Let’s Talk About Sex with Melissa Pennica
Show Notes
For as long as we can remember talking openly about sex has seemed like the least sexy thing you could do. Whether because of the stigma surrounding it, lack of honest and empowering education about it, or fear and shame experienced as a result of it, generation after generation we miss our opportunity to address it….until now.
In this episode we cover:
The Umbrella of Sex
Being Aware of Your Body
Arousal Non-concordance
Types of Sex Education
Keeping The Spark Alive
Transcript
Meredith Shirey (00:00):
I think it was a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about this and I said, listen, you know, you should do marry the person who your average sex is like a, "B" you know, marry "B" sex. Do not marry "A plus" sex because if it's "A plus" sex, it probably means, like you said, it's the the chaos and the other pieces that are probably not going to be good for a long-term relationship.
[Theme Music]
Meredith Shirey (00:28):
Hey, everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey, I'm a licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationship issues,
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:35):
And I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.
Meredith Shirey (00:36):
This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:43):
And the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me, or Leave Me.
Meredith Shirey (00:53):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I am so excited about today's episode. Not only because we're going to be talking about some issues related to my wheelhouse in talking about couples, but also because we have on the most incredible guest, I could not be more excited about this. I'm already kind of fan girl in a little bit. She is my work wife. She is the couples therapist that I have the greatest admiration for in the world. Um, I had the joy and privilege of getting to work with her for several years and getting to supervise her. And now she is just a rock star. And again, I could not admire her more, Melissa Pennica. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she specializes in sexual intimacy and attachment. So welcome, Melissa.
Melissa Pennica (01:38):
Thank you so, so much. I'm so excited to be here with you both.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:41):
And we're super excited to have you, Melissa. I know that Meredith does a lot of couples therapy and that you do that with a focus on sexual issues and sexual intimacy. Um, could you tell us a bit about what that means
Melissa Pennica (01:54):
When working with sexual intimacy and even just the curiosity that I have for myself getting into this field. I even got to the focus of sex therapy and sexual intimacy through my own curiosity about being able to talk about sexuality in a way that we don't have permission to in other spaces. And then being able to bring that kind of curiosity into the therapy room and really be able to witness some transformation for clients and their relationships has kept me in the specialty and what the specialty does is allow me to be a psychotherapist in the room with individuals and couples and allow them to explore their sexual worlds. And it's such a vast landscape really warms my heart. Being able to do this for clients, bring me into a really special part of their lives. Yeah. I'm just really grateful for it.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:43):
You know, it's interesting that you use the term vast landscape because I find when I talk to people, everybody will say they know what sex is, but then when you dig a little deeper, you find that everybody almost has like a really different definition of that. So from your professional perspective, what you say sex is, and what would you say sexual intimacy means?
Melissa Pennica (03:02):
How I kind of see it as almost if you can envision like a decision tree, that sex is at the top and everything else that somebody identifies as what sex means for them is below it. So I know this isn't super direct and like, this is exactly what sex is because I really think it's prioritizing the person's experience and what they deem is sexual to them. Because like finger touches can be sex, penetrative sex can be sex, talking intimately to a partner, it can be sex. So I really see it as like the big umbrella and then everything else.
Meredith Shirey (03:39):
I think a lot of us are given so many myths about sex, especially growing up. So like you said, experiences can be so varied. And I think the problem, especially in the United States is that we get some really, really conflicting messages about sexuality. And a lot of times we don't necessarily get the clarity on that. And we don't have a place that feels safe where you can be open about it because it's almost this taboo topic in some ways. And then also at the same time, it's like something that's so needed. And I think that it just creates so much confusion and causes people to not want to actually be verbal about it.
Melissa Pennica (04:14):
Yeah. And I'm also mindful too, like, as we all even start talking together and kind of going back to the landscape of, as we have our conversation where we're focusing because of where our sexual worlds are. So I want to be mindful too, of like the folks in this world who might not hear something that resonates for their sexual world and that they still deserve individualized care and mental health spaces. If they want to explore something that we're not talking about. But the other thing that I kind of wanted to introduce, and this might even be a good practice for all of us to do today, too, is as we're talking a big piece of sexual worlds is also about embodiment. So like our body's response to sex. And so I'd even encourage people as we are talking and having a conversation that they start to notice what's happening in their bodies. As we hit on certain topics, are we feeling uncomfortable? Are we feeling curious? Are we feeling aroused? Are we feeling like resistant? Because I think that when we're discussing sex therapy and sexual worlds and experiences, a lot of it also lives in our bodies.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:22):
Do you ever find that there's a conflict between those like a conflict between how you feel and like maybe mentally versus how your body feels and what are the possible results of that.
Melissa Pennica (05:33):
Arousal non-concordance? And that can mean that we are turned on from a mental space. We can be sitting on the couch with our partner being like, Oh my gosh, I really want to have sex right now, again, sex as the umbrella. And I'm so turned on and I want to reach for them. And then our genitals are not responding for people with penises that can mean that there's no erection for people with vaginas that can mean limited lubrication. And so our mind can be there. Our arousal cues may be more limited and a little bit more in the traumatic way can be the other way. Our mind can very much not be there, not wanting. And a lot of folks who have experienced sexual trauma could understand what this means and why it is so traumatizing because our mind is saying no, no, no, but then our genitals can respond in a way that signals arousal, but we are not, they're absolutely not.
Meredith Shirey (06:28):
You said a second ago, I wanted to go back to, cause it sounded like you were alluding to the LGBTQI population, which I know you're very, very experienced in. And I think that that's so important because we all have our own sexual education basically that we get from somewhere. And I think it's so limited and it excludes for the most part, anyone within the LGBT umbrella, what we're taught about sex usually includes like penetrative penis and vagina. And it's so limiting. If I'm given images that do not represent how I actually feel aroused most emotionally, or sexually, I would imagine that that probably causes a lot of confusion and shame and lots of other things.
Melissa Pennica (07:06):
Sex education that we can receive early on. And then also what we're exposed to is really heteronormative. We're really only seeing cisgender men, cisgender women having sex, or even deeming that as proper sex air-quotes.
Meredith Shirey (07:20):
So I grew up in the South, in the deep South where sex education was not a thing. We did abstinence training, which was done in conjunction with the local church. And basically it was that people would come in and try to terrify you about sex, right? So it's like sex is evil and awful and terrible. And you're either going to get pregnant or an STD and die, or you're going to ruin your marriage. But then once you get married, you're supposed to make this jump to it's going to be magical and connecting and beautiful and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's so many heteronormative gender issues there. And you know, a lot of patriarchal things, but also too just this idea that, okay, so at one point in your life, sex is supposed to be bad and awful and damaging and all of a sudden, a switch flips when you put a ring on your left hand and now it's good and great.
Meredith Shirey (08:08):
And you're supposed to do it all the time. I mean, that is not exactly an easy jump to make, one. Two, they even had these kids from like the local church who were called the abstinence team and they would come and do skits to illustrate for you how much sex would have a negative impact on your life. If you did it before marriage, the woman had like a Rose and it was supposed to represent her virginity. So one of them, she waits till her wedding night. She gives her perfect Rose to her husband. They live happily ever after and the other, she gives one pedal to this guy and then this guy takes a pedal. And so then they're like smacking this Rose around. So that by the time she gets to her wedding night, it's just as crumpled, little STEM, like half a leaf. And I remember even then it's like an 11 year old looking at that and being like, what in the world is this nonsense and feels really very conflicting and just not helpful being like 11. And so having no idea about sex, but something about that even said, this doesn't seem quite right. Think about how much exposure kids have these days to the internet and to pornography and all these other things. And how are we doing more or less damage?
Melissa Pennica (09:10):
I grew up in New York. I grew up on Long Island, very different geographically. So I received sex education through high school. However, my sex education was still about pregnancy STDs, STIs. Got pummeled with the images of what genitalia will look like if infected. And it was really taught to this is what you should not do, or this is what you should fear. And the issue with that is yes, while we want our bodies to be safe and we want to learn how to keep our bodies safe. We also don't get the messages about pleasure and consent, which feel like the biggest entities of sexuality.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (09:50):
I grew up in Manhattan. I grew up in the lower East side, which is like pretty much probably as liberal upbringing as you can have. I was steps away from, from 34th street, steps away from the village, and all of that. For me, it was my mom sitting me down at liked the age of 10 and being like, well, this is what the deal is. And it was kind of like ma it's enough already. Like I don't need to have these images in my head with good. Alright, I get it. You know? Um, but I guess, you know, to a certain extent that was a good thing, right. Or at least for me, but then when you bring it to, let's say a couple and the couple has, let's say these different experiences, maybe somebody has like my experience and then somebody else has Meredith experience. And they're in a couple. Well then, how do you reconcile that? Whereas somebody who may have been brought up one way versus somebody who's brought up another way.
Melissa Pennica (10:30):
I think the problems, right? Quote, unquote, problems that will exist are the narratives that come from the differences in backgrounds. So like the stories that we start to tell ourselves about who we are supposed to be sexually, who our partner is supposed to be sexually, how that is supposed to play out and the distress then that lives in between the information gap. And so in our couples work, really our goal Meredith feel free to add in here too, is to close the distress gap. And we do a lot by opening up that story, challenging the story, and really starting to shift some focus into what people want in their sexual worlds. And even if we didn't get that kind of education growing up, we still get a lot of sexual content in our world throughout life, from books, from movies, from our friends, so on and so forth. So we do start to develop like a sexual script of what am I curious about? What am I wanting?
Meredith Shirey (11:33):
When sex is an issue for the couple they're very aware of that it's an issue and they'll label it as an issue, but then when you actually go to talk about it, they get so uncomfortable. And so I think that's kind of what Isaiah was saying. Is that like, okay, if you've had basically been taught two different languages about sex growing up, then how in the world you want just make that magically fit together? Probably not. Right. But then too, when it becomes a problem and one person has learned the communication where the other person probably feels really shameful about bringing up any of the communication, you know, and that's the gap that gets created. How do we, how do we find that bridge? That can connects.
Melissa Pennica (12:13):
It is not our fault, right? As individuals that we don't know how to talk about this. In a lot of ways, society has failed us in not being able to have that kind of communication in ways that we really deserved. But also a piece of this is too is starting to build sexual menus, right? And sexual menus are any part of a client's world that they see as connecting, erotic, nothing is too vanilla, nothing is too kinky, kind of like hear it all throughout our life. Um, but similar to what I was saying before, I'll bring in and really normalize that sex is not penetrative sex, right only. But start to really build the script that sex can start from a conversation on a couch, laughing with your partner, holding hands while you're walking down the street, right? Like that is still sex. It's intimacy. If that's what people decide is erotic for them, right. When I'm holding my partner's hand and I started to hold their hand and I feel their fingers, we might get excited about how else they might touch us later on in the day.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:32):
Oh, that's interesting. That reminds me of, um, when Meredith spoke about, I think one of our first episodes, calling Bids for Connections, it sounds like a way to kind of connect with your partner. And I've always thought that, you know, part of the issue is with sex is that everybody kind of wants to do it and nobody really wants to talk about it. Right? And so me kind of sex in itself is its own form of communication. When you have a couple who has what they conceive to be a problem with sex, many times, the problem is also based in communication.
Melissa Pennica (14:01):
Sex can also just be an individual experience. And it might not mean relational distress. We can be in like our own stuff that can cause an impact, um, discrepancies and desire, and really like have us withdraw from partners. And so there are moments where there's that tandem relational distress equals sexual distress, but there's such a wide scope. It's so gray.
Meredith Shirey (14:29):
But something I see a lot too, is that if there's something in the sexual relationship that becomes distressing, then that can either turn into a relational distress or individual distress. So one of the things that I think is harmful for a lot of men, there's this idea that sex is performative and that I'm supposed to perform and that if I can't get or sustain an erection, that that means something me and the male and female are actually tend to be equally complicit in putting that pressure on, because if he doesn't get the erection, she thinks, okay, he doesn't desire me. He doesn't want me in this way, when that might not be the case. And that just creates such an anxiety sex doesn't necessarily just mean, you know, P and V. Right. And it can start so much more before that, because I think our limited view of saying that, okay, sex quote unquote has happened and was quote, unquote, good. If both people happen to, you know, have penetrative sex and reach orgasm at the same time when it's like, that is so limiting, how often does that happen? Like one person at a time, maybe, you know, it's, it's just unrealistic. And I think like if we could open our scheme a little bit too and take some of the pressure off right. To perform or to be something maybe, but actually allow people to enjoy and experience sex in a much more fulfilling, connecting way.
Melissa Pennica (15:41):
Orgasm does not mean that we're having the type of sex that we want to be having. It can just mean that our body is reaching a threshold in which orgasm does happen. It can be pleasurable. However, I think about people with vaginas and that they, you know, I'm going to let myself in there, like we can experience the most amount of pleasure from clitoral stimulation, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we achieve orgasm that way. I also like to ask the question of, are we enjoying the kind of sex over having, are we having the kind of sex that we want to be having, because it really does move it away from that performance-based model of, are we reaching orgasm that doesn't necessarily mean pleasure.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (16:20):
Sex changes or people's desires changes? You know, I read somewhere, once that a person on a molecular level changes like every seven years. So you have like a complete new person. What advice do you have for, let's say people who are in long-term relationships, maybe one person wants something different and how do they have those types of conversations?
Melissa Pennica (16:40):
When we're in relationship then in all different capacities, like people are fluid when we marry somebody or when we're in a relationship with somebody, their job might change. They might make a huge career shift and they start to hold a different identity, even in that way. And it's really similar in our sexual worlds to the sexual component of our life is another piece of our world, similar to our professional world or family worlds. And those can shifts over time. And so can our sexual worlds, our desires can change who we're attracted to can change. And yeah, there might be some tough conversations because of that. There can be feelings of betrayal that can come from different desires being spoken for, but at the same time, too, when we're in couples, where, when we have those conversations to focus on that humans are complex. And because we do shift over time, it's okay that people shift over time. But also we can understand that because we shift over time in different ways, it can lean to distress. And it's so normal for us to change us as humans in different capacities. And it's so understandable that that can be painful for another partner.
Meredith Shirey (17:50):
The result being that people either avoid the conversation because they want to avoid the distress or that they anticipate the conversation to be distressing. So it's, I'm not sure my partner would like what I have to say. So I don't want to have to open up that conversation because I don't want to hurt them. But then I actually ended up acting that hurt out usually in other ways, or that I'm holding onto the secret. In other ways.
Melissa Pennica (18:10):
So there's this concept of secrecy versus privacy. When we're with another partner when we're with multiple partners and we want to feel closeness, and we want to feel conduction, that doesn't necessarily mean that all, all things need to be shared all the time, right? We are still allowed to have our individual private worlds. However, secrecy is a different thing. How I conceptualize it secrecy in particular sex therapy and working with couples is the threshold that from privacy to secrecy, when you start to feel shame, when you start to withdraw, when you start to worry about what is going to happen when this is said, and that signals that there's starting to be an impact on your relationship and shame usually becomes a third person in that room. Or if there's already three people in the room and becomes four people in the room and so on and so forth, but it won't allow us to actually have the conversation that is, tell me what you want. Tell me why this interests you.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (19:10):
What advice do you have to people who are in these types of relationships and things tend to change. And, you know, you want to keep the spark alive.
Melissa Pennica (19:18):
I think keeping the spark alive is a really interesting concept. Hear that a lot from couples. Like we just want to be back to where we were when we first got together. Like we want to feel that spark. We want to feel that excitement. The difficulty of it is that when we're starting to get into a relationship with somebody, we get hit with a neuro-transmitter cocktail that is like love, closeness, excitement, thrill. And as we start to deepen our relationship with somebody, different kinds of hormones will present themselves. And we might move away from lust, which is like testosterone and estrogen pumping through our body. And we can move more into deep attachment safety security, which is so beautiful in some of my favorite components of a relationship to witness. But that is what might make it hard to keep the spark alive. We're not going to feel the same spark. So I think we're also allowed to create our own definition of what spark is and what makes us feel that spark, because spark for me is hearing. I'm so proud of you for my husband. That's sparked to me that hits on the, the good, good stuff for me. And it's very different from what spark felt like in our early relationship.
Meredith Shirey (20:34):
I love that. So it's moved almost from like a, I want you right now to, I'm so proud of you. And I think what I'm hearing you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, it's almost like they're both erotic, but in very different ways, for different reasons. And it's appropriate once you've hit a certain stage in your relationship to make that transition. So it's not that the spark goes away entirely. It's just, like you said, you create spark in a different way. You redefine what that is.
Melissa Pennica (21:00):
Absolutely. And I think the other piece of that spark narrative that I want to catch too, is sometimes we conflate spark with anxiety, dating chaos, also potentially like unhealthy patterns, huge volatile relationship, but we repair through sex and there's nothing inherently quote-unquote wrong with that. But I also just want to catch, even in this moment, what spark might mean to other people on that side of the spectrum as well?
Meredith Shirey (21:25):
I think it was a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about this and I said, listen, you know, you should do marry the person who your average sex is like a, "B" you know, marry "B" sex, do not marry "A plus" sex because if it's "A plus" sex, it probably means like you said, it's the chaos and the other pieces that are probably not going to be good for a long-term relationship.
Melissa Pennica (21:44):
I love that, and then also, you know, what I would love to add there is then you can use these kinds of conversations, or even your couples work and sex therapy to turn your "B" into a "B plus" during your "B plus" into an "A minus," and even start to build that together and know that it's not going to be an A-plus all the time. That's so normal.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (22:06):
I mean, can we not have it all? [Laughter]. Part of it and correct me if I'm wrong, you guys are the experts. I think part of it is growing together, right? You may start one way and end up in a different way, but so long as you guys are in the same place, then that's a good thing.
Melissa Pennica (22:24):
Something that I didn't touch on too much, and this could be like a podcast in and of itself is starting to expand our sexual framework as individuals in our relationship, what is our core wants? So what I'm going to want all the time, what's our won'ts. I will never want those, but also to create some space for wills, like I will try this. I will be interested in it. And that I think is really touching on what you're speaking to Isaiah of growing together, because one partners will, can turn into a want and they can match some partners won't might eventually become a well, and that could touch on the other partners want. And so you can really start to grow that sexual framework together.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (23:10):
So if you had one thing that you could tell our listeners in their sexual lives, if they're in a relationship or not, what would that be?
Melissa Pennica (23:18):
I want to credit the source for what I'm about to say, Zoya Simakhodskaya and Michael Moran. And they said "pleasure is the measure." So it really shifts our focus from that performance based let's race to the finish line, let's reach orgasm. That is the most important thing to any sort of pleasure that you receive both on your own and solo sex, because you deserve that as well. But also with partners with a partner that pleasure can the measure so that you can feel fulfilled because we deserve it. And so much of society tells us that we don't deserve it.
Meredith Shirey (23:51):
So, Melissa, I want to make sure that people have an outlet where they can reach out to you. So where can people find you if they want to know more, if they want to know more about possibly working with you and doing some of the sex therapy.
Melissa Pennica (24:02):
So I work at a private practice called Holding Hope MFT in New York city. They can reach me via email. I'm absolutely fine with that. I welcome if people want to work with me, but even if folks want to ask me what books I was referencing earlier at melissa@holdinghopemft.com. And I'm also on Instagram @SpousesOnCouches with an asterisk that it doesn't necessarily need to be spouses.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (24:34):
Thanks so much. And you know what I found so amazing about you is your energy, right. Even though we're doing this on Zoom, it's like, so relaxed and chill. And I think maybe if we took that, like if we took that tactic, you know, we'll be a little more positive. So I think that's my takeaway from this. Right. Just relax. Chill
Melissa Pennica (24:56):
Thank you so much. It's such a sweet compliment. I appreciate that so much Isaiah.
Rich Hackman [Producer] (25:10):
Love me, or Leave Me is a podcast production of the Bored Brand. This podcast is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnosis or treatment. Always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.
