Smart Sex, Smart Love with Dr Joe Kort

Lucie Fielding on sexual excitement and exploration

May 31, 2021 Dr Joe Kort Season 2 Episode 88
Smart Sex, Smart Love with Dr Joe Kort
Lucie Fielding on sexual excitement and exploration
Show Notes Transcript

Unfortunately, we live in a world of either/or, with us or against us, conservative or liberal, for gay rights or against gay rights. In a Smart Sex Smart Love podcast, Lucie Fielding, sex educator, writer and therapist, challenges binary in every way. Can society and social culture ever break out of the world of binary thinking? This mindset is changing too slowly despite the increasing visibility of trans and non-binary folx. We need to step away from white cis folx and monogamy and step into a really queer space, she says in the podcast. It is okay to challenge the norms. Biology does not determine destiny. It’s time to bring different energies, open up a whole new wheelhouse of “typical” sex, learn how to use your body for sexual pleasure in different ways, and create new possibilities that our culture has not previously allowed. Find your own landscape, she urges. 

Unknown Speaker  0:05  
Welcome to smart sex smart love. We're talking about sex goes beyond the taboos, and talking about love goes beyond the honeymoon. I'm Dr. Joe Cort. Thanks for tuning in.

Unknown Speaker  0:21  
Today we're going to be talking about trans sex. My guest today is sex educator and author Lucy fielding. She's also a friend. Lucy is a queer kinky, polyamorous non binary trans femme. She is a sex educator, writer and resident in counseling practicing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lucy received her master's in counseling psychology at Pacifica graduate institution and holds a PhD in French from Northern University, Northwestern University, where she specialized in 18th century literature, histories of sexualities and erotic literature. Her background in literature and history attune sir, to the many ways that image metaphor and cultural scripts shape and inform the narratives we carry with us as we move through the world, as well as how these narratives inscribe themselves on our bodies. Lucy is the author of transects clinical approaches to trans sexualities and erotic environment. embodiments. Welcome, Lucy.

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
Thank you so much, Joe. It's such a pleasure to be talking with you today. Thank you for having me on the pod.

Unknown Speaker  1:29  
Yes, I've missed you so much. For those of you that don't know that are listening. Lucy and I are colleagues and friends and we met at a sex therapy conference weekend. It was like a workshop and then became I thought fast friends and then went to another conference together and see each other conferences and I miss you since this whole pandemic.

Unknown Speaker  1:47  
I miss you too. I miss, you know, like galavanting and dinners and mischief making sure I can't wait for 2022

Unknown Speaker  1:56  
Me too. All right. Well, I'm so glad to have you on my show, especially at the time that your book is coming out. Although I haven't gotten mine yet. It's still on pre order.

Unknown Speaker  2:05  
Yeah, so it comes out officially on May 24. So, but I have just seen the final cover design, including the spine because I'm fastidious about such things. Like I'm somebody who likes to have their bookshelf, completely organized. And ideally by like, color and I wanted like the progress pride flag colors, you know, and so like I was very, very, you know, curious with with the press about whether or not like, you know, what would the spine look like? Will it be eye catching? So, yes, but that so that's all in I turned in final proofs yesterday, so, so it's going to the printers now.

Unknown Speaker  2:55  
Awesome, congratulations. Well, let's let's get right into talking about transects clinical approaches to trans sexualities and erotic embodiments. What motivated you to write your book?

Unknown Speaker  3:07  
Well, I think when I looked at the landscape of you know, what was out there, there, there's certainly some a lot of really great community based resources. You know, such as Mirabelle weathers, Xen, fucking trans women, the transect scene, there's going to be a trans kink scene. And then there were, you know, a lot of pages like on Tumblr, there's some sub reddits. But what I didn't see was any kind of material for providers that I mean providers as expansively as possible to include not just mental health providers, and medical providers, but also to think of, you know, the other folks that trans non binary gender expansive folks may work with at the intersection of gender and sexuality, and may even prefer to work with, apart from a medical or mental health provider. So like ancestral healers, or pelvic floor pts, or professional dominance. And so and that is a reflection of the fact that so much of my own exploration of gender and sexuality really moved through more movement and coaching and an image and less through traditional talk therapy. So, you know, one of the things that really bugged me was that like I would open up books, you know, fabulous books for the last five to 10 years and sex education. And I would see, you know, basically an apology and disclaimer, in the introduction that's like, this book is written specifically for sis women. While I would love to be talking about trans folks, there's not enough research. And I always thought that that was a cop out. I really, because I didn't want to see any more this need to extrapolate from sis experiencing, I wanted to build something from a Trans and Queer place from the ground up, and to really enter, and what I mean from a Trans and Queer place. What I mean to is that I, of course, like I am trained within certain modalities, Western modalities of sitting with, but I also recognize that it's everything that we talk about with respect to gender, and sex and sexualities has been inflected by structures, such as settler colonialism and white supremacy, and massagin. A, and patriarchy. And so I wanted as best as possible to, you know, unsettle those practices and what, what is it to step out of what white sis folks in Western and Central Europe and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries? How can we step out of that, and come at it from a really clear place.

Unknown Speaker  7:00  
And that's what I like about you. I just feel like as people are listening, I know all of what you're talking about, because I know you and I've studied these things, and or at least been introduced to these things. And I think sometimes some of these words you're using will go over people's heads to some of the listeners. But if I could just say it, in my words, and you tell me if I'm wrong, but I know about you, because we went to a conference together. And at the end, we were like, Where the fuck is sexuality here? You know, like, we're learning about trans sexual functioning, but what about sex and kink and fetish and just the, you know, positions and enjoyment and pleasure parts of your bodies. And I remember your frustration, and I remember this day, it was almost like a movie, watching a movie, watching an actor go, I'm going to take care of this. This is this is what this is going to be something I'd take care of. And you did with your book, when and when you talk about, maybe you could expand a little on ancestry, I think you mean, like just family of origin and where people come from, in that sense, physiological sexuality, and then just sexuality and eroticism in general. That's the three parts of your book, is that right?

Unknown Speaker  8:00  
So at what I would say, when I when I talk about, like, ancestral practices, or when I talk about lineage, or as I say, in the book, you know, that queer lineage is queer futurity. I'm talking I'm talking about certainly, our families of origins are, are the cultures in which we move and how, and how, you know, we each are, I say this to my clients all the time, you are someone's legacy. So, you know, we are our bodies because of dynamics of intergenerational trauma, but also intergenerational resilience. We have in our we hold in our bodies, the experiences of being colonized, of having ancestors that were ripped away from their families from their cultures, and moved vs. For example, the transatlantic slave trade, or, or, you know, that as a, as a Jewish fan, having folks in my lineage who experienced diaspora and experienced the Holocaust. And so, you know, dynamics like that, but also the idea of that we are participating in this sweep of struggle, that is particularly queer, and, and that is very, that has to be also intersectional. So, the idea that, like, I am in lineage that in my lineage are folks who thought threw bricks and bled and fucked and agitated and advocated so that I could inhabit my own skin. As Jordi Rosenberg writes, and the confessions of the fox habit, our own skin, that's what you know. And so I am their legacy. And I hold both that trauma, and also their means of resilience, they have given me the tools through their wisdom in my body. And so one of the things that I really wanted to tap into in my book is, what is that wisdom? How can we tap into? How can we see that we are not, you know, alone, and that we don't have to fall into the particular models that have been prescribed to us? By sis folks, by sis hat, folks, by white folks, by, you know, by colonizers. So instead, how, like, for example, as my colleague, Sam Chang writes, you know, like, instead of saying, like, Oh, so you want to be a man? What kind of band Do you want to be? Like, screw what the screw with the available models are? What is man to you? What is masculinity to you? What are what are your stories of masculinity? And what are the stories that you want to write about masculinity, and about how that lives in your body? How feminine the lives in your body, like, and breaking apart these kind of roles that say, you know, for example, like in a kink context, that, you know, like, dominance can only be tops, and they can't bottom, you know, for example, you know, that's, that's bullshit, you know, you can be a dominant who bottoms you can be a submissive, who tops. And it's, it's, it's all about the intention and the energy, and there's nothing that is related there, to gender or to genitalia, or, you know, to what, to being enough or to being too much.

Unknown Speaker  12:22  
Yeah, I love your you're like, challenging the binary everywhere, like in every intersectional identity, you're challenging the binary I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Because does does it serve us? Or who does it serve? Right? It certainly doesn't serve me. And that's not to say that there aren't that I don't have dear ones in my life or clients in my life, who who are very attached to, to certain emanations of the gender binary, or, but that is, it's like with monogamy and polyamory, for example, like, you know, it's, by all means, like being polyamorous doesn't make you more enlightened, for example, it just means that you probably have given more thought, to what your relationship structures are. And so in the same way, like, I want monogamous folks, to, you know, like, be monogamous, by all means, but reflect on what monogamy means to you. And how does that live in your relationship in your relationship agreement in your body? And in your relational body? And so, and same thing goes with, like, with gender, with sex with sexualities? It's, it's our stories from right. And, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  13:53  
so I was gonna ask you, but I think you're already answering that you had said that cisgender folks have a great deal to learn from Trans and Queer folks. You're kind of saying that, right, like challenging the scripts that you've been given? And know that you don't have to express it in the way that you were taught?

Unknown Speaker  14:09  
Well, exactly. I mean, for example, like, um, you know, you and I know, the DSM, five, largely inside and out, we know, you know, like, the process through which, you know, things get inserted or taken out. You know, and, and there's a section of the DSM five, that's all about the sexual dysfunctions. And, you know, and I think about that, like, what does that word sexual function and its antonym sexual dysfunction? What does that mean? What does that set up what is proper functioning? And generally what that means is that it implies genital sex, it implies penetrative sex. implies it implies genitals and bodies working in particular socially and culturally scripted ways at particular time. So like rockhard, Cox, wet placees, you know, and you know, and one is receptive one is, you know, one is active, you know, and you know, and so, like, what and desire is supposed to look particular ways and feel particular ways. And what happens, like, for example, if we take something like a reptile dysfunction, something that is very much a construction of pharmacology, you know, the, the, you know, to sell, like, Cialis and and, and viagara. And when they emerged and, and the suit, like, why do you have to have a rock hard penis to have a good time, like the nerve endings are still there? And so, like, what does that do to somebody? Who is using their? Who, who has a penis or who has a vulva? You know, and, and we're some or, you know, whatever configuration of genitalia they have, what they want? And what does it say that like, that that kind of biology does not determine destiny? Yes. Of what of how it's used. You can select Yeah, no, God, no, well, and what does that do? To you know, a person who's like agonizing about like, I can't get it up? Like, okay, fine. Like, let's figure out like, all sorts of other ways that we can interact with your, with that part, with with your penis? Or what other ways can we interact with other body parts? bring different energies and intentions? And how does that open up the realm of what sex and pleasure and desire can be? You taught me this?

Unknown Speaker  17:19  
I got this from you. And I started to use it with trans clients, and really, with all clients, sort of getting away from the typical, you're right, the the wet posi the hard Well, don't they say wet as pussy now? Isn't that the song I think everyone loves. And then the hard cock. And instead of how do you use your body for pleasure, what parts of your body are used for pleasure, what aren't used for pleasure, so to getting away from people being anxious about the belief that there's some way that you have to be to be sexual, I loved

Unknown Speaker  17:49  
it. Exactly. And like, the leather community, for example, already, you know, has this in the concept of like, leather, sex, for example, like the idea that, like, we can experience sensation, and pleasure and eroticism, through many different parts of the body, and many different activities that have nothing to do with our genitals or with like, p IV or PA, sex. So, you know, like, you know, I challenge anyone to like, you know, sit, when we can do this, again, we can go to play parties, again, dungeons again, you know, like, sit for sit with a blue, black. And, you know, by the way, tip your booth blacks, and, and, you know, like that is the right experience, whether you're doing the leather care, or your leather is being cared for. I challenge you not to kind of to get off from that. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  18:54  
Which is great. So you're creating visibility of things and possibilities for people that aren't there now that they can't give to themselves in the our culture certainly isn't giving them that?

Unknown Speaker  19:04  
Absolutely, absolutely not. No, because, you know, and what is the investment in that? Who is, is continually being uplifted, more centered in the conversations, which kinds of bodies are being viewed as the ideal or the norm? And it's, it's certainly not, you know, like, it's, it's not fat bodies. It's not disabled bodies, it's not trans bodies. It's not queer bodies. It's not bipoc bodies for the most part, you know, like, and this view of what sex and our bodies and our sexual bodies are eroticism can be breaks at all open. And it gives us the possibility of being in the world in a different way embodying different things.

Unknown Speaker  19:59  
And what What else would you like people to know about your work? And the book that we haven't addressed that you think is, this is a big takeaway that I kind of hope people take?

Unknown Speaker  20:11  
I think it's really that that that you are entitled to pleasure, you're entitled to your desires. And there is so much your body is infinitely expandable. And I write this all the time, you know, that our bodies are magically multi orgasmic polymorphically perverse playgrounds of wonder, and, and that, and what is it to approach our bodies, our partner's bodies, from that beginner's mind, from that place of excitement and exploration? And, and that I'm not going to impose something on your body? That's what I really would love folks to take away. And I mean, that, you know, providers and community members, sis folks and trans folks, queer folks and straight folks, I, I want folks to embrace that there's so much possibility, and that it doesn't have to look or feel the way that like Hollywood would like us to look and feel like, have you ever had sex on the beach, like the sand gets everywhere? Like, it's not fun, it looks great. But like, you know, like, what if you experience eroticism, and lean majestically into the awkwardness of at the central landscape, that is all of the smells, and sounds and the messiness of it all. And that you know, like, have a good time, giggle, chortle, and laugh.

Unknown Speaker  22:06  
I think what's most important about your work so much, and hope the listeners listening to this podcast can hear all the nuances in the different things you teach, but it's about pleasure. And that's something that in our field, as mental health providers don't talk enough about, and in our culture, overall pleasure is often seen as, Oh, be careful, don't eat too much. Don't drink too much, don't have too much sex, don't have too much fun, be careful. And it sort of takes away the pleasure it doesn't it?

Unknown Speaker  22:34  
Absolutely. And it's, it's what is productive for society, you know, like, the whole field of positive psychology is is like, is steeped in that is the idea that, like, pleasure is only to be understood as something that is useful makes you a useful, productive citizen. Yeah. You know, not on, you know, like, what feels yummy. What is, you know, and pleasure, so many times get subsumed under the rubric of orgasm, or function, or performance. And if you just throw all that away, and just like, have a good time.

Unknown Speaker  23:16  
I love it. That's the most important. One of the most important things you teach Lucy, where can people find you on the internet and get your book and all that?

Unknown Speaker  23:24  
Well, my website, Lucy fielding.com. I am on all the social medias usually some variation of Lucy fielding. So my Instagram is at Lucy fielding, Lucy IE, and, and then you can always preorder or order my book through your local independent booksellers, or through Routledge itself. And if you look on my Instagram, or if you look at my website, or my social media, I have a discount code for ordering the book. Lastly, you can always find me at trainings and workshops. I'll be giving a pre conference workshop at a sec this year, and I'm really excited for that. So you know, come and check it out and join the conversation and create mischief together.

Unknown Speaker  24:27  
I'm looking forward to doing that with you. Thank you, Lucy so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you. Yeah. And those of you who've been listening, I hope you'll keep tuning in. You can hear more of my podcasts at smart sex smart love.com and you can also follow me on Twitter, tik tok, Instagram, and Facebook. Just go to at Dr. Joe court. That's Jo e k o r t. Thanks for listening and until next time. Thanks for listening. This episode of smart sex smart love. I'm Dr. Joe Cort. You can find me on Joe court.com. That's jekrt.com See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai