Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole. On today's episode, we have Dr. Eric Fitzmadruid join us for a conversation about letting go of erotic shame to embody your pleasure. Together we talk about moving from infidelity to consensual non monogamy. Taking a multicultural view to our scripts around pleasure and liberating your right to play. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy.
I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday. My name is Nicole, I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy. And I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice, supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.
Dear listener, what an episode to release for you. You know that I have dedicated all of my doctoral research to the phenomenon of non monogamy. I have dedicated so many hours. Books, podcasts, conversations, so much of my life to this very topic. And it was a really powerful conversation to have with Eric and to hear about his journey with infidelity and moving into nonmonogamy.
and the liberation of our desires for more than one person. And of course, as a feminist, I am also thinking about just the years of patriarchal control of women, specifically women's sexuality, and the unique socialization that that is. And I asked some really deep questions that have been built off of my years of research in this space.
And Eric had said, you know, you ask the one question, you ask the second, you ask the third, and people are going to say, stop challenging me. And like I said to him, no one's requiring you to be here to listen to these conversations. But if I am challenging you. If in all of my hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to become an educated and privileged woman, and my research challenges you, good.
If I have learned anything about the feminist revolution, about the queer revolution, it is that we need to get uncomfortable. Okay, there is the Gloria Steinem quote that the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. I hope I am challenging you. I hope that we get to the end of our lives and we're still challenging the ways that these systems are preventing us from accessing pleasure.
And if you feel already like, wow, my life is so pleasurable, look at the people around you. Imagine a world where you had even More pleasure, okay? And the worst part about this system is that sure, there are large structural inequalities that exist around us, but it is so deeply internalized into our psyche that it is rather uncomfortable as someone who has existed in the sex positive and radical world.
space coming all the way from purity culture. The amount of times that my value systems have been incongruent with my actual response, my subconscious desires. Oh my goodness. These systems are so deeply internalized for you, for me, for all of us. And so I hope that That we can still get to the end of our lives and be asking, what else is possible?
Is there more pleasure that is possible for you, for our community, for our children and the people that are being born into this world, because I know in my heart that more pleasure is possible. Where can we continue to liberate pleasure? This journey is far from over, so far from over. And I hope, dear listener, that you continue to enjoy coming back, being uncomfortable with me in this space, being challenged, growing and expanding, because I want to ask you, when was the last time that you played erotically?
Are you following your pleasure? What gets in the way of you following your highest erotic desires? And how can we liberate you, myself, all people?
All right, dear listener, I am passionate and fiery about this topic. That's for damn sure. And I am really excited to be in this space with you and for all of you that continue to join the movement, continue to join the conversation. I'm thankful for you. All right, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can check out my offerings and resources at modernanarchypodcast.
com, linked in the show notes below. And I want to send the biggest thank you and heartfelt gratitude to all of my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long term sustainability of this podcast, keeping this content free and accessible for all. people. If you want to join the Patreon community and get exclusive access to my research and insight into my personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon.
com slash modern anarchy podcast, which is also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, Please know that I am sending you all of my love and let's tune in to today's episode. So then the first question I like to ask each guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Well, in the spirit of this podcast, I'm going to introduce myself in a slightly different way than usual because, you know, the experiences that really inform where I stand with my public work are really personal experiences. So I'm a polyamorous person who discovered. That polyamorous identity late in life and successfully transitioned and have continued to maintain a monogamous relationship that I had had for 18 years before we opened.
Now we're 23 years in and our relationship is better than ever. I'm a father of three who has a good relationship with his children, including his genderqueer children. I think those things say a lot about how I move through my life and my space, because it's difficult in this world to maintain relationships through those kinds of transitions and journeys.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I know you said no other podcast is taking you up on the offer to have your personal story here. I'm shocked, but you're in the right space. I'm really ready for you to tell your story and your journey with all of this.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah, I mean, um, you know, I was really struggling with my sexuality.
I was raised Catholic. I have a strong spiritual background. I thought I might go into ministry of some kind. My journey into psychology started with one year of the pastoral counseling program at Loyola University in Chicago. And I was really struggling with being a high desire person. Having kink desires, I had a couple of affairs, um, in the first year of my PhD program, and I really had to figure out how to set aside the old lessons of my Catholic upbringing.
And frankly, what I see is a very common thread in a lot of new age spirituality, too, that sexuality is somehow less evolved, bad, lower, you know, base. Earthly not spiritual in order to figure out where could my point of integrity be with the nature of my being. And, you know, I went through a couple of waves of that.
So after the couple of affairs that I had in the first year of my PhD program, I really kind of put myself on lockdown. I was like, I am not going to do that again. I had these energetic walls. I was monitoring my attention and. Something like 12 years later, I was in probably the worst place in my career, my teaching part of my career, and my supervision and clinical director positions were falling apart.
I had a private practice that I was building, but it was very dicey in the Bay Area financially to know whether that was going to be secure. And in that time, I had this, uh, stress relieving community online that I was a part of, and I made a connection with somebody and this opportunity for an online affair came up, I was watching it, you know, internally, all of that tension that I put up was present, all of my ethical awareness was present.
And I was so hungry to be and to express and to reconnect with the parts of myself that I had not allowed out in so many years. In the intervening time, I had even acknowledged, Oh, I'm polyamorous, and I talked with my wife about that. I said, I'm polyamorous. I read The Ethical Slut. I was like, um,
Nicole: classic.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: So this book I've been reading to help my clients, yeah, I think, I think that might actually be me. And, you know, bless her, her reaction that I remember when I revealed that was she kind of looks up, she nodded, she said, yeah, you are, she could recognize that in me. Um, but she also said, and very reasonably, so I'm not ready to address that.
I'm not ready to make those changes right now. And so we kind of put it off and I had to figure out how to integrate that, how to talk about it. And we went very slowly over the next two years to open. our relationship. And as I mentioned, you know, I, we're still together. We live in the same house. Our relationship I think is better than it's ever been.
I also live with my second life partner that I've now been with for seven years. I only dated for less than a year and a half. Because I knew from the beginning that probably what I was looking for was a second life partner. I've had some other attractions since then, since getting my second life partner, and we've continued navigating.
I might date again at some point in the future, but I think it'll look differently because I don't think I have any more room for life partners.
Nicole: Two is a lot.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Two is a lot. Yeah. Living in the same house, raising kids with two partners, it's, it's full.
So you know, when I put material out for men, for high desire people around the integration of sexuality, around the search for how to find that point of integrity when you've hurt people by not being in integrity.
When I put out that I've made some mistakes around consent myself, things that I look back on and go, that wasn't right. In retrospect, I'm not trying to come from a place of the ivory tower of the therapist's office from superiority. I'm trying to come from the place of yes, my clinical lens informs how I approach this and how I speak about it.
But ultimately, I think it's my lived experience that I hope gives me a compassionate perspective on. At least what my own journey has been and what I have seen worked for a number of clients. And so whether what I have to say works for you or not, if you're struggling with this, I see you. I know some of the journey that you've been on.
I know some of the pain that you feel. And I hope that at the very least looking at what I have to say will give you something solid to push on. As you continue to search for your own path to that integrity.
Nicole: Well, thank you for sharing your story and for trusting me to hold the space for you. Yeah. I'm thinking just about, you know, I've looked really hard to find data on infidelity and it's really hard, you know, of course, that's not a stat that people want to.
Put forward, you know, and, and claim, and I was watching one, um, conversation between Dan Savage and Esther Perel and Esther Perel had said that it was upwards of into the 70 percent of relationships have infidelity of some type. I mean, 70%, right? So if that's true, or even 50, even if we lower the bar, you know what I mean?
The amount of people. That have gone through a similar journey and feel so much immense shame about it I really appreciate you bringing that into the space and naming it and I'm curious now given where you're at And you know everything that you understand about yourself. Like how do you conceptualize that time and your actions?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I think one of the challenges that I face and one of the ways I talk about it with my clients is that our culture, before we are even conscious of our identities, before we are even conscious of our sexuality at certain levels, is putting on us limits of who we can and can't be, who we can and can't love, how we can and can't love, how we can and can't have sex.
And Those omissions of the natural diversity of human experience prevent us from knowing ourselves. And when we are prevented from knowing ourselves, we struggle to be whole beings. And those parts of ourselves demand, and sometimes with destructive force in our lives, to be incorporated. Because what was happening was an acceptance that I had more love to give, that I needed more witnessing and loving attention in my life, and that I needed a pathway for the expression of my kink identity that I didn't currently have.
You know, in other domains in that interim, you know, intervening time between my affairs, I'd also integrated and gotten really comfortable with my masturbation practice. I was really good at knocking my own socks off. I was really good at not creating sexual pressure for my partner anymore. I was really good at creating invitations and not demand.
And we had come to a really good place around that, but all of that erotic sovereignty didn't also. Allow me to be the most whole individual human being because it didn't include these other identities that I had that I wasn't being, that I wasn't living.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I appreciate what you had said about the societal context, right?
And how that influences us and our ability to. Connect with these various parts of ourselves or even dream of worlds of possibility, right? Um, I'm thinking about the culture of sex, right? Particularly in Western America, right? If we're talking about loving multiple people, we all love multiple people. All the time.
All the time. It's this extra element of, you know, I don't even throw in romance in there because I think I'm romantic with lots of different people, right? And I think I buy flowers for my friends and other stuff. So even that, you know, it's this idea of the sexual intimacy piece that becomes so, you know, Oh, you can only do that with one, right?
So then when we're asking where that comes from, you know, growing up, in America in its deep roots of puritanical nature, right? So then we have Christianity and the beliefs around that. But I think it's interesting sometimes when you take it into different cultural context, right? Like in some cultural context, you can't hug someone of a different gender and that's really normalized.
And so the whole society does not hug on that level. And if you were to do that, people would be like, Oh my God, how dare you defy your purity? And that's gross and all those things. Right. But I think in an American lens, we go, what do you mean? I can't hug my friends. That's absurd. Right. And so I think it's just getting people to understand the deeper cultural implications and how that impacts what we do and what feels normal is a really important piece of this.
Cause I think we need more movement of love and freedom here.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: And the beauty of that multicultural lens when you witness it. Is that you begin to realize that the cultural norms, whatever they might be, can be questioned, can change. We can construct knowing what we know, knowing the science of attachment, knowing the reality of human, um, sexual diversity.
We can construct, if we choose to, a society that allows the nature of us with less violence than we have now.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yes. And it's funny. I was talking to one of my professors about all this, just having fun conversations. Cause he's a systems psychologist about like all the things, you know, all the fun conversations around relationships.
And he was like, yeah, but like early on, you know, an attachment you see, and not everyone has a mother in this context. Right. But his example was like, Oh, you really attached to your mother and you have that one bond as a child. And so that gets kind of modeled through. And I'm like, it's really fascinating when you think about children, they attached to like.
Usually two parents in our models, to be clear, you know, maybe three, if we have expansive families and other stuff, but like, damn, you attached to two people. Hold on. You know, like, let's rethink that example of maybe what even that says.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Well, and the research about that attachment, right. Started in what the forties.
And so we're already basing that understanding of childhood attachment on a nuclear family model as opposed to a tribal family.
Nicole: Exactly.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: And so, you know, I think that there's a lot that the next generation is really beginning to question about how do we construct family units? How do we navigate life together?
And notions of chosen family, even queer platonic relationship in poly context where this person belongs here. They are partner in what this is at a full and complete level. Even if we don't have sex, even if we don't have, you know, some kind of romance that fits whatever bucket that means to, you know, different people.
And I think that it's really advancing the notions of queer chosen family that used to exist when queer communities were really underground and were forced to be the family that they had because they'd been ostracized from conventional blood family.
Nicole: Exactly. Right. If we look to indigenous roots, other sort of cultures, this is not what was happening, right?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Sure. Uh, when I do my intakes with clients, I always ask, are there any other significant attachment figures in your life that I should know about? And very often it's an aunt, it's a teacher, it's a coach, it's an uncle, it's a grandmother, grandfather. We. Thrive on multiplicity of connection. Even when we just talk about the nurturance of childhood.
Nicole: Exactly. Which I think is something everyone kind of gets. It's the second that you throw sex in there. It's a whole, I mean, well, maybe not everyone gets because the romance myth, right? And this mythology around the one. So that's actually a huge deconstruction, but I think the real big kicker is this idea of like sexuality, right?
I came from a purity culture with a purity ring. I don't know how deep you got into it. Right. But for me at first, when I had sex with a second person in my life, I felt such a shattering, like I ruined it all. Right. Just that second person, you know, and some people would look at me and be like, what do you mean?
You know, but my culture that I was raised in was one for life. Right. So it was so radically uncomfortable to step out of that frame. And I think that when we're talking about a culture that's been so laden with at least one person at a time now, there has to be a level of discussion about the discomfort that it will take if you want to deconstruct that paradigm.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. And I think, you know, we've talked about it as the layer of culture and we've talked about the lens of spirituality or, you know, religious tradition in this. I think it's valuable. to bring in the lens of property because a huge amount of this is, um, informed by the notions of how do we predict, protect the transmission of wealth among the people who have wealth and how do we make sure that they retain their human property of all kinds, including the men retaining the property of their wives and their children to pass on Authentically that wealth only to their genetic heritage, which, you know, transmits, I think, even in a modern context where maybe that isn't Transcribed As intense a stamp across all classes and all cultures.
Now, there's also this notion of competing with our beauty with our body standards with other people for the prize, you know, for the most coveted partner for whatever that is. And so there's this reinforced way that jealousy is not just about. I am concerned in my heart that the love and connection between us is being challenged by what's happening out there.
There's this place that jealousy is. I'm concerned that my, you know, superiority over other people, even if only in your life is being challenged, but it's always this dominance hierarchy, this property, this ownership of each other's bodies that ends up filtering into. Intensifying the nature of some of those feelings,
Nicole: which you had mentioned Aaron Johnson's conversation, right?
I think after that, I had started to think about, you know, he specifically works with more, um, people who are under touched, but I just started to think about the ways that we're all Um, many of us are under resourced in terms of love and support in a monogamous context, right? Like when you only have one person providing that, like, of course someone else is going to take that.
Are you kidding me? That is my one source of water and well in this dry desert of affection, particularly if you're socialized as a man, you know what I mean? Like,
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Oh.
Nicole: Yeah.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Absolutely. And all of this is not to say, at least from where I stand, that there aren't authentically monogamous people, but for them to make those commitments freely from a range of options within the opportunity of the diversity of human experience is a different thing than to have it be the only option.
And for relationships, It's across the span of life to be normalized that they often change shape. Sometime. I've, I've known any number of polyamorous relationships that have become monogamous at a later time or that the individuals within had become monogamous. That's a choice that they're making freely from among options.
And that's, that's. The important thing, I think, especially as our lifespans are so long and as the needs of our lives change so much, to have some flexibility to question and to bless and thank each other if our part of this journey has come to an end and to move on to what continues to work best for all the individuals involved.
Nicole: Absolutely. The ebb and flow of all of it, right. Getting into a more flexible dynamic that, you know, when you're going through different stages of life, one, you know, orientation might feel better than the other and being able to embrace that change. I think, like you said, requires a level of informed consent about what is possible.
And when you look at, you know, the alternative as gross or immoral or other things, then that's not really, you know, informed. consent choice because the alternative isn't really possible.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Right, right. And when you start with those kinds of assumptions, then a whole range of entitled beliefs get layered on top of that.
This is what you agreed to. This is what the norm is. This is what you said you would do. And now. That you are having other feelings that you are asking for something else feels in itself like a betrayal.
And I am entitled to not have that. So the reactions often end up being controlling, demanding, insisting that reality in the partner be something else.
Nicole: Yeah, really tough. I think my thing too is just that, you know, half of all of my passion here is feel that fueled out of my own curiosity and fears, right? Like most researchers, you know, me, me search, you know, like trying to answer my own questions over here. I think I've just been always so deeply terrified about losing sexual desire and long term relationships given You know, we have Esther Perel's mating and captivity.
And then, um, I think about the book that I have, um, the all or nothing marriage. Have you heard of that one?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I haven't read that one myself.
Nicole: Okay. Nothing on sexuality other than towards the end, it has like a few sections and it's like, you know, you've been in your relationship. I know. Right. How do you, how do you write a book on marriage with nothing on sex?
I don't know. I don't know where he was from, but that's okay. We'll chat one day. Um, But the one piece that it does have was like, Oh, like, you know, you're in your marriage for a long time and like the desire goes down. Like, do you accept a life of lackluster sex or, you know, just, uh, struggling to never be celibate, you know, like those are the options he presented as if this is just a well known thing.
And I think it's really scary to me when. We look to past examples of love. It kind of almost feels like a social media presentation of it because sex is so taboo where you can't talk about it, where people be like, I have a great marriage. I feel really happy. And then I want to ask that deeper question of like, is this just your Instagram front?
how pleasurable is your sex lives, you know? And I, but like, that's too taboo to get that sort of data, you know what I mean, from people. And then when I'm just thinking about the, the long history of women's lack of liberation in this space, right? Like, marital rape wasn't illegal in the United States, in all 50 states until 19, 97, right?
So, and, and we know the orgasm gap, we know all these other things. And then I did see one piece of research saying that, you know, it's very gendered, but it was saying that like men's interest in long term monogamous relationships is pretty stable where like women's drops off dramatically. So now, you know, like, I'm afraid obviously over here about the idea of one person for life.
I'm getting stuck into that sort of system where that is just, You know, disconnected to my pleasure. And we just don't have enough research on this. And I think that's my biggest fear around this is like how many women and, you know, I'm, I'm selfishly interested in that as a woman myself, right? Like how many women are locked in relationships, feeling like something's wrong with them.
And when the DSM says, I hate this, but it's in there. Uh, you know, orgasm disorder it's in there. Right. And then it says, Yeah in there that upwards of 42 percent of women struggle with this disorder at some point in their life And I'm like fuck how many women are going God? I'm just not interested in sex with my partner anymore Something's wrong with me and I'm like you need some diversity in your life, but because of the systems that feels so abnormal That's my big fear.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah, I mean, the data that I always look at too, even among men, is the research about gay men's relationships, that depending on how the question gets asked about open relationship, the data is between 35 and 55 percent of long term gay relationships are non monogamous in some way. And looking at gay men as one point on the continuum of diversity within men, what does that say about men's sexuality and what kind of notions are we presenting around monogamy and expecting around monogamy when this is happening?
Norm in when this experience in a non normative context reveals something else about men's sexuality and I do think there are pathways to vitality, vibrance, intensity, ongoing development of interest in long term relationships. It's 1 of the things that I work with a fair amount. Peggy Kleinplatz has a really good book on this magnificent sex.
It often is through deeper emotional intimacy and the vulnerability of sharing more the things that turn you on most often in relationship. Couples get into this thing of like they early on, they reveal something about their interest to say, Oh, I, I saw this video and I kind of thought it was hot, but I want to know what you think.
And what's really happening is I really think this is sexy and I'm trying to gauge your reaction to the video instead of telling you what I'm really interested in so that I can find out how safe it is. to tell you that I'm interested in. Right, right. And when we, when we gradually and indirectly take more and more things off of the table, then what we're left with is exactly that lackluster, what David Schnarch called the sex of compromise.
And it's this. you know, overlapping zone of the Venn diagram between our two things that we were willing to share with each other, that we are both willing to do, which may not even be what's actually pleasurable for both or either of us. Whereas when we enter into. On the sex of generosity, again, David Schnarch's term, where we lean into, hey, that doesn't do that much for me, or I don't know, I've never thought about that, but I could try doing that for you.
Let's see what happens. Now we have this opportunity to enter into the novel, to discover something new, to witness the moment when my partner's desire, orgasm, pleasure, turn on vitality becomes something that I can feel that stimulates and sparks my own turn on. Like, I don't necessarily, I'm not necessarily into that thing, but I'm into you being turned on and that turns me on.
And now we've got something going between us. There's this whole Avenue of responsive desire that we can begin to explore.
And the good news is that human sexuality is so diverse and the territory so vast, you will not run out of it in a lifetime. And you can still stay away from all the things that, you know, turn you off, gross you out, or squick you out.
Nicole: Right. Yeah. And I guess it comes down to a question of like safety too, right? Like, where do you feel the most safe to explore that deeply vulnerable aspect of yourself? Right? People are going to come to very different determinations again, depending on culture and other sorts of things. I'll be a rebel here and continue to push back on you in terms of like, if we took it off the lens of like sex, and we just thought about it in terms of building intimacy in different ways, right?
Like, okay. I like Taylor Swift. My partner might be able to say like, you know, I don't like her, but I will go for you and that's sweet. And I like that. And I would love if they would do all of that. And that's really great. But like, I also would love someone who like really likes it. And also like, if my partner were to come to me, I'd To everything in that capacity, part of me would wonder if aspects of myself would never be touched because I wouldn't be able to explore different things with different people.
Like, even if we are all on the same line, like, we benefit from having friends that bring out other sides of ourselves. Let me do it. I don't know. You know I'm over here pushing for an agenda, but like, I just, I just wonder, I wonder how much pleasure is on the other side if we deconstructed these things so that people could explore different parts of themselves in the same way that like, when I go out, it's fun to have different people than my partner there and like, that brings out other things.
I mean, oh, I just think there's a lot here. I'm worried that women have been so repressed that this space is so like, because if you asked me what made me thrive when I was in Christianity, I would have said, I want to marry a pastor. So I'm just, I guess like, and you can, you know, the colonization of this to get to a space and be like, I wonder if people are repressed is a really deep topic.
I am just curious. Given the societal implications, how many deep people are still in that?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I would certainly say a lot. And the other, and the other thing is that as you articulate that question, right, it's going to resonate with the people who need the same liberations you needed. And in my experience, anyway, working with these kinds of issues, there are many different kinds of liberation.
Nicole: Sure.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: And one of the things that I get a little bit wary of is trying to prescribe my liberation to other people. So I said earlier, right? Like I, what I write in my book and what. What I talk about, um, when I'm speaking to a man is what I experienced, but I don't know that that's right for everyone. I had a client recently who pushed back on me and said, you know, this piece that you said about your decision, that's not my truth.
And I said, great. What is your truth? just being able to be in a place where someone is doing exactly what you're saying, right? You're bringing in your concerns and You know, deep inquiry into questioning, like, but are you really free? Is that really what you want? That's powerful. And it will magnetize to you.
The people who are sitting in there like, no, I, yeah, that really is what I want, but, um, maybe not really. And that persistent questioning that you have. We'll be there, but there will be other people who will hear that, you know, second, third inquiry, who are also going to say, stop trying to put your path on me.
Nicole: Totally. And I think that's where I'm like, okay, as a therapist, I would obviously never in a million years do anything like that, but this is my play space. So get out of my playground. If you don't like my questions, you know what I mean? Like, no, one's requiring you to listen to my show. No one's requiring anybody.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Right.
Nicole: So like, cause I think this is something I sit with all. The time all the time of like culture. It's culture. It's culture. It's culture. So I do not want to be the person that comes in and says your culture is unenlightened because you have sex with one person for your whole life, like purity culture, right?
Like, and that is a culture. And I think that when we think about like what it means to be a colonizer and come in and look at another person and be like, that's pure. You know, problematic. And so I sit with this question all the time of like, how do you sit with that person in purity culture? And I recorded with Dr.
Rachel Smith, who had said there was data about, um, the people who have gone through purity culture showing the same symptoms of childhood sexual assault. And then I'm like, God, like, do we at some point get to be like, Hey, okay. This is bad. This is problematic. And then again, when I come back to that, like, DSM question of the 42 percent and the drop off of women, I'm like, Ooh, do I get to push here?
And I, yeah, I hope I do it in a way that, like, when I have guests in this space who I'm, Practice monogamy. Like, this is not the line of questioning. I go down in any sort of capacity because I think it's, it's rude, right? To have any sort of thought like that. But when I have someone who's practicing, I think I like to take advantage of you.
That's good. I also really, I think this question is really rich. Like, where do we have room? A responsibility, a right to question somebody else's culture, because I've had clients in my practice, for example, who came in and who said some kind of childhood abuse, you know, hitting children, spanking children, slapping children is a part of my culture.
And, you know, I do. Hope that there is space for us to be in that cross cultural dialogue and questioning each other of like, okay, it's one thing to say that this is my culture. Number 1, historically, where did this part of your culture come from? Because often the answer is colonization, you know, enslavement, poverty, and those violent elements of culture are there historically, but not in the deep history.
And also the future looking question of, okay, fine, but what culture are we creating? And as we come into connection with each other, even if we come from different cultural backgrounds, as we enter a relationship with each other, professional or otherwise, we are creating a culture of two. And so our relationship, our inquiry, our desire to uplift each other is the opportunity where we influence one another as we return to our Uh, relational cultures, our family cultures, our, um, ethnic cultures, and where the influence and connection that we experienced with other people outside of those bubbles has the opportunity to influence, to move us.
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think the question of like freedom is so deeply laden because am I even free? Right? I'm just a product of my environment. I don't know. I just wish I had moving through this world. I wish I had a model of a woman. In my space that I could look up to as an exemplar of this to even just know what is possible.
And I think until we have that, I don't know what freedom looks like. You know what I mean?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like you're trying to become that.
Nicole: Shit. I don't know. I'm just trying to follow my pleasure. And you know what I mean? Like, if there's a day where monogamy feels like, feels the right content.
It's kind of hard to fathom at this point. I think given where I'm at, like it feels, it feels like I would be asking to hug one person again for the rest of my life or laugh with one person again for the rest of my life, which feels hard to fathom. But I think again, taking it back to the world where I was.
Destined to be married to one man for the rest of my life in a straight monogamous relationship if I would have said this to me back then I would've been like, gross, she's a slut and a whore like, oh, you know, so I just, I think that acid trip and a half to get from here to there is an interesting journey and wherever we end up on it. I just hope that, yeah, I hope we can have a following of pleasure that does take a critical lens to the ways that when I was in that past space, I don't think I was aware of the freedom of what was possible because of my cultural context. And I, I don't think anyone could have said that to me directly, right?
There would have been no question that someone could have said to me directly and it took a lot of steps and I'm still figuring it out, but it's hard to look back on that time and feel like I was free.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. It's really hard when we are, when we still have those parts of ourselves split off, it's really hard to imagine what it will feel like for us to be in connection with them.
We can't imagine it because we haven't had that experience. It's like trying to describe, you know, a food to someone that they've never eaten it and it's just totally different. It might be like something else, but it also is its own thing.
Nicole: Yeah.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: And only by living in connection with all the parts of ourselves, can we know what that will be like?
We just have to, we, I do think we thrive on that resonance of witnessing somebody else who is. A little more integrated than we are, and that vitality we witness in our being. And it makes us believe like there's something there and that isn't how I want to be. That isn't my path of integration, but, but that is more integrated.
So maybe it's okay for me to try integrating more of myself too.
Maybe these parts of myself that I thought were bad, aren't. Maybe I can listen to what the wisdom of them might be.
Nicole: Yeah. Maybe they're actually in those beautiful parts of yourself. Yeah. I want to ask you too, because you know, As a man, I'd be curious what your journey was in terms of unpacking these things.
You have a very different experience than I do, you know, and again, particularly depending on how deep you were in Catholicism, right? I was taught to submit to the authority of a man because he was closer to God. And if that ain't some kinky shit, I don't know what is, you know what I mean? Submit to his authority.
Okay. Um, and so, Learning to center my power and my pleasure with a radical journey, but you have a different journey in that. So I'd be curious what that was like for you.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: So, you know, I think back to like first grade, I wanted to be a priest and, um, yeah, in Catholic school in Catholic school. In mass, I started doing all of the things that the priest was doing with my hand until the nun hit me in the back to get me to stop, you know, the, that impulse, like, I want to be good.
I want, if this is what you're telling me in the culture, if this is what is goodness, if this is what is beauty, if this is what is looked up to, I want to be that. And at the same time, you know, same grade, I remember, you know, the name of the girl that I sat next to and, you know, how I gave her gifts that, you know, then got scrutinized and how I got told not to do that and how bad that was and how lustful it was.
I'm slick. I was in first grade, you know, I began trying to shed parts of that just because I had this kind of bi spiritual upbringing because I was going to Catholic school while living with my mom through the school year. And then I would go with, uh, in the summers out to Las Vegas to spend time with my new age dad who was, you know, listening to channelers and trying to make contact with aliens and reading crystals.
We'll see. And so I had this other other experience of like, Oh, there are other pathways to closeness with divine. But I think that also helped me and eventually begin questioning like, okay, what about these pieces around sexuality? You know, And every time I ever tried to repress my sexuality to fit it in the smaller box, it broke out and came out with force and intensity.
You know, the. The attempt to not look at erotic material made looking at erotic material that much more intensely pleasurable. Um, a circumstance that I now work with fairly often with my clients who come in for treatment for out of control sexual behavior, where they're having a hard time figuring out how to regulate something that they are, have an erotic conflict over something that turns them on that they're trying not to express.
So. Eventually, I realized like, okay, I, I need to find a way to integrate this, but what is the right way to integrate this? And it was only through encountering more diversity and witnessing more people in integrity inside diverse ways of being sexual polyamorous people who had sustained long term relationship, witnessing kinky people who In their introduction to their description of King, we're focused on the safety and the pleasure of their partners in King.
Like, okay, now all of my desire to be good, to be kind, to maintain relationship, I can see held in people who are doing those things. That is how I want to be. That resonates with what I've been looking for. And these people are saying they do that. And they get the pleasure and they get the kink and they get, you know, multiple relationship.
Ah, I mean, now there's a pathway to still loving the divine and witnessing the beauty and nature and, um, having spiritual experience, but also Being the thing. I am being the thing. I have always been instead of trying to torture my being into something else.
Nicole: Yeah, and God, Eric, I hope that I can hold that space for people, right?
With these conversations, guests, people like you, because I think, you know, When you go to look for kink stuff, it's like kink, like dark, scary dungeon. Oh, you know, like aggression versus that. Like we are centering your pleasure and love. And we're going to build this intimacy together. And the same thing sometimes with non monogamy, I'm going to.
Fuck bunch of people, rah, rah, rah, you know, versus like, Ooh, deep love and intimacy. Right. And my work with psychedelics, right. Ooh, drugs, bad, bad, bad, you know, versus wow. There's a lot of healing over here. So like, I hope that, you know, conversations like this can be a starting point for some people who, because again, cultural narratives right around this stuff is so dark and the other things that to imagine a world of integrated.
Connection to these pieces unfathomable until you have like right community that exemplifies that and I think because of the underground nature of a lot of this stuff, it's really hard to find that, you know, until you can have hopefully conversations where people tune in and listen and they're like, ah, these people are being really considerate and loving and conscious of the divine, right?
All these other pieces that I think kind of get washed over and are missing from the discourse.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Absolutely. It is so much easier to move in the direction of your aspirations of kindness, love, ethics, truth. When you are living in authenticity and in integrity with all of the parts of yourself, there's nothing to hide.
It is not effortful anymore. , yeah, it, it lows so much more easily. Mm-Hmm. , you know, at most. At this time of my life, I withhold information from a partner for a day or three to wait for maybe a little bit better day to say what I'm wanting to say. Right, right, right, right. That is so much less torturous than I can't reveal what's happening inside of me.
Nicole: Right. Right.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Because it's bad or something. Yeah.
Nicole: Which causes so much shame and ultimately disconnection, which, you know, feminist theory of psychology would say is what causes our pain points, right?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Huge. And the big thing is, all we're talking about is just it. Accepting reality as it is instead of trying to impose onto reality, what it ought to be, what is your nature and how does it blossom?
What nourishes you just looking at that will tell you what you need to know. And if you really, really examine it. You will find that it's so much easier to be what you are than to try to fit into something that you aren't.
Nicole: Yeah. Do you know how aggressive I was when I was Christian and didn't know that I was gay?
I was aggressive. Right. I remember being in class and, uh, Cause I went to a Christian school that was Lutheran and we had a Bible class and we had to do different debate topics and they threw out a handful and I was like queerness, like gay, homosexuals, like I got that topic and I read the Bible back and forth and I ran all over that class real loud
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: and, and it right in, you were probably celebrated in that context for the aggression that came from your own self repression.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, and that's why we find that so many of the exemplars of these, you know, purity culture things, whether it's priests in the Catholic Church or pastors in, you know, Christian purity. Oh, they've got these hidden lives. Right. They have been exemplars, but only because they're fighting themselves in order to try to look good on the outside.
If you can see behind the curtain of somebody's life, right, beyond the social media view, what's actually happening in there? And what is it like to be in their home when the cameras are off?
It's a totally different experience.
Nicole: Right. And what could you have said to me in that moment that would have hit me, right?
That would have unlocked it. Yeah. So that's where I sit with that question. And I sit with those questions of all of what we were talking about. I don't know how to do this game. I don't know what to do about this game. Like you said, though, I think the best thing to do is to live in your pleasure and your authenticity and hope that your brightness and the ways that you exist in the world speak to people.
And they're like, damn, that energy is attractive. I don't know what it is, but I need more of it in my life. And they come to that rather than like, Hey, by the way, this, this, that. But I almost want to say, I wish someone could have said something to me, but I, um, It, yeah, it took every uncomfortable turning of the stone to get to a space where I could have queer love without shame and to enjoy and be happy.
But like back then I would have never heard a word of this and I would have tried to slap you if you told me that this was my repressed homophobia. You know, it's crazy to think about.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: That's something that I work with often with clients. In that context, using the sexual health principles helps, because the sexual health principles don't describe how to behave, they describe, um, the markers of health, and so for me to not tell someone how to be, but to identify this is what health looks like, and then to allow the client to begin checking themselves back and forth against, you know, those principles of health.
Consent, non exploitation, protection from HIV, STIs, and unwanted pregnancy, honesty, shared values, and pleasure. Then, then they get to grapple with, well, where do I, am I actually living up to that? Inside of this context, inside of what looks, might look to me, uh, like internalized repression. The client gets to encounter that instead of me trying to bring a can opener to it.
Yeah. So that's where data or some kind of external marker of health, psychological or sexual, or maybe even spiritual really helps people to question themselves, helps them to identify for themselves because that's, that's where the, the, the, the The constructs start getting pulled apart when they begin asking themselves the questions.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And I think drugs like psychedelics can play a huge part in that, right? You start to sit in that experience and you are asking deeper questions. And I've seen a lot of that in my work, right? People who have kind of unpacked queerness or these other sort of repressed parts of ourselves during experiences like that.
Right. And yeah. Even thinking about other drugs, like alcohol, my first experiences were on that, right? Something that lowers the inhibitions enough to get there. So I think that also is part of maybe what can help people to tap into these more repressed areas of ourselves.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. And, you know, talking about alcohol, right?
How inebriated were you really, right? Sometimes I think a lot of what happens is a person enters some kind of altered state They give themselves permission to put it on the substance. Well, I didn't realize that was the alcohol. That's not really me, but something is happening. Something can move in those contexts for the right people with the right substance.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Letting that default mode network kind of get a little bit quieter. And then like even just the integration afterwards of what that means. Right. I think that's what we're thinking about too here is like, what's the narrative of, Oh, that was the drug here. Let me push it off onto that. And then that way you don't even have to look at it.
And that is quote unquote exactly what I did. Oh my God, I was drunk and I made out with my girlfriend there. Like, Oh, well that's so crazy. I'm still straight. That was weird. And then you just keep going. Right. Right.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Right. Well, and I think in that context of, um, high internal repression, high external scrutiny on your behavior, there's also a leaning, a hunger for the relaxed experience that even just alcohol or marijuana will provide because I'm working so hard so often in order to try to be the good man, the good woman, the good boy, the good girl in order to be seen like that.
But we need rest and that that cycle doesn't allow it, right? You're supposed to be on visible, good, right, and righteous all the time. And a lot of cultures have hedonic celebrations, have times of getting a little unhinged, of celebrating, of whooping, of singing, of times when the normal bounds of behavior are lightened.
And in cultures that don't have that, right, monoliths, where everything is supposed to be always this way all of the time, that is not. Um, consistent with the cyclical nature of, you know, the seasons or of the human being, we need periods of rest and relaxation, restoration,
you know, of times when we can let our appetites flow.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm thinking about my, one of my supervisors at my first training site had done a lot of work in Utah with, um, the Mormon community and particularly saw a lot of children that would, oh yeah, yeah, would have a, um, would be immobile, like truly unable to move because of psychological, you know, heartache is because of the levels of high psychological repression that exist in that culture at times.
And so, yeah. I want to see someone dance. I want to see you giggle full belly laughter and I want to see you play. Right. And like when we contrast that to like literally I'm immobile because these repressions are so intense that I can't move my body.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: That's why that word liberation is so important, right?
It, what you're describing is freedom, freedom to be, including the freedom to make mistakes, um, or the freedom to do things off, not be performing, to not have it look good, right? Beautiful just to be. Uh, you know, as chaotic and beautiful as the leaves falling off of a tree, you know, when you mentioned, you know, Mormon culture, I put my hand on my chest just because I don't work with it that often in my practice, but I have had the opportunity a number of times to work with Mormon clients at any, you know, At different stages of their relationship with that upbringing or with that religious tradition, and I just have such a tenderness and a sadness when I think of their experience, because there is so much shame and pain built into that cultural experience around something as uncontrolled as an erection.
You know, to have masturbation scrutinized, to have an erection scrutinized, when literally, as a teen boy, that will happen spontaneously without any known stimulus and will last. Also, for an unknown time, even when you are flooded with terror at You know, knowing what's happening and fear of being observed, it's not a matter of will, it's not a matter of morality, but the cultural and the religious norms put morality onto it.
And that causes so much pain.
Nicole: Yeah.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Eric, that's my mom and my sister. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why I started the show originally. I was like, Ooh, we are, we are just going from different ends of the spectrum. How can we create conversations not to save them or come in with that sort of complex, right?
But like, you know, and just, let's just talk. Right. And again, I think this is where. Just like spinning out to a higher level of potential implications of what that sort of like restrictive paradigms when I see that the top fantasies are threesomes.
I don't know. Maybe, maybe there's a lot of pleasure for us if we could get to a world where that fantasy could be lived out. Also, lots of fun to never re enact your fantasies and just have them be play. Totally cool. There's a lot of things I fantasize about that I don't actually want. However, damn, if that's the top fantasy, I'm just asking questions.
Are we, are we okay? Are we okay?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Well, you know, I love what you said in there, right? Fantasies. Are our thoughts in our mind and they tell us something when we describe why it feels hot to us that starts telling us something about what our barriers to passion are and what we imagine might free us from those from that passion into that passion.
So, you know, there's something about. You know, I could take the exact same behavior. Like I fantasize about giving somebody a blowjob.
Well, then I'm in control. I have all the power. I'm in control of my body. I'm doing what I want. We could imagine the exact same content, right? I fantasize about giving a blowjob, but now it's I am, you know, submissive. I'm giving pleasure. My job is just to do this one thing for them. And I don't have to think about anything. It's just them and their pleasure. What's, you know, the same content can point in completely, you know, opposite meanings of what helps me get into my erotic being.
Nicole: Mm. Yeah. I just saw a post from some sort of a polyamorous content creator who was like, how many of us engage in like toxic monogamy scripts when we're fucking right of like, I'm the only one.
And like, we actively know other partners and we get it, we get it. But it's like, tell me I'm the only one right now, please.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Nicole: No, there's not. It's play.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: It's play. That's, that's my favorite alternate word for kink. It's just adult playfulness expressed in a sexual context or, or non sexual context.
Right. It's, it's play.
Nicole: I hope more people learn how to play. And again, it's Uber safety culture, all these things, but I hope more people are able to explore what play means to them and find that liberation. Truly. If I can do anything in my lifetime, I think that exploring what that means. will be what I do because as you've already been saying, there's so much deep psychological content here that I will be fascinated about for the rest of my life.
And the field of psychology has not done enough here. Not even in the process. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: It's still very scary in psychology programs to even want to study sexuality for.
Nicole: Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: The, the fear that even talking about it is somehow going to influence a participant or create something for a participant that they wouldn't want, as opposed to recognizing that sexuality is a central part of many people's most people's ways of moving through the world.
And that to really understand. Uh, so we need to be looking at the human experience holistically instead of it, like we were saying earlier. Right. How do you write a book about marriage without talking about the role of sex?
Nicole: I don't know. That's my question. And this, that's why I asked the Instagram presentation of how much of all of this data we have on marriage and stuff. Whoa. Like sex has just been lopped off as not an important part of this. And I have colleagues
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: who provide marriage therapy and they will say to me, I don't really deal with sexuality issues.
I'm like, uh, uh, uh, uh,
Nicole: Oh my God.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah.
Nicole: Totally. I mean,
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: yeah.
Nicole: But see, that's exactly why these are, these are why I ask these questions as, as pushing as they may be to certain people, I'm going to keep asking them. And when I record with dominatrix, right, there's a whole aspect of this. That like as a woman, and again, when we go back to my original roots of submitting to a man, like that aspect of myself of being controlling and to tell you that this is my playground podcast, like that power has been in conjunction with exploring it.
In play, right? And I just I'm so curious how many women this area of themselves because of the patriarchy, whether you grew up in Christianity or not, but the patriarchy don't have this aspect of themselves integrated yet and and how much work there can be to do in that space and how that will then not just change the way that they play, but the way that they show up holistically as a being.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Right. And the reciprocal of that is for a lot of men, the vulnerability, the solution to be, to be pretty, to be seen as beautiful. You know, the reason that there is a paid dominatrix industry is largely because there are a lot of men, often men with a lot of power who are looking for the reciprocally balancing, you know, experience I need to just have somebody tell me what to do and then I'm going Good boy.
And so we're, we seek balance in these quote unquote dark and forbidden spaces. What would it be like if the reciprocal balance was allowed outside of the dark and hidden spaces? Right. What would it mean if I could be a man and also just say, I kind of don't want to make any more decisions today. Can you please take care of this for me?
And could I be free to relax into being taken care of by a partner? You know, can I be going back to Aaron Johnson's stuff? Could I be free to be touched and held? What would that mean for how much more powerful I would might be in the context where I do want to bring power or, um, leadership? How much more, you know, wise might that leadership be if I also had the reciprocal experience of being led and helped?
When we, you know, as kinksters, we often see that some of the most skilled doms also have experience of being a submissive or have at least put a lot of work into really deeply understanding the submissive process or being led by other doms in developing the skills. There is a, a reciprocal energy in that development.
Nicole: Mm hmm. Well, now you're talking revolution. A whole different world, right? A whole different world that would be if we had that
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: right and the concepts, I think, of things that we associate with masculinity and femininity, they just fade as complexes into just descriptors. What, you know, what is being attempted here?
And for whatever. A person's gender identity might be all of the possibilities are allowed to them.
Nicole: And I think it's really empowering to come to a partner, you know, whether you're topping bottoming, whatever you're doing, you know, and be able to name how you want to feel. Right. Like I want to feel held and you know that.
Yeah. You're already reacting. Go for it.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I'm so glad you said that because that's what I think is really maybe I don't know about novel, but that's what is different in what I put in my book about my three consent oriented questions. How do we each want to feel? How do we each not want to feel and what are we each going to do and not do to create those feelings?
Now we're not just. talking about who wants to do what or who wants to be done in what way, but we're really talking about what the destination is, that cultivation of a feeling. That's why I'm asking for this and having that as the orientation. It's a totally different way of approaching the conversation.
Now it's not, did I, you know, did I touch that right? Did I do that right now? It's, Did that create that feeling for you? Right. Right. And it's a totally different space of consent orientation. It's the feelings that are really what we're aiming for.
Nicole: Exactly. Exactly. I feel like we could probably talk for hours just going back and forth.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I think so.
Nicole: Yeah. I really appreciate you like letting me push on you and go back and forth and enjoy that dynamic.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: If that's a real conversation,
Nicole: it took me time to get into that power state. I've always been so like the guest, the guest. So I enjoy you creating that safe space for me too.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: I'm really glad that you felt it was.
Nicole: I want to hold space too, in case maybe, you know, there wasn't. There was something that we didn't hit in our conversation that you want to say. Otherwise, I can guide us towards our closing questions.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. I guess I just want to put out there, you know, I feel kind of like we went to kind of the philosophical underpinnings of what I put out in my book, um, the better man, a guy to consent, stronger relationships and hotter sex.
And that is really like. Practical step by step guide primarily oriented to an audience of men, but also valuable, I think, to high desire partners of any gender who are looking for. Okay. All of this sounds beautiful. If you were magnetized by this conversation of talking about finding that path to integrity or authentic being what I tried to put out is a bit of a step by step guide going through your wounds and patriarchy reclaiming responsibility for your whole being wellness.
Step out. All the way through to integrating your sexual being, your emotional self care, and eventually the consent pathways to, you know, swinging from the chandelier and, you know, being your most beautiful, loving, hot person that you can be. And I just want to give a shout out to, um, your episode 136, waiting for a hug with Aaron Johnson, when I first heard him, I realized like he's saying and talking about and teaching everything that I feel like I'm moving towards and what I feel like I need to integrate more into my experience of teaching this stuff to people.
So. I think his work is exceptional. And if you're jazzed after this episode, but you haven't listened to that one, go back.
Nicole: Yeah. Oh, thank you for the work that you're doing, you know, and speaking to that, that's something I can't speak to. And so your lived experience with that acid trip and a half, right?
Like that's something that I would love a guide for. And I think that that could be a great resource resource for people who are looking to, yeah, start to take those steps of unturning, you know, the stones that we talked about in today's conversation.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Yeah. Thank you for a place to, to speak about that more frankly, not every podcast is pulling those, those layers back.
Nicole: Oh, it's fun. It's fun for me. Uh, yeah. Well, if you feel good, then I'll guide us towards our closing question. Absolutely. Well, then the one question that I ask every guest on the podcast is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: To feel constrained inside of yourself and scared of your own desire and to be seeking and hungering for a path to be your most vibrant erotic self and your most loving and kind self is where most people are struggling, especially those of us with high desire.
Nicole: Yeah. So then tuning into those small steps, I like to think we all have an inner compass that is guiding us towards maybe that next step towards that ideal. And so just feel like getting quiet with yourself, spending some time in meditation or whatever that practice looks like. I think that people can start to tune in a little bit more one step at a time.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Absolutely. Absolutely. You can be free. And still be a person that you would admire.
Nicole: It was such a pleasure to have you on the show today.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: It was lovely being here. Thank you.
Nicole: Yeah. Where would you want to plug for people that, you know, yeah, are connecting with you, want to learn more, plug away.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Okay. You can find me on most social media at Dr.
Eric Fitts, D R E R I C F I T Z. And you can also find my URL, uh, for my website at ericfitts. com. Dr. Eric fits. com. And you can find information about my book there. My book is also available wherever books are sold.
Nicole: Thank you for coming on the show today.
Dr. Eric Fitzmedrud: Thank you. I really appreciate being here.
Nicole: Yeah, it was fun.
If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast. com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I want to thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.
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