Valentin: Everybody can create those conversations. Everybody can create those spaces to start talking about sex, talking about what we like, or not giving each other feedback. Everybody's gonna have a better time and get laid better if there's communication around it.

Fernanda: Hi everyone. Welcome to Polycurious. I am Fernanda and in this episode I chat with Valentin, known as "Awake and Sexy", on Instagram. Valentin is an intimacy coach based in Brooklyn. In this conversation, we talk about how Valentin's own struggles with anxiety led him to delve into several mindfulness techniques and eventually leave his corporate job to start "Awake and Sexy".

In our conversation, Valentin shares his own non-monogamous journey and gives us great advice around how to communicate desires. We also have a very interesting discussion around don't ask, don't tell polices, and more generally around how much to share with one's partners about other relationships. We talk about some of the tools that Valentin has explored, like Neotantra MDMA therapy, and we briefly touch on Internal Family Systems. So if you are interested in learning more about any of these, don't hesitate to reach out to Valentin. I have, of course, included his contact in the show notes, as well as some additional resources related to topics discussed today.

I think this conversation will be helpful to people who struggle with mental health and intimacy, which nowadays is basically everyone. So without further ado, here's my interview with Valentin.

F: Hi Valentin. Welcome. I'm so excited to have you. We've both been in the community for a while, and when I started following you on Instagram, I realized that you had so much to say and so many interesting topics. So I'm very, very excited to finally dive in.

V: First, thanks for inviting me and thanks for that opportunity to share on your podcast. And also thank you for what you just said. I already feel seen and acknowledged. I'm an intimacy coach based in Brooklyn, and I help people with relationships, intimacy, and reconnect with all of the parts of themselves and connect better with the people around them, whether those are partners, lovers, or more. And I'm from France, originally came to the US for a very academic thing, like a PhD, then worked in the private sector for a while and didn't like any of that. And through some personal things that happened, ended up where I'm at today as a coach, as someone who talks about communication, consent, mental health, intentional relationship design in general, whether that's polyamory, monogamy, however you want it, but like the idea of building what you want. And yeah, I'm very excited to be here.

F: Amazing. Can you maybe share where you were at in your life when you decided to make that transition? Tell us more about, like, what kind of job you had back in France?

V: I went to engineering schools. I moved to New York for my PhD in my early twenties. We almost had the ten year marks in New York. Like, I arrived in New York in August 2012 for my PhD. So in August I'll be a New Yorker, and it was a PhD in Economics, which is a story in itself, but realized academia wasn't for me and started struggling with mental health during that PhD, so early twenties, went into management consulting after that for a year and a half. And then in January of 2020 is when I decided to quit my job and finally start doing my own thing.

And that was actually the result of both my mental health and personal journeys over the previous five years. The main thing that drove me to be where I'm at today is struggles with mental health around intimacy, specifically.

And when I was in my early twenties, I started having so, like, about a year or two into my PhD and into being in New York, I started having, like, anxiety attacks in romantic relationships that would be triggered by the presence of my girlfriend at the time. And I just couldn't understand those anxiety attacks. And, you know, when you're stressed about an exam, you know you're stressed because of the exam. Like, it makes sense. And here I could tell the anxiety was coming from being in the same room as my girlfriend, but I had no idea why. And so I was struggling with, like, those recurring anxiety crises that led to a huge depression and that kept on happening and kept on being worse, partner after partner, like the following person I dated, it started happening three months in instead of six months in. And then it would kept getting worse until when I would get coffee with someone I found cute, I would start getting this anxiety in the background.

F: So it wasn't really about the person?

V: No, definitely not. As I learned, as it kept happening, it's just about the situation. And indirectly it might also be about who you end up gravitating towards and things like that. And some parts of you thinking that might not be the right person for you, I'm not sure. I still don't know fully. But nonetheless, for sure, it was like a PTSD like symptom triggered by having deeper intimacy with someone. Basically, I would go from infatuation to anxiety attacks. The period where you feel like your partner is kind of your roommate or your friend, and you have periods of platonic intimacy and nourishment in other ways I didn't have access to. That's when I would start getting the anxiety.

F: I just want to make a quick note about the anxiety you were feeling, because when I talk about it with Seth, my partner, who has had anxiety for years, I mean, he's, like, learned to manage it. But whenever he feels that way, I'm like: "What did I do wrong? What happened at work?" I always, like, people tend to think that it works like other emotions, that it's like there's a trigger that made you feel mad or whatever. But the thing with anxiety is he always tells me nothing happened. It just randomly comes out of nowhere, you know, and you don't know why. When you were experienced that anxiety with your partners, it wasn't because they did something or because there was something wrong about the relationship.

It was just like, you worked together, but then it would just come out of nowhere, and you wouldn't know why. Must have been very difficult.

V: It was.

F: And not knowing where it comes from and not finding a solution.

V: It was. And on top, when the trigger is your partner, like you were saying, when your partner is anxious, you're already internalizing that a little bit where you're like: "What's happening? Why? What can I do to help?" Now, when the partner happens to be the trigger, it's even harder for them not to internalize that something's wrong, because they're like: "Every time you see me, you get anxious". And even if they believe that you're authentic in what you say, they still think underneath, knowing: "It must be my fault. You're just not aware about how". And so it leads to self doubt on their end. So it's been really challenging for most people I've got very close to in the last few years. Yeah. And that was very challenging. And all that happened during my PhD and toward the end of my PhD, so 2017, I discovered around the same time and independently, Mindfulness and Neotantra.

So using sexuality for the purpose of potentially psychological healing. And so Mindfulness I got into on my own. In Neotantra I got into it because a lover of mine was curious about it for her home healing and coming from a very scientific background, I was just like: "What is this?" It's something. Can I swear and be graphic on this podcast?

F: Yeah, of course.

V: Yeah. I was like, it's something invented by creepy old men who want to finger naive young women and for the purpose of healing and all of that.

F: Right.

V: But then I, because she wanted to explore that, I went with her, and I saw those practices change people overnight sometimes, which for me, having struggled with my own mental health and talk therapy, never had, never helped. Medications were very scary to me, so I never went there. I was very afraid of dependency or relying on that forever. I saw, yeah, an actual experiential practice being so powerful for someone and for me, receiving it. It was also the first time that I had the doors of perception opening up and, like, memories coming back and strong emotions from long time ago coming back and things like that. And at that time, I had never done psychedelics. I didn't have a point of reference. I had never heard of altered states of consciousness. So I thought everything that I was experiencing there and witnessing was specifically about sexuality and Tantra.

F: Yeah. Before we continue.

V: Yeah, please. Sorry.

F: Can, you know, as we like to say in my Burning Man camp: "Don't be sorry, be sexy".

V: I can do both.

F: Yeah. Why don't you describe for someone who's like, you know, doesn't know anything about Tantra, what a session would look like? Because you mentioned that you went with your girlfriend to those sessions. Right. So how are those sessions?

V: So a tantric session is a ritualized massage in which you have a giver and a receiver, and it's a container that's created only for the receiver. It's like if I'm the giver and someone else is a receiver, I hold space for them. It's all about them and being fully present. And that massage is actually a full body massage, including sexual touch. Through that massage and through entering that sexual space, what tends to happen is the person receiving the massage, being in that vulnerable sexual space, being held so fully, and their body being touched and simulated in certain ways, they get into an altered state of consciousness, and deeper memories might come back up, and they come up in a container in which you have the feeling of being fully held.

And hopefully you have trust in whoever is doing that message with you. And that can be a profoundly healing experience. No matter what your genders are, no matter what your genitals are, you can give or receive tantric massage. Anyone could have any role, provided everybody involves is on board. And kind of jumping ahead a little bit to what I do today in IFS (Internal Family Systems) which is a therapy approach that I use with my clients in my coaching. The way we conceptualize that is to say, if you had an event that was traumatic, there's a part of you, part of your psyche that's probably stuck there still and buried.

So it's pushed away from awareness because it's something you couldn't process back then. So other parts, protective layers, are pushing it aside. What healing is, is recovering that part of you and bringing it back into the present and doing that from a place of love, awareness, and compassion. Sometimes for those parts, just reconnecting with them internally is enough, and they're willing to come up. Sometimes they need some form of do over or redo. And so for some people, having beautiful sexual experiences that are somehow reminiscent of traumatic events happens to do that organically. I would not encourage people to actively seek something that looked like it unless they feel curious about it.

F: So when you went to that session, was it you and your partner?

V: So the first time I did it, yeah, we went to a workshop. So they teach you how to do it, and then they send you home with homework.

F: Oh, I see. So you were doing it on each other.

V: Exactly. That's how I entered that space.

F: Yeah. Because what I know is touching and are released normally at the end. Although supposedly that's not.

V: They might be or not.

F: That's not the goal, right?

V: In theory, it's never the goal, but it's also welcome. Like, the way I like to talk about it is it can be anywhere from a very pleasant spas session. So pleasure is welcome. It could be only about pleasure or about resourcing yourself. The same way you would actually get a regular massage or the same way you would actually get a yeah, treat yourself today at the spa. So it's a continuum between that and a therapy session because you have those peripheral experience. And Neotantra didn't help me understand why I had this anxiety. But it was my first time of having an experience of some modality that was allowing me to go inside that way. And so that gave me hope nonetheless. And I got curious about. Led me to my first experiences of openness. Because with that lover at the time, we went to a Tantra teacher training, and we learned also to give and receive sessions to other people, which was excruciating for me at the time. It was my first experiences of having the idea of someone I'm close to playing with I mean, playing, it wasn't playing because it's that.

F: Yeah. Well, in that case, giving therapy.

V: But, like, nonetheless.

F: Nonetheless sexual, sexually making someone else come.

V: And in hindsight, I was not a h*** yes to it, but I just didn't even know that the distress I was feeling was okay to express. I wasn't willing and ready to own it back then. And in some ways, it's still something I struggle with today. So I discovered all those modalities, Neotentra, Mindfulness, and through Neotantra. So, first experiences of openness. And I'm realizing, oh, this is really fun. And I'm starting to own that I had desires and fantasies that I wasn't expressing, I didn't thought were okay.

Whether that's having sex with multiple people at the same time, with everybody knowing about it, or literally at the same time going to play parties and things like that, I was like: "Yeah, I want to try those things. I want to see what it's like". I actually ended up moving to Hacienda in New York, in Brooklyn, Bushwick, not too far from here, which is a sex positive community that throws workshops and parties and things like that. So I moved there, and through my time there, I got really deep into the sex positive world, whether that's parties, workshops. I started learning a lot about consent, and learning about consent in a sexual realm first, because it's a very important thing in play parties for them to be a safer space. So there's consent speech, and consent is really a big value of the sex positive scene and learning. So, like, deepen.

On the one hand, I was owning more and more of my desires and realizing that it's okay to want and do all those things. And by the way, all the people who want and do all those things, they come from all walk of life, all ages. You have your own stigma and judgment of what that might look like. And then you go on the other side, and you're just like: "Oh, I already knew you from here and there. And actually, oh, you guys are all, okay, cool, right?"

F: So what made you decide to move there? Because you said you felt really uncomfortable when you were having those tantric experiences.

V: So initially, what was very painful was the idea of my partner doing that with others. The idea of me doing that with others was attractive.

F: Oh, I see.

V: And one of the reasons I had limited that so much until then was one fear of rejection. I had so many stigma, so much stigma internalized about what those practices were. I didn't even have the words for them, but so much stigma around that I wasn't allowing myself to own that. And also, I was aware that it would be really hard for me to the idea of a partner or a girlfriend being with other people. And so there was this reciprocity thing in my head, which was like, if I can't allow them to do it, then I don't know why, I don't see why I would be allowed to. Right?

F: Yeah. So you were like, I want to work on myself to get to a place.

V: I mean, I didn't even think it was possible back then, like, that's the point. I thought, I'm someone who's jealous, therefore I will never be able to go there. That was my thought five years ago. And for everybody who's listening, we can all change a lot.

F: Yes. I mean, if you want to, and it's fine if you don't want to, for sure. But, yeah, I mean, that topic I find so fascinating. Like, how one can acknowledge that one has those desires and that might not take away from your partner, but then when your partner does, it can be, like, so threatening and you're not okay with that.

You know, it's so interesting, like, that duality, because, like, it does help when you experience it to be more empathetic towards your partner, for sure. But also, you still feel jealousy, even though in your head you're like: "Oh, but there's no reason why my partner should feel jealous". I can't really, like, speak from experience because my partner so far is monogamous and I'm non-monogamous. A part of me would like to think that I won't feel that way, but I know that jealousy is such a common thing that I would probably experience. And even though I don't think that there's any reason why he should feel jealous.

V: Yeah. It's just because different parts of you get activated in those different situations, right? When you're sexually attracted to someone else, it's very clear to you that this has nothing to do with the love that you have for your partners or the care that you have for your partner. And you still, I'm assuming, want to build a life with him and all of that, right? And so the intellectual part of you is like: "He has no reason to feel jealous". But when you're on the other side of that, when someone you're involved with gets involved with someone else and whether that's a hug, a trip, sexual, it doesn't even matter what it is, right?

We're talking about sexual openness here. But jealousy can arise for anything. It might activate young, wounded parts of you who are terrified of being abandoned. And that's what happens. And sometimes activate those. And that's the case for me, for instance, like, my form of jealousy is very much like, I feel insecure, I feel abandoned, I feel frozen.

F: Like: "This person is going to leave me?"

V: It already feels like they are when it comes up. And for some other people, it might activate actually more defensive layers, more protective layers. You get angry, you get controlling, you get possessive. And those are just protective layers of the same type of deeper wounds, in my opinion. And this insecurity and fear of abandonment. I would start having that when my lover would hug another guy. Like, that's when it would start. And, yeah, and I have love of tenderness for my past self around that today. I came a long way, but yeah, like, very strong feelings of distress, abandonment, insecurities, when any sign of my partner connecting with someone else.

And one of the reasons why I got curious about polyamory was for myself being like: "Well, maybe I have desires that I'm repressing because I have that fear, because I have those insecurities. And maybe if I start experimenting with ways of relating where I don't need to repress anything, because everything could be on the table all the time" was a form of experiment for myself as well, seeing: "Okay, does this help with the mental health?" It was definitely helping with helping me embrace my desires, but I was like, maybe that will also help on that side. And it did in many ways, went to play parties, got into kink, got into conscious sexuality, and also got into polyamory, initially casually.

It was very clear to me, and I was very open with everybody I was seeing that. I didn't know whether that was for me for the long run at that time. And I was more on the casual side of things. And then I met someone who was married and started catching feelings for her.

And she had been with her husband for close to ten years. And so that was the first time that I was encountering someone else in relationship arrangement that was clearly sustainable. They had been together for ten years. She had had another partner for, I can't remember, four or five years. So that wasn't about getting laid a lot or sleeping around. It was really about building long, loving, meaningful connections with more than one person at a time. And I started catching feeling for her. And I learned so much about the way she was communicating, about what she was able to offer or not.

For instance, such clarity on agreements and boundaries. I realized: "Oh, if I want to keep pursuing and nourishing those feelings and if I'm completely okay with her being married and being with someone else" which I was, it was triggering some insecurities occasionally, but, like, nothing big, I was like: "Oh, wow, okay. This is actually something that can work for the long term". And through her also, I learned so much about what openness is, how it can be done. Well, in a way that's caring and kind, with a lot of communication and openness to everybody's desires.

F: Yeah. Can you maybe share some of what you learned?

V: So I had my first experience of witnessing someone feeling compression first, like, seeing her joy. And compression is like, the joy at someone you're involved with, being connected with someone else or getting something, not from you. Witnessing her being so happy that I hang out with someone else that I'm sexually active with, and just feeling that selflessness.

F: So you saw her feeling compassion for you, and you started feeling compassion for her?

V: Yes, but my compassion was nothing. The ecstatic joy I was seeing in her face, she was giggly and happy and excited for me, and I was like: "Wow, this is possible". It was so different from, it made me realize it was so different from the conception of love that I had inside of me. And just feeling that was just like: "Whoa". Losing the ground almost. It was so, so different, so much. And I came to polyamory for the sex. If I stay within polyamory or within any non traditional way of relating, it's going to be for the love, because this is incredible what I started experiencing there.

I would get anxious less and less often, and when I would get anxious, I was able to now cope better with it than before, thanks to Mindfulness. But still, nothing had pierced that dark core of where the anxiety came from. And as I kept diving into all of that, so spirituality, sexuality, whether that's Tantra or play parties and things like that, and workshops and teaching and learning about sexuality and all of the things around it, I realized: "Oh, wow, I like this part of my life a lot more than my job in management consulting". Like, a lot more. And I took six months of work. Second half of 2019, I traveled. I went to Burning Man, went to Bali, went to Peru, sat with ayahuasca in the jungle for ten days. I already kind of knew I wanted to quit my job, but all of that helped me find the balls to do it. And so I quit my job in January of 2020 to start Awake and Sexy. So a platform to share about sexuality, consciousness, mental health, intimacy, all of the things that had been such a big part of my personal journey over the previous, at that time, three years or so, and, and slowly moved into coaching and all of the things that I'm doing today.

So in 2020, during the pandemic, I was dating someone. We were both poly, and the pandemic happens, so we end up not even seeing our friends. And we had only barely started seeing each other when lockdown happened.

F: Yeah, a lot of couples were in that situation. Like, they were starting to see each other, and then lockdown happened, and it just kind of, you know.

V: Basically living together, but, like, not even seeing your friends.

F: Yeah, locked the relationship kind of accidentally a little bit.

V: And, and that was a beautiful relationship for a few months, and my anxiety came in.

F: Which had been sort of, you know, manage for a while.

V: And already, like, through what everything I described earlier, like, it was just so much more manageable, but nonetheless, when it comes up, it comes up, and there's nothing I can do. And it's still extremely challenging, and it's challenging for my partners and all that. Right? And so I decided to look at it through psychedelic therapy. And so I found an underground guide in New York, and I did my first therapeutic MDMA journey. So it was with an actual therapist and her assistant. I've tried a lot of things in the last five years. This is the single most healing modality that I've encountered.

F: And just in case listeners don't know, can you tell us what MDMA is?

V: Yeah. So MDMA is a psychoactive substance.

F: Known as Molly or Ecstasy.

V: It happens to be a party drug, and it's an incredible substance for healing in general, whether that's interpersonal healing with someone that you love, whether a family member or lover or partner or healing yourself.

In the sixties, I believe, it was starting to be used by psychologists for couple therapy before it became illegal. And that was the first thing that cracked that core, that black core, that I didn't have no idea what it was and mapped those adult feelings of anxiety back on things that happened to me between age 0 and 6, that I had no conscious memory of events that happened, that I had no memories about how it felt, how it felt in my body, the relationship with my parents and things like that. And then that was crazy. This is the first thing that really made me believe: "Wow, there's a path, I might actually really feel better or healed or whatever that means later".

F: Can you tell us how a therapeutic MDMA journey looks like in practice?

V: So, first, for anyone who doesn't know what MDMA feels like, the way I like to describe it is, you know, that feeling when someone you love does something adorable and you just feel like, for me, it's like a little bit of warmth in my heart, right? It's that jacked all the way up for 5 hours. Connection, open heartedness, love, forgiveness, empathy. MDMA makes you feel all those things, and that's why people love it in social settings. It lowers your inhibitions. You feel connected to everybody and all of that. But in a therapeutic setting, there's nowhere to go for all of that, but inside, but within.

And so suddenly you're able to relate with those parts of you that you haven't been able to accept from that place. So MDMA, to go on the nerdy side for a second, it's a releasing agent for serotonin. So serotonin is the hormone that makes you happy. Right? MDMA releases all of that stock all at once in your brain, and so you feel safe, you feel like you are love, basically.

F: So you take it and then you lay down, I'm assuming.

V: So basically, you have a few in techs with whomever is holding space for you before. Right. It's not like you just arrived in the morning and with someone you've never talked to or never met. There's intakes. You know what you want to be working on. Hopefully, the way the intake has been done, there's been check in with all those protective parts so that everybody inside of you is on board with going on that deep journey.

You would repeat your intention, checking once again that you feel like you're h*** yes to the experience, take the medicine, and then just from that point on, it's a very non directive process.

F: Right. You are laying down and they're laying down.

V: You might be sitting.

F: Who's assisting you is just around?

V: Exactly.

F: If you need anything.

V: They're here mostly to pace you. Make sure you drink water, make sure you hydrate. And all of that is coming from the MAPS Protocol. MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studiesis) is the organism that is currently sponsoring the official clinical control trials on MDMA. And they developed a protocol. Right.

F: A protocol. So even, like, people who are doing it underground are also following that, basically, that protocol for those, like, small number of trials that are actually legal.

V: Yeah. There's been people doing that underground since the sixties, since it got became illegal. Right? And Yeah. And so, and during the day, the person holding space for you is just here to be here. Be that therapeutic presence, be that person who can empathize with you. If you need someone to hear what you have to share, you're also welcome to keep everything inside, if that feels better. Some people like just being very silent and stay inside. Some people process verbally. Some people process somatically.

F: What does that mean?

V: Your body might shake. You might want to hit pillows. You might scream. I've had hour and a half long conversations with a two year old version of myself during one of those MDMA journeys that I went through.

F: Wow.

V: Like, it's so powerful. So the COVID relationship, the lockdown one ended around the time the world starting opening up again.

F: Like many relationships.

V: Like many COVID relationships. Right. And it was a combination of things. It was a combination of our own kind of co-depenent dynamics having developed, we started hanging together without even seeing other friends. It was just like, that brought up a lot. And then when the world opened up again, we talked about opening up again, but we realized we had different desires, both for what we wanted long term, as well as the way to get there added more conflicts. And on top, there was a breach of trust that, yeah, kind of ended things.

F: What was it that you wanted?

V: She knew she wanted, or she thought, I don't know if she knew, but she was saying that she would like kids and commitments to go in that direction, not now, but, like, being with someone who would be willing and knew that they wanted to go there with her. And I was like, that's not where I'm at. And so initially, we thought we had struggles on, like, how we wanted to open up.

When a couple opens up, everybody has their own desires, and everybody has their own implicit expectations that I'm not even aware of, of how it's going to look like. And so it's very common to feel blindsided when you open up, because something will happen that wasn't exactly what you discussed, and you're going to see it differently, and you might feel hurt and all of that. And so to open up, you need that commitment to look inside and see where your emotions come from. So what started as frictions on actually how we wanted to open up? And I think she wanted to reconnect with a partner of hers, and I had tried reconnecting with a partner, but it brought a lot of emotions in her, so I decided not to do it. I was like, this relationship matters too much for me, so I, I'd rather wait and take that slower. But then when I had my strong emotions coming up, when she wanted to reconnect with the former partners of hers, she felt hurt that it brought emotions for me, and it was just like.

F: So it felt unfair to you because you were like: "Oh, I stopped this connection because of you, and I understood your feelings".

V: I had stories like that coming up. Yeah, I think at the deeper level is we're both struggling with a lot of deeper insecurities around that, in insight, I explained by this lack of overlap of what we actually wanted from our relationship. So it looked like frictions on how we want to open up, but I think it was symptomatic of the deeper things. And so that ended in early 2021, basically. And I've been single since on what type of relationships I want for myself, I still don't know. Like polyamory versus more exclusivity for me, it's a lifestyle choice. Like, now that I've had experiences of openness, that I've seen what it can bring, that I've done so much work on myself, I can see myself doing both.

I know I have a longing for a very strong life partner or anchor partner. So I'm assuming it could go from monogamish to fully polyamorous. And that's going to depend on who I'm with, what communities I'm in, because community matters tremendously for any form of open relating and everybody's desires. And I also see that fluctuating. Right?

F: Why do you think community matters so much? Because I know that we have a lot of listeners from places where there's not a non-monogamous community.

V: Yeah. So it matters, so many reasons why. Meeting people, meeting people you might be able to be romantic and sexual with, to support, if you go through emotionally challenging times because of your polyamorous lifestyle or life, and you go to a mongomus friends, often they might be clueless or very judgmental.

F: Yeah: "Oh, it's because you're open".

V: Yeah.

F: And they don't realize that when they come with their issues

V: It's not because you're monogamous.

F: Oh, yes. It's because you're monogamous. You should open up. Although, although I do say that sometimes when it merits it.

V: Yeah. And there's, and what is true is that polyamory confronts you to more of your deeper things, potentially because in monogamy, you're protected by the institutions that you commit to. And so you might never have to look at your jealousy and where it comes from. You might never have to look at your insecurities and where they come from. Well, I think doing polyamory successfully for the long run will require that of you at some point. I'm not sure that slide between monogamish to polyamorous. And we'll see. And yeah, recently I've been seeing one person that brought up those questions because kind of very similar to that previous relationship. She wanted someone who's the h*** to be a life partner. She wants someone who's the hell yes to being life partner. And though I like her a lot, and I'm realizing that I'm having that question mark, could this lead to something like a life partnership? I'm not in a place where I'm like: "Yeah, this is what I want now". And so a very similar tension is coming up and we actually, like, I feel a little raw right now on that topic because we had a check in yesterday on that, which was challenging for me.

You're an intimacy coach. You still struggle with your own emotions. When people ask me about that, I always tell them, if you're a doctor and you break your leg, you might know what to do about it, but you still broke your leg. Right? You have to healing takes time and it will hurt.

F: Yeah, yeah. No, I feel identified with that because, you know, people sometimes think I'm the poly expert. And yes, I've learned a lot in my journey, for sure, and also talking to people. But, you know, part of the reason why I have the podcast is because I know how challenging it can be. Right? And same with you and your coaching. Right? Like, part of the reason why you're helping people with their mental health is because you struggle with mental health issues, you know, and no one necessarily has to be, you know, 100% expert on anything. It's just like we're just humans having conversations helping one another. Yeah.

V: And so, yeah, that's where I'm at today. And, like, so what happened is I realized I got more. As I was saying, I got more attached. And I would love that ambiguity of like: "Oh, this is really nice right now. Let's see where that goes". And she is only willing to invest that much in someone who would be a h*** yes to life partnership.

F: Right. And in terms of non-monogamy, what does she want?

V: I think she's in a similar position as me. She's very non-traditional, and she probably opened to several arrangements as well. And we've both been seeing other people.

F: Okay, cool. Yeah. And actually, that's a good segue into your coaching work. Can you tell us what are some of the most common issues that your clients come with in terms of being intimate with other people?

F: Yeah. So increasingly, it's around emotional blocks to intimacy. In a world, what are the blocks for them? Is it fear of initiating intimacy or those sexually or actually pursuing romantic partners? Is it some inner criticism or outer criticism coming in the way of being present in the moment? Is it a shame? But, like, so releasing shame around sexuality, around their desires, educate around sexuality, sometimes around kink, around polyamory, around Tantra, when they want to learn more about it. I've helped people who are starting new relationships and wanting to navigate that differently are just trying to process a breakup get more clarity of what it is that they want.

F: Nice. Yeah. And also on the topic of intimacy, I don't remember if I saw a reel on your Instagram, but, like, well, I mean, you've posted many actually around communication and how to express desires and how to express boundaries and all of that. And I feel like, especially when it comes to sex and emotional desires, it's very hard for people to communicate that, first of all, to identify it, and second of all, to communicate it. So do you have any tips to identify what I want, maybe emotionally and sexually, and then how to communicate that?

V: Yeah. I mean, so first, what it is that I want. Take the habits of tracking your internal state. Right? What do you get excited about? What do you get jealous about when you see other people having it? That will inform you a lot on the desires you might have if you are in a partnership, but you get resentful toward your partner for not having or receiving from them, that also can inform a lot of: "Oh, maybe there's a desire here or need that's not being fulfilled". And then also getting curious and whether that's is polyamory for me. Maybe I listen to the Polycurious Podcast and I just learn about the topic: "Oh, is kink for me. Maybe I can go to a kink workshop or a Shibari workshop". Right? So ropes and bandage and things like that. And then in communicating it, I mean, that's such a wide topic.

F: Yeah. Well, let's talk about, like, maybe communicating in bed.

V: Okay.

F: Because I feel like a lot of people have issues with that. How do you, I mean, since you are Awake and Sexy, how do you tell your partner either that you want something sexually or you don't want it without it ruining the mood or breaking the moment or whatever?

V: I love that you're saying that.

F: Yeah. Because actually, personally, sometimes I want to share things, and my partner is not someone who particularly likes to have a lot of talk in the middle of sex, so he prefers to do it, you know, later or whatever. But then sometimes, like, later, it's like I forgot what I wanted to say. And sometimes I just, you know, obviously, like, he's okay with me saying, I want, I want this right now, but, like, when it's more like, of, you know: "Oh, what would you think about doing this thing or whatever?" Like, when is the right time? Like, while you're in it, later on. And then if it's later on, like, it's kind of an awkward thing to bring up.

V: So making a request for something new. First, the conversation doesn't have to be in the bedroom. Right? You can talk about it in advance. You can be like: "Hey, have you ever thought about doing this?" As simple as that, right? Or you can be more indirect. You can maybe say, you're curious about kink. Like: "Hey, I saw this podcast about kink. Would you like to listen to it together?" It's not even asking them what they think about it. It's not even asking for it yet. It's just bringing that as part of the awareness. What are the things you talk about in your relationship? Just creating that space intentionally will just make expressing desires about those topics easie. In the bedroom, so say there's something that comes to your mind in the moment.

First opening the communication, the verbal communication through giving a compliment is always really nice. Like: "Oh, I love this a lot. Oh, my God, I like that". And then being like: "There's something I would like to try, can I tell you?" And then sharing what it's like and see what the reaction is. Right? So that's another way. Something that also to prepare in advance. You can make that a pet project, right? You can like, share in advance that desire of yours. Bring some together on how to do it when and have that. A fun thing.

F: Yeah, actually, Seth and I filled out this, like, form. I'll link it in the show notes. I don't know if you know, Sex with Emily, she has a podcast about sex. I don't listen to it regularly, but I follow her on instagram, and I saw she had a yes/no maybe list.

V: Yeah.

F: So it's like, I don't know, like 50 or more things. And it's like slapping, threesomes, a*** sex, compliments, all these things. You can fill it out with your partner. What Seth and I did, we did it separately just so there wasn't like pressure. And then you see where you are both. Yes, I would like to do this. And then you have more ideas. And the way we thought about it, it was like, okay, it's not like we have to now do the thing that's in the list, but it's kind of like, okay, it's in the back of your head. So if the situation arises and there are other things that we were like: "Oh, yeah, totally, let's try that next time". And we are more intentional, but also just to have that vague awareness that this is something that your partner would be in. So I'll link it in the show notes.

V: And then, I mean, yeah, there's so much. I'm not gonna be exhaustive at all. But like a third 3rd big area is just after the bedroom, just after sex. Something I encourage to everybody is talk about it just after. And one way to start those conversation is simply being like: "What's one thing you really liked?" I love asking that question. After I interact with someone new and even occasionally with regular partners, like: "What's one thing you really like? What did you enjoy?" That will naturally create a conversation about sexuality and sexual acts. And just like, everything you've never done before, talking about sex, talking about your desires, making requests, this will feel awkward the first few times you do it. Sometimes it might be incredibly magical right away. So there's also practice in normalizing that, giving each other positive feedback right after sex, create that space.

F: And I also start with: "Oh, I loved when you did this". And then whether you are asking, oh, what do you like? Or whether you are saying: "Can you do more of this?"

V: And you can ask that as well. So the two questions I typically ask are, like: "What do you really like?" And then "Other things you want to try". "Are there things you're curious about?" "What's one thing you really liked?" The person might be like: "Oh, I really like when you went down on me and you did that one thing with your tongue and all of that and fingering me at the same time" it feels like a very safe and encouraging space to become graphic and very precise.

And so once that bar has been passed, once you're already talking about those things in a descriptive way, then what's one thing you're curious about? It's just a lot easier. The bar two and three just went down, right?

F: Yeah. And it's great to know, like, the specifics because sometimes that's all you need to know. You know, sometimes, like, you're interacting with someone and they're not getting turned on, or, you are not getting turned on. And, like, all you needed to say was, like: "Can you please put your finger there?" Or "Can you please lead me here and there?" You know, whatever it is that you're like, turn on, you just gotta say it. Like, you just gotta say it. And, like, I mean, for me personally, it's also been a journey because asking for what you want in bed, it can be difficult, you know, like, I think especially as a woman, but in general, I encourage listeners to do that.

And then I know we were going to talk about, what if they are doing something that you don't like? So maybe we can touch on that really quick.

V: When someone does something you don't like, first of all, I want to be clear saying, stop. "No, hold on, not like that." That's okay. To just be plain. Okay. Now, assuming that you have internal resistance to doing that and you know that, you know, it's hard for you to say stop was to say, not like this or more like that in bed because you might be worried about ruining the mood. You might be worried about hurting your partner's feelings. So what are ways you can make that easier for you to voice it? So the first one is starting to talk about it beforehand, right before you get sexual well being like: "Hey, just so you know, I don't want to do a*** tonight". Right? Voicing a boundary beforehand so that, you know, you don't have to go there if later because your voice explicitly, this is not happening in the moment now.

Other ways to give feedback, something that makes it easier for a lot of people both to say and to receive, is to. It's kind of the s*** sandwich. Start with a compliment, then ask for your adjustments and then give another compliment. "I love feeling you right now. Could you do it this way instead? Oh my God. Yeah, right there".

F: Yeah.

V: Right? Just like that's an easier way for a lot of people to do it if for any reasons you were not able to voice it in the moment. Also you can voice it afterward, right? In that, especially if you and your partner have the habits of having those conversations about sex right after sex. An encouragement I give to everybody is create those spaces. Everybody can create those conversations. Everybody can create those spaces to start talking about sex, talking about what we like or not giving each other feedback. Everybody's going to have a better time and get laid better if there's communication around it.

F: To bring it back to the non-monogamous topic. In those settings, you are exposed to more situations where you might not only need to check in with whoever you have intentions to do something with, you might have to also checking with your partner. Right? So, like, I don't know, any tips on how to communicate that desire. And also if you are in a partnership with someone else, how to let your partner know that you desire someone else.

V: Okay, so the one general advice for anyone who wants to navigate any form of openness over communicate, talk a lot and talk about what's okay for you to do or not. And talk about how you like to communicate about it. Because there's no one size fits all. You should talk about it before. You should talk about it this way. No, everybody has their own preferences. Develop norms within each relationship that you have on what's okay for us to do or not with others and how we communicate about that with each other. And the third topic that's not directly related to your question, but that people sometimes forget is how much support do we give each other if the other one gets triggered? How to bring up that you have desires for someone else. Well, if you're already in a poly open relationship and you tell your partner: "Oh, my God, they're so cute over there". They're like: "Oh, go for it, go for it, go for it". Right? Like, that could be as easy as that. If you know that it might bring up emotions to your partner, the invitation would be, ask them how they would like you to bring it up. Maybe it's only in certain situations. Maybe it's giving them a heads up or not. Maybe they want to know. Maybe they would rather know every time you have interest towards someone. Maybe they would rather know every time something might happen or you really want something to happen, you're going on a date with someone else.

Everybody has their preferences on that, right? So get curious about what works best for them. And similarly, if you're both open, you can share with them what would work best for you. And I've seen all types of arrangements from, we are in a relationship. Everybody do their own life. We just tell each other every time we're sexual or romantic or we have a date type of things, but we don't necessarily need to tell each other beforehand. But we do share the fact that it happened to the don't ask, don't tell at the end of the spectrum, which I don't particularly like personally. But still, it could still. That could still be consensual with everybody involved.

F: Yeah. I mean, there's also, like, a middle ground. Like, for example, Seth and I have a little bit of an abstone tell in the sense that I do tell him beforehand, actually, not after the fact, like: "Oh, I'm going on a date with someone" but that's pretty much it. You know, like, I mean, I get his consent is yes or no. Normally yes, and that's it. And I come back from the date, and we don't talk about it at all. And it's interesting because it took me a long time to be okay with it, because I'm like, you know, I come from mexican-cuban family, where, like, we share all of our feelings and talk about everything and yeah, and that's the way that it works for us, and that's the way that he prefers it, and he truly doesn't want. I mean, sometimes he does ask, like "Oh, how do you feel about this person?" You know, but, but it can, like, simply be like: "Oh, you know, I'm, I'm really interested in this person" or "I just want to have sex with this person" or whatever it is, you know?

V: Yeah.

F: Why don't you like the ask, don't tell.

V: I mean, it's a preference thing. So personally, I don't feel safe when I don't know. So I want to know how they're feeling about me, how they're feeling about the other people that are, they are seeing. Right? If I don't, if I'm not sure about my place in their life, it's very, it's just more challenging for me.

F: Right, right. Well, I mean, of course, that's different with my situation. You know, Seth is very sure of his place in my life, so there's no, and...

V: But, like, triggers are not necessarily rational. Right? You could be married with someone and still be worried about your place in their life. And then the other side of that is the people I am emotionally close to. I want to talk to them about what's on my mind, and I want to talk to them about who else I love and who else I have crushes on and the cool things that happen. And so not being able to tell them what else is happening. Yeah. Would be challenging.

F: Yeah. I mean, it is a little bit challenging for me, too, I think. But, you know, it's kind of like a trade off.

V: I mean, 100 %, like everybody's preferences matters, right?

F: Yeah. Yeah.

V: And then the one thing I want to talk about, because we're talking about consent, there's also a trade off here between your agreements with your partner. How much do you tell that partner or not about what happens with others and the right of others to privacy. Right?

And so I think it's hard to say what is right or not in the settings. Like, like what infringes on the right to privacy versus the right to know. Like, for instance, I think the fact that you're seeing someone else, I think your partner has a right to know and whether they know who that person is, whether they know details of what happens sexually with the other person, they have a right to privacy.

F: Yeah.

V: And where, and sometimes there's a trade off because there's also sexual health involved. Right? So things like, we've had penetrative sex. We've had penetrative sex with or without a condom. Your partner might want to know, might have preferences about knowing those things because of sexual health. Right? So there's a trade off, but then describing what happened or things like that, I think that the right for privacy of the other person is what comes first.

F: Yeah. And also, I mean, if it turns you on or, like, it turns your partner on to hear about your sexual experiences, that's awesome. Go for it. But I feel like sometimes some people want to know when they probably don't actually want to know.

V: That's for them to find out, right?

F: Yeah, that's for them to decide, of course. But it's like kind of, it's more insecurity.

V: You don't have to share also if your partner wants to know. Right? So first, before sharing sexual activities that happen with the other person, you need the consent of that other person. And then when your partner asks you, you also have a right not to share. Yeah.

F: Yeah. I remember one of the first conversations I had about non-monogamy. I was asking my friend, like: "So when you go and see someone, how much do you tell your partner?" And she was like: "I don't tell him about the sex that we had or our emotional connection, not only because that might hurt him or whatever, but also because that might just be between me and that other person". And that applies to friendship too, right? Like, if you have a friend and you are sharing secrets and you are sharing a relationship, like, there's no obligation for you to go to your other friend and tell them how your relationship with this person is. Like, at the end of the day is your relationship and the other person's relationship. Yeah. So that's a really good point. Well, I have one last question for you and is what would you tell to a polycurious person?

V: It's okay to have whatever desires you have. It's okay to change your mind. It's okay if some things are for you and others are not for you. And you're doing great and keep learning and keep experimenting.

F: I love that. How can people get involved with you and your work and, Yeah, find you.

V: Yeah. So the easiest way is probably Instagram. Simply my handle is Awake and Sexy and otherwise, website www.awakensexy.com

F: Okay, awesome. Thank you for being on the podcast.

V: Awesome. Thanks for inviting me.