Ep. 16: Surrogate Partner (Part 1), with Michelle Renee

In this episode, we sit down with Michelle Rene, an intimacy guide and professional cuddler from San Diego, to uncover the layers of the unique therapeutic practice of being a surrogate partner. Michelle collaborates closely with talk therapists to support clients grappling with emotional and physical intimacy issues.

To contact Michelle:
MeetMichelleRenee.com
IntimacyLabPodcast.com
HumanConnectionLab.com
SoftCockWeek.com

Michelle's social media:
https://instagram.com/meetmichellerenee

https://www.facebook.com/cuddlemichellerenee

https://www.tiktok.com/@meetmichellerenee

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetmichellerenee

https://www.youtube.com/meetmichellerenee

https://x.com/thetrojankitten

Resources mentioned in this and the next episode:

Client Judy episode on The Intimacy Lab: https://www.meetmichellerenee.com/episode/13 or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/client-judy/id1707239759?i=1000658140286

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7JnlplBWM03Z2XVRzSHsKT?si=tLR4FOBWTMO-P_eCY48VHg

Train as a pro cuddler:
Cuddlist.com
To get a 10% discount on Cuddlist training: https://cuddlist.podia.com/cuddle-therapy-basic-training/6dnxo?coupon=REFERRAL
CuddleSanctuary.com

Train as a surrogate partner:
SurrogatePartnerCollective.org to train as a surrogate partner

Learn more about surrogate partner therapy as a client:
https://www.embracespt.org/offeringsclients

Betty Dodson https://www.dodsonandross.com/about

The Cost of Duty Sex: Consenting to Unwanted Sex on Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst (on Apple):  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sex-therapy-101-with-cami-hurst/id1487731899?i=1000608645066
(On Spotify):  https://open.spotify.com/episode/7pTRXOEHvH6pedC5cCEQ06?si=OKhLagp7Q5qnxOfyGB9kXw

Here's your first step in spicing up your sex life--get Lee's free erotic massage technique: rockthebedroom.com/

For new erotic massage techniques every month: rockthebedroom.com/membership

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Before we jump into this really juicy episode, I wanted to give you a content warning. In this episode, my guest talks about sexual trauma, which might be triggering for some audiences who've experienced sexual trauma, so please listen at your own discretion. Also, fair warning at the end of this episode I'm going to leave you hanging just a little bit. Michelle and I had such a great conversation that it ended up being 90 minutes long, so I decided to chop it into two parts. This episode is part one and next week I'll release part two. It gets so good so I highly recommend that you listen to it, but for now, let's jump into part one. On the show today, I have with me Michelle Rene. She's an intimacy guide based in San Diego, california, not too far away from me, I'm very proud to say. She offers human connection as a professional cuddler and as a surrogate partner. She helps people who have difficulties with emotional and physical intimacy, so I'm really happy to have her on the show today. Michelle, welcome, I'm just so excited for this conversation.

Speaker 2: 2:01

I know we get to go the other direction. I'm excited to be your guest.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Yes, for those of you who don't know, I was on her soft cock week podcast. Yes, soft cock, it was all it. That was a good conversation.

Speaker 2: 2:15

I was so like. I'm so glad that you came into my world through that, because I've gotten to have more time with you. Because of that I I don't I love soft cock week. I'm really glad to also have a new director, that I don't have to take it on as my baby anymore. I get to be the auntie or something instead and um. But that I got to meet you, that you were directed my way and that we're kind of neighbors and that we get to, you get to come to my local events and things, yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Uh, it's, it's really. It's important to have powerful people and heart-centered people and people who just really want to make a difference out there in your world, Because it's a lonely world when you're an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 3:02

It really is. I think the beauty of our work is we're. I don't know anybody in my circle that isn't doing this work because it was important to them in their own journey Right. I love your story. You know we all have our own stories of what brought us here and it's like it's different than like I'm picking out a. What do I want to be when I grow up? Career in high school. You know we've all gotten here because we've had some life.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Right, yeah, it just kind of it. It calls us. I didn't look for what I am doing now, not at all, but it called me, it, I just yeah. So I agree, I agree, that's a good distinction because there's real passion that comes from that and and you can, yeah, it's very heart-centered, awesome, okay. So first off, for our listeners and myself, for greater clarification, can you explain to us what a surrogate partner is? And I want to just kind of throw in here I don't know if you remember, you probably have Helen Hunt played a surrogate partner in a movie a long time ago. A man who was paralyzed from the neck down hires her. He's a virgin and it's a beautiful story. I mean the compassion and it's so beautiful, highly recommend. I'd like to hear your definition of a surrogate partner.

Speaker 2: 4:33

Yeah, helen Hunt did a lovely job. It's called the Sessions. I think it was 2012. It's not accurate to what we do.

Speaker 1: 4:41

I'm going to. Yeah, that's why I kind of I'm like a lot of people will have seen that maybe and just assume that this is what you do. So I want you to clarify what a surrogate partner is for you.

Speaker 2: 4:52

I want to say real quick, that was based on Cheryl Cohen Green. It may have been how she worked. This was, I think, that surrogate partner therapy has gone through an evolution. Like all things do we all change. Surrogate partner therapy has changed. So what it is today.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Today, surrogate partners form a relationship with clients that are in talk therapy. They've been in talk therapy for a little bit. They've really got an established relationship with their therapist and they struggle with emotional and physical intimacy, right. And and there's something that they're just kind of hitting a wall Talk therapy isn't enough. They're avoiding dating. A lot of our relational wounds don't really get to be exposed until we're in relationship. They don't get healed unless we're in relationship, right. If you've got a client that is like I'm afraid to even start dating because of whatever the barrier is, it might be lack of experience.

Speaker 2: 5:55

A lot of my work is trauma related, right. So I'm going to talk about traditional surrogate partner therapy first and then I'll talk about how I'm kind of modifying my version of it. So in that what we call the triadic model. So we have the therapist, we have the client, we have the surrogate partner. They're working in collaboration. The client is still working with the therapist and the client is working with the surrogate and then the surrogate is also talking to the therapist, so the therapist gets to process with the client what's happening in sessions with us and it works in like an arc of like.

Speaker 2: 6:32

The first phase of the work is establishing our communication, teaching the client about boundaries and our boundaries and their boundaries and how to articulate those, and and in developing like some touch practices so that we can be really conscious with how we're touching each other. And then we move into phase two, which is like body image things. A lot of times we're taking our clothes off or standing in front of a mirror. We're like really talking about our experience in our own bodies and normalizing that. Like.

Speaker 2: 7:04

I think for me one of the most important parts of that is when you have a client that hasn't been in a relationship before, which is a chunk of our work. They don't even have a clue what's going on inside of me the first time I get naked in front of someone, right, and so when I can stand there and be really transparent about what I love about my body, what I don't love about my body, transparent about what I love about my body. What I don't love about my body, the story of how this body came to be. You know, I'm 48 years old, I've had two babies, I've struggled with my weight. I have since lost a chunk of weight, so I've got a lot of sagginess, hanginess, lot of sagginess hanginess all the things and I also can say, damn, I've been through a lot.

Speaker 2: 8:00

This body has supported me Right. So the client gets to witness this and go. Oh, I think maybe. Then my hope is that when they are in that situation with their next partner, they have more compassion for what their partner may be going through in exposing themselves.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Right, oh gosh, that alone will change the world. Like that is so important. That element of compassion, yeah, that changes everything.

Speaker 2: 8:23

We get so hung up in what's happening in our world and so a lot of what I do is I say I'm very meta, I'm really being transparent with my clients to let them know what I'm thinking and experiencing too, so that they get an idea of how the rest of the world works, because we only know our own experience right. So in traditional surrogate partner therapy the way it kind of has gone is that the surrogate then assuming they have these boundaries can take the client through sexual contact so they can work the whole range of a relationship with the client, all the way through penetrative sex. If that's something that is necessary therapeutically for the client to move forward, people go is it legal? This sounds like prostitution. This has to be sex work, illegal sex work. It is sex work. At least I consider myself a sex worker in that space. Some of my colleagues do not. It's up to everybody to decide their labels. But the reason it's not illegal is that it's never guaranteed as part of the work. Illegal is that it's never guaranteed as part of the work they're coming in for a therapeutic coaching kind of relationship that we all get to agree on where the relationship goes At any point.

Speaker 2: 9:40

If I am a no to something it doesn't happen. If the therapist is a no to something, it doesn't happen. If the client is a no to something, it doesn't happen is a no to something it doesn't happen. If the client is a no to something, it doesn't happen. Right, so it's never a here's your fee for today.

Speaker 2: 9:57

I get to have a blow job right. That does not happen and for most of us, I think the way to keep this really cleanly in the legal zone is that the work is, across the board, the same price. So every session is the same price. Whether we're talking about like standing in front of the mirror about our bodies, or I'm teaching you how to use a condom, or we're literally having sex, it's the same price. So that's the traditional model price Right. So that's the traditional model. I know of surrogates that have different boundaries in that.

Speaker 2: 10:38

But what's interesting is that I'm playing with taking sex work out of my work this year as like a cleanse. You know we cleanse sugar out of our system. I'm cleansing the sex work out of my work so that I can get a better baseline of where my yes is in supporting my clients, because I am a helper. I'm a helper at heart. That's why I do the work that I do, and I also have a background in sexual coercion from my first marriage. I have a really hard time determining am I a yes or am I just?

Speaker 2: 11:15

wanting to help the client. Like am I putting the client's needs? Above my own.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Oh, that's so good. It's hard. That's, yeah, that's. I can see how the lines would be blurred, especially if you've had a background of sexual coercion.

Speaker 2: 11:33

for sure it's hard to make that decision, and it brings me to tears sometimes when I think about how confusing it is in my brain. Yeah, when I really get involved in a conversation on this. I can get pretty emotional, which makes me understand that there's a lot of stuff still there that I need to unravel.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Right, and you know, michelle, I'm really glad that you're saying those words out loud right now, because In my with my clients who are seeking sexual help of different kinds, I hear that all the time. Where women you know the lines of obligatory sex and but being compassionate and kind to their husband or partner, you know giving them what they need, being selfless in the moment, but but where you know where where's the line of but this is a no for me.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Yeah, and years and years and years of that can erode a relationship. So I'm really glad that you, as a therapist, are saying that out loud, because it does normalize it and and bring it out to the light to go yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a thing. People are struggling with this, even therapists, even my gosh, I can't tell you I'm not a talk therapist.

Speaker 2: 13:01

So I just want to like caveat that I don't want to mislead people. I do not have I do not have the education of a talk therapist, but I do have a lot of personal experience in this. I was raised in the Midwest. I have generations of women that, from my knowledge, put the needs of their husbands above theirs, especially in the sex world world Right. And my mother did not teach me about bodily autonomy and that I got to say on what I did and didn't do with my body Right.

Speaker 2: 13:36

So to my first place of unwinding. This was I. I started working with Betty Dodson back in 2014. So talk about how did I get like. We got in this work because of what we were doing for ourselves.

Speaker 2: 13:49

I was figuring, trying to figure out why was it so hard to orgasm? Why did they come so sporadic? Like I'd say. My husband would say Do you want to, Do you want to get off today? And I'd say no, it's too much work. I just came yesterday, Right, that was the the thing. Like that was the the the thing. And I can look back now and say, well, of course, I've totally fucked my desire over by letting sex become a chore. It was one of my jobs, right, Got up in the morning, I made breakfast, Then I took my husband back to bed and he got one of three things and we went on a rotation penetrative sex, blow job, hand job and we rotated those seven days a week because he was easier to deal with. That was my gift to my family was to make sure he was in a better space.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Right.

Speaker 2: 14:43

I gave my body. It's not even my body, it's my soul, right? Our body reads body. It's not even my body, it's my soul, right. Our body reads that as a sexual assault. A hundred percent. It does not know the difference.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:56

And I remember there was a point later in our marriage, towards the end, which I actually thought was that we were in a better place, and I remember the first time I was like wow, I'm actually present for sex today. I can remember the moments of saying I'm present today. How weird is that.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Right, instead of checking out and just trying to get through it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:15

And now, one of my favorite compliments I've received from lovers is how present I am. What a turnaround right. So so there is recovery. Yes, there is recovery but we have to stop making it worse. Like I'm not trying to victim blame here, but if I could go back and have my parents really model that? Yes, we have this idea that there's some things we have to do even though we don't want to. Sex is not one of them, right?

Speaker 1: 15:49

Right.

Speaker 2: 15:49

Sex is not one of them, and Cammie Hurst, who is a therapist who has a podcast I can get you the information if you ever want to share it. She did a study on sex out of obligation and this idea that people don't even they don't identify with the word coercion. They don't, they don't think that that's what's going on, right, they don't even know what that means and it just means if you're feeling any sort of pressure, right, if, if, you notice sex has some kind of implication.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And you're you're saying yes, yes, because you don't want to deal with what happens when you say no, that's coercion, right. And what they found is that you think you're taking one for the team, that things are going to be better if you just suck it up and do it. You're destroying your pleasure, you're getting farther and farther away from what you really want, and it's a slippery slope it's a really becomes habitual yeah, yeah yeah so.

Speaker 2: 16:56

So anyways, to wrap this all back to where I was, I'm taking, I'm taking sex off the table with my clients this year to figure out what is it that I really want. I'm putting myself above my clients. Right, my needs have to come first or I can't continue to do this work.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Well, yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 17:17

It's not to say that I don't love my clients, and I know there's going to be somebody who hears this and is like, oh my gosh, if I was one of your previous clients, how would I feel about hearing this? I have had amazing clients and I can say that I've had clients where I would put them in the dictionary, next to what is possible in surrogate partner therapy in the best possible world, and they're lovely, lovely people to work with. Holding sexual energy with a client over the course of a year is something.

Speaker 1: 17:44

I don't.

Speaker 2: 17:45

I know I don't want to go back to. I know I don't want to go back to. You've had Aubrey Lancaster on your show. Aubrey helped me understand my own asexuality. I don't experience sexual attraction. I do experience sexual desire. Right Sex is a lot of work for me.

Speaker 2: 18:05

I look at it like if my partner makes me an invitation for sex. It's like if you were looking down the path. My path has a sharp curve in it that I can't see what's on the other side of the curve. So to say yes to that takes a lot of work, right, right, I don't want to waste that on my clients, right. Yeah, I'm going to save it for my personal life, mm-hmm Right, so let me go back to how do I do the work Right. So I'm a cuddler at heart.

Speaker 1: 18:37

Started with professional cuddling. Yeah, and let's define what that is, because I know a lot of listeners are like cuddling. What do you mean? Like, yeah, I cuddle, but what do you mean you?

Speaker 2: 18:48

do that, yeah, so I. I specifically work under the cuddlist model and there's lots of trainings out there for professional cuddling. You know, like, who needs to be trained in professional cuddling? Don't we all know how to hug people Right?

Speaker 1: 19:01

But it's really through that training and I can vote for oh yeah, which training? Did you go through? Oh gosh, it was years ago, cuddlistcom.

Speaker 2: 19:10

Oh, it was Cuddlist.

Speaker 1: 19:12

It was Cuddlist. Yes, Awesome.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Well then Is it Madeline? Madeline Guadagnoza was the co-founder. Yep, yes.

Speaker 1: 19:19

Great training and I actually personally learned a whole lot about consent and all the things through that training. It's it's really good and, yes, there there's a way to cuddle properly.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Well, it's a. It's about understanding, like, if you anybody can say like, hang there, there's a sign on their door, I'm professional, right, give me money and I will cuddle you. Yeah, like, who is it for If? For If you don't understand that, like if you're using the work to get your own needs met not good it is very much for the client In Cuddlist.

Speaker 2: 19:53

It has to be client led. We don't come in with like a prescriptive model of we're going to take you through these different cuddle positions. We don't do that. We say I say, lee, how would you like to connect today? It doesn't even have to look like cuddling, it's like a connection session, right.

Speaker 2: 20:11

And when people come in, sometimes they're really touch starved and they're like can we just like intertwine, like spaghetti, Like it? They want, they almost want to. It's almost like they want to crawl inside my skin. They want that much closeness because they're so hungry for skin contact. Other people show up and they're like I'm kind of afraid of touch and I want to work through that. So then it's about really slowing everything down and making sure that they feel like they're in control, right, they are empowered to only move at the pace that they want to move at, and it might look like a snail's pace and that is perfect, Right. So so Cuddlist has that interesting, like it has to be client led.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Right, like that's the thing and we should really throw in there that being a professional cuddler means it's non-sexual, like it doesn't lead to sex at any point.

Speaker 2: 21:05

At least if you're, if you're working with Cuddlist, that is part of our code of conduct, right? If you're out in the wild west and you're popping onto all sorts of other websites, there's a lot of like low key sex work happening there, because the world makes it really hard for sex workers Like I am super pro sex work and there's been some people figure out some workarounds, right. So, like in Cuddlist, it is absolutely platonic. We have a code of conduct that we agree that we're not going to pursue arousal. Right, it's okay. If you get aroused, we're not going to chase it Right, right, so if somebody gets an erection with me, it doesn't phase me at all, I'll. If the client brings it up, I'm like do you want to change something? Like I can change positions, take a break, whatever, I'm calm, as long as we're both staying in our comfort, then we're staying to our agreements, right, right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:04

So there's an art to it, right, right, yeah, so there's an art to it. Now you have taking, uh, cuddling and surrogate partner and kind of like, made a hybrid and called it the foundations of human connection. Um, can we talk about that Like, why, why do? Why did you do that?

Speaker 2: 22:25

And part of it? Yeah, part of it. I did that before I took sex work off the table, because I just thought this is what I'm doing in cuddling. And some people get squicked out by the word cuddle, right, it has a lot of meaning to people and either they're like I'm drawn to it or I'm repelled from it, right. So this was kind of my way of like um, camouflaging it, right so that it was accessible to people. So if they come through Cuddlistcom, I know they're really comfortable with the idea of cuddling. If they come through my, my personal website, they may not be comfortable with that idea of like the term. I'm going to a professional cuddler Right.

Speaker 1: 23:07

There's a negative association, negative connotation attached to it. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:10

But that's the same exact work. They're coming in and I'm saying how do you want to connect? They never have to ask for cuddling. I've had clients that want to practice eye gazing right, it's something that they're doing as part of their trauma work Right, and I just get to be a part of that. I have a lot of people that I want. They want to sit and talk with me and maybe our feet touch. Maybe you know it can be.

Speaker 2: 23:33

I've had people we slow dance in session, like there's just so many different ways to connect with another person In the foundations of human connection. You don't have to have a therapist as part of our team, have to have a therapist as part of our team, and if you have a therapist, I love them to be part of our team, right, but I can't call it surrogate partner therapy unless there is a therapist involved. So that's kind of the it's. I show up the same way in every one of my sessions. No matter what you sign up for, you're getting exactly the same, michelle. It's exactly the same price, right? It's all. It's absolutely the same thing. You're just coming in and letting me know, kind of, where you are in the world as far as what, how you see the work.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Right, just taking them wherever they're at and then going from there.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Yep, and everybody is different. So taking the sex out of it, I found this year was really scary because I knew a lot of clients, especially male clients. They come with the carrot of sex right. They're coming because they want to fix something in their sex. It's their big driver. Taking the sex out of it. I'm working more with women, a lot of women that have sexual abuse backgrounds. They a lot of lesbian women. It's it's really fascinating to see the flip of clients and I love all of them.

Speaker 1: 25:06

I was just going to. I was just going to ask you, like do you prefer working with women over men, or or vice versa? Or do you have a favorite type of client? Like, do you? I think you have a passion anyway for working with clients with some type of trauma, sexual trauma, in their past. Yeah, and why is that Like, yeah, like, why, why are you so passionate about that audience?

Speaker 2: 25:37

I have my own sexual trauma right. I remember the point post-divorce when I realized I can tell you where I was. I was sitting in my friend's driveway in Ventura, california, and it dawned on me that I was the victim of repeated sexual assault. I was outside of that relationship for years. At that point, yeah, when it dawned on me I don't know if I have any other history I've always questioned. If I've had issues from my childhood, I've kind of given up on questioning it. I'm kind of like if it comes up, it comes up. It's not anything that's like affecting me, but I do feel a lot of compassion and draw to work with people that have had childhood sexual assault. Yeah, I think I have a big mom energy.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Right and there's a part of me that comes in and I just want to hold them and tell them everything's going to be okay, like sometimes, I describe my work as like gentle parenting for adults that never got it when they were kids.

Speaker 1: 26:41

Right, that must be so rewarding for you to to especially work with the sexual trauma group of people, because you get to see where they start and that's a pretty dark place and take them through a transformation to liberation, to freedom, to you know, light.

Speaker 2: 27:07

I recently described it as they get a new co-host.

Speaker 1: 27:12

A new co host.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Yeah, I don't know if you have any. I don't know what your background is and you don't have to disclose it, but I know I can speak. I have a client who loves when I talk about our work together. She's so, so proud of what we've been able to do together, so I have her consent at any time to talk about her case A lot of times in her memory bank, especially if she's trying to masturbate. Her history is with her father.

Speaker 2: 27:39

He shows up in those spaces all these years later. Right, and a lot of our work has been replacing him with me. So, an example of that would be God. She's an amazing client. I just had an interview with her on my podcast so you can link to that in the show notes so people can hear more about her. Oh gosh.

Speaker 1: 28:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:00

Some of the work we've done is simple and it sounds kind of I don't know if it makes sense. If you have a history you will go. Oh my gosh, I get this. We spent time walking in and out of the bathroom together because a lot of her abuse happened in the bathroom. So as we walk in the bathroom I said notice what you're like. No-transcript content warning on this interview, by the way, because this, I, I, this could be really activating for people. Right, for her, a washcloth, that abrasion, abrasive feeling of the washcloth, brought up memories for her Right. Wow. So to even shower she was, she was sponge bathing she. She called me one day and she said it was after the session where we stood in the shower together. She said, Michelle, I took my first shower in this apartment that I'm. I've been living here for two years.

Speaker 2: 29:16

I've never showered here it took her two hours took her two hours, but she told herself I'm going to stop when it's too much. I'm not going to abandon myself in this space, I'm not going to push through. And she just slowly walked herself through showering herself with remember, with Michelle. We stood in the shower together. Everything was okay. She's co-regulating with me when I'm not there. She's telling her inner child remember, michelle said this was okay. When she's masturbating and the shame comes up, she says remember, michelle said this was okay and I deserve pleasure. Right, so it's. It's creating a new co host.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Right, yeah, oh my gosh, that is so beautiful to just yeah, and your talk therapist can't do all that with you, right, right yeah, they can't know you, but it's also still important that you have them on your team, because you need a place to process this.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:22

And that's why you have. You recommend having a talk therapist on this team because you don't help them process that. To a certain extent Is that correct.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Yes, and I, I, I don't know that I would take a client that didn't have a therapist to that kind of work, right, right, we might stay in more traditional cuddling, right, cause I don't, I, I don't have the capacity to help them process this for the days after, like, what I love is when a client sees me and then they have their therapist lined up at the end of the week or first into the next week so that they're getting a consistent connection point, like for the stuff that comes up after session, cause a lot of stuff that happens in session is really powerful but it really hits at home, right, right, and I, I'm not, I'm not trained to be that person.

Speaker 2: 31:13

I kind of joke that I'm the crash test dummy. I'm the body, right, I'm the body that has to happen for these things to like, I'm the nervous system that their body needs to connect with, to kind of start to, I say, like um, create a new baseline of what is healthy in our, in our, our nervous system memory, so that when we go out in the regular world we can recognize that feeling, because if you come from abuse and you find somebody who's actually quite healthy, it feels boring, right.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Our nervous system doesn't even recognize it as, like this, is not familiar to me Right, because there's no sense of survival of the autonomic nervous system that keeps us safe is not being stimulated because there's no danger there.

Speaker 2: 32:01

And that's how trauma bonding happens, right. We look for that familiar activation I remember with my partner, who has been together for eight and a half years. He is so calm. In the beginning of our relationship I just thought he didn't like me. You have no passion for me because you're not screaming at me, right? Right, thank God we stuck it out, you know right, Because it's been so exactly what I needed.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Yeah, oh, my gosh, yeah. So it's not just a matter of, oh, find someone healthy and that will, that'll cure me, that'll help me. Your system isn't wired. I mean, you can do it. I think of myself as my first case study. Right, that'll cure me, that'll help me. Your system isn't wired that way.

Speaker 2: 32:41

I mean, you can do it. I think of myself as my first case study. Right, everything I'm doing with clients I've really been doing with my partner. But if you don't have a partner or you don't have a partner, that doesn't like. My partner came into our relationship. He's 12 years younger than me, with not a lot of relationship experience. He didn't come in with a bunch of baggage. He had really stable parents.

Speaker 2: 33:05

I'm like, is this what it feels like to not have an ACEs score? If you're familiar with the adverse childhood experiences, there's studies that say that when certain things happen to you in your childhood, you have a different outcome for health and mental health. Like these things affect you for the rest of your life. I'm like I don't think he doesn't have a score, like I have a score. Most people have at least one thing on that list. He doesn't have any of that and he's so. His nervous system is so stable and, like he, he knows how to hold space for me.

Speaker 2: 33:41

People don't always have that in their relationship. So so to go back to this hybrid and traditional surrogate partner therapy, we generally only work with single clients Unless they have a history in their relationship of non-monogamy. Our work is really destabilizing to a monogamous relationship. So we stay away from that. That's not our lane In my work is this like the platonic side of it, because I'm not coming in with kind of the romantic intentions, Like I'm there to be, like I think of it as like sorority, sister, mentor, auntie, mother, like all these female kind of figures. I don't feel like I have to necessarily say that you have to be single, but I do come in with. The caveat is you will not be the same person when you leave, even after the first session. That can be destabilizing in your relationship. If I'm like, okay, we can't do anything until I get you to the point of you having a really trustworthy yes, which means I've got to hear your no and you've never, practiced using your no and you go home and you start utilizing that no.

Speaker 2: 34:57

It's going to be destabilizing. You're going to want to have couples therapy, you know, lined up to help you navigate a new relationship.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Right, Get your partner on board and you know, so they're in the loop of what's happening.

Speaker 2: 35:12

My, my partner was a doormat. Now they're not. How do we adjust that Like, that's, that's, that's a lot Like. I love Esther Perel, love her. I don't know if you're familiar. She's got some great TED Talks, some great books.

Speaker 1: 35:27

She's amazing yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:28

Yeah, she says like you're going to be married to the same, to the same person, but multiple marriages right, it's a different, it's so many different relationships because we grow and change different relationships. Because we grow and change yeah, and we've got to. Sometimes we're going to be able to grow and change with our partner and sometimes it's going to lead to incompatibility. Right, I don't want to not grow and change. That's my number one priority. My vows are online and one of the things I say in there is I promise to love you and myself with kindness, right.

Speaker 2: 36:01

I'm a priority, just as much as my, that you are a priority to me, but ultimately I'm going to put myself first Right, and I hope that we should we should.

Speaker 1: 36:10

We should a hundred percent. It's like the oxygen mask and the plane you know you don't take care of yourself. You're no good to anybody else.

Speaker 2: 36:17

Especially moms, Like if you've been raised, like if you're doing the traditional gender role stuff. I always put myself last.

Speaker 1: 36:26

Yep.

Speaker 2: 36:26

Always guilty. Yeah, and it's totally it's.

Speaker 1: 36:30

we're not we need to, and that's a badge of honor.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Oh my gosh. The martyr, the martyr is real, and and and and that's not. The martyr is real, and and and and that's not did you read the book untamed?

Speaker 2: 36:50

I'm actually in the middle of it. Oh, I love that so good I thought I don't need to read it. I'm already untamed, like I was Ms Sex geek, slutting around everywhere doing anything I wanted to do, like I was untamed. And my sister says I think you should read it. I said are you sure? Cause I don't want to, I don't want to waste $16, heaven forbid. Right, and she goes no, michelle, I think. Chapter three on blowjobs, you will. You will really resonate with that.

Speaker 1: 37:12

Yeah, it's so good. Listeners, run, don't walk, to get that book. It is so good.

Speaker 2: 37:19

And and I want to say that chapter touched me so profoundly because of that history that I talked about of sexual coercion, I'm going to give it away. So you know. Spoiler alert chapter three. There's plenty of chapters past that. This is not going to ruin the book for you. In this chapter Glennon Doyle the author is talking about she really doesn't want to have sex with her husband anymore. She's met Abby who ends up becoming her wife, but she's like I, just I don't want to have sex with him anymore. And the therapist says and I kid you not, have you considered blow jobs? Some people find them less intimate? And I bawled my eyes out.

Speaker 1: 37:56

Yeah, I had to stop reading and just process for a moment that a therapist actually said that.

Speaker 2: 38:02

I bawled my eyes out. I called my ex-husband and I said I'm just realizing the system. It's not just you right, it's the entire system that we're in that is pushing this fucking narrative that marriage is about having a consistent sex partner. We get to put our coins in and the dispenser dispenses an orgasm Right, right, the vending machine Right and that that's what we're signing up for in marriage. In my first marriage I knew, if I asked for a divorce many times, I knew in my heart of hearts if I was willing to take on all of what would come at me. If I just took sex off the table, he would leave. I knew it.

Speaker 1: 38:47

Right.

Speaker 2: 38:47

My partner now going through this whole asexual journey. He said to me one day if you ever need to take sex off the table for us, I'm okay with that. Like, oh, my gosh being loved right sex is not the thing that's keeping him in this relationship.

Speaker 1: 39:02

That almost makes me want to cry. That is just such a forward-thinking person to say that we're currently monogamish.

Speaker 2: 39:14

right, I kind of feel very socially monogamous. I want to be out on the town with my partner and not worry that he's constantly scoping the room to see who he can hook up with, like that makes me very uncomfortable. But when we're away from each other, I want to feel like I can connect however I want to with people. It makes me feel more adult to have like full autonomy of my body, right.

Speaker 2: 39:41

And my choices, and so we have this understanding that, like if we're, it's kind of like that if you're not in the same zip code kind of situation, like if we're at a conference either one of us. What I don't want is, I don't want it to be part of my everyday life, Like I don't want to do poly. We started off as polyamorous. We've just keep like renegotiating our relationship, kind of like I don't want to call it downgrading, because I don't think it's a downgrade, it's a shift or maybe a lateral shift. Yeah, we went from poly to okay, we'll just be open but not do the whole relationship thing. And then one day I said you want to try something really edgy. He's like what's that? I go, should we try being monogamous for a little while? And so we did a year of monogamy. Because we do, we renegotiate on our anniversary.

Speaker 1: 40:25

How do we want our relationship?

Speaker 2: 40:26

structure to be for the year. I love that. Yeah, we come from the kink world, so we're really big on talking things out in negotiations, and I remember our year ended of monogamy and he said how do you think it went? He's like I think it went pretty well, and I said, yeah, I didn't feel like myself. I felt like there was a part of me that got put in a box, and I can say that I don't really hook up with people very often. I get to cuddle with people, though, and so in my asexuality, when I look at a person, I go, ooh, what am I drawn to? What am I attracted to? It's not sexual attraction. I'm not thinking about having sex with them.

Speaker 1: 41:08

Right, like. So. When you say hook up, you're not necessarily meaning having sex, having intercourse, or because typically hook up is yeah, I'm banging that person, I can Right, right, I can no, maybe it's just cuddling.

Speaker 2: 41:27

I'm a cuddle slut Like, um, I don't want to my ex-husband, I don't want to cuddle you right now. Just full disclosure, Like okay.

Speaker 1: 41:36

We should cuddle soon.

Speaker 2: 41:39

We should cuddle soon. We should cuddle soon. We should cuddle soon. We should cuddle soon. Um, like I, I'm like.

Speaker 2: 41:45

I was at a conference in February. Um, there's a great conference. I want you to come with me. Uh, it's every other year. It's in Burbank, so it's not far from home, sweet. And um, it's called the sex pause con and it's a lot of research around sex. I happen to be a geek so I love listening to research. But I met this really lovely gentleman there four years ago.

Speaker 2: 42:04

We reconnected this last year and I was like we should cuddle, right, and that was totally within my relationship agreements. My husband would have never been okay with that. He didn't even like me to have close girlfriends, right, it was very Midwest monogamy, you know, like he had to be my one and only person to have like vulnerability and intimate, like any emotional intimacy, all that kind of stuff focused on him. And instead I get this guy who's like bald and full of tattoos and like totally my type, and he's like yeah, let's cuddle. So I took him through the opening agreement for Cuddlist where we say I promise you that if ever I'm uncomfortable, I will do something to change it. Can you promise that to me too and he was like yes, what is this? He's very I call it vanilla, like he's not used to all this communication, right.

Speaker 2: 42:59

And so we cuddled. We had all this like sexual energy between us. It was very yummy. I did not make out with him. I did send my husband a text that said oh my God, I'm going to go cuddle with this guy. How would you feel if I made out with him and he didn't get back to me? And I tried calling him. He was having phone problems and we stuck to just cuddling and it was hot and it was kind of like high school and there was all this like anticipation that got to just longing, just got to sit there, we didn't do anything with it and it was delicious.

Speaker 1: 43:37

Oh my gosh, I totally relate to that. I'm I'm really glad you verbalized that. I, uh, for my birthday several years ago I met a guy at a Pooja it's like a Tantra event for those listeners who don't know and um, and I was. I was attracted to him, um and I I it was my birthday the following week and I I, it was my birthday the following week and I. I asked him if he would come, like I wanted him to be my birthday gift to me, and what ended up happening was