Sex, Sexuality and Queerness

Questioning your sexuality, narratives around disclosing and coming out, physiological responses to abuse... regardless of whether you define as queer, these are all incredibly important narratives that affect many people who were sexually abused as children. But what are some additional barriers and experiences which particularly relate to queer people? Join Sophia (she/her) and Irish psychotherapist Dr Ray O'Neill (he/him) as they discuss.

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DISCLAIMER:

We know that there are many dimensions to queerness, sex and sexuality, which Sophia and Ray's lived experiences alone do not cover. This particular episode is geared around gay, cis-male experiences.  To broaden this narrative, our listening club for this episode is co-hosted by trans and non-binary facilitators, Lou (they/them) and Elijas (they/them) as well as queer people of colour, Bava (she/her). We hope to record some more perspectives on this in future episodes. 

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Wolfenden Report (mentioned by Ray), which recommends that: "homosexual acts between two consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence" 

Transcript

00:00:04:13 - 00:00:08:10
Sophia
Their sexuality was questioned a lot during the time of their abuse.

00:00:09:06 - 00:00:17:08
Ray
So if you went to the police, you would be in trouble because you had been in this act, even though it was perpetrated against your consent.

00:00:17:24 - 00:00:23:17
Sophia
You know, when people are like “when was your first time the first time or your first sexual encounter”, I just...I was like... it can't be that.

00:00:24:14 - 00:00:29:22
Ray
Penises are very important things (!). I was going to say penises are big things but you know thats a loaded statement

00:00:30:09 - 00:00:45:07
Sophia
Welcome to Secrets Worth Sharing, a series all about having conversations about child sexual abuse in a better, more supportive way. And today, the episode is all about sex, sexuality and queerness. I’m, a designer, and also a survivor of child sexual abuse.

00:00:45:11 - 00:01:00:11
Ray
My name is Dr. Ray O'Neill. I am a psychoanalyst in private practice, but I also work as an assistant professor in psychotherapy with Dublin City University in Ireland. We're here to have some serious conversations, but with bounds of joy.

00:01:00:12 - 00:01:08:09
Sophia
One final note. There's a couple of words that we use in the episode that might be new to some of you. So, Ray, do you want to just sum up for us?

00:01:08:10 - 00:01:29:01
Ray
Yeah, just I suppose the notion of being cis gendered, which again, is that where someone identifies in the gender, or is identified in the gender that they were given at birth - because not everybody stays in a gender through their life. So just be aware that cisgender would be the majority experience where this is what I was marked on my birth cert,

00:01:29:01 - 00:01:56:14
Ray
this is the gender I still have as against people who have a more gender fluid identity. Queerness is just a celebration of people with alternate sexualities, and because there seems to be more categories, than letters in the alphabet, we just find queerness a very useful term to kind of sum up the variety of experiences, and it's a key part of an intersectional experience that can happen around childhood sexual abuse.

00:01:57:19 - 00:02:18:03
Sophia
A lot of people I know who are survivors, their sexuality was questioned a lot during the time of their abuse. There’s someone I know who is a lesbian and she said to me, “I actually was abused really early on by male members of my family. And that made me think, ooh, when I was coming out, a small part of me for I want to be gay because this thing happened to me.”

00:02:18:03 - 00:02:26:21
Sophia
And that has been a dialogue that was very much carried over a lot of her life. I wonder if this has come up a lot of time for your patients...clients? what we calling them?

00:02:26:21 - 00:02:49:09
Ray
I would say clients, clients. But no, I think that's a really, really important, that kind of piece around queerness because when you're heterosexual, you don't ask yourself, why did I become heterosexual? So one of the things I did come out already as a psychoanalyst and I know Freud gets a very hard time, but what I loved about Freud is 120 years ago he asked what makes people straight.

00:02:49:17 - 00:03:12:12
Ray
He normalized the heterosexual journey. And just said, Actually, it's just as much a question why people become straight as to why people become queer or gay. But when it comes to, I suppose, everything in life, particularly with a complication with, you know, an intervention in your psychical, physical experience, your sexuality, it's like “I wonder if”, you know, “did I eat so much Weet-A-Bix?

00:03:12:12 - 00:03:24:18
Ray
Is that what made me gay?” We're always looking for some kind of pathological reason that “made me wrong” rather than kind of going, “There is nothing wrong here. It's just a journey. Another journey.”

00:03:24:24 - 00:03:32:07
Sophia
Yeah. Could you, like, give us a little bit more about how these have translated into conversations related with child sexual abuse?

00:03:32:09 - 00:03:58:05
Ray
I think like, like with the example that you gave there of the gay friend of yours, I think there is that sense like if the perpetrator was male and it's that sense. I did this ruin male sexuality for a gay woman or for a woman. And therefore, the only people that I can trust are women. And I think that's a really important question to tease out, not because it's right, but because it's such a really good question to ask.

00:03:58:14 - 00:04:23:00
Ray
I think for gay men, it's more complicated because for the gay woman in that story, it's like, “this was horrible. So I vowed never to go near the horrible-ness again. And so women were my only option.” Like, again, it's a myth. It's a story. All of us have stories about ourselves. But for a gay child or a gay teenager or gay adult who was sexually abused as a kid by another man, it's like, “why would I go back to the horrible space?”

00:04:23:00 - 00:04:47:01
Ray
And it is just because the gender is the same. It becomes kind of triggering or becomes on settling, or it becomes a site of reenactment or a site of resistance, or indeed a lot of people - for many reasons - would, you know, men who had experience childhood sexual abuse at the hands of another man would vow off men. And so would try to be straight or potentially marry -again that there's layers to this.

00:04:47:17 - 00:04:52:08
Ray
And that's why I think that intersectional piece is so different across generations.

00:04:52:17 - 00:05:01:06
Sophia
Yeah. And especially I imagine as well in the Irish context, it's very different as well, especially when we talk about legal status of being gay.

00:05:01:07 - 00:05:29:00
Ray
So with the Wolfenden Report, homosexuality became legal in Britain in, I think 1967, if I have it right.? But in Ireland, because we inherited the British legal system, decriminalizing homosexuality, wasn't high on our list of things to do. So it wasn't until 1993 that male homosexuality was decriminalized in Ireland. So there's just a huge legacy. A lot of it's got to do with the Catholic Church, a lot of it's got to do with just a traditional overhang.

00:05:29:00 - 00:05:49:02
Ray
Now Ireland is an incredibly great place, or so much more improved place, for queer people, for lesbians and gays, than it was before. It's amazing. Like, I'm so proud of how Ireland has grown. It really gives me hope. But as I say, those those legacy things continue. The past is still the past, and it does cast a shadow.

00:05:49:04 - 00:05:56:14
Sophia
I imagine if there's also a layer of the fact that you have a sexuality that is criminalized, that makes disclosing even harder.

00:05:56:15 - 00:06:17:17
Ray
It was the sexual act is the crime. So it's not necessarily being gay. And, you know, listening to Madonna, though, that might be another crime. It certainly wasn't a crime of it's of its time. Yeah. So if you went to the police, you would be in trouble because you had been in this act, even though it was perpetrated against your consent, you would somehow be complicit.

00:06:17:17 - 00:06:39:15
Ray
And then obviously if the other person, you know, said, no, no, you - or - alluded to some kind of consent, and I suppose this would be a very loaded issue for somebody disclosing historical sexual abuse or for teenagers. We just did not have the language. Again, when I started working in this field in the 1990s, the rape crisis centers in Ireland with the best of intentions had no concept of how to manage a male caller.

00:06:39:16 - 00:06:48:05
Ray
So the presumption would have been if a man phoned into a rape crisis center, which would have been the only places you potentially could have gone, it was like, “well, why is he prank calling us.”

00:06:48:05 - 00:06:50:12
Sophia
Not to put you on the pressure with the stats and that...

00:06:51:12 - 00:06:51:21
Ray
But

00:06:51:22 - 00:06:56:16
Sophia
Do you know of like how this translated into convictions?

00:06:56:16 - 00:07:15:16
Ray
Oh, very, very low. Very, very low. So I wouldn't actually have the statistic on it. But as is kind of universal, there's I suppose, first of all, having some awareness that what happened to you was wrong, but that's just the first leap to get. Then the second thing is to actually disclose, to kind of share to somebody else, you know, that what you experienced was wrong.

00:07:15:16 - 00:07:36:21
Ray
And then for somebody else, a family or a friend or indeed a professional to name that as, you know, a crime, not just being wrong, not just something that hurt, but something that is illegal. And then if you go to to the police, is there enough evidence in which this can and with historical abuse, this is always the challenge.

00:07:36:21 - 00:07:45:03
Ray
And so things are a little bit better and but still very, very low presenting to courts and obviously very, very low successful outcomes.

00:07:45:21 - 00:07:56:02
Sophia
Yeah, there's so many it sounds like there's so many additional barriers that you have to go through. No wonder the outcome is quite different as well, isn't it?

00:07:56:02 - 00:08:16:17
Ray
And I think particularly when it comes to men who have experienced childhood sexual abuse because the grooming is such an integral part of the process. And this is where it isn't just the physical act, or acts, that happen to you, it's the how you become complacent are told that you're complicit in what happens, that somehow you wanted it.

00:08:16:17 - 00:08:43:02
Ray
And if you're a heterosexual man who has experienced childhood sexual abuse, that's grooming kind of really muddies, if not complicates, if not devastates the waters. Because it's like, how could I have gone along with that or have allowed that to continue to happen? Yeah, but it's like all forms of of kind of psychological abuse, if only on the first date, a violent, abusive partner hit you, you kind of go and stay well clear.

00:08:43:12 - 00:09:03:07
Ray
But there are weeks, months, sometimes years of foundations to undermine your self-esteem so that by the time they actually hit you, you've already surrendered so much of yourself, so much of your self-esteem, self-worth into this relationship.

00:09:03:07 - 00:09:20:06
Sophia
I remember one of the times that we spoke, you said something that had never crossed my mind before. And it was about - because with a lot of men, there's penises involved and erections, that can also be used as part of the grooming. It never crossed my mind before.

00:09:20:19 - 00:09:40:17
Ray
Yeah, because we live in such misogynistic, patriarchal culture when it comes to sexuality and penises are a very important thing, I was going to say penises are big things. But, you know, that’s a loaded statement in itself to say and so penises are such a signifier. An erect,penis is a sign that sexuality is happening and that is like the sign of sexuality.

00:09:41:03 - 00:10:05:11
Ray
And so if a person, a male child or teenager or indeed adult is being kind of groomed, has been seduced, there is a biological physiological erection that can happen. And that is just the body responding to certain kinds of touch. And that really, really complicates and many ways can often be the site of the trauma. It's like, why is my body doing this?

00:10:05:22 - 00:10:30:24
Ray
And then the abuser will very often use that as evidence that you must have wanted it. Or that “you got the erection first. I was just rubbing your shoulders. I was just squeezing your bum. I was just rubbing your leg.” And so this really very manipulative evidence that you must have wanted it. And again, if you're a heterosexual child or teenager, this happens to you just like it's so confusing.

00:10:30:24 - 00:10:52:10
Ray
And really limits who you can say this too, because you're not going to go round surfing as an Irish teenager and kind of go, “Oh, this happened to me, I got an erection”. Everyone will kind of go, “Well then you're gay, fuck off, queer.” Or if you're gay, you like again that embedded homophobia that l all of us have internalized within us, just kind of says, :But you must have wanted this.”

00:10:52:20 - 00:11:27:23
Ray
“You like, men, you've known this for a long time”. And so it's those extra pieces of intersectionality that I just think are so, so important. Because we spoke about the erections and I got so a sign of arousal, so you must be into it. But again, if you have a very clever abuser and most abusers are very, very clever because they're highly manipulative and they hide in plain sight within families and within systems, they will absolutely do their best to make sure that the young boy and our teenager ejaculates.

00:11:28:06 - 00:11:48:00
Ray
Because then you have proof of that. Not only was there pleasure, but there was enjoyment because the ejaculation is literally the money shot in our pornified sexual culture. It is proof that you enjoyed yourself instead of it is evidence that the body has a physiological response.

00:11:48:10 - 00:12:05:24
Sophia
I know a lot of people, myself included, who were like, “I had two sexual experience a a child that I didn't want. I don't want that to be the first one that I think about”. You know, when people like, “Oh, when was your first time we have a sexual encounter?” I just was like, “Oh, I can't be that like, quick, let me make another one.”

00:12:05:24 - 00:12:32:04
Ray
Yeah, Again, I really value saying that because like in terms of a reframe of a question, it's like, you know, what was your earliest sexual experience or, you know, what age did you lose your virginity at? Like, depending on how you define virginity, which is a whole mess in itself, patriarchally informed, I would say like, you know, “what was one of your favorite early sexual encounters or experiences” or “who was the person you enjoyed kissing most?”

00:12:32:13 - 00:12:51:06
Ray
I love talking about kissing not only because I am quite a kiss addict, but it's just a great way of introducing sexuality. Without getting genitally focused, we can move into the genitals because usually if someone was a good kisser, the statistical odds are other parts of their body might know how to move in time with yours as well.

00:12:51:12 - 00:13:04:09
Ray
So kissing to me is always a great way of introducing a conversation about sexuality that hopefully is a little bit more opening and potentially a little less triggering.

00:13:04:09 - 00:13:27:03
Sophia
I remember a story of when I first got confronted about what he did to me, and the first thing he said before he even acknowledged my situation at all was “I grew up in a boarding school and I used to get really heavily abused by the teachers, the male teachers there. And I just for a really long time thought that I might be gay”, like this was him aying this to his wife, is “I thought for a really long time that I might be gay.”

00:13:27:06 - 00:13:49:24
Sophia
“And so when I abused Sophia, it also came from feelings of, you know, that I thought I might be gay and and that's how that was coming out and manifesting itself.” And it's honestly almost laughable because sexuality in a lot of families isn't talked about a lot as well. Or anything beyond the heteronormative. I just remember getting so angry because I was like, “Why are you trying to bring a whole dimension into this that has nothing to do with me?”

00:13:49:24 - 00:13:56:13
Sophia
But again, feeling quite confused because I was also like” this is your experience as well”. I still don't know how to feel about it. I don't know how to process it.

00:13:56:20 - 00:14:11:08
Ray
No. And even though it's funny, I had such a guttural reaction when you when you said that, of like this anger when you hear it - look you know, I'd love to be a bigger, better person, but, you know, I still get caught up in a lot of hurt and a lot of anger on behalf of so many people.

00:14:11:08 - 00:14:28:10
Ray
Of course, having worked in this field for over 30 years, and particularly, it wasn't common for men full stop to work in this fields, particularly gay men to work in this field. But when people were just saying, Oh, no, I only did it because I was struggling with my homosexuality, and you're just like and “so we got these lines blurred again.”

00:14:28:10 - 00:14:50:03
Ray
And it's just like, why don't you just be honest and just say something like, “I was, you know, too cowardly to address. And so I found an innocent victim that I could silence to explore my same sex attraction or questions with. But I very deliberately picked someone who couldn't speak up for themselves, who wasn't strong enough, and who couldn't say no.”

00:14:50:06 - 00:15:05:00
Ray
Yeah, like you go down whatever to a gay bar or you go down to, you know, the toilet and go cottaging or you go down to the quays and meet someone. Yeah, that's a bit risky because they might fucking thump you back.But an eight year old boy or a 14 year old boy is less likely to do that.

00:15:05:00 - 00:15:13:17
Ray
So I'm not going to feel sympathy because you played it very, very well for yourself. And that has huge impact on other people.

00:15:14:04 - 00:15:34:12
Sophia
And it's also about that kind of trope of distraction as well. It it's like, “oh, let me try and think of something that is also historically controversial and then just completely divert your attention onto that.” And I definitely felt that that had happened in the case of my abuser, in that all of a sudden members of the family were thinking, Oh, so you thought you thought you were gay, so then you had your own.

00:15:35:01 - 00:15:57:12
Sophia
And then obviously that's a whole nother set of questions for another day, but yeah, it just... don’t wanna use the word manipulated. But in a lot of cases it is, it's like, a lot of abuses who have been ‘successful’ in almost getting away of it for so long have done because there's a lot of steps you have to put in place and then when you finally get caught or questions it's like, “oh, quick, divert the attention again, because that tactic has worked for them time and time again.”

00:15:57:12 - 00:15:58:05
Sophia
And I think like it.

00:15:58:05 - 00:16:18:09
Ray
You used the word manipulative. I think that's a very important word to use. Even in its lowest, It's just lazy. That is lazy reasoning that it's just too easy to say. And actually it doesn't help you. But you're probably not interested in helping yourself. Mr. Perpetrator or Ms. perpetrator if needs be. Or perpetrator person.

00:16:18:12 - 00:16:22:04
Sophia
Gender neutral perpetrator person.

00:16:22:04 - 00:16:51:04
Ray
It's just like, you know, it has impact. And that's just like, first of all, be with what happened. Take responsibility and then when, because that will really help the person, if they're interested, that you've hurt. Then we can get to your story. I'm very conscious of this sex addiction discourse, again, being some kind of trump card that just says, “sorry, I you know, I was pinching all those women's asses at work and I did sexually assault that woman in the lift.

00:16:51:04 - 00:17:10:02
Ray
But I suffer from sex addiction. I get that. It's layered, but it's just like, take a ticket. We're going to go to the person you hurt first before we deal with you. That's like a drink driver. Kind of going “my car's damaged” and you're like, “Yeah, but those kids in front of the car, we're going to attend to them first if that's okay with you.”

00:17:10:04 - 00:17:34:08
Sophia
I often get hit with the question “Pedophilia is an illness. The person can't help who they're attracted to.” And my personal response to that is, “okay, I don't know enough about that. I'm sure they can't help who they're attracted to to an extent. But there's a difference between having that and actively doing nothing, as opposed to actively finding these spaces where you can take advantage and actually do something.”

00:17:34:09 - 00:17:42:17
Sophia
We kind of forget a lot of the time in that discourse that the person actively chose to do that damage.

00:17:42:17 - 00:17:50:00
Ray
We always talk about the fart moment in a couple like where you fart in front of someone you know for the first time and it's just like “that was bit stinky.”

00:17:50:00 - 00:17:50:16
Sophia
I’ve never heard of that.

00:17:51:11 - 00:18:15:24
Ray
The fart moment. It's always like that little, you know. Yeah. Line. And on the other side of the fart moments, there is a certain intimacy. It's just like, you know, if someone's farting too much, obviously that's another issue. We probably need to look at diets, but it's just I suppose when we let ourselves be human with someone, the body look, the body fast, the wrinkles, the no hair, the aging, the mortality, the humanity, the vulnerability.

00:18:15:24 - 00:18:38:18
Ray
They are all connected. But usually within a relationship where there is historical abuse known. Both people are anxious around how to have this conversation. And the thing is, like every valuable conversation, just try to have it and you're already two thirds of the way there. “I don't know how to ask you this. I don't even know if it's appropriate to ask you this.

00:18:39:07 - 00:18:58:12
Ray
But you had mentioned before about, you know, a negative sexual experience or sexual assault or being raped or childhood sexual abuse. Can I ask you something about this? Because I love you and I don't want to hurt you.” And what people don't realize is sometimes not having the conversation hurts people more.

00:18:59:01 - 00:19:22:24
Sophia
I'm so glad you raised that, because I've almost like I've disclosed to every partner I've ever been with. That's not that many people by the way. It's not that surprising, you know, every single time it ended up being for the better. And a lot of the time they've ended up saying to me, “I'm so glad that you bought this conversation because part of me wanted to, but I wasn't sure.”

00:19:23:06 - 00:19:35:14
Sophia
And I think half of this battle is taking that onus off of the people that have had the experience and at least starting to be bought up by the people who haven’t or who want to support the person in a different way.

00:19:35:17 - 00:19:54:00
Ray
How to have a difficult conversation is, first of all, to name it as your difficulty. Don't say that this is a difficult thing to talk about because sometimes it may not be a difficult thing to talk about. Sometimes people have kind of integrated or accepted or have a piece -and realize it's just a piece of them. For other people,

00:19:54:00 - 00:20:20:07
Ray
It is front and center and it's huge but it’s just saying “I have a difficulty. I'm uncomfortable, I don't know. But I care about you as a friend, as a family member, as a partner, as a lover. And I just want to check in with you” and straight away, literally everything opens up in terms of the possibility. Now, oftentimes the other person says “thanks” or might a little bit - because they've never had that openness with somebody opening up to them.

00:20:20:14 - 00:20:46:08
Ray
And oftentimes it could be a thanks, but no thanks. But they will come back because you have allowed this to happen. This conversation should happen. So the great thing all the time is just like,” I don't know how to have this conversation with you, but if you'd like to, I'd like to when you're ready. “Obviously, we're talking disclosure within a childhood sexual abuse context, but we all have things to disclose.

00:20:46:19 - 00:21:15:11
Ray
We all have these either very, very real or, you know, you know, imagined anxieties around our appearance, around ex's, around ambitions, dreams ... what we want for Christmas. And it's just like there is an intimacy that opens with sharing something deeply personal. Yeah. And this is where so much of our dating and our sexual culture has lost that intimacy of sharing.

00:21:16:11 - 00:21:30:19
Sophia
I also wanted to ask you, have you noticed any parallels with, I guess, coming out culture? Is that the right word? Or like disclosing your sexuality? Have you noticed any parallels between that and disclosing about child sexual abuse?

00:21:31:00 - 00:21:50:04
Ray
For so many different reasons, coming out was such a challenge, not least of all, because you were telling people about news. Like the Ireland I came out to, you know, in the in the late eighties and early nineties, it wasn't like there wasn't like “yay! party pride flags.” It was just like you literally have brought shame on the family.

00:21:50:04 - 00:22:09:16
Ray
You are just you are sinful. You are you need to leave the country. I remember really struggling with the whole idea, like, is it better to be a dead child or to be a gay child like they were the two options. And so hopefully I believe it is a better scenario, certainly a less horrific scenario for younger people now.

00:22:09:16 - 00:22:33:12
Ray
I suppose that's the similarity. You're disclosing something that feels like or you've been told is going to be a negative. Certainly historically, disclosing around childhood sexual abuse could potentially get you some kind of sympathy or some kind of allowance or some kind of measure of the water before you might do the coming out piece around being gay or about being lesbian.

00:22:33:12 - 00:23:02:16
Ray
It's just like testing the water with a piece of very scary information, both of which could land you in trouble. But the first one you had no say in as the second one you have some say in it. Like that's the kind of thinking of it. So I know a lot of people who have shared around their sexuality or have come out may have told the first piece around having been sexually abused or sexually assaulted or childhood sexual ...as some kind of “what can I say?”

00:23:02:16 - 00:23:34:17
Ray
Who who are you in my life, whether that's a family member or whether that's a friend or an intimate person. But perhaps that is different now. I hope what is huge made coming out conversations and discourse is so different for a lot of younger people in the Western world is that our society and responsible adults are much more open to the conversation, to television shows where lesbian and gay characters do exist, and so children and teenagers can see something and can talk about it and their parents can talk about it.

00:23:35:01 - 00:23:50:17
Ray
And so a lot of children, as part of their journey through adolescence and indeed childhood, is asking questions about their gender or asking questions about “who I fancy or what does it mean to do fancy someone” and just taking time and space.

00:23:50:18 - 00:24:08:20
Sophia
I... I'm engaged to a cis man. I've never had to come out. But for a long time when I was talking about disclosing what happened to me, I used to use the language “coming out”. I think again, because there wasn't even a word for how you tell someone you've been sexually abused as a child. Right. And it was actually only when I went to the conference

00:24:08:20 - 00:24:26:17
Sophia
What I realized “ah people are quite commonly using the word disclosure.” So then I start to use the word disclosure because there's been no conversations about this and because we don't have the language to talk about child sexual abuse. It got to the point where I was like, “I don't even have a language or a series of words I could use to even say that I've told anyone.”

00:24:26:17 - 00:24:39:09
Sophia
And then what I ended up doing was using the language of another community and saying “Oh, I came out recently about this. And then people were like, ”Well, Congrats!”, you know what I mean? “Yeah, but it was also because I was abused as a kid.”

00:24:39:09 - 00:25:02:05
Ray
You know, I have no issue with people using, you know, whatever the queer discourse of coming out. I think there's so many different types of disclosures and identities that we come out. We take what was private or what was a secret or what was stuck inside, and we share that with the outside world as a way of extending intimacy, trust, friendship.

00:25:02:05 - 00:25:39:12
Ray
So any level of disclosure, of sharing that comes out, I'm all about it doesn't have to be monopolized around questions of sexuality. There is such a privilege in someone choosing to meet you. That's the commonplace. In Ireland, there's just such an endemic alcohol abuse culture and I don't find it a coincidence that we have the highest statistics of alcohol abuse in Europe and I think certainly in the top three in the world, as well as having the highest statistics of sexual abuse in Europe.

00:25:39:23 - 00:26:02:16
Ray
I think those two things go hand in hand because literally alcohol is such an easy way to get out of it. And drug use again, just offers such an easy window to get out of it. You're not going to judge because definitely people in glass houses shouldn't get stoned. The piece is - Does it bring you into an experience or does it take you out of an experience?

00:26:02:16 - 00:26:24:23
Ray
Does it bring you into yourself or does it take you away from yourself and just be mindful if it takes you away from yourself, What are you stepping away from? Because I really do celebrate a sexuality that's enjoyed by both people or more people being present to that sexuality and to each as well.

00:26:24:24 - 00:26:28:14
Sophia
I'm sure there's going to be a lot to edit down from our lovely chat.

00:26:28:14 - 00:26:31:13
Ray
I do talk. I do talk a lot, but that's the Irish of me.

00:26:32:13 - 00:26:33:09
Sophia
You're bringing out the Irish in me as well.

00:26:33:09 - 00:26:34:04
Ray
I know.

00:26:35:05 - 00:26:51:22
Sophia
Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. We've had a really fruitful conversation and and again, like I just hope with at the end of every episode, I just highlight if you can just bring this up that you've watched this or heard this to one person, you will be amazed at the kind of stories and conversations you might have from it.

00:26:52:23 - 00:27:02:12
Sophia
Anything that we've mentioned, any reports we've flagged, any support networks we flagged will always be at the bottom of our episode in the captions. And we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.

00:27:02:16 - 00:27:03:09
Ray
Thanks so much.

00:27:04:23 - 00:27:23:06
Sophia