Can Kink Heal Religious Trauma? The Power of Pleasure After Purity Culture

What happens when kink becomes the key to healing religious shame?
 In this raw and redemptive episode I sit down with Lauren Elise Rogers, a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator who grew up in a high-control religion. Together, we unpack how purity culture distorts sexuality—and how kink can actually be a path to freedom, power, and deep healing.

Lauren shares her personal story of leaving behind religious indoctrination, rediscovering her body, and exploring kink as a way to reclaim desire. We break down:

• The four cornerstones of eroticism and how they show up after religious trauma
• Why fantasy, taboo, and power dynamics can be healing (not harmful)
• How writing and playing out a kinky “scene” can renegotiate trauma
• The difference between reenacting pain and reclaiming power through play
• How to identify safe vs. unsafe partners or spaces for exploration

Whether you’ve lived through purity culture, survived religious trauma, or love someone who has—this episode gives you tools to rewrite your sexual story and step fully into your pleasure.

👉 Stay tuned to the end for a powerful exercise on creating your sexual values mission statement—a game-changer for anyone reclaiming their erotic power.

Find Lauren Here: https://sexedforyou.com/

You can find my spicy site here. https://talksexwithannette.com/talk-sex-with-me/

My spicy OF handle is @talksexwithannette
My free spicy handle is @annettetalkssex

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Sex After Religious Trauma
• 4:00 Lauren's Journey From Religion to Sex Education
• 9:03 Cornerstones of Eroticism
• 19:15 Attraction Plus Obstacle Equals Excitement
• 35:50 Renegotiating Trauma Through Kinky Play
• 45:32 Creating Safe Containers for Healing
• 58:12 Sexual Values Mission Statement
• 1:08:09 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here. Nothing's off limits. These are the kinds of conversations we save for our boldest group chats, our most trusted friends and, of course, the women's locker room. Think raw, honest and sometimes unapologetically raunchy. If you've been here from the beginning, thank you, and if you're new, welcome to my podcast. Where desire meets disruption and pleasure becomes power. Now let's talk about sex Cheers. Today's Talk Sex with Annette.

Speaker 1: 1:40

Topic is kink after religious trauma. Today we are going to talk about something that's both tender and taboo. What happens when someone who grew up in purity culture or under religious control discovers kink? For a lot of people, kink feels terrifyingly sinful. For others, it's the first time they've ever felt free in their body. It can be both erotic and redemptive.

Speaker 1: 2:06

My guest, lauren Elise Rogers, knows this journey intimately. She's a certified holistic sexuality educator and embodied intimacy coach, and she grew up in a high control religion herself. Today, she helps people unpack sexual shame, reclaim pleasure and yes, explore kink in a way that heals rather than harms. So let's dive into how religious trauma intersects with kink and why what you once thought was simple might actually set you free. Now, before we dive in, I have to remind you that I'm over on OnlyFans and there I'm sharing my sex and intimacy how-tos, demonstrations and audio guided self-pleasure meditations. You can find me there with my handle at TalkSexWithAnette. You can also find me over on Substack doing a whole lot of the same by the same handle, so find me there. You can scroll down also to the links below and you're going to be able to find me wherever you want to hang out with me. I'll look forward to seeing you there, but for now, I would love to give Elise a moment to tell you guys a little bit more about her.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Welcome. Thank you so much for having me, annette. I am Larnalise Rogers, as was previously stated, and yes, I have not always been a certified holistic sexuality educator. I grew up inside of high control religion, a deep believer in all of the tenets of purity culture, and it wasn't until I found myself alone on the floor of my basement apartment, having lost my first marriage, my whole community and my whole religion, that I began to dig into who I was as a sexual being, and I was really perplexed by the idea that if I was no longer a virgin, did that make me a whore? And who was I as a sexual woman? And I began to dig and I began to play with my sexual body and with sexual partners and I truly set myself free. I learned that I could be a kinky, loving, sex-positive human being, while also aligning myself with my sexual values and my ethics, and it truly was transformational for me.

Speaker 2: 4:27

So friends began to say what are you doing? You seem so different. What are the books you've been reading? Tell us about your journey. And that's what started me down the road to going back to school, to now working with individuals both in person and around the world on Zoom, as they, too, heal from purity culture or religious indoctrination, or for any of us out there who feel that we got an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of sexuality. I work with a lot of folks who feel like the sex ed they got in middle school or high school isn't enough. So we work together on things even like the topic we're discussing today, to really step into worlds such as non-monogamy or kink places with an ethic and values that feel juicy in their bodies. So thank you so much for having me here today.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Thank you for being here. I'm just going to say it. I get a lot of compliments on my podcast voice and how sexy it is. But I mean, Lauren, I am confident you've gotten the same.

Speaker 2: 5:33

I have gotten the same.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Oh, melting a little bit myself. I'm excited to talk about this Now. I want to be clear. There is high control, cult, cult like religious experiences, and I want to differentiate that from my upbringing, which also in my in my, I guess, experience I felt I was raised Catholic like during the week. I was going to, you know, church on the weekends and was educated under that completely. And even though people say it's different and I don't know, I've never been in a religious cult but it felt pretty fucking cult-liked to me and so my upbringing around sex was also very like you wait till marriage, you only do it under these circumstances, it's for having babies and all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:31

So I'm excited about this conversation because clearly you and I have left the flock, if you will to find a new flock, and I want my listeners to stay to the end Because whether you yourself are coming out of religious trauma, as so many of us have, whether on the level of literally coming out of a cult, a religious cult, or coming out of a small or religious cult Catholicism, evangelical religious situation, or someone you know that you want to partner up with has you are going to have some tools by the end of this podcast to start dealing with that right and knowing how to heal yourself and embrace your sensuality and explore your sexuality and define for yourself what that gets to be. This is a very important conversation because so many of us and I would venture to say the majority of us have at least a tiny bit of that purity culture ingrained into our sexuality and we want to undo that for you right, so you can step into your full sexual self. So I'm ready. Are you ready? I'm so ready.

Speaker 2: 7:47

I'm so ready selves.

Speaker 1: 7:52

So I'm ready. Are you ready? I'm so ready, I'm so ready. All right, let's get ready to talk about religion and kinky religion, kink and yeah, cheers, cheers. All right, I want to start here. When you think back to your religious upbringing, what was the messaging around sex, kink or even fantasy that you received?

Speaker 2: 8:13

I think there was no messaging around each of those three topics sex, kink and fantasy. What was left was for young people to stumble into disciplinary measures when they experimented or asked a question. There's some cute meme out there on the internet that says there's three rules of purity culture. One you don't know the rules. Two, you'll only find out the rules when you stumble into them. And three, the punishment for breaking the rules is that you're an evil person for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2: 8:47

It's so vague and so I've told my story all the time, and it includes that I received zero sexuality education until the night before my wedding. As my mother is dying of pancreatic cancer, she says to me Lauren, take care of your husband's needs and everything else will be fine. The joke goes on that two years after our divorce my husband came out as gay. So for a decade I was spending my life trying to meet the sexual needs of this man that were never going to be met because he wasn't attracted to my body. Then it was interesting when you mentioned kink, I was given this messaging within my sect of religiosity that sex between one man and one woman in marriage could be as salacious as you wanted it to be going to be some switch that was flipped, wherein you would be a sex goddess for your husband. How I don't know, but it was given to you that that was the expectation. And so there was, I think, a little bit and we'll circle back to this of this erotic titillation that I experienced in my body for whatever this unknown was.

Speaker 2: 10:06

But then your third question was beautiful. This idea of fantasy was equivalent to cheating, was equivalent to cheating on your future husband if you were using fantasy in masturbatory behavior or, equivocated, to cheating inside of a marriage as well. You were to be in belonging to God and your father if you were in a female body, and God and your future spouse if you're in your male body until your wedding day, and then you belong to your spouse, and any form of fantasy was a high no-no. And they would always use the verse of he whosoever looks at another man's wife is committing adultery, and they would always use the verse of he who so ever looks at another man's wife is committing adultery, and all of these things about lust and cutting your eyes out, which I've gone on to learn are poorly translated, but yeah, sex specifically how kink can be used in a way to reclaim sexuality and to heal from religious trauma.

Speaker 1: 11:49

So for someone coming out of religious trauma, what are some specific kinks or dynamics that can be redemptive?

Speaker 2: 11:57

So one of my favorite authors is Dr Jack Moran and he wrote this beautiful book, the Erotic Mind, and, if listeners have not picked up this copy, either on Audible or a paperback, highly recommend. If you are coming out of any form of high control religion or if you feel that education might have been willfully withheld from you because, friends, that's unethical. You deserve to know about your sexual body now and the bodies of others, and you deserve to make highly informed decisions. So Dr Jack Moran would say that pleasure is the greatest antidote to pain, and so these incredible erotic minds of ours will contrive fantasies, situations, ideas, scenes that could be incredibly, incredibly erotic to us. And so for myself and many of my clients who have come out of religious spaces, we have found that we fall into one of four categories that Dr Jack Moran calls the cornerstones of eroticism. Would it be okay if I just highlighted each of the four? So the first one is anticipation and longing. So this idea that we are reaching for that thing that is just out of reach, that we are longing, which, for those of us raised with this idea that we were a princess in a tower waiting for our knight in shining armor, we sometimes got highly identified with this type of narrative. We'll get to how this could be incredibly kinky later, right? Then we have this search for power being number two this idea of power over or power under, which, of course, many of us would draw a direct line to kink and BDSM. Search for power Number three this idea of violating prohibitions. So, interestingly enough, so many of my clients had their first kiss or their first blowjob, either like behind the baptismal or in the car after youth group. So we had a lot of the naughtiness factor going on inside of religious spaces, because young people who are healthy sexual beings are still developing, but it's developing in the shadows. So it's this idea of the taboo or what's just out of reach.

Speaker 2: 14:22

Then number four is overcoming ambivalence, this idea that we get turned on by the human who is ambivalent towards us. This is my highest kink. This idea that no one has the time of day for me. This idea that I need to draw someone's attention to me, which is interesting because refer earlier to the gay husband. Before my gay husband, I had a first crush who was also gay, and my first kiss, who was also gay. I had been so cultured to be afraid of the boy who only wants one thing and to be so pure and chaste that I became turned on by the boys who were ambivalent towards me. So while this could be highly erotic, it's highly problematic in the relational sphere. And yet those four tend to be something that I see a lot of us, having come out of religious spaces, enjoy very much.

Speaker 1: 15:26

That is interesting. I recently had a very short but intense intimate relationship with a woman who was coming out of and I think it's I mean, I think you can confirm it's a long process to come out of and deprogram yourself from a high control religious situation. And she had discovered that she was queer in that coming out process. And so I'm going to be explicit here this was fascinating to me. Of course, I have known I'm queer for a very long time. I date people of all genders and I'm well practiced at it. But she was a first for me. She was a handful of years out of this high control situation, still kind of figuring out. She was married with kids, supportive spouse, figuring out her queerness, this big love, but ambivalent towards her seemingly.

Speaker 1: 16:43

And I ended up unknowingly becoming a second sexual experience. And this now brings me to another modality you talked about. We were having sex and she really wanted to give oral sex to me and I was like, all right if I must allow you to do that, okay, and I've never experienced this in my entire life, because she was not touching herself or anything like that, and she couldn't stop herself from orgasming while giving me oral sex. I was like I was, like I was more fascinated, like what Really? Like I wanted to stop and like, study it Like I had never I was like holy shit.

Speaker 2: 17:25

First of all, I'm jealous.

Speaker 1: 17:27

I want this superpower of yours. It was also incredibly hot for me, but after it I was really caught up thinking about this experience. How in the world does someone have an orgasm just from doing giving oral sex? And it's the taboo nature of it. And I bring this up because, as you are going through these different, what did you call them? What did you call them? Cornerstones, the cornerstones of eroticism?

Speaker 1: 19:02

Yes, I'm like oh, there's one right the taboo that you should not be doing this. Not only should you not be queer, you definitely shouldn't be going down on another girl. And I'm like I think that's just so erotic that it created this scenario that I got to witness, which is beautiful, but then also we ended up not continuing on because I'm not a very ambivalent person Like once. I'm like I'm into it, let's do it. And for her, it created this confusion inside of her because she couldn't let go of this ambivalent person and she didn't know how to deal with direct you connection, like either let's do not yes, and so I experienced as a partner.

Speaker 1: 19:49

I want to share my experience as a partner to someone coming out of that, um, the amazingness, sexiness of that, that journey, but at the same time, as a partner to someone, or someone who's trying to be a partner with someone, who's dealing with some deconditioning and trauma, the hardship of it as well, yes, and you brought up such a beautiful point, which is the sex was magical, if not explosive, due to the nature of the erotic content.

Speaker 2: 20:29

Jack has a erotic equation that goes like this attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, plus obstacle equals excitement. We can think back to the days of a cookie jar. Right, we're attracted to the cookie. There's an obstacle it's high up on a shelf. That makes it more exciting. Okay, attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, which makes for incredibly, incredibly magnetic, electric sex. That makes for incredibly unhealthy relationships between human beings. And what is so interesting for nerds like us, who love sex and love humans and love dynamics, is no, you study just a little bit, my friends, and you'll find that we all deserve earned, secure attachments and secure connections. We deserve to know that someone is going to text us back when they say they're going to.

Speaker 2: 21:22

We deserve to know that someone is going to be at the date on time or cancel in enough in advance. Those are healthy human dynamics that actually can make a sexual container feel more fun, more safe, more electric, wonderful. We can titrate in as much eroticism as we desire to, but what is so sad and you're bringing this up for so many of us who had our sexuality suppressed inside of religious orthodoxy, it was shut into the shadows. What happened was we began to eroticize deceit, we began to hyper-eroticize this naughtiness factor, and so those obstacles became the very nature of the thing that brings us pleasure. So I am so excited that this human being got to experience orgasm while being the one doing the oral facts on you. How magical, how magical this can happen. It's just highly. And I'm sitting here going yeah, of course that was happening in the brain. This idea of, oh my God, I can't believe I get to do this is literally causing these neurons to fire and all of this blood to flow to the genitals. I mean, it's magical. I'm so, so excited. And what's wild is there's a point of diminishing return Once something has been not illicit, once we have given something the approval, well then it ceases to be exciting, which is interesting.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Jack calls this a troublesome turn on, when the things that used to turn us on are now troublesome. They're rude, and that is actually a point that many people come and find me. They get free of religion. They are sowing their wild oats. They, like me, are on their slut era. They are so happy to be sleeping with whomever they want to sleep with and then all of a sudden they can't orgasm anymore. All of a sudden they're having erectile issues. All of a sudden they found a partner. That is everything they thought they wanted and the sex was great in the beginning. But now they're starting to see these old relational patterns, or they start to see oh, the sex is boring again. Lauren, am I broken? Is this trauma coming back up? Is this karma? Is this my religious oppression Fascinating? You just brought up like the best case study in the world.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Right. It was interesting because then, um Me being at a more healed place in my life, seeing kind of what she was going to need to feel turned on and connected, which was somebody who was going to pull away and push and pull her and sort of fulfill those cornerstones in an unhealthy way, I was just like. I was like this is not where I'm at. And I do understand, though, because for a long time I needed to be in an anxious space to feel turned on. Or I thought the connection was boring or I thought I wasn't falling in love. And with all of the work I've done now like I crave security and eroticism in security, right, experimentation within security and consistency, and the minute I start to see inconsistency, I'm like I'm not here for that, but it's hard to teach your nervous system that right.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Yes, this feels like a perfect segue into how kink can be so helpful for those who've come out of religious trauma. So do you mind if we just go?

Speaker 1: 25:04

right there. I would love it.

Speaker 2: 25:05

Okay, because what I would literally be saying to someone with this exact tale, which is hi, hello me and also so many of my clients, is that the power of knowing our erotic minds is absolutely untold. And so, friends, if you are listening, do me a favor and sit down and think back through your most likely to arouse you fantasies and your most exciting sexual encounters and the porn you go to most often, and the rom-coms or the romance novels or the sitcoms that you grew up on. That turned you on. I just want you to make a list, a little list for yourself. Then, as we're talking through these cornerstones, I want you to think through, oh my goodness, which one is most present.

Speaker 2: 26:03

Is it a touch of that ambivalent factor? There are so many sitcoms that we grew up in with where there's a teenager walking down the hall and they just want Johnny to notice them type of ideas there's a ton of. You know, I grew up saying this I am a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving of his displeasure. That was a first catechism that I had to memorize. I grew up thinking that the loving God that we're all taught about didn't like me and I was justly deserving of his displeasure. So that idea, right that he's kind of ambivalent unless I work to be loved, was in my bones. So wouldn't you know? Some of my favorite storylines, my favorite movies, my favorite erotic materials all involve this idea of ambivalence. So again, go through, make those lists. Now here's the really beautiful thing about claiming our CETs core erotic themes. Once we know them, would they become like a superpower. So I have fully disclosed that overcoming ambivalence is one of my greatest turn-ons. Well, I have gone on to find an incredible partner who is anything but ambivalent towards me as we were just talking. He supports my nervous system, he is there when he says he's going to be, he goes to bed at an okay time, he talks to me like a human being. He is anything but ambivalent.

Speaker 2: 27:30

And yet we are able to titrate ambivalence into our erotic encounters, into my turn-ons, in different ways. One of them goes like this if it's a weekend and I'm horny and I'm really wanting him and I am coming on to him and I'm like, hey, baby, what you doing later he can do this and I swear it is the most funny and arousing thing. He will look at his pretend watch and he'll go oh babe, I just really don't think I have time for you today and I will start clawing his clothes off, ripping at him, because what this does is stoke my erotic fire in a way that sure you could roll your eyes and say it's playful. Or you could say, wow, that man knows what turns her on. She knows what turns her on, and it's a way that we can play with ambivalence in our dynamic in a way that is still healthy. Also, if sometime I'm flirting with him through text, he'll just say Also, if sometime I'm flirting with him through text, he'll just say shoo, it's our little communication of I don't have time for you right now, and it is lovingly worded in a way that I know exactly what we're doing. We are playing with my erotic language in.

Speaker 2: 29:58

You could argue a kinky way. You could argue it's a brat way, right, you could go down each of these angles and find a direct route to kink. So if I found a client who really loved this search for power, which I have a bit of too, I am highly turned on by this idea of teacher-student. I swear it is because of my entire life. I was second because I'm in a female body and men were first. I grew up in the middle of patriarchy. There was so much misogyny, so this idea of the student turning the teacher on and kind of morphing them and being so desired by them that they take the power over huge erotic kink of mine. Now I am a teacher, this student-teacher dynamic, incredibly unethical, would not be good for me to go out and have sex with my students, my clients no, and yet erotic fiction, my friends, my favorite subject matter, and so the way we will play with this in kink is sure.

Speaker 2: 31:00

Do I have school girl outfits? You bet I do, and I will often read an erotic story and send it to my partner and let him read it, and then in the bedroom later we'll be whispering the favorite parts of the story back and forth to each other. We will titillate right. We will sprinkle it's like erotic sprinkles on top of our sexual encounters that lean into, not away from, the things that turn me on. There is no shame, not at all. Friends, we are the people that we are because of our positive and negative lived sexual experiences, and it's okay when we can claim them as our own. So, so fun and so empowering we can claim them as our own.

Speaker 1: 31:49

So so fun and so empowering. Can you talk about exactly how embracing kink leads to the healing from the trauma?

Speaker 2: 31:59

Yes. So Peter Levine, one of my very favorite trauma experts, talks about this idea of reenacting trauma versus renegotiating trauma through play. So let me give a brief example of the differentiation here. I live in central Virginia, just a couple miles away from Appomattox, virginia, which is where the Civil War ended. I am not kidding. Every year, those Civil War reenactors put on some costumes and they go out to the field and they reenact the end of the Civil War. My friends, the ending always stays the same. That is how I want you to envision the idea of reenacting your trauma. So earlier we saw a reenactment. Right, it was very exciting.

Speaker 2: 32:47

There was some way that this lover wanted to have this push-pull dynamic, wanted to have this inconsistency, which is, in essence, reenactment. We all do it, my friends, whether you have religious trauma or not. Our brains are so brilliant. They want to close the loop. They want to Now. Here's what Jack. They want to close the loop, they want to Now. Here's what Jack not Jack Peter found when he studied trauma and found that through this idea of neoteny, this idea that we have these juvenile minds that are incredible creators, incredible at pretending and playing, we can, through the work, through scene work, like we would use in a kink space in a dungeon.

Speaker 2: 33:28

We can change the ending. So this is what's so cool by writing out a kinky scene. Writing out a scene such as we'll use my search for power scene, this idea that men were in charge of me from the beginning of my life. We could write out a teacher-student scene to play with my partner in the bedroom, or if you're near a dungeon or something of the like, you could do the same type of thing and we'd write out the dynamic who's in power? Well, in a kinky scene where there's a sub and a down dynamic, the submissive is always going to have the power. So this would be my scene. We're writing it out, the whole thing. And then this is how I want to bring the teacher to me, and then this is the oral sex I want to receive, this is the oral sex I want to give, and we're renegotiating the way that I was the one who was being punished.

Speaker 2: 34:22

I was second, I was small, and we are letting the scene be different, the ending be different, where the power is given to me, not the teacher. I'm the one who gets to sit in desire, which is really interesting. Also when we study. Trauma is that a gazelle if it's been chased, it freezes and then, after there's no more threat from the lion, it shakes. It does this like really cool somatic shake. You know what also shakes the orgasmic body.

Speaker 2: 34:56

So it's really fascinating to me, as a person who works in this pleasure world, when my clients have been able to write out a scene that centers their cornerstone. This is going to happen, then this, then this, then this, and then I would like to experience an orgasm and then the scene will end. But this is the aftercare that I want. I want to cry, I want to be held, I want to be stroked, I want a cup of hot chocolate, I want my hair touched, I want to be told I am beautiful and whole and I have power just because I exist in this body.

Speaker 2: 35:35

And then I want to look at you and I want to say all done the stories that my clients come back with when they write out a scene that centers the cornerstone that was given to them by folks who did not have good intentions inside of religious spaces. But they have reclaimed and renegotiated this trauma through play, through kinky play, and then sat in the aftercare and basked in it, then sat there and talked with their partners about the things that were most brilliant to them. I have had clients come back and say that healed the original source wound by creating a scene following it all the way through, including the aftercare. I feel more powerful than I have ever felt more powerful than I have ever felt.

Speaker 1: 36:30

That's amazing and makes so much sense. I don't think I've ever heard that explained so beautifully and perfectly before. Thank you, and I've had a lot of these conversations. I talk personally about sexual assault and healing. That's more of my journey and it really is like learning to reclaim power over your agency in relationship to sex, which brings me to something that I know, that you say regularly and you're going to have to correct me because I know I'm going to mess it up but you say sex isn't everything, but it's in everything. Did I do that correctly, so close?

Speaker 2: 37:10

That works too.

Speaker 1: 37:10

I say sex is not everything, it's just a part of everything, and I talk about that on this show all the time Because if I'm imagining and I could be wrong, but I'm imagining if, like me, you've definitely gotten feedback from the people in your life and I constantly get the question and that why does everything have to be about sex? Why, why sex, sex, sex? And my response is because sex is part of everything.

Speaker 1: 37:41

It's like it is part of every part of our life. Sexual energy is not just in this little corner where you take it out, even though you guys try to do this, you try to put it over here and take it out when the lights are off and you're hiding in your bedroom. Sexual energy is in every part of your life, right, yes, and what you are suggesting through kink, in particular for people who have had religious trauma, is basically reclaiming that energy as part of your whole and not as something that is controlled by people who don't have good intentions towards you. Right, this messaging we've gotten from the patriarchy in general, but we can drill that down into religion, high control religion I would maybe say all religion, but it was it.

Speaker 1: 38:34

There was no good intention behind it for most of the people, meaning women and children and so on and so forth. Right, yes, it was used to control us and it was very effective, because when women embrace their sexual power, well, there's a little script flip on who is in control? Right, that's the reality. But I love that you talk about you take the scene and writing the scene, because in kink and I'm sure you can explain this even better than I do the scene is sort of the container for a lot of kink play. And then how allowing the person who's healing from trauma to get control of the scene, because in life you can kind of look at our life and the different scenes in our life, right?

Speaker 2: 39:32

Yes, just that. Let's just like dwell in that idea that so many of us not so many, all of us our lives are made up of so many scenes. They're all just little scenes, and so many of us could say, uh-huh. I understand that when we think back of a memory that replays and replays, when we can drill it down to a scene and then we can say wait a second, what if I rewrote it? What would that look like?

Speaker 2: 40:01

What if that one time the neighbor boys were bullying me? What if I turned this around? What could this look like? What if this centered my pleasure? And what if pleasure is the greatest antidote to pain? What would that look like? What if my chief cornerstone is anticipation and longing? What is it like for me to write a scene for myself and my long-term sexual partner, for me to be bound and teased and for that thing that I want to be just out of reach? And what if I'm played with like that? And what if there is a beginning, middle and end? And what would they be? How could I take control back, reclaim and reaccess what was always mine to begin with, by becoming the author?

Speaker 1: 40:49

of this.

Speaker 2: 40:50

So, yes, in Kinky Spaces, we love scene work. We love having your wants put forward. What do you want? What would you love to feel and experience tonight? And I would say, one of the number one things that most of my clients, when they come into work, cannot do is tell me what they want. So many of us, whether it was in a high-control religious space or just existing in this world, have been conditioned to be human givers and we don't know what it's like to want. And yet it's a prerequisite for most kinky spaces to be able to put forward your greatest desire and then to also be able to clearly state your boundaries, which is why a scene is such a juicy experience too. And maybe going to a dungeon or a kinky space is not even an interest of yours. Maybe you're listening to this podcast today again, as Annette said so beautifully earlier, because you're involved with someone who's come out of a religious space and you don't intend to take them to a kink space to play, but you want to involve some of these dynamics in your play. In the safety of your own bedroom, you can sit down, talk about an event that maybe went awry, that your lover would like to reclaim. How would they like that ending to change? Get silly, get playful.

Speaker 2: 42:11

Some of my clients find it easier to draw a picture first. To engage that piece of our mind, like a child, to draw a picture out, do it. Use stick figures, my friends. Stick figures are my friend. I am no artist and it's okay. It is okay to sit there and draw first. Maybe then you can share it orally with your lover. I'd like this to happen, this to happen, this to happen. I recommend doing all of these pre-negotiations with your clothes on. Do it while you're sharing a drink, a cup of coffee or water. Sit there, imagine what it could be, and make sure you talk through the aftercare.

Speaker 2: 42:49

So many of us skip this very important part, which is what will I need when the scene is done? Which is what will I need when the scene is done? For many of us, it is some form of being held or space to sit there. You might cry. That's beautiful. That is a completion of the stress response cycle. You might need a warm blanket, you might need a bite of chocolate, you might need some water. What is it that you might want to have access to?

Speaker 2: 43:17

Interestingly enough, I also do this type of work with individuals who are not in relationship and they are doing a healing practice with their own hands, with a self-masturbatory practice. They are bringing themselves to orgasm, using fantasy to renegotiate the trauma. Works the same Works the same. Here's the most fascinating part when we write the scene and we follow it through and we change the ending and we practice the aftercare, I have clients who tell me Lauren, I'm actually scared to lean into the scene because I haven't visited that particular trauma in a while. And I say this is all I have to tell you. When I have done this practice myself and when every client has told me they've done it, when I have done this practice myself, and when every client has told me they've done it, the scene releases its hold on you. Almost every single one of my clients say that the moment they worked through it, poof, it lost its grip. It lost its grip because we changed the ending.

Speaker 1: 44:15

It is so powerful. I love that you bring up masturbation and self-love as also a way to go through.

Speaker 1: 44:25

You can be kinky with yourself and people don't realize that we all think we need somebody else, and I talk about self-love, self-pleasure, masturbation all of the time. I would say most of my sexual healing work has been done alone and it's so wonderful to be able to do that and it also is a way to maintain your power. It's not like you're saying I need this person to heal me, it's like I'm going to heal myself. I'm the magic that's showing up here, right, and using fantasy because your mind is so powerful, because really that's all you're doing with someone else, right, you're still just fantasizing. You just got another human to participate with you in it and, I think, also pointing out that it is interesting when I look at my sexual journey and I'm sure that this will resonate with you I had all of these turn-ons when I was younger or before I did the work, things that like just thinking about it, I would get so turned on and then allowing myself to fantasize fully about those things without shame and without concern, and even talk about them.

Speaker 1: 45:43

Suddenly, it was like one day I went to like fantasize and masturbate to one of those things and I was like, oh, it doesn't do it anymore for me. I got a next level, this shit.

Speaker 2: 45:56

I got a next level, this shit All the time, time and again.

Speaker 2: 46:01

Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, and so sometimes, when we eradicate the obstacle, sadly we lose the ability to be able to drop in to the pleasure in the same way that we were used to, because we have normalized it, which is such a beautiful point to bring into this, because I think that so many of us raised inside of these high-control religions were told that on the other side of the door was depravity, was hedonism, right, that it was a slippery slope out there and you better watch out.

Speaker 2: 46:37

And so I want everyone to hear us that sometimes I have run into folks who got free, got deconstructed, started going after all of these things and needed to continue to heighten the risk because of exactly what talking about. And I would caution here that we can start to expand our understanding, and I would hope that we are doing it at the same point as we are developing sexual values and sexual ethics, that there are ways to continue to turn on our erotic minds, there are things that we can harness, there are ethical ways that we can be involved with others and with ourselves and in our fantasies, and I have seen and have had clients come to me who were like Lauren. I just kept going darker and darker and darker and riskier and riskier because I had been so conditioned to chase that secretive thing, to chase the deceitful thing. And it was fascinating, you just brought up a very very interesting point.

Speaker 1: 47:43

So that is a good, you know a good point for us to talk about, though, because people might say, well, see, it does lead to something bad, because you keep doing more and more. I love to share this story. I had done a lot of work before I went to a sex club for the first time, and I mean, I go to the sex club and I am ready, I'm ready to walk into something like crazy. And I walk into the sex club and about an hour into it I looked at my friend. I'm like Jesus, do I watch too much porn? Because this is not what I thought. This feels PG to me, right.

Speaker 1: 48:22

I was like what is wrong with me? This is like such a disappointment, and it's just that I had really already undone a lot of things that I had thought were shocking. When you start to do your work and heal and embrace things as not problematic or awful or evil, then it becomes normal, right, oh, two people fucking on a couch, whatever, right, could you guys do something interesting, like I don't know? Ramp it up a little for me, you know, but some people might say well, see, that is proof You're descending into like this terrible place.

Speaker 2: 49:07

How do you speak to that? So in school we were presented with this amazing chart and on one end was legalism and on the other end was hedonism, and I was so glad to see somebody was putting it on. Amazing chart. And on one end was legalism and on the other end was hedonism, and I was so glad to see somebody was putting it on a chart. And I have colleagues and friends who practice hedonism Great. So there are hedonists and I think in every culture, for all of time, we're going to have those who enjoy hedonism, who lead with pleasure Great.

Speaker 2: 49:35

Then, right smack dab in the middle of the chart, was this novel idea rationalism. And that, my friends, is where most of us are going to fall In this space of. Oh, I do want to know more about sex, I do want to play in these kinky ways at home or at a sex club or in a dungeon, and I want to go to work and I want to go play pick-up soccer with my friends after work and I want to sip coffee with my best friend by the lake, and I want and I want and I want. This idea of rationalism just reminds me of our human right to self-determination and informed decision-making, which is so interesting because in order to make an informed decision, we need information. And so even the fact that you were going into this sex club and you had done so much preparation on your own, you were going into this adult consenting space expecting to see adults doing consenting acts, and then you were like, oh yeah, this is, this is sex, it is.

Speaker 2: 50:46

And, yes, sure, sometimes we could make something a little more titillating for us. Great, there are ways to do that for ourselves. Maybe we do want a more um, created, curated space, wonderful, wonderful. Then maybe you start to work with someone to really create a wonderful space just for you. I guess most sex clubs or tantra parties or this or that that you would go to would have a ton of instruction about boundaries and limits and wants and desires and disciplinary measures of how, if you are violating someone's boundary, you're gone. A lot of things that we've never even learned. So, yes, I would argue that sure, there is hedonism, there is that slippery slope, but the beautiful middle ground that involves informed decision-making and values-based ethics is rationalism, and I think that is where the majority of humans fall, if given comprehensive sexuality education and learning modalities such as your podcast to start to expand their understanding of what they'd actually want.

Speaker 1: 51:55

And I liked how you spoke about as you're exploring different scenes and this kinky side of healing in your life. At the same time, you're developing your sexual, moral and ethic code, which we all have to do for ourselves, and that's really important. No-transcript, that there was no conversation happening about consent, about safety, about boundaries, about what would happen when boundaries were broken, and so on and so forth, right, but so I would ask you to tell my listeners how can someone know when the kink exploration they're using to heal or the partners they're choosing, when it is safe and it's healing versus. You've somehow ventured into something where kink can be used and some people do use it, just like people use anything they can to harm or control people, right? Especially, I think, when you get into people who are into a little bit more hardcore dom sub kink play, which also perfectly fine, but there are bad players in that arena. So how would someone be able to go oh, this isn't part of my healing journey.

Speaker 2: 53:47

Yeah, and I love that you said you'll find this in any space, because you will. If you are in corporate America, you are going to find people who abuse power. If you are in church spaces, you are going to find people who abuse power. If you are in church spaces, you are going to find people who abuse power. And so this argument is so flawed that it is kinky spaces that are dangerous. I say bullshit. It is also other places like church that we see such an abuse of power. So I just am so thankful that you said that.

Speaker 2: 54:19

Yes, it is sadly a trial and error process for so many of us, including myself. I was involved in a tantra space at one point where the things that I'm about to share, that I now use to teach, were not present. They were not present. I would number one hope that if you were going into a space where there was a leadership team of some kind, right, there were facilitators, there was a host all kinds of different names for these folks in these spaces but that your person in charge was able to clearly state what the boundaries of this space included. It should be things like time when is the beginning, when is the end? How are we going to open the container and close the container? Container is a word that we use often in these spaces, and I just think it's helpful and you need to be listening, for are they aware of that too? How are they going to send me home? For are they aware of that too? How are they going to send me home?

Speaker 2: 55:20

In kinky spaces? We have these terms subspace and topspace and drop. These are literally the spaces when our parasympathetic system goes off. Parasympathetic nervous system goes offline. Our bodies descend into this like juicy space. My friends, it's so fun. It can happen in your masturbatory practice, but it often happens in these scene type settings, because we're able to drop into our nervous systems that much more. But it's dangerous to then just go home to have it just abruptly end.

Speaker 2: 55:50

It is actually dangerous. Do a little bit of Googling. It's fun. It feels like you're under the power of a morphine-like drug. It's really fascinating to study and it can be beautiful. I'd argue that sometimes at church people drop into subspace and they don't even know it. It's when their hands are up, they're singing, they're going into the space Making in tongues. Yep, it's the same thing, my friends.

Speaker 2: 56:12

So, I would be listening for. How is the container opening and closing, and then what are the disciplinary measures? And this was what happened at the Tantra space that I was in. We were playing a game where everyone's eyes were closed or you're blindfolded. You were feeling your way around the room with the backs of your hands. There was to be no front hand touching, no groping, no grabbing, and I was grabbed not once but four times by another person in the space and I was obeying the rules and was definitely going into fawn and flight trauma response because of subspace, and the facilitators of the event did not remove this human.

Speaker 2: 56:51

When I brought it up to them, they were very confused and wanted to kind of shut me off in the corner, not do collective repair, which is a term I have been given and trained in. They then had no plan for taking care of me none at all and I was only asked if I wanted to leave. He was going to get to stay. I was asked if I wanted to leave. Then I could see all of the staff whispering about me and the tone that everyone used was oh, are you okay? This very victim, blamey yuckiness that I would hope none of my clients ever had to experience. So I would ask right up front what happens if someone doesn't play by the rules? What's our process?

Speaker 1: 57:42

And.

Speaker 2: 57:42

I do now. I do now Because, again, I think restorative justice is very important in this world. I do not believe that we just need to cast someone out, I do not. But what's the process? How are we calling to account? How are we protecting the people who have come to play with their bodies, so sexy? So those are things that I have learned, as Annette said, through trial and error with my body that matter to me. So my body that I get to play with, I only want to play with folks who are interested in coming with their minds and their hearts and their listening ears. So I don't care to be in a space where people can't talk with me on my level and play with me on my level, and that's just me. But everybody gets to come up with their own things that matter to them.

Speaker 2: 58:34

I would Google talk about a take-home, a list of values, and I would go through this list of values and I would circle the ones that mean a lot to you as a human being and then I would write and this is an exercise I do with my clients, with my own worksheets a sexual values mission statement and this aligns with you. I would do it like this. My sexual practices, both with myself and with others, exist to fill in the blank. So that fill in the blank, I want that first line to be all you focused, oh, gentle, listener, all you focus. Because our sex that we have with ourself and with others should benefit us. It absolutely should. It should increase our pleasure, it should be bountiful, it should be juicy, it should be delicious. Then I want the so that that fill in the blank to be others-centered. Because call me crazy, but the thing we were saying earlier, sex is not everything, it's just a part of everything. And what the World Health Organization says is that sexual health is fundamental to the well-being of individuals, families and communities.

Speaker 2: 59:40

And I'd argue that if Annette and I are having great sex on our own and with the folks that we want to play with, the world benefits. So how do you want the world to benefit? How do you want the other folks at a play party to benefit? How do you want a casual lover to benefit? I'm all here for casual sex and how do you want to come away? And how do you want to leave someone? This is so cool to just sit there and go. Oh, I want people to leave me feeling respected, protected and honored Cool, awesome. How do you want to leave? Oh, I want to leave, full of joy and life, cool, cool. When we do that, then we can start to filter out spaces that are for us and not for us. That's okay, it's super fun.

Speaker 2: 1:00:31

And it is also through trial and error. And so, at this Tantra party that went south, I was able to say why am I so disturbed, why does this not work? South, I was able to say why am I so disturbed, why does this not work? And then I was able to go back to my sexual values mission statement and go ah, this one, this is what was off. This is not okay with me and it's okay. It's okay. I was able to get the help that I needed.

Speaker 2: 1:00:52

Peter Levine says that trauma is only stored in our body if there's the combination of fear plus helplessness. So I highly recommend that, if you are interested in dabbling in kink as a healing modality for coming out of high control religion or purity culture or semi-control religion, that you have someone in your corner, someone you could go to, podcasts like this one that you could listen to if something goes south, because trial and error is a part of the learning journey and it's okay. It doesn't mean that this is not for you, but you do deserve safe spaces to unpack potential harm. That could happen in those instances, that's okay. But trauma would not be stored in your body if the presence of helplessness was not there. So just make sure you're not hopeless.

Speaker 1: 1:01:40

God damn, I was going to do takeaways, but that is a really good one. I just love listening to your voice, also Very soothing. I was also, as you were talking about creating that sort of mission statement, I was thinking to myself. I was thinking back to that experience I had with that woman, yes, and how it? Because it went south for us. I had to, we, I had a like oh, you are, you're not in a place to be doing any of this. And I thought to myself, when you are reading that off, if she had already worked that out, she would have had so much clarity for why the whole situation for her was so unnerving, and you know what I mean. That would have given her a playbook with me, Right? And also, if she had shared that information with me, then I would have been like I know what we're doing here. Yes, because I certainly am.

Speaker 1: 1:02:49

I am not an expert in healing from high control religious trauma, for sure. I was just like, oh my God, what am I? You know what is happening. How do I deal with this human? So I love that you leave us with that, because whether you're the person who's coming out of this, you know the purity culture and really being created and baked and then put into the earth. You know in this way or you're the person who, like me, ventured into relationship with one If you know these things ahead of time, if that mission statement is created, that creates clarity. And I always say, especially in intimacy and sex clarity is kindness. The absence of clarity is unkindness to one person or the other. So I love that. Thank you so much for that. So I'm just going to ask you this. Any last words, then, for my listeners, since you gave us such a wonderful, useful takeaway my listeners, since you gave us such a wonderful, useful takeaway.

Speaker 2: 1:04:03

Yes, if you are a person coming out of high control religion or a lover to one, I want you to know that you can do this work, curiosity, play, you can heal and have the best sex of your life. It's not too late. In fact, myself and those of us who've come out of these religious spaces tend to have invigorating, tend to have invigorating, life-giving sex for a really long time, and so I just want to inject a little hope into the end of this that your kinkiest, most fun days are ahead, and there are individuals out there, like me and so many others, who adore walking alongside those of you.

Speaker 2: 1:04:58

So you're not alone and there's hope.

Speaker 1: 1:05:02

I love that I actually have a sexy someone out there I'm sending this episode to. I already know I'm like, and you know who you are I'd like to put my hands on your body. I'm going to send this person this episode just because I think this is going to resonate so much with them. We talk about their own coming out of religious trauma and I think this is going to be very helpful. Can you please let everyone listening to this know exactly where they can find you, listen to your lovely voice and learn from you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:37

Yes, you can go to sexed4ucom forward slash connect. Sexed4ucom forward slash connect. There on that page I have a link to my Instagram, a link to my podcast, all of those types of things. I was telling Annette before we began that I have a podcast with my partner, trey, called the Partnership Podcast, where we talk extensively about what our sex is like and we often dabble in the ways in which religious trauma still impacts me today and the things we've done to overcome it. So if you are a lover to someone who sounds a lot like me, feel free to listen and feel like you got some people in your corner. It could be very encouraging to you and you could probably just search through the podcast to find those specific episodes, but it's pretty much constantly talked about. So, yeah, go to sexed4ucom forward slash connect. Please find me on Instagram as well. You can see that on that page. I'm very active over there. That's the only social platform I'm on.

Speaker 1: 1:06:43

Great, great. Well, now you guys know where to find her. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did and as it does as much as it does relate to healing from religious trauma, I want to say, as a survivor of sexual trauma, I see so many parallels and how some of these same techniques can be used for people like me, and also for people like me who have, you know, definitely religious trauma, but there are different levels, I would say, of it.

Speaker 1: 1:07:23

But still, you know, Catholic school girl syndrome is real. It's so real.

Speaker 2: 1:07:30

It is so real I think, yes, you'd still be on there on the scoring sheet, on the scoring chart, Would.

Speaker 1: 1:07:36

I score on there. Is there a scoring sheet? No, but I should make one.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

You should make one, I should make one and say what score would you give yourself? Or like, yeah, I should, because I have a lot of clients. Yeah, no, lots of Catholic schoolgirl trauma that I work with yet.

Speaker 1: 1:07:53

Okay, All right. Well, so there you go, guys. I just learned something about myself today. I love it. All right, guys, I could keep talking. Now I have all these questions popping up, but we are out of time and hopefully I will get a chance to talk to you again on my show I'm sure a lot of you do. If you are a listener, you can go to my YouTube channel at TalkSexWithAnette, find the video that goes along with the audio and drop your question below in the comments section, or you can email me at Annette at TalkSexWithAnettecom. You can also scroll down to the notes section below this episode and click on my speak pipe and send me a voice note question. There's a lot of ways to get a hold of me and I will try and get your specific question addressed. And until next time, thank you again. So much, Lauren, for joining me and listeners, until next time. I'll see you in the locker room. Cheers.