'll be like, I'm just observing. It's not a criticism.

Melissa Febos
25:23 - 25:32
I'm just telling you what I see. I'm like, that's right. And I have received enough. Less information sometimes.

Prentis Hemphill
25:33 - 25:40
I had to learn that. It's a gift. It's a gift. I had to learn that as a therapist because people would come in and I would just be like, Do you want everything right now?

Prentis Hemphill
25:40 - 25:51
Do you want an installment? My supervisor was like, that's actually not what this is about. So I had to learn that, you know, reel that in and do relationship first.

Melissa Febos
25:53 - 26:12
Oh, I wish I have always wished that my therapist would have a little bit more of that sad straightforwardness, because I always just want them to tell me what they see. which I know is probably not good practice, but it's helpful. I'm like, just tell me what I'm missing. Just tell me.

Prentis Hemphill
26:13 - 26:17
It's so helpful. The read. Reading came first. Reading is so necessary.

Prentis Hemphill
26:18 - 26:47
So necessary. I want to talk about this book a little bit because when I was reading it, I thought, wow, her life is so much sexier than mine. There were just all these, you were like, okay, I'm going on this journey of being celibate. And there were these moments where you got pulled into familiar dynamics, exes, this person at the conference, which made me feel, that whole scene made me feel nervous.

Prentis Hemphill
26:48 - 26:58
Or just all these moments where I was like, is this how people are living life? Because my life is decidedly not like that. I'm like, I don't have these

Melissa Febos
27:00 - 27:30
My life is not like that anymore either. Yeah, no, this was, I mean, to be upfront about it, you know, the events of this book, the present timeline of this book takes place like over nine years ago now. So this is no longer the reality that I am living. Amazingly, it truly has, like, you know, it's funny, sometimes you do a piece of work and you're like, wow, that really helped and it really changed and you're like, But did it really change?

Melissa Febos
27:30 - 27:57
I don't know. And then there's experiences where it's like a fork in the road of your life and everything is really different afterwards. And this was one of those where like, I really I used to go everywhere and I just had like, the erotic Spidey sense was just on all the time. And so I was always falling into a sewer hole of infatuation or I was just like, whoa, how did this happen?

Melissa Febos
27:57 - 28:18
But I was primed for it. So it was always happening. And then in many ways, the book describes the process of becoming aware of how I was complicit in that availability and in seeking that and how I entertained it. and what I was sort of using it for, right?

Melissa Febos
28:18 - 28:42
Like what it meant to me and how to actually exercise my own agency and like stop. And now I'm like sometimes, it's funny because the book came out like just a few months ago, so I've been talking about it a lot and people have often asked me like, does this still happen? Do you like meet a sexy stranger and like fall into the like sinkhole of it? And do you get these wild crushes on people?

Melissa Febos
28:42 - 28:51
And the answer is truly no. Like it really stopped after that year. And there was like a lot of work that's been ongoing. But like, It's kind of amazing.

Melissa Febos
28:51 - 29:13
I've been with my wife for almost nine years now, and it just has not been fraught with that stuff the way that my past relationships were. Thank God. Once in a while, I miss that craziness, but only the very beginning good part, not what happens after, and you can't separate them. In my experience, I can't separate them.

Prentis Hemphill
29:13 - 29:30
Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think you talk about this in the book, is that when you're kind of oriented towards certain experiences, you're going to see the world that way or they're going to sort of emerge. You're going to be tuned into that frequency, so to speak.

Prentis Hemphill
29:30 - 29:44
And it seems like some of what you did, I mean, you talked about the erotic and as I was reading you, I had to flip over and go back to uses of the erotic and Audre Lorde a little bit, which is one of my favorite pieces of writing.

Melissa Febos
29:45 - 29:50
One of my most read pieces of, I mean, there's just like never a time in my life when it doesn't help.

Prentis Hemphill
29:51 - 29:52
Yeah, that's right.

Melissa Febos
29:52 - 29:54
It's always relevant. It is always relevant.

Prentis Hemphill
29:55 - 30:20
Yeah. I read it once a year because there is something every time that I pick up. But as I was reading your book, I could feel echoes of that, of like what happens when the erotic is in everything. What does life become when it's dispersed and abundant in this way and not only about this one way of touching or fulfilling that?

Prentis Hemphill
30:21 - 30:30
I read that a lot. That seemed to me a part of your journey is that energy spreading, opening. Yeah.

Melissa Febos
30:30 - 31:00
Yeah, it was a huge part of it. And I just didn't, you know, we were talking about sort of coming to awareness, like the process of sort of raising your own consciousness through like seeking and meeting new lived experience. And, and this was like, a great example of that, how I just, you know, I was like roving through my life having all of these like, sexy and troubling experiences. And I didn't realize until I stopped, like really, really shut down that part of myself.

Melissa Febos
31:00 - 31:42
I was like, I'm going to just withdraw from all of this. And I didn't realize that I had been relegating all of my erotic energy, and I mean that in like the Lordian sense, like sensual, spiritual, embodied, like sexual, but certainly not only that experience. I'd been just pouring it all in this one narrow place. I'd been pouring it all through this one little keyhole into other people in this very specific kind of experience when actually it was possible to experience it and to like share it in every single area of my life.

Melissa Febos
31:43 - 32:26
But I had been depriving all of those other areas of my life, my other relationships, my other practices, just like everything I did of this incredible source of energy. And when I stopped, when I sort of plugged up that keyhole, it just kind of like radiated everywhere. And My friendships deepened in this really gorgeous way and my own experience of food and music and my body and dancing and political engagement and creative work, it all just became so much more vivid in a way that sort of broke my heart because I realized what I'd been missing for a really, really long time, my whole adult life.

Melissa Febos
32:26 - 32:27
Wow.

Prentis Hemphill
32:29 - 32:47
Yeah, it's like, I'm just thinking as you're talking, it's like, how does that happen? Like, do you have a theory? I mean, there's obviously a political aspect of all of this, which I want to talk about, but like, how do you think that happens? That it gets so concentrated and narrowed in a particular way?

Prentis Hemphill
32:47 - 32:49
Like, what's your theory on that?

Melissa Febos
32:50 - 33:40
I mean, I can mostly just speak for myself, but I have also talked to a lot of people, especially after publishing this book. It's been fascinating to talk to so many people who had similar experiences. But I think for me, there's definitely that political aspect which intersects with the personal, right? an adolescent and coming of age like I got a lot of messaging that like sexual energy and lovability and desirability like as a femme person was the greatest source of power I had available to me right and that being drawing desire like cultivating desire, feeling lovable and desired

Melissa Febos
33:40 - 34:16
as a result of other people wanting me, that that was primary, right? And then I think you shake onto that some little addictive fairy dust and you know, for me, like those brain chemicals, you know, like I, for a long time, I use substances to induce those brain chemicals, but I didn't always need substances because I had other people, you know, and I've used a lot of things, including like food and exercise and work and, but people were sort of the greatest source of that. Right.

Melissa Febos
34:16 - 34:55
So I think like the satisfaction of, exercising and accruing that so-called power, even though I often felt humiliated, I often felt disempowered as a result of that pursuit, like there still always was that sense of satisfaction of like, oh, I'm lovable, I'm worth something and sourcing my self-esteem from that area. Even as it sort of, those relationships often ended up making me feel kind of spiritually and bankrupted and damaged my self-esteem. It was like a cycle that was so compelling and so engaging that I just kind of stayed in it like a little hamster wheel for a really, really long time.

Prentis Hemphill
34:57 - 35:13
Yeah. I think that power piece. I mean, there's so much about power and sex and so much, you know, there's just there's such a deep relationship between those. And for people to go, where do I have power?

Prentis Hemphill
35:14 - 35:23
I mean, it's just a real ass reflection. Like, how can I have power in this world? It's a confronting question because it's just real. People have to survive.

Prentis Hemphill
35:23 - 35:45
People have to make it through. People have to you know, develop some kind of sense of themselves or some kind of, you know, value around themselves. And that there's this thing around sex and these beauty standards. It's like, here's a way you can just get on this hamster wheel forever, keep striving, and maybe you'll get a little a little bit of something out of it.

Melissa Febos
35:45 - 36:07
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's the same. And I think it's like so many people do it with money. Some people do it with work and with money. I think because there is a fundamental imbalance of power, the history of civilization has a really sick relationship to power.

Melissa Febos
36:07 - 36:46
Human beings have such a gross hierarchical impulse and a hunger for power over that that imbalance is kind of baked in there, right? And so I think like so many of the ways that we are shown and observed that we can seek power just increase that imbalance in ourselves, in our lives, in our relationships. And it takes like very, a pretty high level of consciousness to be able to put that down and think, okay, like what does empowerment look like that doesn't disempower anyone else, right? Like that is not, those are not the examples we're given in most cases.

Prentis Hemphill
36:49 - 37:20
I mean, it has so many implications for this moment too, when I'm thinking about the kind of power that you end up having, you know, at the end of your journey versus the kind of power that you were grasping for, wielding, whatever in the beginning. And yeah, it's like, how do we, how do we, I mean, I think your book gives us some indication, but it's like, how do we turn that corner, you know, individually, collectively, how do we turn that corner and let people know, Hey, there's another, there's another kind of power. It takes a little bit of work.

Prentis Hemphill
37:21 - 37:36
You may not get all that good, you know, those hormone hits you were talking about in the same intensity and quickness. And yet there's something worthwhile about it too. I feel like that's, it's a hard sell. It's a hard sell.

Melissa Febos
37:36 - 37:53
It's a slow cook, you know? But I mean, it's like everything, you know, the longer I live, like I am a person, who loves shortcuts. If there's a shortcut, I want to take it. I don't want to generalize for everyone, but I know that I like to take the short way.

Melissa Febos
37:54 - 38:12
I want to get there fast. I want to feel good. I want to feel better as quickly as possible. And just like most of the sustainable forms of joy and happiness and intimacy that don't cause harm are slow cooks.

Melissa Febos
38:13 - 38:19
They're not quick fixes. There are not shortcuts. And in fact, shortcuts waylay us. they just set us back.

Melissa Febos
38:20 - 38:40
The long ways just sitting there waiting for you while you're trying to take your shortcuts and burning out. I've tried it all. I tried all of the quick and easily most instantaneously gratifying ways to seek intimacy and none of it worked. It all left me feeling pretty demoralized in the end.

Melissa Febos
38:40 - 39:04
And so the same thing with any form of healing that I've ever undergone, it doesn't happen instantly. You can't just sidestep it. Trying to move through trauma, buckle up. It's a slow moving train and thank God, like we actually don't want to rush through those real processes.

Melissa Febos
39:04 - 39:30
We can't, you know, but it's slow work. But it is like the rewards are the kind that last you for the rest of your life. Like for me, really slowing down and learning how to move into intimacy. with my whole heart, with respect and reverence for other people and their hearts and what is best for them, that has built relationships that last.

Melissa Febos
39:30 - 40:01
I couldn't stay with anyone for longer than two and a half years when I was out there pinballing around. And now I've been married for four and together for nine, and it has changed the way I move in all of my relationships. It has made me able to truly love people and see them at the same time. And like that is a very different experience than just like bumping into people and banging off of them and then bumping into other people and like having sexy experiences.

Melissa Febos
40:01 - 40:13
But especially as I age, like true intimacy and connection and longevity in relationships is like at the very center of my life. It's the structure that holds my whole life.

Prentis Hemphill
40:15 - 40:40
And it comes back to this, you know, pointer about maturation. And it's like, you realize you get over a certain hump and you're like, oh, this is what's available. I didn't actually know that this quality of life relationship was available to me. Yeah, and there's nothing that really gives you, well, I don't know, I can only speak for my life.

Prentis Hemphill
40:40 - 40:54
There weren't a lot of like, indicators that life could be like that. You know, that that those kinds of relationships were available. So you you sort of do the best you can with what you got.

Melissa Febos
40:54 - 41:13
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I did not have, you know, I did not have role models for the kind of work that I described in this book, you know, which is partly why there are so many other like, role models and texts and historical figures. I was like, help.

Melissa Febos
41:14 - 41:24
Who can help me? I don't know how to do this. No one I know seems to really want to do this either.

Prentis Hemphill
41:24 - 42:06
Right, right, right. I think one of the things that I want to just pull out of the book here is that Through your examples and your stories, I could just see so clearly how much projection we're doing most of the time. Like so much of how we relate to people is like, this is what you represent, or they're doing that to you, or this is what I need, and you are sort of a vehicle through which I'm gonna get this need taken care of. But there's so much flattening of, you know, the other person, their experience, their lives, or your own, even there's so much flattening of your own.

Prentis Hemphill
42:06 - 42:24
And it seemed like we're talking about growing up that part of the growing up was being able to like, tolerate your own motivation, understanding your own motivations and the reality of this other person and their stories and needs too, yeah.

Melissa Febos
42:25 - 42:42
It's so real. And that is like add that to the list of things that I didn't know that I didn't know. I thought I was seeing people. I thought that I, I thought that I was this, like, kind of savant at seeing people, right?

Melissa Febos
42:42 - 43:05
Because I was so good at detecting what they wanted from me, right? Like I could sense what other people's expectations were, but that's not clear seeing that's like, codependency. No, Or like that's part of it anyway. And I wasn't actually looking at the whole person, right?

Melissa Febos
43:05 - 43:23
It was actually like a pretty narcissistic perspective of other people. It was very me related. Like what is the information I need from this person so I can become what they want, so that I can keep them happy, so that I can feel safe? You know, like that was my work of intimacy for a really long time in relationships.

Melissa Febos
43:24 - 43:52
And I had to learn to make myself feel safe, how to feel safe in myself without having to control other people, right? Without having to manage other people's emotions. or manage how they felt about me. Like I had to learn to tolerate other people having their own emotional states, even if it meant that they were disappointed in me, or we had a different perspective on things, or I hurt their feelings or whatever.

Melissa Febos
43:52 - 44:16
And then suddenly the whole person could come into view because I wasn't threatened by their feelings or our differences or whatever, you know, and that, I mean, that required a lot of healing inside myself, right? Because what does it take to feel safe? and to not source that temporarily from other people. It's so much faster.

Melissa Febos
44:16 - 44:39
It's such a good shortcut to manage other people and to source our self-soothing through them, but to just be able to stand in it myself and know that I would be okay no matter what kind of conflict happened, that required that I address my own history and my own habits totally outside of my relationships. It's a big piece of work. Like you said, it's a hard sell.

Melissa Febos
44:39 - 44:47
That's a hard sell. It's not something that happens intuitively. You really have to decide to undertake it.

Prentis Hemphill
44:47 - 44:53
Oh, I so wish that it happened intuitively. I wish that it was like, Oh my God, why doesn't it?

Melissa Febos
44:53 - 44:54
I don't know.

Prentis Hemphill
44:54 - 45:02
Why are we like this? I always want to talk to I'm like, who did this? Because next time, you should just like, fold it in there.

Melissa Febos
45:02 - 45:13
Oh my God, it's so much work. In addition to just like having a life, you know, oh my god, I just like one day at a time, you know, one day at a time, one day at a time.

Prentis Hemphill
45:13 - 45:25
You've talked so openly about addiction in your writing before. Do you think, is it, I know you went to like, you know, sex and, what do they call them? I went to one of these before.

Melissa Febos
45:26 - 45:28
Sex and love addicts. Sex and love addicts.

Prentis Hemphill
45:29 - 45:34
Yeah, SLA. Yeah, SLA, that's right. Do you identify as an addict in this realm?

Melissa Febos
45:35 - 46:09
I don't. I don't, I'm not like defensive about it, you know, cause I have definitely, you know, like in that one relationship that I sort of bonded out on, I definitely qualified in that relationship, but not in all my relationships. And so, you know, I'm the kind of person where like I could walk into literally any 12 kind of 12 step meeting and be like, yep, these are my people, you know, but that wasn't my, you know, in that area, it didn't quite fit. Right.

Melissa Febos
46:09 - 46:42
But like, I'll go to a meeting now and then I just have I can't go to all the fellowships because I also have to have a job. Right. And I think for me, there really was like. You know, my drug and alcohol addiction is more of like a pathology that needs regular treatment for the rest of my life, but my love and sex addiction was much more a symptom of my what is the word I want to use, my distorted or like unhealthy relationship

Melissa Febos
46:42 - 47:06
to love and sex, the patterns that I was mired in. And so when I undertook the project of really changing those patterns and changing my belief system, that addictive relationship to love and sex stopped. And it hasn't happened since, right? Because I sort of installed a new operating system in terms of like how it sits in my life and like what it means to me.

Prentis Hemphill
47:08 - 47:29
Yeah. By the end of the book, again, I won't reveal it, but it's like, you realize that this, this is, sex is now something else. You know, there's a way that you think sex, what it is, what its role is, and then it can become something else. There's one sort of nerdy thing in the book, like the reoccurring, the Beguines, is that how you say it?

Melissa Febos
47:29 - 47:31
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Prentis Hemphill
47:31 - 47:51
The presence of them. And I was thinking, you know, when they kept showing up, I was like, there's a real feminist read on celibacy in your book. But I wanted you to like tease something out for me, because I was like, in this moment, where there's so much political repression, there's movements for people to be like, you know, actually, we're not going to have sex anymore. We're not going to do that anymore.

Prentis Hemphill
47:53 - 48:19
There's a refuge in celibacy, and there's also resistance and that celibacy. And I'm wondering, like, for you, how would you describe maybe some distinctions between what the Beguines are doing, for example, or what, you know, I always joke, like, if my wife leaves me, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a plum village. I'm gonna be somewhere. I'm gonna be a mom.

Prentis Hemphill
48:20 - 48:23
I'm done.

Melissa Febos
48:24 - 48:27
No, me too. Me too. I'm out of here. Oh, absolutely.

Melissa Febos
48:27 - 48:39
Absolutely. We've been together a long time and in the middle there, we had a rough patch for a while. I was never fantasizing about being with other people. I was fantasizing about being alone.

Melissa Febos
48:39 - 48:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. Yeah.

Prentis Hemphill
48:42 - 48:43
Absolutely.

Melissa Febos
48:43 - 48:50
That's not the dream. I'm like, you know, all power to my polyamorous friends. That's my nightmare. Yeah.

Melissa Febos
48:50 - 49:12
More than one wife is plenty. Yeah, so you know, it's interesting because like, when I first started writing this book, or like when I was living the experience, people were like, whoa, celibacy, like nobody was talking about celibacy. Um, it was like very weird and kind of dry and people were like, oh, interesting. That doesn't sound very fun.

Melissa Febos
49:12 - 49:39
Um, and now like the book is coming out and there's like the, the 4B movement and like, There's like, I was on a podcast called Boy Sober, you know, like, it's like a thing. There's like hashtags, you know. And, and it's really interesting. So people ask me, like, is that was this a political decision?

Melissa Febos
49:39 - 49:50
You know, I think in the most obvious way, I know what they mean. And the answer is no, like I wasn't trying to start a movement. I was not trying to make a statement. I was trying to get out of pain.

Melissa Febos
49:51 - 50:10
I was trying. And then I, once I was out of pain, I was trying to change the way I moved through the world. And that was a fundamentally political decision because it changed the way I participated in society. but I did not do it for political reasons, right?

Melissa Febos
50:10 - 50:36
Like it sort of evolved into that space, but it became as a very personal decision, which I think is the beginning of like a lot of political movements, right? Is like, I want to end this suffering. And then it becomes like I am invested in ending the suffering of others as well, right? And so for me, it wasn't like a Liz Estrada 4B, like I'm going to take the sex away so that the men stop acting like that.

Melissa Febos
50:36 - 50:55
They behave, yeah. Yeah, like all power to you, but that was not my goal. I was not having sex with men and nor trying to sort of control them in that way or anyone but myself. The Beguines, in a way, were a model for me because they actually mimicked this.

Melissa Febos
50:56 - 51:11
There was a spiritual element that was really foregrounded for them. They were like nuns, but they weren't nuns. They were basically women who left their lives, who basically stepped outside of the roles that were available to women in society. They said, we're going to do this other thing.

Melissa Febos
51:12 - 51:41
We're going to live communally. We're going to be financially independent. We are going to serve our communities and we're going to live in accordance with our beliefs, not the beliefs of this patriarchal society that we've been prescribed these roles by. And so it was like an essentially political decision because they were disrupting the very fabric of the society in which they lived, but they did so for personal reasons.

Melissa Febos
51:41 - 52:07
They did so because of deep held belief. They did so because they wanted to preach and teach literacy and make art and serve the dying and to create a safe harbor for women who were leaving abusive marriage. They were basically like also the first social workers. You know, they were teachers and social workers, and they ran their beguinages, the places they lived, as, like, orphanages sometimes.

Melissa Febos
52:07 - 52:45
And so it was basically a personal decision and a personal movement that became a political movement that was international, ultimately, you know? And that felt, even though I have no aspirations to start an international political movement, I really respected and was inspired by the conviction with which they disrupted their own lives and the way that those individual subjective decisions ended up changing so many other lives and serving their communities in ways that were incredibly brave and radical and satisfying for them, I think.

Prentis Hemphill
52:47 - 53:02
Is there any encouragement to like retrieve aspects of our power through this kind of, I don't, you know, abstinence is a loaded word, but you know what I mean?

Melissa Febos
53:03 - 53:10
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I think it's actually kind of inevitable. You know what I mean? And like, people have been asking me like, Oh, are you making a political argument?

Melissa Febos
53:11 - 53:51
Like, are you and I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just telling my story. But However, that's not entirely true. I do stand like totally on my story and I am not an evangelist or like I don't presume to know what's best for anyone else. But I do believe that it is somewhat inevitable that when we step out of the stream of social convention, when we make a space to examine what is true for us outside of that, outside of prescription, outside of what we are told we should do, that awakening is

Melissa Febos
53:51 - 54:08
almost inevitable, right? And in fact, that like subversion is almost inevitable because who we are told we should be is almost never who we actually want to be. and who we are meant to be. I mean, at least for those of us who are not at the center of the social spectrum.

Prentis Hemphill
54:08 - 54:14
I think that's great. I think it's true. I mean, I don't know this as a fact, but I'd imagine it's true for everyone.

Melissa Febos
54:15 - 54:17
I think it probably is.

Prentis Hemphill
54:17 - 54:29
Yeah, definitely. That's a really powerful point. I have one more question, and I know we're nearing time. When I was reading this, I thought, this book is about sex, yes.

Prentis Hemphill
54:29 - 54:39
It's about celibacy, yes. But it felt like it was about how we change. Like, really fundamentally, I was like, this is about transformation. It's about change.

Prentis Hemphill
54:40 - 54:56
And kind of confronting the resistance to our own change and transformation, those habits, stories, beliefs, and... why this kind of change right now? Like, why even the question of this kind of change and transformation right now?

Melissa Febos
54:58 - 55:25
You know, like... a lot of people right now. I am moving through moments of feeling enraged and powerless and grief stricken and confused. And I have, and I want to, I want to run away from those feelings, you know, and it feels very confusing to me sometimes.

Melissa Febos
55:26 - 55:56
Like, what, what can I do? Like, what can I do? you know. And it has been a tremendous comfort and point to return to for me to remember how many times in my life, including the year I describe in the dry season, I have made a decision to focus on local liberation, starting with myself, starting with the people I love,

Melissa Febos
55:56 - 56:33
starting with the people I know, moving out into my communities, and how incredibly inspiring and invigorating and energy-giving and sustaining it is to be able to see my own impact there and how possible it has been. I, you know, sometimes you hear people say, like, people don't change. Nothing has been less true in my life. Like it is the resounding truth of my life that people change and that I change, but we have to deciding what direction we want to if we're going to exert energy.

Melissa Febos
56:33 - 56:50
I mean, if we're going to exert any kind of power over how we change. And so I decide how I want to change. And almost inevitably, that means how can I become more available to my communities and the people around me? And that moves outward.

Melissa Febos
56:50 - 57:07
It moves outward in terms of mutual aid. It moves outward in terms of harm reduction. And I believe it keeps going beyond to the point which I can see. You know, so that, that has been how I am staying in the stream in the midst of this present moment, right?

Melissa Febos
57:07 - 57:25
Because if I think about how this one little five foot nothing person can affect things on a global scale, I just, I don't move. I don't do anything. Or I just like get completely overwhelmed and I turn on the TV or like start eating candy or something, right? I want to run away.

Melissa Febos
57:25 - 57:49
But when I think, okay, like what is one thing I can do different? What is one way I can step away from, you know, the pressures of like who I should be or my, or the ways in which I am complicit? What's one small way I can do that? And engage more with the person I want to be, with my own liberation, with the liberation of the people I love.

Melissa Febos
57:50 - 57:51
That's always a starting point for me.

Prentis Hemphill
57:52 - 57:58
Thank you so much. Kind of gives a new meaning to the hyperlocal, you know, starting right there.

Melissa Febos
57:59 - 57:59
Yeah.

Prentis Hemphill
58:00 - 58:07
Very cool. Melissa, thank you for the time. The Dry Season is an awesome book. I really have enjoyed your writing.

Prentis Hemphill
58:07 - 58:11
And like I said, you gave me some permission to write my own story. So a lot of gratitude.

Melissa Febos
58:11 - 58:18
Oh, I cannot wait for it. I am so grateful for the work that you're doing. And I could talk to you forever. This was great.

Prentis Hemphill
58:19 - 58:28
Awesome. I'm so glad. So glad. Becoming the People is produced by devon de Leña with special production support this season by Jasmine Stein.

Prentis Hemphill
58:29 - 58:48
It's sound engineered and edited by Michael Maine. Our theme song was created by Mayyadda. If you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe, rate, and especially, especially leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you listen. And if you haven't already, please join us over at the Patreon.

Prentis Hemphill
58:48 - 59:32
Prentice Hemphill, we are having a great time over there building community, learning together. Come join us. And as always, thank you for listening to Becoming the People.