Marta Rusek - Sex

Content warning: This episode deals explicitly with sexual violence, especially from the 23 minute mark to the 28 minute mark and from the 54 minute mark to the end.

We talk about sex with Marta Rusek, who identifies as autistic, bisexual, and passionate about ending domestic violence. How do we learn about sex? Why are we so afraid of it? What does a sex-positive world look like? And much, much more.

Referenced in this episode

Twitter
Dr. Timaree Schmit

Movies
The Fifth Element
Auntie Mame
Silence of the Lambs
Basic Instinct
Out of Sight
The Last Duel
13th
To Kill a Mockingbird

TV
Euphoria
Bridgerton
When They See Us

Video
Transfigurations - Gender Outlaws in the Bible

Theater
To Kill a Mockingbird

Our intro and outro music is "Humbug" by Crowander

Transcript

(Transcript courtesy Louise Boydon)

David Dylan Thomas

Hello, everyone. I just wanted to give you a content warning. This episode deals explicitly with sexual violence, especially from the 23-minute mark to the 28-minute mark. And again, from the 54-minute mark, pretty much until the end. So just wanted to give you that warning before you decide whether or not to proceed. Thanks.

Welcome everybody to “Lately I've been thinking about…”, this is going to be the end of season one. So, all the sort of cliffhangers, all the arcs and story threads, all of the sort of teaser threads for season two are going to happen right now with our special guest, Marta Rusek. 

Marta, tell the folks here what it is that you get into.

Marta Rusek

Well, thanks, Dave. Again, my name is Marta. I'm talking to you live from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is the land of the Lenni-Lenape people, original inhabitants of the land that I now live and work on. What do I get into? I think for our sinister purposes today, I think it's important that people know that I am a very openly autistic person. I was diagnosed with autism at age 30, and it's been a really exciting journey discovering who I am and where the boundaries are, where does the disability end and where does Marta begin and all that kind of stuff. 

Also, kind of an openly bisexual person, a late bloomer. I thought I was straight my whole life. I was a teenage heterosexual, and now we're here at this point. I think that's also important to mention as well.

I'm very passionate about work that empowers people to be active in their communities, that connects them to education. I'm also very passionate about ending domestic violence and sexual violence in our world, which I also think is pertinent to our conversation today.

And I really love movies. I really love talking with you, Dave. You're one of the closest friends that I have, and I look up to you tremendously. I feel like at least once a day, I'm saying, “Well, my good friend DDT once said…” and then there's like a really amazing nugget of wisdom that you've shared with me.

I feel like that's my currency; my love languages is nuggets of wisdom, obscure information and movie quotes.

David Dylan Thomas

Same, and thank you. And I like literally have like a list of quotes, like websites I go to for James Baldwin quotes and shit like that. I love Quote of the Day type shit. So, Marta, with that very intriguing buildup, tell me what have you been thinking about lately?

Marta Rusek

Sex, Dave. I've been thinking a lot about sex. Shocking, I know!

David Dylan Thomas

This episode’s going to get some hits!

Marta Rusek

Yes, specifically, what I've been thinking about is what shapes our view of sex? How did we first learn about it? How do our views change on it over time? If we live in a society where sex is stigmatized, like even talking about it or being open about sex and relationships, how exactly do you learn how to do it and how do you learn what is healthy sexual behavior and what is abuse?

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah. I will let you begin, but I have been thinking about this a lot too, because I'm always intrigued by topics where we don't even know how to talk about it. We only know how not to talk about it. Like race is very much in that arena, but I feel like sex is that times a hundred.

Marta Rusek

It really is and well, I kind of had a question in mind that I wanted to ask you and then I'll answer it too. How did you first learn about what sex was? Did somebody sit you down and talk about it? Did it just kind of happen in passing? Like how did you first learn about sex?

David Dylan Thomas

I have two answers to that, because even that question I'm realizing has kind of two different answers. I learned about a reproduction from a book. At least this is what I remember. I remember that my mother gave me a book and in that book was just like all the very beautifully illustrated, like all the, this is what happens…

Marta Rusek

Yeah. The illustrations are, there needs to be an Instagram account, like sex ed illustrations type of thing because they are an event, those books.

David Dylan Thomas

You know what? This is a side tangent. I don't remember the implied presented race of the people in the book, I'm pretty sure it was white, similar to the discussion we've been having about medical illustrations being very white. I am very curious how many sex ed books out there are not white? My hypothesis, not many.

I'm sure that has an impact. So that was when I learned about reproduction, but when I think about sex, I don't necessarily think about reproduction, which is a whole element. I think I've learned about sex from late night Showtime or Cinemax when I would stay up late when my mother was asleep.

It is worth noting I was raised by my mother, my older sister and my grandmother. There were no men in the house, so I didn't get to see any interactions between men and women to model on as well. So that was also an avenue that was kind of cut off from me. Some, if I think about sex, like the sexual attraction part of sex, the fun part of sex, the recreational part, I learned that from watching software porn on late night Cinemax and Showtime.

Marta Rusek

Yeah. I think that is a very common experience for a lot of men is nobody really sits them down and talks to them about your body's changing. You're going to start to feel some things that are unfamiliar and they're not bad. It's just that you are now getting hormones and your body is producing more of these hormones because you were about to hit this thing called puberty.

So, thank you for that. For me, just to give a quick background, I was raised by a district attorney or I guess an ADA, like an Assistant District Attorney, my dad, and I kind of have a two-part answer as well. So raised by an ADA. We were a Catholic family, so Catholicism definitely informs how you are going to talk about relationships and sex with your kids.

Before we were really told about this is what sex is, my dad did a very curious thing. We were little girls. We were raised that a penis is a penis, a vagina is a vagina. We would use correct anatomical terms to talk about our bodies. The other kind of interesting thing is when he would take us to school, my father would point out all kinds of landmarks. Like there's the White Horse Café, or Bar, there's, Manny, Moe and Jack, the Pep Boys, because there was a really cool sign that had like a 3D statue of the Pep Boys standing outside on top of it.

I found out years later, my father, one of his assignments was prosecuting people who had victimized children, like sexual cases. Part of the reason why we were raised from a very young age, that we would describe the parts of our bodies using the anatomical terms and why my dad really raised us to be hypervigilant and hyper observant is because so many of his cases could not move forward or were thrown out because children could not accurately describe what had been done to them.

They also could not give any details about where they were abducted from if there was an abduction involved, where they were sexually abused. So there was no way for the police or investigators to canvas the neighborhoods to find out, “Did you see this person approach this child at this time? Do you remember anything?”

His greatest fear is that something like that would happen to us and he wouldn't be able to get justice for his girls. So, we were raised from a very young age to be hypervigilant and to really use the correct words to talk about it.

So that's part one, the part where I really learned about like what sex is both as a reproductive mechanism, and as a mechanism to build a close relationship was from my mother. She sat at my sister and I down one day and it said, “We're going to talk about sex today.” Didn't really go into the details like graphic details like this is how you do it or anything like that because you know, Catholics. But she talked about a penis goes into a vagina and there's a process that arises from that where a baby is conceived. Sex is a gift from God. It is something that you do with somebody you love; subtext there being, you should be married when you do this. And that was basically it. Like we did have ongoing conversations about like, “You don't have sex on the sidewalk, girls. That is not something we do.”

So, it was instilled from a young age. It's a gift. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's not something that is bad or gross. It's something you do with a person that you are close with, you do it in privacy. You don't do it out in the open where other people can see you. And then the other thing that was the product of this is who my mom was, this is who my dad was, is that it is a heterosexual activity. 

So I kind of had crushes on girls when I was younger, not realizing that that's what they were and it wasn't until I was an adult looking back, realizing I really was a bisexual person, it's just, we were Catholic. And while my parents had gay friends and you know, did not look down upon the LGBTQ plus community, the implication kind of was, “Well that's what other people do, that is not a way of life. We are Catholic. We are heterosexual. Sex is within marriage.” All this other stuff. 

But unfortunately, even with understanding anatomical terms, understanding that sex is a gift from God, there was still a lot of gaps in there. Like you, I would watch late night TV shows, the internet was becoming more widely available. AltaVista search engine really had no parental controls on it. So high school kids, we start looking at things.  I think that is very common of a lot of people like us who came of age during the internet and our parents weren't giving us the information, schools really politicized sex ed, and they're not giving the entire information of here's how it's done, here is when it is healthy, here is when that's a red flag and that's not something somebody should be doing. Here's when an act might be illegal, like not getting consent and proceeding against the wishes of the other person, which is rape.

I'm just fascinated when I talk with friends now and they feel comfortable having those conversations with me about what was the fallout from that? Because if you didn't have a comprehensive sex ed class when you were in school, and what if your parents didn't tell you anything? Who did you go to, or how did you find out about this stuff? When you have gaps in your education, you're going to go to pop culture, or you're going to go to the internet and not all of those resources are accurately depicting what sex and relationships are supposed to be in a healthy way or based on how you define them.

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot there. right. But I think what I find challenging about talking about sex is that it is a thing where you sort of get to choose your level of reverence. Because for some people, and this isn't even necessarily one-to-one, it can be at different times of the day, but for some people, sex is something you do with people that you don't love, you do on the sidewalk in public life.

And for other people, it is this, no, I will only do this with someone I am married to, with someone I intend to have children with blah, blah, blah and they're both right.  I feel like as I think about what is the key factor to kind of hook into to make those conversations helpful. It's to talk to me about agency. That to me seems to be the critical thing.  I don't really care if you think of sex as purely recreational. I don't really care if you want to reserve sex purely as a relational, baby-making thing. What I do care about is if the two folks involved don't agree about what sex is, and I think that's where, or a place anyway, where we really get into trouble and where education fails us because I didn't learn about consent in high school. Did you?

Marta Rusek

Not really. I mean, and even then, we were kind of lucky. I mean, we learned about condom demonstrations very briefly at my high school, which I'm still very grateful for. It's funny, I actually feel like I got a crash course in human sexuality and consent and talking about sex when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, because that was my job, was disease prevention. We did have a couple of doctors and nurses in our group, but no, we had a couple of nurses, not doctors, sorry.

But we were not allowed to practice medicine, so we're not writing prescriptions, we're not giving vaccines. But we can talk about the mechanisms that cause disease and the ways to prevent them. So, and one thing we could do with this episode, if you're interested at the end or at some point is basically if there are kids or people trying to build their education that want to know, what would we say to ourselves when we were young or what would we say to high school kids listening to this about love, sex, and consent and stuff like that? 

David Dylan Thomas

Well, so I want you, if you're comfortable because you've told me this story before, some of the advice the Dr. Ruth that you became, and how that played out. If you don't mind, I'd love to share that with our listeners.

Marta Rusek

Yeah, it's kind of a funny story.  I had decided to serve in the Peace Corps because I needed an adventure. I was in my late twenties and I'm like, there's gotta be more to life than working in a retail store, which is a very valid way of working, it just wasn't my way of working. 

So after a very lengthy application process, I ended up in The Gambia, which is a tiny little country nestled inside Senegal in West Africa in January, 2011. What's cool about Peace Corps is you are really encouraged to build relationships. Like I know that the literature and some other myths about Peace Corps is that it's like white saviorism 101, like, “You're going to build a well or to save the people.” That's not it at all. In fact, I would argue that my village, my community, my neighbors saved me in many ways. 

But things kind of turned to talking about sexuality and me becoming like an unofficial Dr. Ruth, because you know, my host brother would introduce me to his friends and the people that were in our community and one guy had said in passing that I've always wanted to date a white lady. That was like the first thing out of his mouth, not, “Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for coming to our country.” But, I thought, and I'm paraphrasing, there was a little bit more explicitness in what he said. I don't want to embarrass him because he didn't have the knowledge that he has now. I also don't want to give the idea that this is a horrible experience and you shouldn't do it. Everybody should do Peace Corps. It is a life-changing thing to do. 

So I said, “Well, thanks for letting me know that. If you're interested, I can talk with you about alternatives to saying things like that when you meet somebody like me for the first time, because if you come right out the gate saying, “I want to make love to you,” that's very flattering, but not everybody's going to be receptive to that information.”

That kind of began conversations. We would all sit under one of the trees, drink Attaya, which is, it's a predominantly Muslim country, so they don't drink alcohol, so they have this really strong, really mint flavored tea called Attaya and that was kind of like the social hour with the guys.

I think it's important to mention that women don't normally come to these gatherings. What's kind of fun about being a Peace Corps volunteer is by definition, you are an outlier. The rules do not apply to you in many ways. So I was, it was very exciting that the Toubob, which is their word for white person was coming with her host brother, to sit with everybody and talk about life, the universe and everything.

Each time there would usually be a question of, “Well, how do I attract a woman like you? How do I make sex with my wife better? How do I have sex with my wife while also keeping a girlfriend, which was very common.”

That was really the first time I was starting to move away from some of the harmful misconceptions of my Catholic upbringing, which is, there are a lot of people that are happily married and they also have external relationships to that marriage. It doesn't make them a bad person. It just that's their preference. As long as everybody is agreeing to that, there is nothing wrong with that. 

Like I was saying earlier, I feel like that experience saved me as much as my expertise and the things I did know about life helped them. And it was kind of fun because I could be a little bit subversive, so I could sneak in things like sex lasts longer when you do foreplay. The more I talked with my host brothers’ friends, it became very clear that it really prioritized the man's pleasure. Men listening to this, it really hurts like physically, if you were just shoving your penis into a woman's vagina before she is fully ready. So it actually does feel much better if you kind of warm up to the point that penetration happens, whatever penetration looks like, but prioritizing both people's pleasure is actually going to enhance the experience for everybody involved.

So whenever possible, I would try to sneak in information that sounded like, this is going to benefit the guy, but in reality, it meant that the sex was going to be less painful, more pleasurable, and most importantly safer for everybody involved, because my official function as a peace Corps Volunteer was how do we prevent disease? And one of those mechanisms was the condoms. 

So, to this day, I can probably do condom demonstrations with my eyes closed. I know all of the steps and happy to talk about that in detail later on in the episode, if there's anybody listening that would like to know, well, how exactly do I do this so that my partner and I are safe, but also, we're actually enjoying ourselves?

I'm still very grateful for those series of experiences, because again, I learned a lot about how do people relate to each other? There is something outside of the monogamous, married Catholic life and also, I don't think anybody sets out to rape anybody or to cause harm when they're with somebody they care about that they want to have sex with.

I think because there are so many gaps in our knowledge base about this, and there are a lack of resources or they've been driven underground for how to learn about the mechanisms of consent and sex and how to have a good time with somebody that you either really care about or you just want to have a really good time with, that has consequences. I kind of would like to believe that by being an unofficial Dr. Ruth figure for my brother and his friends, that they were able to get a little bit more information and also inspired curiosity in them to seek out resources that set the appropriate expectations about safe sex, healthy relationships, and healthy interactions in the bedroom or on the sidewalk, wherever you decide you want to do this.

David Dylan Thomas

It's interesting because first, thank you for doing that and I'm sure the women of Gambia thank you. But I think so much of that, as you say that, I think I'm asking myself why is that? Why is that gap there? And I think a lot of it is for men. 

I know growing up for me I had this impression that I wasn't really a man until I lost my virginity. It was this weird tension because on the one hand, I really wanted that to happen, but on the other hand, because I was what we called at the time an illegitimate child, my mother and father were not married, they did not plan on having me. The worst thing in the world would be if I were to get someone pregnant. So, there's this tension between you really got to go out and have sex if you're going to be a man, but there's also this tension of the last thing you should ever do is become like your father and get someone pregnant he didn't mean to get pregnant. 

And so I was in this weird, like, and note that in either of those scenarios, the last thing I'm thinking about is the other person, the woman, because I was straight and I was raised to be straight and I didn't really explore any of that at the time, the woman was simply a means to an end. The woman was a way for me to lose my virginity, but the goal wasn't, “Hey, let's both have a good time.” The goal was, “I need that little sticker that says I'm a man now.”  Did you have weird expectations around your virginity?

Marta Rusek

Yeah, I mean it was guarded and it was currency. You're more valuable if you have not had sex. There's that idea of like, it's a gift that you're giving your husband. It's like, well, what about me? Why am I expected to be the pure one in this relationship? And then why is he the one that is expected to have had lots of partners and be in the know? That seems like a very uneven dynamic to me. 

It kind of makes me think of The Fifth Element, Leeloo. She is like, there's like a trope called the Born Sexy Yesterday trope where it's this person who is a warrior and they can take care of themselves and yet they are so innocent and they fall in love with the first Joe Schmo that finds them. That trope is so damaging because it's this idea that she doesn't know anything about sex or relationships. Joe Schmoe could be a horrible, abusive person and she wouldn't know it and she would have this expectation that all men are like this, and that's problematic. It sends a really problematic message to people that view it. 

I'll be transparent and say that I didn't start having sex until I was in my late twenties. I had thought that I was going to wait until marriage and then the realization really hit because I was a survivor of sexual violence as a child and didn't really put two and two together that that is why I was super protective of my body and why I didn't have as much interest in having sex until I was older was because I was recovering from the trauma of those experiences. 

By the time I finally did it, I had an expectation that it would hurt, because there are mechanisms in a woman's body where the first time you do it, it can be very painful. Didn't have any expectations that I'd probably have an orgasm the first time, because again, that first time is painful and there it is. 

I think that's another thing that needs to be entered into the conversation about virginity or just having sex is that a, it should be pleasurable for both people, it's not a means to an end. Also, orgasms, they are a great thing. And I also think it's important to in the buildup to having your first time or having your first time within marriage is talking about, well, what, what feels good to you? Have you masturbated, have you done any self-pleasuring activities so that you know what feels good and what you want from an interaction with somebody else, whether it's a long-term partner or a casual hookup.

What is it that is non-negotiable because that's all part of consent and boundary building is being able to talk about pooping and peeing, fan of doing it on my own and the privacy of my bathroom. I don't want it in my bed with you. We're not doing that. Strangulation, cool. Not a fan of that.

These are all things that probably should be discussed before you even engage in sexual activity and that's kind of a funny thing when you look at movies and it's just like these two people just met or they hated each other, and now they're going to bed. What's funny is there is no foreplay most of the time, it's usually heterosexual, so it's a guy getting it on with a woman and there's no time.

So, it's like, how does that feel good when you've just started kissing and now, we're going right into the main part of the show? But also, very rarely do you see any depictions of a condom being taken out of its wrapper. One of the reasons I love the show Euphoria, it is very frank and it's depictions of sexuality, but in the first episode you see a character or put a condom on, and that was just a revelation to me.

But also, what you don't see is the two people talking before they even get to the point of the condom or kissing or having sex saying, “What turns you on”, or “do you want to have this experience with me because we seem to like each other, how about it?” Because that's where you can really, especially if you're losing your virginity, you can really have that conversation of let's just do the basics for this one, because this is my first time. I don't know what I want yet. And let's go ahead and do it. And spoiler alert, that was not what my first time was like. It was pleasant, but no orgasm. It wasn't really about my pleasure. It was really exciting for him because he knew going into it that he was my first.

I don't regret that experience. I think it needed to happen and I'm thankful that it happened and it was able to help open new worlds to me, but I think everybody should have a great sexual debut if it's possible. I think the key to a great sexual debut, losing your virginity, it just, it seems like it's very patriarchal and it really benefits one group of people over the other, and also penis and vagina is not, I think we need to move away from the idea that that's how you lose your virginity because there's oral sex, there's penetration with fingers, there's anal sex. There's so many different ways to enjoy our bodies for the first time together. I think a term like sexual debut kind of encompasses people of different backgrounds, different life experiences, getting together and enjoying each other's bodies.

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah. There's a whole lot there and I don't want to skip over you sharing and being vulnerable about your surviving sexual violence. 

Thank you for being open and sharing that. I too have suffered that and I do believe it did inform my approach to sex and you do get that tension of, “Yeah, I want to do this, but I also don't want to do it. So let me, self-sabotage every opportunity that comes up”, I guess that was kind of maybe because I didn't lose my virginity until 30 something for similar reasons. But the you're right about the language. Like even the way we talk about sex is embedded with this dichotomy of it is dirty, but it is also the best thing in the world.

Marta Rusek

Yeah, what’s up with that?

David Dylan Thomas

And in a way that always favors men. So for men it is a badge of honor to lose your virginity. For a woman it is, you have been sullied, you have been ruined in the language of Bridgerton. Actually, just kissing means you've been ruined eternally. But it’s a very property ownership, patriarchal kind of position to move from, and we're only just now in very tiny ways, starting to have more conversations about – yeah, do we want to keep talking about it that way and if not what language? For example, sexual debut. That is a much more open way to think about it. I even questioned the idea of there being this Rubicon that you cross, because you're going start jerking off at a 12, 13.

Marta Rusek

Even earlier though, have you seen babies, babies are like, “this feels really good…”

David Dylan Thomas

Right, so is it really useful to even talk about like it in a binary? But I think the language really hinders us and fails us when we're trying to have this more expansive exploration of what does sex mean? What is important to talk about? What does it even mean to have these conversations before sex to just sort of say, “Hey, what do you want to do tonight?”

Marta Rusek

Well, and I think the other huge piece that is often overlooked is self-love. We as kids, we have so many messages about how we're supposed to look and how attracting the opposite sex or who it is that you want to have a relationship or sex with is supposed to look.

As an overweight kid, I did not look like the messaging that I was getting about what guys are interested in. That led to disordered eating and trying to be something that I just wasn't. So, part of the reason I'm in love with my thirties and I'm super excited to be alive and try new things right now is because I feel like I was robbed of that experience of self-love and self-exploration.

Being told that masturbation is a perfectly healthy, perfectly wonderful thing to do with yourself. It doesn't cause your vagina to loosen up. It doesn't cause your hair to fall out, because if that was true, I would have been bald a long time ago. It’s a biological thing. Our bodies are programmed to do this because you need to send signals to the brain during sex that says your body has to expand now so that it can accommodate an erect penis or, so that you feel the dopamine is there and you feel good in order to welcome somebody else's penis or fingers or tongue into your body.

I think that by skipping that idea that we should be telling people as often as possible and from as young an age as possible, your body is beautiful, your body is fine the way that it is, and it's capable of really wonderful levels of pleasure, whether you're by yourself exploring what your limits or your boundaries for pleasure are and when you're exploring those with another person.

David Dylan Thomas

Why do you think that sex is so dangerous? Because all the things you're saying are perfectly reasonable and never get talked about and there's this fear of even discussing it, especially from a more feminine point of view, talking about female pleasure is not a thing we see very often. It's not a thing we're encouraged to talk about, but we're certainly encouraged to buy Viagra. So, like, why are we so scared of that?

Marta Rusek

Well, real quick, before I give you the answer to that, I'll tell you that a very close friend of mine called me up the one day and he said, “You're not going to believe what just happened to me at my doctor's appointment.” I'm like, “Do tell.” He casually mentioned at the end of his appointment to his doctor that, “Erections don't last as long as they used to for me.” Without being prompted, the doctor says, “Oh”, and as he's talking, writes out a script for Viagra, “Do you want this?” 

So, without even my friend even saying, “Can you prescribe something for me?”, just casually mentioned, “I'm getting older. My erections don't seem to last as long.” Doctor gives him a prescription. No questions asked. And he said, “I just got so angry at that point, because I thought of the person I'm dating. I thought of you and all the conversations we've had.” 

I would like to get my tubes tied at some point because I know for sure, I do not want to start a family of my own because I have two beautiful nephews. I know what goes into motherhood and it is a beautiful privilege. It's just one that I do not want to accept. And every time I ask, I am told, “Well, you need to get an evaluation from your therapist. You need to go through all these steps to make sure this is what you really want because it's not reversible.”

So, the answer to why don't we talk about it I think has a lot to do with the fear of giving women their own agency and acknowledging because we have been raised and programmed for so many years to use sex as a binary men and women pleasure, or no pleasure, you have sex or you don't have sex.

Now that we're hearing more from LGBTQ plus individuals, we're hearing more from polyamorous individuals, all these things that were never talked about and now we're finding there are other ways to share your body with somebody else. There are other ways to love other people and love yourself.

I think that is a huge shift for people that have always thought there's only two options and I get it. As an autistic person I don't like sudden changes whether it's to my schedule or if I'm suddenly asked to do something that I wasn't expecting. And now I have to suddenly shift everything that I was doing, which can be deeply uncomfortable.

I get that. But also, why would you rob yourself of that experience of there are other ways to be yourself and to be in communion with other people. Why wouldn't you want that? So, I think the answer is the fear of, well, what does this open the door to? The fear of the unknown? What happens if women have greater agency in bed? What happens when trans people and people who experienced relationships on a spectrum that just isn't monogamy or a man and a woman?

I think the fear of what does that all mean is really paramount in some people's minds. And my answer to that is, but imagine the possibilities? You could be your true self. You don't have to hide; you don't have to criminalize being gay or trans affirming care and stuff like that. It's just, this is the stuff I think about a lot.

David Dylan Thomas

It's weird too, because, and this I think is why I've always been kind of fascinated by that particular fear, because it makes sense to me to be afraid of nuclear weapons, pretty clear-cut case for that. Blow a bunch of shit up. Don't want that. Not a fan.

Marta Rusek

There’s room in your bomb shelter, by the way, right Dave? 

David Dylan Thomas

Oh yeah, totally! If by bomb shelter, you mean closet then yeah! 

It's weird that we actually have to seriously think about this stuff again, but to have the same level of fear around women's bodies because when you see how vociferous people can be about that, or really fear of anything that is not a strictly speaking male body. It is as if, oh women have the right to vote, or if women have control over their bodies, it is the end of the world in the same – I'd say even to a higher degree, it's the end of the world if we launch a thousand nuclear weapons and I'm like, why?

It's a why, but it's a very specific kind of why, because it's like, I get that that fear is there at that pitch, but I don't totally, I haven't gotten my head around it yet. I hate to sound naive, but I have not gotten my head around why is fat frightening? Like I get why the black body is frightening, and maybe there's a relationship there to like white supremacy? That I feel like I have a better handle on, and maybe that is because I'm a black guy, then I understand why the female body truly apocalyptically frightening to patriarchy.

Marta Rusek

Well, you fear what you don't know. It's like that meme or that phrase that you see, like tell me you don't have any gay friends without telling me you don't have any gay friends or, you know, insert name of community in that space.

If you don't have connections, I mean, we're very lucky, you and I are friends, we're friends with really smart open-minded people who are enthusiastic about having conversations about things that they don't know about. But you have to think about well, what is somebody's background? How was their education growing up? Were they taught that it's okay to ask questions? Or were they raised in a community where you were given the gospel either literally or figuratively and you do not question the gospel? Do not question, just accept that this is the way that it is. You will be happier if you don't question what this is.

I think that's part of it is if you were raised with a certain mindset of, one of my favorite lines from a movie is from Auntie Mame, where Auntie Mame says, “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” If you don't view life as a banquet, if you view life as a bowl of rice and a glass of water, then that's all you're going to feel comfortable wanting. You're not going to know that you can ask to put meat on that rice, or if you don't even want to sit at that table, you can go to McDonald's or you can go to another place that has food that you've been craving. But if you're only taught a bowl of rice and a glass of water is all there, is would you feel comfortable with asking for what else there could be in that situation?

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah, I think that's true and the episode that I think is going to come right before this, with our friend Moe, and one of the things we do is this dichotomy between the rigid kind of controlling, I want control on things to stay the way they are. I am incurious, versus the much more inclusive, Hey, let us experience the world, let us be open to it. I get that in general, but it feels like when it comes to sex, there is something weaponized about that, something nuclear about that. Like it is like the most radioactive toxic version of that, even when compared to, to race.

I think a lot about the fact that during the civil rights movement, there would be sit-ins and the women in the sit-in would still be expected to be the ones to get the coffee. Gender elevates above race, even though race is one of the most physically destructive forces in human history. Somehow, even in that context, women get the short end of the stick.

To me, there's something very special about sex and gender and how that's all wrapped together that is 10 times more frightening and, and encouraging of incuriousness than even race.

Marta Rusek

Yeah. Well, and I also think whiteness plays a part into it because when colonizers came over from England and Europe into the new world, AKA North America, the native communities that they experienced or indigenous communities they experienced were matriarchal, they were run by women. They massacred and annihilated indigenous communities in the millions. So there were women led societies in the new world, and it was snuffed out very quickly by a patriarchal force that said, well, we can't have this. That's not in God's way.

I think that's religion really does play a part in how people's views of society and how they relate to each other. I mean, somebody sent me something the other day because I have a beautiful black cat named Luna, who I love very much, and I just love black cats in general. Black hats are notoriously difficult to get adopted. They spend the most time in pet shelters. It’s believed that cats, black cats in particular are bad luck. 

The thing that my friend sent me was that there was a decree from a Pope that made the connection that black cats were a vestige or a sign of the devil that they represented and if you see one, do your Christian duty and make sure it does not continue.

So yeah, when you have somebody that you've been told was anointed by God, like this is the representative that God has identified to be in communion with humanity through him on earth, when somebody that is that powerful has something to say about the role of women or the role of sex, or whether contraceptives are even okay, or if they are in conflict with life or God's plan for human life on this planet. 

Very hard to go up against that because you have like the divine, like who are you to question God that you're supposed to exercise control over your body or that women are supposed to be on top during sex or that women are supposed to have orgasms and experience pleasure from this process that was created to bring more Christian babies into the world.

So have sex, but don't you enjoy it – was apparently the Pope’s stance on it.

David Dylan Thomas

I think you're absolutely right and what's interesting to me is it's sort of like that meme saying “Why does chicken franchise care about homosexuality?” Why does religion care so deeply about sex? I am hard pressed to think of very many religions that don't weigh in on sex and weigh in with our opinions. They are extra about sex.

Marta Rusek

Well in Judaism, men are viewed as it is your duty to give your wife/woman, you were having sex with an orgasm. Judaism has it right in that respect. You are supposed to get your wife off, dammit. It's written in Sacred Jewish texts that orgasms are an expression of a deeper divine love and your wife is supposed to have one when she is in communion, AKA having wonderful sex with you. So yeah, some religions are very clear, like orgasms just like sex itself is a gift from God.

Then you have other religions that put very strict limitations on how certain people of a certain gender, whether they're women or otherwise, are supposed to express themselves. I think the other thing to be careful with here also is that there may be misinterpretations because there's what's written and I mean, we're still transcribing a lot of sacred texts that came out hundreds of thousands of years ago, or maybe thousands of thousands of years ago – math is not my strong point

We're still translating some of those documents and finding out more and more that, “Oh, we got the translation wrong.” And one of the biggest examples of that was from, oh, gosh, there was a guy I knew when I worked for a Quaker organization, Peterson Toscano. Google Peterson Toscano right now, he has a really wonderful performance/DVD called Transgressions in the Bible. 

Basically, Peterson re-enacts people from the Bible who were portrayed one way, but they're actually transgressing against their gender identity. One of the most powerful ones was Joseph of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame.

It was translated as many years that Joseph wore a beautiful multicolored coat, but in his DVD/performance, Peterson said, “If you actually look at the translation, it wasn't a coat, it was a dress.” Then that kind of makes you think that's why his brothers wanted him dead and did not like the damn dress or didn’t like the coat, because it wasn't really a coat. It was a dress and he was parading around in this beautiful dress that his father gave him. 

His dad accepted him. I don't know why his brothers couldn't and imagine what that would have been like if that translation was correct from the get go that this wasn't just brothers being jealous of a father prioritizing the youngest son above all others. It was not only is the youngest son loved above all of us, he is wearing a dress and that is a transgression we will not let slide and it has to be dealt with violently. And they do, they beat the shit out of him, sell him into slavery and then put blood all over the beautiful dress and say, “Dad, wolves got him.”

David Dylan Thomas

That is an amazing revelation about that story too, because really, I'm familiar with it, it's sort of like here's Joseph going on being fabulous and his brothers are not having it. I'm like, why can't I be fabulous?

Marta Rusek

You can!

David Dylan Thomas

That’s the thing, because what follows is in slavery, no matter what circumstance Joseph finds himself in going forward, he always rises to the top, becoming basically right-hand of the king, saving the world from a famine, like all the stuff, but to have a gay man be doing that, or even just someone who is expressing themselves as, “I want to wear a dress”, like I'm not even gonna make assumptions about his preference, is a way more interesting, powerful story than just, “oh, he had a nice coat.”.

Marta Rusek

Well, and you hit on something important there, which is, we're still trying to break free from the binary. And the other thing I was thinking about while I was pondering what I would say to your question today for this call was on have you noticed that some of people's first introductions to individuals that stepped outside of the gender binary or who stepped outside of sexual mores were in horror movies, because the two examples that come to mind for me are the silence of the lambs, Buffalo Bill was a transwoman and the portrayal of it was so harmful that like that connection was made that trans people are murderers. And if they can't be who they are, they will fail, they're coming for the straight people and they're literally going to skin them alive so that they can become what they want to become.

Then you have a movie like Basic Instinct, which features a bisexual woman who may or may not be a serial killer and real quick spoiler here for people that haven't seen it, they got the protagonist wrong in that movie. You can tell that it was filmed to make us root for Michael Douglas – that dude, he killed two people. He's a cop who killed two people while he was high on drugs and never had any accountability, never held accountable for it. Sharon Stone was doing the Lord's work and she is a bisexual woman who is unapologetic and she is killing bad cops. We’re taught to be like, “She is the villain and she's bad. She's going to catch it.” I'm like, “She's the hero. She's the hero of her story.”

And I mean, I know I'm making a joke, I think that she was great in that movie and I do think it's really interesting who we're supposed to root for, but even in that movie, I found out years later, Sharon Stone did not consent to have her labia shown like that in that scene.

They're like, “Well, let's just film it and see what happens.” And she's like, “what does this contribute to the character?” All of this is kind of what fueled me wanting to have this conversation today is the talk that's been going on recently on social media about sex scenes and do they actually serve a purpose?

It speaks to the larger idea of sex. Why does it have to have a purpose? It doesn't have to just be, “We're conceiving a child”. It can just be, “I find you really attractive and we're both consenting adults who want to do the same thing. Why don't we just go do it and if we don't want to do it again, we never have to say hello again. It'll just be a one night thing.” They're both valid.

David Dylan Thomas

I think that's a fantastic question, and yes, there is a very long and sort of history of the dangerous deviant. Someone who is not prescribing to the correct sexual mores must also be either sad and suicidal or dangerous and harmful.

You can see the same thing, play out with someone who's not prescribed with the correct racial role or whatever it is. They then must also be dangerous. There's a sad, long history of that. To the point about – what was the same thing you said right after that?

Marta Rusek

What were we talking about? Getting old is the best. So let's work our way back here. We talked about Basic Instinct, we talked out Silence of the Lambs. We talked about the portrayals of people outside of the typical binary.

David Dylan Thomas

So after Basic Instinct, you said something about sex scenes.  So, I think for a long time, it's a weird history too, because there's a point at which you can't have them like The Hays Code.

Marta Rusek

Oh, The Hays Code. Do you want to tell people really quick what that was?

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah, sure. So, the Hays code was around 1950 something. This is during the Red Scare, so everybody's afraid, everybody in America is afraid that the communists were going to come and take us all over and everyone's accusing everyone else being a communist. It's ruining careers and especially through Hollywood. 

Around the same time, in anticipation that the government might censor them, Hollywood sensors itself and comes out with something called The Hays Code. That basically is a list of things you can't have on screen. Men and women cannot be in the same bed together – that’s why you'll see a lot of like married couples with separate beds, as a small example of all the different things you can do. 

So, you have a period where a sex scene is not a thing. You can't even like talk about that and as you get more to the sixties and seventies that opens up, they drop the code. Film ratings are starting to become a thing. Even then there's this taboo-ness of there's a thing that used to be called the X-rating, later became the NC-17 rating, which was like, if you are under 17, you cannot literally go see this. And again, it was usually because of depictions of sex or just depictions of nudity, which by the way, were far more often female nudity than male.

Only slight tangent, much easier to get that rating for sex than for violence. Violence, we are cool with. You could be as graphic as hell and just get a “R”, that's still true today. But when I think about that, what immediately comes to mind is there was a period where the only place short of going into a porno theater where you could see like titillating, images were in sex scenes in movies. Some would lean into it harder than others, but that was a thing. You couldn't go to the internet for it and if you want it to see it any other way, it was through something elicit like a nudie magazine or a theater that's specifically devoted to porn.  As you move into now, where if I want to see people having sex, that's something that I can get for free and far more explicit than anything I'll see in a movie, it starts to beg the question, okay, well, should we even have a sex scene? What's the point even purely from just a money-making perspective like that isn't even going to get butts in seats. So why am I even bothering with that? 

As I think about it, and then from a storytelling perspective, if I try to think about sex scenes that if you remove them from the movie, you lose something, the first and maybe only one that comes to mind is Out of Sight. George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez are spending the whole movie just horny as hell and finally Jennifer Lopez’s character, she is a US Marshall or FBI, I forget, but she's a law enforcement hunting down George Clooney as an escaped convict. Then they're sort of circling, flirt-fighting each other throughout.

Then, they finally have the opportunity to sort of just to meet in the bar and pretend they're not who they are. As that conversation progresses, you flash forward to the two of them in a sex scene and what's kind of wonderful about that scene other than the sort of stylistically interesting way to handle it, is you can tell they're having fun. As they're undressing, they're kind of giggling. It's not meant to be this very serious domination, which is what we get with a lot of sexual narratives. It is meant to be, these are two people who have this built-up tension. They don't know what's going to happen next, but they know damn well tonight they're going to do it. They will figure it out tomorrow, tomorrow. 

It's important for the plot that that actually happens. For the characters, for the story, something's missing if you just excise that scene and say, “ah, they met in a bar and then later they were playing cops and robbers again.” It's it is actually meaningful.

Marta Rusek

Yes. That is such a good point and I totally forgot how beautiful that scene is until you mentioned that and it's true. It is a character-building scene. It also advances the story. These are two people. It's not just a cat and mouse game anymore. There is an emotional connection.

David Dylan Thomas

It raises the stakes for what's to come when they really do have to play their roles as cops and robbers.

Marta Rusek

Exactly, and on the flip side of that, you might want to put a content warning here in this part, rape scenes or scenes in sexual violence. One movie recently, there were friends of mine that really loved it and they're like, just give it a chance – The Last Duel.

David Dylan Thomas

I have not seen that yet, but I'll let you explain. 

Marta Rusek

The premise was really, I'll just say it, it was really upsetting to me. As soon as I heard that they were making a movie about this because the premise is a nobleman is trying to get justice for his wife. His wife has been raped by somebody who's been an adversary, sometimes friend.

The movie basically, it's kind of like Rashomon. That's the one where it's like three different viewpoints put together. So, it's kind of like Rashomon where you see from the noblemen's point of view what happens, you see from his adversary/sometimes friend's point of view what happened. And then the biggest chunk of the movie comes in the end of the second half third act, which is when you see it from Marguerite, who is the woman who has been raped, the noblemen's life. You see everything like from her point of view of exactly what happened. 

When I think about other scenes of sexual violence, what's disturbing about them is that they're normally there to advance, they make you feel…how do I put this? They're there to help a male character find his courage. The seeing a woman suffering, being brutalized, we're taught not to give a shit about what she's going through. It's really like a man sees this. And I mean, game of Thrones did this in a really horrific way to a character that was beloved and even the actress who played her said, “That was a traumatic event for me, that I kind of knew what was happening, but I didn't know how bad it was going to be and I still feel awful about it.” 

That is a really disturbing depiction of sex to me that, and it goes back to what we've been talking about this whole episode is men are prioritized over women when it comes to matters of bodies and sex and stuff like that. In The Last Duel, what I was hoping for is that this would be like, I don't like seeing portrayals of rape on screen. I think they are overly graphic. They could potentially harm people in the audience and it's not the point of the story. The point of this story is that this woman has been wronged and because of fragile masculinity, these two men are having a duel to decide who's right. 

The thing I was looking for was, well what's the scene going to be like, how long is it going to last, because one disturbing thing you'll notice about rape scenes, they really last a long time. I didn't get in the first 30 seconds, what was happening. you're going to put this on for several minutes. Movies like Irreversible, where there is a 90-minute rape scene, which was not necessary. We got it in 30 seconds that this was horrendous and didn't need to happen and this is what the story has been built on. 

I didn't calculate how long it lasted, but it lasted more than five minutes, which I feel like is too long for a rape scene to last. What was also upsetting about it is portrayed like a gray area of, well, maybe she wants it, maybe it was just a miscommunication and now she's into it. It just made me feel icky and I applaud my friends that were like, “just give it a chance, try to see a new movie” because even if movies are problematic for me, I still like to see them because I think art should be, it should push boundaries and it should be dangerous and it should expose you to something you wouldn't normally get if you were just rigid in your beliefs and what you want to see.

But that, for me, I'm just like, okay, you're trying to masquerade as a feminist movie and you're still playing by the same rules of it's an unnecessarily long, painful depiction of a woman being brutalized. You still are not taught that what's happened to her is the central focus. The central focus is still on these two men deciding who had the right to do this, and who's going to pay for it.

On the flip side, though, the one person who seems to have done a really good job with depicting sexual violence on screen is Ava DuVernay. When They See Us, which you all should totally watch at some point, it's a tough watch, but I think everybody, especially white folks like me, we should be watching this movie because there's a lot in there that you can learn from it and it's also an important story to know about the exonerated five. 

For folks that aren't familiar with the case, there was a rape in Central Park in the 1980s. Central Park was viewed as a safe area, so when this happened, it just made an already on edge city, even edgier. Ultimately four young, black men who were close to the park at that time were accused and eventually convicted of committing this file rape.

The mini-series kind of looks at what they went through, what their families went through, what their lives were like after they each got out of prison and the process to eventually finding out that the rape was committed by a very violent man who had committed other rapes, even after he raped the young woman who was jogging in Central Park. That scene in the movie, you see this young woman jogging, it's dark, it's already kind of scary and then you see a guy run up behind her and knock her to the ground. And then you cut to the next scene where it's clear there's a rape that has just happened but you don't see his body on top of hers. You don't see anything hinting that it is going on right now. You just see him walk away, zipping his pants up. 

That for me, the suggestion is scarier than the actual act. It's like jaws. People were terrified because of John Williams' music and people thrashing in the water, like you know something is going on under the surface that is terrifying. And that's what makes it even scarier. I kind of wish that was the norm that you don't see the act, you see the aftermath. You see how somebody's life has been upended by it and not necessarily destroyed, there is life after abuse. It does throw a wrench into things. Trauma is like a pair of scissors that cuts up the brain. That's why you have a lot of people that have experienced it, who can't exactly pinpoint when it happened, where it happened.

This whole case with the Amber Heard trial, when a makeup company was like, “Our makeup didn't even exist at that point.” That’s not the gotcha moment that you think it is. So, when you've gone through a traumatic event, it’s not that you're misremembering things, your brain is putting things out of order to make sense of the horrible thing that has just happened to it.

David Dylan Thomas

I mean, trauma ruins memory. Trauma, it's almost the worst. Memory sucks to begin with, which people underestimate, but trauma, I mean, to be perfectly explicit, like torture or simulated torture, they were doing these experiments to try to understand the implications of like, hey, well really what they were doing was trying to train special ops soldiers to withstand torture. And so, they would go through simulated torture. What they found was, oh yeah. torture fucks with your memory. So, to say, “I want to torture you to figure out what information you have.” That's the worst possible way, because you're fucking up the information. If they have it, you're completely destroying it now.  So, it is not hard to believe that trauma in general, ruins memory.

And that's not even the point. I mean, it's interesting because when I think about the depiction of sexual violence in the cinema, part of me is thinking if that were omitted, you could create this illusion that rape doesn't happen, which I think a lot of men would be happy to believe, when in fact it is one of the most common forms of violence in the world. More common than murder. I think more common than suicide, which is extremely common.

So, I get twitchy about the idea of never depicting it because I don't want you to sort of have this casual illusion that everything's okay and that all sex that ever happens on screen it's consensual, therefore all sex that happens is consensual. So, there's that piece of it, but at the same time, the perspective, the point of view matters, who is being emphasized matters. When you mentioned When They See Us, like my immediate thought was, oh yeah. I'm way too scared to see that movie because I'm a black man. And when I think about like, I have not watched the George Floyd video. Part of the reason, I don't need to. I've lived as a black man in America for 48 years. I don't need to watch that. 

Speaking of Ava DuVernay, I did watch 13th, which is an amazing film. At the end you do see the raw footage of Philando Castile being murdered. Once I saw that, I'm like, I don't think I ever need to see another murder of a black man by the police. I believe you when you say it happened, I will read the details, but I don't actually need to watch the video.

I think there are people who do, they are not me. That is what that makes me think of in terms of that tension between, I want to make sure you know this is real, but at the same time, the way in which I let you know that it's real should not cause further harm.

Marta Rusek

Yes. And that is a really interesting tension, like how do you show that? I mean, look at movies like = maybe not the best example, but To Kill a Mockingbird. What's interesting is my family, we were raised on that book. My mom read it to me, my aunt Rita rip, I miss her, she read that book to me when I was little. We saw the movie version quite a bit when we were kids as well.

Because this was Hays Code, the word rape is never used in that movie, I don't think. I'm not remembering. I don't think the word rape was used in that movie when they're in the courtroom trying, which is funny to me, like not funny that rape happened, but it's interesting to me that we're talking about a crime that happened to this young woman and they're not even using the word to describe what was done to her or that she says was done to her.

What’s even more interesting, there's a subtext there. You know, Mayella Ewell has a crush on Tom Robinson. She tempts him. He says, I'm not interested just as her dad catches her trying to temp Tom Robinson. The subtext is made very explicit in the stage version by Aaron Sorkin that I saw last year.

David Dylan Thomas

I saw that too!

Marta Rusek

Holy crap. I'm just like, oh, he said the quiet part loud. And for people catching on the subtext that we're talking about here is that Mayella Ewell was being raped by her dad. She was a victim of incest and there's that scene where Atticus or somebody is cross-examining Tom and Tom says, “I never kissed a man before, those times with my daddy don't count.”

Then you have the scene where you actually see Atticus get angry, which was a very powerful scene because we don't see Atticus lose his cool in the movie, or I don't even remember in the book if we actually see an outburst from Atticus Finch. But in the stage version, he grabs Bob Ewell by the collar and is just like, we all know you're raping your daughter, dude. It is obvious. And that's why you beat the shit out of her is because she was tempted by somebody that made your source of sex in your depraved little world impure. 

Again, all of these twisted ideas about sex and how it's portrayed really goes back to toxic patriarchal ideas of women or property that are meant to serve the needs of men, either as a means to having a sexual debut, as a means to making a character feel like, “I should do something, that poor woman is being raped” and that's not what sex is supposed to be. At the end of the day I still believe what my mom told me and my sister, which is sex is a gift from God, however you choose to interpret that.

David Dylan Thomas

Yeah, I feel like that's a good place to stop. Not because we've solved anything.

Marta Rusek

I think we’ve brought up more questions, Dave!

David Dylan Thomas

Which is kind of the plan. But that there is a positive view of sex. I will ask you this. What do you think – and I'm so glad this term exists now, because I feel like it's pointing us in the right direction. What do you think a sex positive or a more sex positive world looks like?

Marta Rusek

I really like this question. A more sex-positive world is it emphasizes the importance of asking questions. It emphasizes that sex and love are not just a feeling. I know that that was a dangerous thing for me growing up, people saying you'll just know it when it happens. And you know, when you're a kid and you grow up, you fall in love with somebody that you think treating you well, and it's actually an abusive relationship, which is unfortunately a situation that I found myself in, that can have not only consequences to like the person's mental health, but if this had turned into a really physically abusive relationship where I could have died, that's also something to think about.

It's not just words, it's not just you'll know it when you feel it. It's having ongoing discussions about what sex is, what consent is, starting that conversation as early as possible, because consent has lots of implications in other conversations. 

If you don't follow her, there's a really wonderful sex educator/fitness instructor/burlesque performer named Dr. Timaree Schmit. She is on Twitter @Timaree_Leigh. Timaree has shared really great examples of how you can teach kids about consent from an early age, like petting a dog, does the dog appear to like that you're petting them? And that's a safety thing. Like if you're trying to approach a dog and it looks like it's going to bite your hand off it’s probably a good indication that the dog does not want to be touched at this time. 

Teaching kids from a young age that boundaries exist. It's good to get permission before you go in for a hug. It's okay to say no for a hug. Even if it's a relative who loves you and knows you, you can still say, “not today.” Letting people know that their bodies have agency, that sex and consent are conversations. They're not in the movies where somebody starts ripping somebody's clothes off and then you're doing it. It's super sexy to talk about it beforehand. This is somebody who's done it. I say it to someone who's had conversations with close friends. But like, “We're going to be all alone tonight. What do you want to do to each other later?” Like, that's fun. It's like the foreplay is starting verbally. 

If you're with somebody who is non-speaking, because there are members of my community that are non-speaking people, that's not a challenge. That's an invitation to develop other ways of communicating, to say, “I want to talk about how I'm going to tear your clothes off and show you a great time later.” And you know, making sure that we're all on the same page and able to talk about that.

So yeah, it's a conversation and it's also, oh, I'm making sure that we're not talking about sex as like the binary of right or wrong. Rape is not sex. Abuse is not sex. Those are two entirely different things that are over here. They are crimes, they are illegal crimes. They are crimes against a person that just really upends their lives and takes a long time for them to get over. But talking about these things in a way that like, this is what this is, if you want more information about it, having a central resource or a place to go. I love Timaree’s presence on social media, because she talks about sex and sexuality in a very healthy, de-stigmatized way. Just acknowledging this is something that most people do, not everybody and it is healthy and acceptable and encouraged to talk about this stuff.

Because again, when you have a little kid that you're telling them, you'll just you'll know it when it happens and they don't recognize what abuse looks like or what unhealthy touching or unhealthy boundaries look like, that could literally put their lives in danger. 

The other thing I'll just say is getting on a quick soapbox, we need comprehensive sex education in schools because not every parent is going to want to talk about this with their kids. Not because they're bad people, but maybe they had a really upsetting experience when their parents tried to tell them about sex. And they're like, “I don't want that for my kid. I should not be the vessel that brings this information to them. I'm going to sign that permission slip that says, yes, my child should have access to this.”

We're also living in an exciting time because there are people on YouTube. I know YouTube has become a bit of a cesspool, but there are bright parts of YouTube where there are people releasing comprehensive LGBTQ plus friendly videos about sexual development and puberty and how to develop healthy ideas about consent and boundaries and stuff like that.

I think we're getting there; we're getting to the point where people are able to talk about sex in a way that the conversation doesn't get shut down. It doesn't become, why was she wearing that outfit? You know, all these harmful tropes about who has sex or who experienced a sexual violence. So, there's hope there.

But I think at the end of the day, just talk about it. It’s like my mom saying to my sister and I, “You don't have sex on the sidewalk”, which, I don't think that's the best place for me to be doing that, but it's also being mindful of who you're having that conversation with and this is where consent can help you.

If you're with somebody that you're becoming really close friends with, and that's something you want to discuss, just kind of broaching it in a gentle way. “It sounds like you're trying to tell me about sex. I'm definitely down to talking about that if you are, how about it?” And if they're like, “Actually I think we're still too new friends. I don't know you as well as I'd like to, can we stick a pin in that until a later time?” And you're like, “Great, let's talk about sports or something else.”

Consent conversations and being shame-free. I think that is the approach that's going to guide us in the right direction when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality.

David Dylan Thomas

Marta, thank you so much for being awesome!

Marta Rusek

Right back at you, buddy. Did you want to tap anything on to that? Like what you think is sex positive?

David Dylan Thomas

Oh, I mean, I think what really resonated with me when you were talking, is this notion that curiosity is sexy. We need to bring back curiosity to sexuality and that, that is as good a mode as any to explore and talk about sexuality in a positive way, because it's okay to be curious.

I think it's those moments of incuriosity that have caused harm. I think curiosity in all realms is a good thing, but I think in particular, because sex has become so weaponized and the perversions of it, not in a like perversion kink, but perversion, as in you're confusing sex for violence, or violence for sex, seem to stem from restricting curiosity and saying, “I don't want you to think about sex except in this one way. And if you think about it in any other way than that.”

So, I feel like, yes, let us indulge in curiosity. Let us lean into curiosity when we're talking about sex.

Marta Rusek

Right on, Dave.

David Dylan Thomas

That is the end of season one. I want to tell my listeners; I'm probably going to take the summer off and come back in the fall with another season.

But thank you all so much for listening. Marta, thank you for joining me for the finale.

Marta Rusek

My pleasure. Go out and have happy, safe, positive sex experiences everybody!

David Dylan Thomas

For “Lately, I've been thinking about…”, I’m David Dylan Thomas, and we'll see you in a few months!