Confronting Fear in the Lifestyle

Transcript

Speaker1: good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are i hope you have blue skies and please tell a friend about this podcast welcome to that other lifestyle podcast i am your host jason take a listen and let's leave vanilla behind let's talk about heavy topic today pull the curtain back on our collective and shared in the lifestyle. Find that raw nerve of exposed emotions and kick it. We all have fears when we start. We all have fears we continue to hold on even after we join the lifestyle. And I need to tell you, we all have fears that are perfectly normal and valid. For a conversation so powerful today, I am listening to Abby Kaplan as I write out this script just trying to feel some good vibes. I need to drop a trigger warning in here. I will be talking about sexual assault later. Flat out is going to come up. I want to respect my audience and warn everybody ahead of time. Talking about these topics will, I will get heavy and intense today, but they are real and they needed to be talked about. Want to dip your toes into the lifestyle? You can find a link to sign up for a trial account of SDC on my website thatotherlifestyle.com. Please note this podcast is intended only for adults. It is not safe for work. We will talk about adult or sexual topics and I will use salty language often. This content is for entertainment purposes only and again only for those over 18 years of age. I also try to be as inclusive with my language and terms as I can, as y'all know. It can be challenging to formulate and write and say all the inclusive terms in every instance. For simplicity's sake and time management, I may use terms like husband or wife or partner or spouse for the purpose of the narrative I'm sharing. This podcast is for everyone though, no matter your background, gender identity, gender expression, or whatever truth you may be living. Everyone is welcome no matter how you personally experience a lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy. This episode is about fear. Fear is one of the primal emotions we all have hardwired into our lizard brains. Fight or flight or freeze response is way deep in time. You have experienced fear, either running through a haunted house or on a roller coaster or watching a horror movie. That is good fear. That is controlled. You're intentionally experiencing that emotion in a controlled manner because you want to. But what about uncontrolled fears? The fears that linger in our brains, keeping us up at night at 3 a.am. How do you deal with those? Defensive? Postal? Denial? I would like to say that the lifestyle is all sunshine and roses, but it is not. There are intense emotions that this hobby can elicit in us. Very intense. One of those intense emotions is fear. We fear judgment, loss, being left out. We fear physical, emotional, and mental situations that may or may not even happen. And we all share them. We all have them, no matter how long you've been in the lifestyle. I know you're afraid of something. The shadow of a thought existing right outside the light of your logical mind. Talking about our fears in the lifestyle is hard because we are an insular community. If you're having mental health issues specifically expressing a concern that is escalating into a fear, a debilitating fear, around a possible scenario, it is hard to reach out to vanilla friends or family because they don't get it. We live by different rules than the vanilla world. Telling your best friend that you have a fear that you're inadequate in bed when playing with another couple, that might not go over too well. Telling your mom that you fear swinging may impact your marriage, that's just begging for a lecture. If you're having trouble and you want to seek professional help, which I totally encourage everyone to do, there are options. Everyone needs therapy to an extent, and there's absolutely no shame in seeing a professional. I'm not a therapist. I tell you that every week. This episode will be more of a validation exercise for you versus straight-up counseling. I want you to know that, yes, you are valid. Yes, other people have these concerns. You are not alone in having these fears. I may be able to offer some surface-level advice, but I am not a replacement for a trained professional that can help you with your unique situation. And believe me, every situation is unique. If you do need help, I suggest you look at psychologytoday.com, all one word. You can find a mental health specialist in your area. Be sure to look for one who is certified or experienced with ethical non-monogamy. There is a specialization that mental health professionals can get dedicated to E&M and by extension the lifestyle. This means you can find someone to talk to who is familiar with what we do and the way we do it. Fears manifest in wild and varied ways. They could come out as insecurity or anxiety or anger or passion or confusion, a whole spectrum of emotions flowing from one source, fear. There are a lot of fears in the lifestyle and this list is so not comprehensive at all. And again, everyone is unique in their lifestyle journey. I want you to know that the emotions you feel and we can have convoluted emotions in the lifestyle are okay. Maybe by listing them out, this will help give you some clarity on what you're feeling and help you understand the causes and how to start dealing with them. I'm going to bucketize these fears into three categories to make it easier to organize them, but there is certainly a lot of overlap. Talking about physical, mental, and emotional fears. So physical fears in the lifestyle, what the hell does that mean? It is a fear that is based on your physical person or nature or need for physical security. To everyone, not just men, throwing out a wide net for this. If you have medical concerns like your pecker is not working or your hormones are changing, go talk to a doctor. It's's easy i'm going to pick on penis having individuals here but ladies you can totally go talk to a doctor too the two people you should always be honest with are your spouse and your doctor men penis having people i know there is a fear of being unable to perform that when the time comes our dicks are just not going to function Our stalwart little lifelong friend who has gotten erect so many times in our lives will fail us. This is normal. It is normal to have these thoughts and normal for little Jimmy to be bashful sometimes. There are certainly ways to mitigate this. If it is a physical reaction, go talk to a urologist. Viagra, the little blue pills, Cialis, all that stuff can help. And no, you are not too manly to take Viagra. Drop the ego bullshit. I can binge 400 pounds and I will use that pill as insurance in a heartbeat. And a urologist can help you figure out if there are any physical conditions that could keep you from performing. Sliding the physical ability to gain an erection to the side though, there is a mental aspect that I, to be honest with you, is never talked about enough and one of my missions in life with this podcast is to normalize the conversation about male performance. You have a naked woman in front of you or whatever you're into and your anxiety kicks in. What if I'm not big enough? What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't make her have an orgasm? Stop it. This person or whoever thinks highly enough of you to share their physical person with you. You already did the hard part, man. You climbed the mountain. You did the flirting. You were in. Now enjoy the ride. Communicate if you need to. Slow down. Relax. It can be hard in the moment to say, hey, I need a few minutes of making out and cuddling before I can get going. That's okay to ask. Most people will understand and they're going to be on board. Take your time. There is no rush. This is not a race to see who can orgasm first. Sit in the moment and enjoy it. Another physical fear, source of anxiety we all have, is around our bodies. The vanilla world tells us that we have to look a certain way. Every single man has to be six feet tall and have a six-pack, and every woman has to have a violent waist and big old titties and a big old ass. No one can possibly live up to the imaginary standards of fashion and physical appearance that Hollywood, advertising, and those corporate devils attempt to make us match. We are not clay that can be molded into new physical forms every five years as trends and tastes change. For us in the lifestyle, I will tell you this once and many times, you are okay. The way you look right now, totally fine. If you want to change your appearance, do it. You want to stay the same, do it. No matter what you weigh, or if you got cellulite or a dad bod, you are okay and you can be accepted. Any person in the lifestyle who puts too much emphasis on physical appearance, is their choice totally fine just like it's your choice not to interact with them we are so much more than our physical bodies yes people will be attracted to you initially based on physical appearance i can't change that some couples only want to have sexy time with hwpproportional couples. That's their choice. If a couple chooses not to interact with you based on your physical appearance, you don't need them anyway, man. We are all allowed to have our own preferences in the lifestyle. I respect that. You are fully empowered to not interact with couples that don't match your preferences. It's okay. You have control in this dynamic just as much as the other couple. You have the ultimate control because you can walk away. Within the realm of physical fears, there's also a consideration for STIs, sexually transmitted infections, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, HIV, that sort of thing. These are real and deserve your attention and caution. I cannot in good conscience tell you that you should not be afraid of catching an STI. You should be. It is a healthy fear though that everyone should have. That fear should motivate you. Use it to your advantage. Regular testing and consistent use of protection go a long way in preventing STIs. Use that fear to force you to have uncomfortable conversations with other people and other couples as you're vetting them. It is better to make them uncomfortable than for you to catch something. This falls on the whole lifestyle community to collectively mitigate the risk by making regular testing and protection part of everybody's standard operating procedures. Yes, there are couples who will forego condoms and they're even going to forego testing. And when you do talk to a couple about their testing status and protection protocol, a little bit is you're taking that on blind faith. You are trusting that the other couple is being honest with how they approach sex. It's a scary thing if you think about it too much. The best course of action is to take care of yourself. With regards to STIs, you have to be selfish. You have to take care of you and your partner first and foremost. If you start asking questions about another couple and you don't like their answers, you need to walk away. Take care of you and your spouse's physical health. Finally, under the physical umbrella of fears, there is the fear of physical violence. It's real. This is a hard one to talk about because it is so damn real. It happens. I wish it didn't. Sexual violence is real. Women primarily, but men too, are victims every day of sexual violence around the world. I would like to believe in the lifestyle that we are better than this, that this is not an issue, but I can certainly see it being an issue. I know there is a man listening to this thinking right now, no way anyone would ever put a hand on my wife. I will fight them naked through a hotel hallway. I bet you will. Here's the rub though. It takes one second, one brief moment for a fist to fly or a slap or something bad to happen. And if you're on the other side of the room doing your thing, how would you know? To expand this further, I put surprise choking or any act that violates physical boundaries that a couple have established prior to sexy time, including surprise anal or getting too rough. I don't know why choking is so fucking popular. Stop it. If a woman wants to be choked during sex, she's going to tell you ahead of time. Don't surprise her with it. Or men, don't surprise men either. Don't surprise them. Trying to be balanced here with my messages. There is always a threat of physical violence, however small, especially if like a dude can't get hard and he gets angry about it. There's always a threat of violence when a woman suddenly decides she doesn't like the idea of her partner with someone else. This shit is real, y'all. I wish it wasn't, but it is. And going down the rabbit hole even further, it is possible for certain sex acts or phrases to trigger someone's childhood trauma or sexual assault, maybe a location or a smell or a position like holding them down. These are all acts that can and will elicit fear in another person. We don't want to do that. I want to share this. You may not think this is an issue, but I know there's at least one person out there who this is an issue for, and I'm sharing it. The phrase good girl, as in, oh, you're such a good girl, or good girls do this, whatever, any variation of that, good girl. Don't say that. Yes, there is a segment of people out there that are aroused by this phrase, either saying it or hearing it. There's also a segment that can be so triggered by this phrase. It is better to err on the side of caution and avoid it unless the woman specifically says, I want to hear this, right? If a person sets a boundary with you, do not push it. There may be some really deep reasons they do not like a position or a phrase or being held down or being restrained or something. Respect the guidelines they are setting because by pushing or not abiding by their request, you may inadvertently, albeit accidentally, cause a terrible reaction in them. Sexual assault trauma can be triggered by physical acts or words, but it's also a mental fear, fear of reliving or re-experiencing a negative experience from the past, which leads us into the mental fears, the things that are rattling around in our brain as we go through the lifestyle. Again, this ain't to diagnose anyone. Maybe help start a conversation? Yeah. I want everyone to know the point of this episode is to tell you that I recognize these fears and other people recognize this. Other people recognize these fears as legitimate and you are not alone. Ascent. Someone's cologne could be enough to subconsciously trigger anxiety in another person. The man wearing that cologne has no fucking idea what's going on or what this is causing in your brain at that moment, they're not responsible for your past pain. I know it's hard to see past that though. It's hard to wrap your head around that moment and separate yourself from that anxiety. One of the most anxiety-inducing, fear-inducing possible scenarios out there is the fear of being outed or FOBO. I'm quoting that acronym for future use. It is a real and a valid fear because if you are outed, what might happen? You could lose your job. Your spouse could lose their job. You lose standing in the community. You might get called into your pastor's office at church. You might have to go in front of the whole congregation at church to divulge your sins.