170. Liberating Our Pleasure and Labor from Whorephobia with Katherine Yeagel

Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole.

On today's episode, we have a surrogate partner, Catherine Eagle, who Join us for a conversation about expanding our cultural imagination around sex work. Together we talk about exploring sex work for pleasure and the connection to solo polyamory, submitting it to the kinkiness of our interconnection, and how our relationships shape our reality.

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, if you have been tuning in to the podcast from the beginning, it is my You know that I've had so many conversations with sex workers, people who are changing the paradigm, and if you've never heard of a surrogate partner before, I want to invite you to explore a couple of episodes where I have talked about it.

talk to surrogate partners and explored more of what this work looks like in detail. We have episode 98 with Brandon, episode 85 with Brian, and episode 75 with Carlene. All of those are great resources to learn more about surrogate partner work. And to give a little bit of an overview now, surrogate partners will work with clients to explore eroticism, intimacy, and sex.

And this healing container is done within a, triangle between the client and a talk therapist and then the client and the surrogate partner. And then the surrogate partner and the talk therapist also talk about the healing and the relationship that the surrogate partner is forming with the client. And so they work together collaboratively to talk about healing and expansion around eroticism and relational dynamics.

And this conversation reminded me of a research study that I had seen when I was in school. The researcher had interviewed sugar babies. And what I found so interesting about this research is that, is that the top occupations of a sugar baby were, one, students. Students of master's and graduate level programs, often psychology programs.

After that, actresses and models and teachers. We have to expand our understanding of what sex work is and who is doing it. Often the cultural consciousness thinks about forced sex work, when in reality there are lots of people who are exploring sex work with pleasure and enjoying the exploration and the financial benefits of this.

And I know someone might come back and say, yeah, sure, they're enjoying it, but Would they really choose that job if they had another option? And, oh man, I wish I could ask the same about a lot of our jobs under capitalism, right? Would someone really choose that job if they had another option? If they could get paid for free, right?

And so I think it's a really important question just to expand and think about how many jobs are people doing out there? The ways that they are forcing their bodies to show up for pay. To survive under capitalism? Sure, that aren't necessarily sexual, but your body is having to show up in that space, and what about all the undervalued emotional labor that women and AFAB folks do?

I think we need to expand what the concepts of sex work are. How often are we exchanging our body, our connection, our sexuality, our eroticism? For something in return, and there's certainly no answer to that, dear listener, so I hope I can leave you with a juicy question there, just to think about all the different ways that sex work is present in our lives, and how can we expand our understanding of sex work to incorporate pleasure, to incorporate bodily autonomy, And to really liberate ourselves from whore phobia.

Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources at modernanarchypodcast. com. linked in the show notes below. And I want to say the biggest thank you to all my Patreon supporters. You are supporting the long term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people, so thank you.

If you want to join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, then you can head on over to patreon. com slash modern anarchy podcast linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all 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?

Katherine: In terms of my work, or just as a person in general?

Nicole: Oof, this is, this is a thematic question here. I love how people respond to it, right? Like, that's their own personality coming through. What do you want to say?

Katherine: That's a great question. Yeah, um, well, I'm Catherine Yagel. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I spent a long time in the Bay Area and now I live in Western Massachusetts. I like spend a lot of time going on walks with my dog in the woods and baking challah and resting a lot. I am queer and my friendships are really my deepest partnerships.

Nicole: I love that.

Katherine: So I spend a lot of my time in relationship and that's always been a priority for me and has a lot to do with why I chose the career I chose, was to ensure that I had time for that. Let's see here, what else? Identity wise, I'm white. I'm Ashkenazi Jewish and Irish Catholic. I am non binary.

Yeah, I feel like that covers me.

Nicole: Yeah, welcome to the space. I'm delighted to have you here. Even just that first bit. Yeah, go ahead.

Katherine: I just at some point would love to hear yours as well.

Nicole: Ooh, yeah. So I am a human relationship anarchist. That's what I did my dissertation on. Passionate about that. I do, um, in terms of work stuff, I do, I teach yoga and I do psychedelic assistance.

I'm not used to psychotherapy right now. I'm still in school. And this podcast space, I'm a cat mama. This is Fat Cat. Hi baby. That's my favorite identity.

Katherine: I had a cartoon character as a kid. Like I like would consistently draw comics about a character named Fat Cat.

Nicole: Aw. Well you're meeting her in the real flesh.

Wow. And she bites my arm over here. Cute. She's, she's very, uh, she likes attention, so I don't blame her, I don't blame her. But yeah, white, queer woman, yeah. I live in my best life over here and I'm excited to get to hear about your world and all the things that you do.

Katherine: Right on. Yeah. You said you did your dissertation on relationship anarchy?

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: From a psychological lens?

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: Wow. Super cool.

Nicole: Mm hmm. Yeah. There was no research on it. At all. Right. No research studies. Not shocking. Right. Um, so, but in terms of trying to find something for a dissertation, when you find something that has nothing, that's a great space to start. And then from that standpoint, it was like, okay, so what is the phenomenon?

Right. So then I could just start there where that was only my task was what is it and how does it practice? Not anything further because there's nothing else we want to like lay the foundation. So then I interviewed a handful of people. And, uh, took their interviews and try to synthesize it into like an essence of what the practice is that way.

Hopefully some future people therapists could read it right. And get some general idea of what it works, but I don't even know how much that would given how much of a paradigm shift it is to get to that world. I don't know how much reading a paper would actually help a therapist to understand, you know, um,

Katherine: yeah, there might be some foundational bricks that have to get laid there.

Nicole: Right, right, right. But yeah, now I'm, um, at least collecting. I, I just, you know, you're in the system. I'm trying to get in and out of grad school simplicity, right? Absolutely. And now that that has been like checked off, I've opened up a form on my website to collect data so that people, um, can answer the same questions.

And then I'm having some of those people come on for a podcast episodes to like explore it further in a space that's not under the system of school and stress. So it's a continued exploration point for me. Cool. Yeah, it's really fun. But I'd love to hear how solo poly is connected to your surrogate partner work and in this world for you.

Katherine: Oh, yeah. I mean, deeply connected. I mean, I think every surrogate partner I know is somewhere on the ENM or poly spectrum.

ENM, that term is becoming outdated. Consensual non monogamy is the more like trendy word right now, right? Sure. Sure. I mean, I'm sure there are surrogate partners who, in their personal lives, identify as mostly monogamous, but, you know, I think this work is, on some level, requires openness.

You're having sex with your clients! You're in deep relation, intimate relationship with your clients, so there's gotta be some amount of openness to that.

But, yeah, I was partnered in a non monogamous partnership when I decided to become a surrogate partner, and my partner at the time was really supportive of that work, but, Deciding I wanted to be a surrogate partner was a huge career shift for me.

I'd been in like urban farming, food justice work before this and had never really considered ever sex work. Yeah, yeah. And it was a really big shift. And once I kind of like popped the seal on that, I was like, I kind of want to do all of the types of sex work. So I started, you know, and there was a huge amount.

Of money to invest to become a surrogate partner. You know, it's as many of these, like, you know, new agey, sexual healing fields are, it's very gatekeepery and so it's thousands of dollars to do the training. So I was like, I need, you know, and I was working at a nonprofit where I made $29,000 a year, so, right, right.

I got a find a way to make money, so I started sugaring. Mm-Hmm. , which I loved. I loved, I loved, and that was really complicated for my partner. I mean, part of it was the way I went about it, I liked. Dived in at first without really like addressing it with him at all, which is very different than how I'd gone on the surrogate partner therapy journey.

I've been talking about it with him every step of the way. Sure. And it eventually became clear to me that it wasn't just about the way I'd done it. That was his discomfort. It was like, Sex work in general made him a little cringy, right? And I think that's a common thing you find as a surrogate partner Is that like people are down with your work and think it's really cool But then when you cross over into like sex work for pleasure as opposed to sex work that's explicitly for healing There's like horophobia that comes up.

So I remember having a conversation with my partner at one point where I was like He was like asking me questions about like, well, is it, do you enjoy it? Is there, is it just for money or are you actually like having fun? And I was like, it's both, it's all of the above and the money's tied up and why it's fun.

And I, I would never like choose a sugar daddy who I like am disgusted by or have a terrible time with. Like, I'm, I'm. course part of it is having fun. And you know, I had really great sugar daddies that I got to explore like a lot of cool things with. The first one I connected with was an older guy who'd been doing polyamory for decades and ended up becoming sort of a mentor to me.

And then I ended up having a guy who was a lifestyle dom. So I learned so much about ethical BDSM from him. It was really, and I'm just like, I'm not naturally submissive. So it was a bit, very big learning curve for me, but it was fun. Yeah. And. And then I had a guy who was like, out of town, he's probably married, and he like, had to come to the Bay for work every couple months, and so he would just like, have this fancy hotel room, and like, get a ton of amazing candies, and wine, and weed, and we just, yeah, it was so fun, and we had great sex, too, it was really fun.

Anyway, so I had like, all these adventures, I was having a great time exploring myself, and my partner was like, really uncomfortable with it, and he was like, you know, even though, We were non monogamous. It had been a fraught journey for us. And it was for both of us, it was our first explicitly non monogamous relationship from the beginning.

Yeah. Like, I'd been in non monogamous relationships prior, but we'd like opened in the middle. So, you know, early Polly, messy, messy, messy. Oh, isn't it? It sure is. But yeah, so he was asking me this question of like, is it for money? Is it for fun? And I was like, it's all of the above. The blurriness is part of what's so compelling about it.

And that's a thing I've found I connect with about a lot of other people in this general world is like, there's often a compellingness to the blurriness. I don't think that's true for everyone. I definitely have dear ones in this field who clear, clear delineations of what someone is, is a very important thing in their life.

But for me, the blurriness was really compelling. So He couldn't get down with that. He was like, if it was just for money, I could understand that. And if it was just for pleasure, I could understand that. But the fact that it's at this like intersection made him really uncomfortable. And I just like, you know, I didn't think about this at the time, but years later, I started to reflect on how, just how fucked up of a response that was.

I was like, What other job would you criticize someone for enjoying what they're doing? When we can, like, if a teacher came home from work and they were like, I had a great day with the children. I really had fun today. No one would be like, Oh, shame on you. You're like, you should only be doing this for the money.

Yeah. It was just a really weird. Yeah. So just revealed some blatant or phobia. So, you know, I think. So, um, starting to do this career was bringing to the surface for me that I do relationships really differently. Yeah. And I'd always known this about myself. I remember like in my, I had like this clique of friends in college and I remember before we left for winter break one year, like drunkenly telling them that I was in love with all of them.

And then I was like, I've never been in love, but like, this is, I think, what it feels like. This is what I feel toward all of you. And someone threw like a solo cup at my face. Cause they were like, no one can handle that. Right. They're like Scott, you know, but like, so I just always knew I was sort of weird and or like unusual in the way I did relationships.

So when that partnership ended, it was like a huge, it was a brutal, brutal breakup. It took months. We were living together. We tried to keep living together. We had just brought a new house, made it, we lived in this big communal house. We just brought a new house, made it, it was just like, it was like, everything was messy and it felt like I'd been shattered along sort of the exact fault line of my childhood trauma in some way that I couldn't quite articulate.

I basically deeply over invested in someone who was really unreliable in exactly the same ways that like were the rupture in my parents marriage. But was, like, compelling for all those reasons, right? Aren't they always? Aren't they always? Oh, so drawn to them for that. But I hadn't been really single in a long time.

And I, you know, I think polyamory and non monogamy sort of lead to that, in a way. That you, like, there's always someone. Right. Sure. So I was like, I'm going to take some conscious time to be, to be really single. And I let, you know, like I would casually date, but really far, few and far between, I spent basically four or five years really intentionally single and It was probably about a year and a half or two years into that that I was doing one of the modules of the somatic sex education training.

Are you familiar with that modality? You know, my surrogate partner therapy training had been, it left a lot to be desired. Let's put it that way. And the somatic sex education training is much more like intensive, introspective, deep dive on yourself. It's like super trauma informed and just like all the ex, it's not like you're just like learning a set of exercises the way the surrogate partner therapy training was.

It's really like you're learning an ethical framework and having to do everything you're learning on yourself. And. It required this like really intense reflection, self reflection while I was still recovering from this breakup. And I had just moved here. Yeah. And I had all this alone time and I was in the woods and I just had a collapse.

It just felt like sort of the walls were coming down. It was really intense and kind of a brutal period, but ended up being really powerful. What happened was I was integrating this trauma from my childhood That several years before my mom had revealed a really striking and key piece of information that I hadn't known about the abuse that was happening in our house during that time.

And I just like, after she told me, like, made total sense to me when she told me, like, put all these things in context, but I. Just wasn't ready to integrate it. I didn't even realize I hadn't told anyone. Like, the only person I told was my therapist. I assumed I told, like, my nesting partner at that time, but she said, Never, you never mentioned that to me.

And like, I asked several friends. So, clearly it was sort of just like, rippling off. Yeah. And, it felt like I was finally integrating that. And a huge part of that realization was finally, for the first time, radically accepting that the traditional partnership model is not right for me. And that, you know, I think I'd always approached it like, what's wrong with me?

That I don't like this. Like, why am I such a freak? You know, like, why do I have all these really sexual friendships? And they feel partnered and wonderful, but it's not like I want to be like romantic partners with these people. Why, Am I like in and out with, and like totally tempestuous and all my romantic relationships and why, you know, like, why can't I just settle?

Why can't I just be monogamous and easy? And during this period, there was like this ease with it where I was like, this is who I am. It's beautiful. It's unique. And it's so important that there be people in the world who do things differently and it's okay. If it never changes, that's like an okay way to live your life.

And that's really beautiful. Yeah, there was sort of this like powerful parallel journey happening with my work where I was like really fully coming into my work and this powerful sort of self acceptance happening around being solo Polly basically. Yeah, and I remember at that time, like being pretty horrified that I'd been doing the work for, I must have been like four or five years at that point and not having done that self work.

It felt unethical. I was like, Oh Jesus, I probably should have done this before I ever started. I'm sure some of this shit was coming up. On some of my clients. So yeah, anyway, that was quite a ramble.

Nicole: Yeah, no, it was all great. I appreciate you opening it up to me. Right. Trusting me with the space and yeah, that self reflection piece.

I don't know if that ever ends right as a therapist over here too. It's like, when is there an end to that? Well, I don't, I don't know. Right. Cause we keep changing and growing and we hold them and they affect us and we're changed by our relationships and all of that. So I don't know if it ever ends in that way, but yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because in the last year for me, I've just felt so normalized. In all of this relationship anarchy world that when I'm hearing you I'm like, well, this sounds normal to me and normal is a loaded word. Right. But like, I was like, yeah, of course you love your friends. Like, of course, I'm like, you know, and then I go home for the holidays or whatever.

And I'm like, Oh, this is, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. This is a freak. In the best way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it's so, I think there's so much power in opening up our perspectives to the realities that we all have multiple relationships. I don't mean to blow people's minds, right? There was a, there was a, the New York mag, um, had this, uh, article where it was like, uh, why is polyamory becoming so normal?

And then I went into the comments and as you can imagine, it was, Fire. People are just like, Mer mer mer mer mer. How do you have time for multiple relationships? And I'm like, I don't mean to, like, blow your world, but I think you have multiple relationships. You just don't have sex with all of them. Or quote unquote, be romantic.

Whatever that means. Question mark, question mark. With all of them, right? So it's like such a paradigm shift to just start seeing the world in this way, I think.

Katherine: Totally. Yeah. It's really interesting to me, the, the like, sex being sort of like the defining thing of relationships. Yeah. You know, a big part of my embracing trans people.

My solo polyamory has coincided with embracing my asexual parts. Like I was largely celibate during the years that I was doing that, like introspective journey. And, you know, and in the queer poly world, asexuality is so common and like so embraced. And, you know, polyamory is such a big piece of what allows me to do that.

One of my partners, we were almost entirely platonic, not exclusively, but mostly, and part of why they. We're so easy and supportive of that is because they could get sex else in other relationships, you know, and like, maybe to fulfill every role.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.

Katherine: I like sex is supposed to be the thing, the defining thing you share with your life partner or your spouse or whatever.

And that's the one thing that's different from all your other relationships. Right. But. If your partner, like, gains weight and you're no longer sexually attracted to them, it's supposed to be just totally fine to not be having sex, like, you shouldn't be resentful of your partner for not being able to have that change in your relationship and, like, really, the substance of a life partnership shouldn't be all about the sex.

It should be all, it should be about, like, building this stable foundation together. It's just, like, those contradictions. I spent a lot of time on Reddit and it just was, like, appalling to me seeing how people, like, you know, in more normative communities, there's, like, this expectation that someone's supposed to be both your, like, sexual passionate life partner and that's not supposed to matter at all.

Right. These weird dichotomies just don't exist in polyamory or like it gives you freedom to escape that shit and right?

Nicole: I know. I know there's so much Talk about how you know polyamorous people are obsessed with sex or whatever whatever and I'm like, I think it's the opposite Like this frame of like what you just said right of like this is the one person and the only one like there's a lot of Obsession about it in a way that I think on the other side, there's this flexibility for the meaning of relationships that don't have sex at all and how important those are in our world in such a way that it actually depedalizes, right?

Like, the importance of sex in a way that I think is not as common on the other side. So, Yeah. It's funny that that's like kind of the judgment that's thrown at the community when I'm like, Oh, you guys actually are, you know, there's so many ways where I start to spin about all of this. And, um,

Katherine: yeah, I think a lot of my clients like assume that I'm having crazy sex all the time, you know, or like I'm having a ton of sex and like, not to say that I'm not.

Sexually experienced. I am more sexually experienced than almost all my, than all my clients. Right. Right. So they're not wrong, but it's like, I've had sex like twice this month. Like I'm not having a crazy amount of sex. I'm actually pretty ace. Like sex is not that big of a priority for me. Sex is like a language I speak and a form of therapeutic healing I practice.

Sure. Yeah, so, I agree. There's a lot of misconceptions about it.

Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I think the other thing for me, too, is that really, that really fascinates me is this world where, I mean, it's all so cultural, right? But like, this world where, because of a dynamic where you can only have sex with one person, There are parts of ourselves that not everyone is gonna like, right?

Like, there are flavors of the dessert that not everyone is into, but when you only are able to do it with one person, sure, you can meet each other and compromise, but at what point are you cutting off parts of yourself and or forcing someone else to meet things that don't feel good for them? That's scary to me.

Katherine: Mmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and really normalized in our culture, I think.

Nicole: Yeah. I came from Christianity and purity culture.

Katherine: Mmm.

Nicole: Yes. So.

Katherine: A lot of recovering Christians in this world.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. In terms of just like paradigms around this sort of stuff, I think that's a really big thing. You know, like the first time I had sex, I sobbed uncontrollably afterwards because I felt like no one is ever going to want me again.

Because I had sex before marriage. I was tainted. Who would ever want to touch me? I failed, right? Yeah, young, young me just crying in the bathroom by myself. And so to get out of that world where I was like, okay, I'm going to have sex outside of marriage, right? I'm going to have sex with more than one person in my life was a stretch of my capacities to let alone, okay, I'm going to it.

date two people at once and do this game, right? Let alone I'm going to have two people in the room at one, right? Like all of that caused such a stretching of my capacities and worlds and paradigms and meaning making that I think there's still a lot for us to explore as a culture and like what sex means, what do we want it to mean?

Do you want to have it once or twice a month? Like there's just so much up here culturally and in a culture where we don't talk about it, there's so much suffering. And I'm sure you see that in your work, right? People who just have so much up there that hasn't been talked about or explored in relationships.

Katherine: Yeah.

Nicole: It's a lot.

Katherine: Yeah. Good stuff though.

Nicole: I know. That's why I'm passionate about this and I'm sure it's equally why you're passionate about your work. And I'm curious, you know, what does, you know, the majority of your caseload kind of look like for you?

Katherine: Um, my caseload is really all over the map. You know, I think the majority of clients seeking a female presenting surrogate partner are middle aged men with erection issues, which is a totally valid reason to seek surrogate partner therapy.

That sort of, like, explicit physical sexual dysfunction was definitely a good thing. The way that surrogate partner therapy was created, like that was the intention it was designed for when Masterson Johnson created Sensate Focus, but it gets really boring really fast once you've had a few of those cases.

And yeah, I mean, first of all, it's like fairly easy to solve with like surrogate partner therapy with just like Sensate Focus. Exercises like learning to touch mindfully and learning to identify your desires and separate them from like pleasing your partner. And also it's, you know, I mean, any, any relationships across power difference are exhausting.

This is a thing that I talk a lot about as a queer person is the invisibilization of the power differential and heteronormative relationships and hetero relationships that we like. Those are the norm, and so we don't even see it, right? But gender difference is power difference. You know, we would, like, interracial relationships, we could talk about the power difference, power difference there all day, or even like cross class relationships.

That's a thing, but like, we just don't even see the power differential. And yeah, so just have it, you know, like I'm basically in relationship with each of my clients, and I see, you know, Somewhere between five and eight clients at a time. And I was getting pretty burnt out carrying, carrying all these men and they're like fragility and

they're like slow reckoning, like the grief of like having never been present with their bodies and their emotions as they start to realize that and the work, which is like, it's a beautiful, it's like such a beautiful journey and to be on with them.

But like, when you have five to eight of those in your life at a time, it can get pretty exhausting.

Nicole: Sure.

Katherine: Yeah. Yeah, and having to, you know, of course along the way having to deal with their entitlement, and like boundary crossing, and um, yeah, all that stuff. So, I was starting to reach kind of the end of my rope, and I, I really consciously, I was like, I really need to queer my practice, I just like need to have more diversity in my practice.

I've always offered sliding scale rates. Mm hmm. So I think that's been Yeah, there's always, I've always had generational, I've always had like age diversity. I've worked with people as young as like 20 and as old as like 72.

Nicole: Cool.

Katherine: But yeah, I just like was only working with cis men basically and getting really sick of it.

So I like spent quite a bit of time interviewing people or like talking with people whose practices served more women and queer folks and I had got some really helpful advice about kind of like, How you frame yourself on your website and like who think about who your website's for and that type of thing, right?

But the most helpful piece of advice I got was from this pro dom that I was doing this work trade with who? Yeah, she's rad actually Dahlia snow.

Nicole: Okay. I love recording with dominatrix.

Katherine: She's mostly based in the bay I think, but she's, she's sometimes in Baltimore. Yeah, I can send you her info. Very cool.

Yes. She said that, you know, she used to work with mostly cis men as well, but like nowadays her practice was almost exclusively queer clients. And I was like, what? Like, tell me your ways. Like, it was my total happenstance. It wasn't like why I reached out to her. I was getting domination sessions from her, but I, she, we were just talking about that.

Cause we were in like, you know, slightly similar fields. And, and I was like, how did you do that? And she's like, I didn't really. Do anything. She was like, I just sort of let my social media presence become more authentic. Like, I was just like, became more and more of myself. Like, the more myself I presented, I was, the more those clients came to me.

And that was like, because it was so contrary to what we'd been explicitly told to do in my surrogate partner therapy training, which To be fair, like, the surrogate partner therapy training was, like, incredibly horrophobic. They, like, refused to identify what we do as sex work and, like, basically threw sex workers under the bus to legitimize our work.

They were like, you know, don't accept only cash because that'll make you seem like a sex worker. Don't, you know, like, make sure you look professional on your website so people don't think you're a sex worker. It was just like, what the actual fuck? Like, we're having sex with our clients. This is sex work?

Like, I don't know what you're thinking, you know? There are prodoms who never fuck their clients. Who? Identify as sex workers, right, you know, and cam girls and all this shit. And like we literally are having sex with our clients And we're not identifying a sex that just like makes no

Nicole: the cognitive dissonance

Katherine: Totally and you still hear that rhetoric like I think that's starting to shift in the surrogate partner world There's a new surrogate partner collective that's running trainings. That's much less morphobic, um trying to actively combat that but Yeah, NPR did a story last year or maybe the year before on surrogate partners in Israel where the government pays for surrogate partners for vets.

Hell yeah. It's wild.

Nicole: Yeah. America's wild.

Katherine: I mean, yeah, it's all, yeah, just what, but the, in the surrogate partner they interviewed, they asked her like, Is this sex work, or how is this different from sex work? And she was like, honestly, that question is offensive, like, I don't even know how you can ask that, like, it's so different, the purpose is therapy.

And I was like, ugh, why? Why is this ongoing narrative? Like, why can't we just be like, yeah, it's sex work. It is under the umbrella of sex work. Is that such a really hard thing to say? Anyway.

Nicole: As if sex work isn't healing, right? Like, in general. What? What?

Katherine: Absolutely, right. Like, there's some inherent difference, like, pleasure isn't healing.

Right. Yeah, but also just, like, the tendency to throw others under the bus to legitimize yourself, to, like, step on other people's heads to, like, get safety and, like, Security for yourself is such a weird way, like in my head, of course we should identify as sex workers because we're pretty fucking safe.

Like there has never been a criminal case against a surrogate partner.

Nicole: Right.

Katherine: We're fairly legally protected. So like, why wouldn't we say that we're sex workers? So we start kind of expanding the cultural imagination around what sex work is and thereby elevating all of us, like bringing all sex workers more safety and security.

It just, Anyway, I went off on a total tangent, what was I even talking what was your question?

Nicole: Is it a tangent or an actually very on point point of the conversation, right? I mean, I think it's all super important because it just reminds me back to, again, America's puritanical roots around purity culture, right?

And it sounds like this, like, same sort of idea of wanting to get away from, you know, The dirtiness of sex. Oh, oh, this is, this is therapy. This is what we're, you know, like, it's just trying to get away from that box, which I think, yeah, we can ask much deeper questions about what does that say about your conceptualization around sex?

sex and pleasure and intimacy. I think there's so much deep in there. So it's all very modern anarchy in my opinion, examining power structures, right? And how that is implicit in our relationships in ways that we don't even recognize at times.

Katherine: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So your original question was what does my case load look like?

I like had to change it up to of course, not emotionally burn out. And I choose who I work with at any given time to make sure that I have balance in my There was a period when I first started, When I was like first having success with like drawing in queer clients where I like took on a ton of queer clients.

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: Because I was so excited about it. Right, right. Which one was a pretty big hit to my income. It was like suddenly I was making half as much money as I was making before. And I was like, okay, this is not sustainable. Right, right. Gotta have at least some of the full paying clients. And I was shocked how much more emotionally drained I was.

Because I was like, my journey was so parallel. There's so many of these clients that like my shit was getting triggered, right? There's so much more ease of separation when someone's really different, you know? I have so many clients who are like 30 to 50 year old men who just like really never got practice dating and are just like lacking confidence.

And so so much of the work is just sort of affirming them and helping them find their voice. And that's like such joyful work and really easy.

Like, you know, if that was all I was doing, I'd be super burnt out by it. But. As a small part of my practice, it's lovely and really rewarding. But yeah, when the bulk of your clients are people around your age range was really similar identities as you and a lot of similar trauma, like eating disorders and addiction and like, like struggles to identify their queerness.

Like, it was just like, you know, I have one client who like the first. I couldn't identify why it wasn't like anything. Their struggle was getting so deep into me. Yeah. Balance is important.

Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because you. You and I both have unique jobs where we're building relationships with people.

And so there's part of our job is to hold that story in our head, right? And so it impacts us in so many different ways. It's, you know, impossible to not be impacted by these relationships and the way that they either challenge our stories or expand them. And, and quite literally, we both. build a story with these people, right?

And so being able to find, you know, that balance in your caseload makes so much sense, right? Where you could use your voice, right? Talk about deconstructing and professionalism and all that sort of bullshit, right? Like coming out here to use your voice and attract the people that bring you energy so that you can balance that out with the heavier work, you know, and finding all of that is so key so that you can continue to do what you're doing.

Healing work. Um, but yeah, it just reminds me of the beauty of relationships for all people, right? Like, not even if you're doing the work that we do and you do, right? Like, just the ways that, you know, When you bring people into your world, it changes so much. So much.

Katherine: Yeah. What does your client load look like?

Nicole: Yeah. I have, um, some coaching clients that I do outside of the realm of therapy, right? With, um, sex and non monogamy and kink and that sort of space, which is really fun and pleasurable to me. And then I have, I'm training right now at sauna healing collective. So I do. Yeah. Normal traditional talk therapy clients and all of those clients are queer, non binary trans, you know, expansive people, which is really fun for me.

Um, and then I do the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy work in a co therapy dynamic with my supervisors. And so then that's the ketamine work where we unpack a lot of trauma and have that sort of space to use that, um, non specific amplifier to really unpack it. So I kind of get to dabble in a couple of different things.

And then I also teach yoga. So I have yoga students, right? Which is so fun for me when I get to go in and it's like, I don't need to know anything about your world, your brain, your, anything, you're just going to breathe with me and we're going to breathe together, you know, so I get a little bit of balance in that way, which is really nice

Katherine: and your coaching clients and therapy clients.

Do you usually see them for like a set amount of time or is it ongoing?

Nicole: Um, no, it's ongoing. I mean, I trust the person, you know, to decide when that is. And when that isn't, I don't try to push people in or try to make them stay. Like it's really up to them. I've been in therapy myself for the last five years and have enjoyed deeply the relationship I have with my therapist and have gone in so many different ways.

So, I mean, I'm open to people having that kind of longevity of relationship, right. And obviously always supporting the, The bird to fly out the nest, you know, when they want to, we don't keep them, but if it feels good to them, I'm happy to support them to whatever, you know, capacity. Yeah. And then our world is made by this.

Exactly. Right. Like we have to find that balance and all of it. And, and then it deeply spills into other, I don't know about you, but then it like deepens. deeply spills into other areas of my life where, you know, I'm connecting to my community rock climbing and I'm talking about my dissertation and then someone's like, Oh, this is so fascinating.

I'd love to have a conversation with you and talk about this. Right. And then it starts to hit that point of like, when is this? Work, you know, and like I have to put boundaries around like I'm now teaching. I'm now, you know So like that's been I think an interesting journey for me to In this healing world of like when do you have boundaries with this stuff?

Katherine: But totally

Nicole: yeah.

Katherine: Yeah Yeah, there was an interesting period for me I had one client who, he's still my client, who I was really in love with. It was the first client I'd ever fallen in love with, actually, I think. Um, yeah, and it was so sweet and safe and gentle. Like, the container was so clear, and it was, it was really supportive for him to receive that.

Yeah. Yeah, and he's queer, and he, like, discovered that. I mean he suspected beforehand but it was like through our work that he like discovered and embraced that and he's now dating Muslim men which is like the cutest it's like that's so unusual for my cis man client so it's like a barrier where he says like you know getting to like be queer together and our sex was so queer

Nicole: yeah

Katherine: which is not usually the case, right?

Like I tried as much as possible to teach queer sex to my clients, right? We're like starting from square one with like sensory experience rather than like first, second base, third base, right? So

Nicole: yeah,

Katherine: I think to some degree, all my clients are having very different sex than what might be like taught in the, in the over culture.

Right. But, This was the first client I was having sex with where I was like, this looks a lot like what my sex life outside of work looks like. And at the same time, I was starting to date a cis dude for the first time in six years. And when does like my client become like not work and like, how do I keep it in that container in a way that's supportive and safe for him?

Right. And when is like, this work with this guy. This is the relationship I'm having with this guy. I'm dating work, right? Cause like, there was work required. There's, I mean, there's always emotional labor required as a, you know, as a fem person dating a dude. But, um, yeah, I avoided it for a really long time.

Nicole: And charge money for it. Yeah, totally.

Katherine: So, um, But yeah, it was this, like, it was this, I was really, like, on a philosophical level. I was, like, really sort of struggling with, like, how much they looked like each other. And, you know, I mean, this, my, the guy's dating lives far away, so I would see him about the same frequency as I was seeing my client.

It looked like this, the container looked really similar, the sex looked similar, and I was like, wait, one of these I'm getting paid 200 an hour for, and one of these I'm free.

Nicole: Right.

Katherine: What's going on here? It was just a weird thing to look at. Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. What do you make of all, I mean, I'm just like thinking about capitalism and surviving in this world and like getting outside of the boxes of work and stuff, but like, yeah, how did you conceptualize all that?

Katherine: Yeah, like where did I land? Right. That's a great question. Well, so I think in terms of the client, what became really clear to me through, you know, I mean, a huge part of this was just talking with the therapist about it and making sure that. The client still felt like good and safe and like he was still getting the therapeutic like what he needed out of the relationship and the therapist was very much like, this is good for him.

Right. This is exactly what he needs at this stage. So that was helpful. But you know, I think largely what was reflected back to me through his work looking so much like. The rest of my romantic life was like, he's almost done. Our rapport is this comfortable and he's, he's this fluid and comfortable in sex and he's like starting to date and we don't have like structure to our sessions so much anymore.

It's just sort of like, it's like a date.

Nicole: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katherine: We're just hanging out. I was like, that means he's like almost done at the end of his arc, you know, and we've been holding there for several months, but he's like much more proactively dating and like, I'm more just sort of like a background support to him at this point.

And, and when I worked out with my relationship, um, uh, yeah, this is interesting and kind of connects back.

Nicole: Sure.

Katherine: I mentioned that I saw that sugar daddy for a while who was a lifestyle dom. And yeah, a lot of what I was sort of like struggling with in the early phase of that relationship, especially once it became sexual, cause we'd been like dating basically for several months without.

Any sex involved? We recently were talking about this and it was clear to me at the time that it was dating, but it was funny because he recently was like, oh, we've been dating for six months. And I was like, no, we've been fucking for six months. We've been dating for like a year. Right. And I was like, and he was like, oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to lose some points for my hetero assumption.

Nicole: Yes, you will.

Katherine: I was like, oh

Nicole: yeah,

Katherine: but yeah, what I was struggling with was like, so this person is someone who's like newly out as queer has been like internally working through his queer identity for years, but like has largely kind of come into that through dating me, which as a, as like a non binary woman, I like, that's a fraught thing for me.

When I'm dating a dude who like, cause like, for me, it's just an ongoing struggle, the way our relationship looks to the outside world, as like, traditional and heteronormative and, and also like the ways that it is hetero, right? Like the, like, emotional labor and the, like, distribution of roles and all of that.

And so for him, he was like, this relationship is so queer, which like, to be fair, in a lot of ways it is, like, I'm very much the dominant one and our sex life is super queer, but. You know, most of, for me, I was like, this is the straightest relationship I've been in in years. So this is, you know, we were having very different experiences, and it's like, I was having frustration around like, being his gateway to queerness.

I was like, you need to go find that on your own. Like, you don't even have any queer community. Like, you need to go to a queer community. Right, right, right, right. So I was sort of having this ongoing struggle with Yeah, being his entry point to queerness and doing a lot of emotional labor for him, like, you know, emotional support, which like, to be fair, I love that shit.

Like, there's a reason I do this work. Right. That's how I am in my relationships. But yeah, there were also, there were particular ways that it was playing out. Like when he'd say something that was like, Like he'd do things that were like, I'm like trying to think, you know, like that they had like elements of like colonialism in that, right?

I'm like trying to, all the isms, right? I'm like, yeah, and there's a lot of elements of related to queerness and just like he would say a lot of like, you know, just like Sis, dude, shit, just like, okay, that's really, I'm trying to like make this generalizations. He like, yeah, he would just say stuff that sort of like had a blind, you know, like he was sort of like blind to stuff.

And the moment that like really broke it for me was when We had just started having sex, we had done only low risk activities in terms of STI transmission.

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: And so he was planning to come visit and I was like, we should have a safer sex talk when you get here. The assumption being like, we might have more risk exposure this coming time.

And he responded to that with the text, safer sex question mark. And I was just like, Richard! Oh god. Like alarms ringing, like what do you mean question mark?

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: Ah. I was like, what? I don't understand what your question, what is your question? Sure. And when we finally broke it down later, after I'd gotten like over my rage, he was able to express to me that, that suggestion of we need to have a conversation about safer sex had brought up a bunch of anxiety that he like thought I was saying I had an STI or something and hadn't told him.

Nicole: Um, which is more interesting, right?

Katherine: Right. I mean, even that is such an intro, right? Like The minute you bring up safer sex, there's an implication that there's like, like an unsafety piece, right, as opposed to like, just a normal and par for the course element of keeping ourselves safe and protected is to have that text conversation went very downhill because I was like, what the fuck do you mean?

Question mark. He was like, what do you, what do you mean by safer? So I was like, okay, this is bad news. And it was one of those moments where it became. You know, when you were talking about like, you're rock climbing and someone asks you about your work and then you're like, man, is this work? Right. I was like, this is work.

I was like, yeah, I clearly have to give you my like PowerPoint presentation on STIs and we need to talk about what practice, like, which is like literally what I do with my clients. I make 250 an hour to do this. So that's shitty. That's work, right? Like this is not work.

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: So I like sat on it for a bit and I was like, I basically realized There's been kind of this ongoing struggle I've been dealing with of like wanting to nag him and correct him and all those moments when he was like doing those little things that annoyed me where he wasn't aware of the isms, you know, he was like not he was thinking from sort of a, yeah, colonial mindset.

Yeah. And it had become clear that. When I, like, mock him and poke at him about it, he liked that. Like, that was, that was a good way to do it. But when I would, like, try to, like, gently nag him or, like, do it subtly or, like, passively, it always became, like, uncomfortable. And not that he was defensive, he just, like, seemed to, like, feel bad about himself.

Almost, like, need to make it up to me as opposed to, like, take the jab and be, like, heard, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like sitting on this safer sex conversation and thinking about all that of like the mocking is the best tactic for him which works really well for us because I'm like extremely sarcastic and love to mock people, love to be mean.

So I had this like idea of a point system where I was like I'm gonna have like a point tracker on my phone and when you say or do dumb shit I dock you points. So I, like, went through the safer sex conver like, the text conversation we had with him. Minus 100. I don't know. I, like, proposed this to him and I was like, so, in the future, like, if we have this conversation, this is how it would work.

And you'd lose, like, 16 points in that conversation, right? And then That's generous. And then I Can cash those points in for things which works really well for him because he's like very service oriented, right? So I'd be like I'm gonna cash these 20 points in for like a full body massage and oral sex.

Oh my god That's hilarious.

Nicole: This is how we get outside of capitalism and money. Now you owe me service, right?

Katherine: Exactly. And so then we eventually also added like when he does good things he like gets paid Points like when he's like queer or poly, you know, like when he hooks up with, when he like makes out with a guy, that's like additional points.

When he like goes on a date with somebody, you know, like those kind of things, like he gets more like, I learn things from him. So that was basically the, uh, the beginning of essentially implementing a lifestyle BDSM. Yeah, I can see this happening, yep. So that's sort of how I resolve that and it continues to be like every time that I kind of come up against that like, I'm like, Oh, he's annoying.

I want to end this relationship kind of feeling. I just lean more into the dynamic and it actually has worked really well. So it's really expanded. So now we have like, Goals that he's working toward at any given time. And there's like a reward he gets if he meets them on time and punishment he gets if he doesn't meet them.

That's how i'm working it out

Nicole: It's so expansive right like yeah Changing instead of just money being the system right of Energy exchange, right? We're thinking about a way more expansive way to do relationships where you're balancing of like, okay. Yeah, this relationship is draining in this way. So you're going to give back in that way.

So there's that reciprocity And I think for me that was the question about the rock climber like asking me all this, right? It's like I can Talk to you about my work and expand your perspective, but are you going to expand mine? Right? Like, cause it doesn't have to be money. Right. But like, what is the give and take of this relationship?

And I think that's a question for all of us in our world, right? Of like balancing out, is this relationship draining my energy in such a way that I'm constantly giving and giving and giving and giving so much so that it's actually driving me to lose my zest for life. Because this relationship isn't really for me.

And then the sub, like, subsequent deeper question that a lot of people then have of, like, is it me? Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me. And I'm like, oh no, something's wrong maybe with that person or your community, you know? And I think that's a hard thing for people to kind of get that.

You know, like our sense of identity or our vivaciousness for life is deeply connected to our relationships. And so, yeah, when you have all those clients, right, that are like that caste type and then they're bringing you down, right, to shifting it up to queers, which drew something else out of you, right, but gave you a different, like, like, I think people just forget how much so our relationships shape our reality.

And when we are sad and depressed and these other things, like, Obviously the systems, but like, what's up with your relationships?

Katherine: Totally. Yeah. And I think there's a degree to which, like, because of the life part, like monogamous life partnership over culture, there's like a degree of, it's been normalized to be sort of sad in our relationship, in our romantic relationships a lot of the time, we're like, we have to compromise.

Not that I'm opposed to compromise. Of course. Negotiation is really important.

Nicole: Of course.

Katherine: Yeah, I think, you know, like, like way and it's funny because dating assist dude, I like get this again now, but like the way it's like, there's like a whole world of tick tock. That's just like women hating their husbands, you know, and like joking with sometimes they're fucking hilarious, you know, it's like this guy being an idiot, you know, and now I'm like, I get it, yeah, you like, stop doing it, but like, yeah, just like the normalization of that is like a wild thing, and especially when you've been in queer relationships for a while, you're like, whoa, I forgot, oh, that's like so normalized, you just be like grumpy at your partner all the time, or like sad or unfulfilled, or yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. Like eek. I don't know. I think, I feel like it's kind of like the world where you were sold, you know, you're going to go to school and be a doctor, right? Of some type. And then people do it and they're like, I fucking hate this shit, but I'm, I'm doing what I was told to do. And so, you know, so it's like, I just, I don't know.

I don't know about you, but I believe in the power of a world that is, you Radically different than that. Radically different than a world of, Ugh, this ball and chain. And the amount of comedy specials I see of the, I haven't had sex in years, right? And which is fine if that's what you want. But it's like this complaining nature of like, Oh, this is just my partner.

I don't want them anymore after this. I'm so bored. It's like, There's another w world, just to let you know, I don't, you know, I don't, it doesn't have to be like this.

Katherine: Right. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I think a powerful takeaway for me in this relationship was like discovering that like what works for me also works really well for him.

Like he loves it. He's like super turned on by it. Like he's like hard all the time when we're like having these conversations about his goals or I'm like criticizing him mockingly or whatever, you know, and I, yeah. And I think that's something I like. Learned from doing all these like, you know, semi like legal gray zone weird types of where I like sugaring taught me so much about that.

Yeah, like both like being a sugar baby for this lifestyle Dom, I learned so much about ethical domination and like, you got to be really on to be a good Dom, you know, like, I want to be, I don't want to be like high or something. Sleepy or whatever when I'm having our like check in calls, but do you meet his goals?

Like I want to be like with it and like responsible, you know, um, but also just like the customizability of relationships and you know, I think that's so common in the society sex work world, right? Yeah. Like you can get pleasure from clients and clients will give you gifts and you know, like there's like, you can customize relationships for as you're naming for this reciprocity piece.

Like what are you getting out of it? And what I've learned from like my dyke relationships basically is like what it's like to have true equality or what it's like to like really like, yeah, the empowerment that can come with that sort of reciprocity, that equanimity almost. And then my, like, cross gender relationships or, you know, cross cultural relationships.

How do we account for these power differentials? How do we like, you know, like, if I'm dating a person of color, I am going to be learning things. I'm going to be accidentally harming them at times, right? So how do you account for that power differential and stuff?

Nicole: Absolutely. And the question of like, when you put in the system of this, like, if you, you know, say stupid shit, uh, you're taking away points. Like, is there an ethical question around the fact that you're enlightened maybe more than this person?

Katherine: What do you mean? What's the ethical question? I don't know.

Nicole: Like, sometimes I wonder if like, I don't know how to put this. This is a hard thing to say, but like,

Katherine: I'm curious.

Nicole: I know. Like, and, and yeah, I'm just, I think about a world where so, my job is to sit with people, you know, I'm trained in trauma, right? I'm trained in psychology, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. My job under capitalism is to sit with people in these deep relationships, unpack feelings, unpack communication, unpack all of this, et cetera, et cetera. And because of the systems, That is what I spend my 40 plus hours a week doing compared to maybe one of my partner who sells plants.

Right? So his hours of the week are spent selling plants and selling plants. And I'm over here studying deep emotions and communication that inherently creates this power dynamic for me. We're like my skills in a certain area or maybe a little bit. So then I'm sitting over here, like, is it ethical for me to date anybody?

Not in a sort of way of like, I'm better than people, but under the systems I, this is literally what I spend my hours doing. And so when I connect with someone who doesn't, it's like an inherent power dynamic of like, I'm skilled in, you know, these areas. And then I'm like, and then I'm like spinning. I'm like, how do I.

Do this ethically if I see something in their mental health and maybe you know or what but then that's presuming I know more but it is in a reality where like 40 hours a week I'm doing this and someone else is doing that's like that's a power tie, you know So I I spin these all the time and I'm like, I don't know

Katherine: Totally.

Yeah. I remember being on a call with a bunch of other folks in the somatic sex education training one time. It actually, I think it might've been the, there's like a sex worker breakout group of or like a group of sex worker support group within the somatic sex education community. I was talking about, I was like talking about how I've been struggling with like, this was like year deep into the period of those years where I was mostly celibate and before I'd like entered relationships again and I, before I entered romantic partnerships, sure.

Sure. And. I was talking about, like, I was like, I'm starting to feel, like, I'm starting to explore sexuality again. I'd been, like, dipping my toes in the water of dating again, and I was like, I'm having this, like, fear or anxiety around, like, I'm just gonna I was like, I hate to say this is so egotistical, but like, I'm just gonna be better at sex.

Yes. This is my shot. Like, I literally teach people how to have like, good present mindful, embodied sex, right? So like, I do this all the time. I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm practicing it all the time, right? It's like, it's https: otter. ai This stuff was in like our high school sex ed curriculums and stuff but so much of it is like basic stuff anyone can learn that you don't even have to do sexual stuff to learn these concepts but the reality isn't most people don't have those skills and so yeah and so I was like what do you know I'm like worried I'm like only going to be able to date other people from this world you know it's right someone was like someone's like yeah I mean I don't really know what to say but You know, like if someone's a professional tennis player, they're not going to want to play tennis with me.

Like, it's not going to be fun for them if like, you know, like they're not being challenged and stimulated in that way. And I, um, I really do think there's truth to that. The first time that I started having sex with a romantic partner again after that period and after I'd done that really like deep introspection and done this training, it was still lovely and I was like so in love with this person that I had a great time but I was very aware of sort of the differential and like how much I was the one doing and giving and serving because they didn't have that experience and so I think there is truth to like There can be a certain equality and ease when you date someone who's kind of in a similar field as you when you're doing emotional labor fields.

But I was also totally taken aback to find how great my sex life with this person is. Right.

Nicole: Exactly.

Katherine: Totally not at all.

Nicole: Because there is fun in teaching too, when it's with the right person and it's exciting, right? And you're exploring.

Katherine: I actually found You know, sex is not the realm where I'm teaching him, like, certainly, I mean, clearly, safer sex is what I'm teaching him to do.

Yeah. Yeah, which to be fair, like, the information out there is sparse and all oriented toward, like, worst case scenarios. Right. So it's really, unless you are. Certified in sex education. It's hard to know. But um, but yeah, I find much more like what I'm teaching him about is like queerness and power differential and oppression and how like colonialism shows up in our world.

Sure. And how to just like be a grounded and embodied person. But sex was not the realm. It was sort of like an instantaneous chemistry, which really took me and was honestly really Like affirming or like relieving. It was relieving. I was like, Oh God. Cause it's the first time I'd had sex that felt that way.

That wasn't someone else who was in my kind of training and community world. And it was like, Oh, great. I can still have like easy sexual connections with people who aren't like trained in this.

Nicole: Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. I'm exploring a little bit of that in my relationship world too. So I'm curious for you, like, Okay.

You know, some things are obviously ineffable, and we don't have to put words to it, but if you could, or want to, do you know what it is about that connection that kind of sparked that for you?

Katherine: Yeah, yeah, I think I actually can. I think part of it is Like, simply, what is the hotness in sex for you? And does that, like, overlap well?

Like, my former partner, the one who had, um, I had been dating when I became a surrogate partner, he, he was really, like, into subtlety and slowness. He was really like private and mysterious, which was like why I was so fucking magnetized toward him and just like very, he's like very feminine and yeah, sort of just like wispy and, and that was his sexual style too.

And That was really new for me and so at first we weren't really that sexually compatible and it took us a really long time to kind of find our groove but we're both like really compelled toward the other person's way because I'm much more like direct, quick, kind of like aggressive and I think we both learned a lot from each other sexually in that way but with this guy we're both like aggressive and There's like a constant sort of power play.

It's the first relationship I've ever had where like BDSM is sort of like a built in part of the both the relationship style and the sexual dynamic, as opposed to just like something we play with or like try on from time to time it's like are sort of always present and I. It's funny, because, you know, I, like, my very first partner was super kinky, and we explored a lot of kink through that, but I always sort of was like, that's fun, and I'm so happy to support him in that, but it's not, like, I always identified as sort of vanilla, and, like, really, until very recently, I was like, kink's super fun, I'm super pro kink, but I don't, like, need it, and I think this relationship is teaching me that I'm like, oh, actually, The kink is a really core part of at least the sexual dynamic for me and that's like allowed that to come to the surface.

So, yeah, I think it's about that overlap, right? And it's not to say that when you don't have that overlap, there's not reward, right? Sometimes you have so much to learn and engage with. There's something to chew on when someone's sexual style is so different than yours, but. Sure. There was sort of an immediate like, oh, we're into the same shit here.

Not that our fantasies are completely the same, although there's overlap, but that like ferocity and the power play and like who's in charge at any given moment is like that swirl is the fun of it.

Nicole: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, so expansive. I mean, Esther Perel always talks about like the narratives we create in our relationships.

And I'm like, Yeah, and we do that in sex too, right? There's the stimulus and then the narrative, right? So it's like, what is this act meaning to you, right? Is it a world that you're on the same page with on the narrative and can you play in that together or then expand your narrative through the other's perspective, right?

And the joy of that dance and meaning making together is so beautiful. And I'd be curious what the word kink means to you, right? I mean, I think, yeah. I use that word a lot. We use that word a lot, but it means a lot of different things to people. So when you say that you're discovering that kink is maybe more important in your play and your world, like what does that world, uh, word mean for you?

Katherine: Oh, that's a great question. I mean, it's such an umbrella term these days and it means such different things to different people. Right. Yeah. Um, I mean, for me, I think it mostly comes down to like power play and Domination and submission. Um, I mean, we play with bondage too, some of the time, but there doesn't have to be any props or toys involved for that, like, sort of power play.

The dynamic we have mostly is like, I'm a brat. I'm definitely a brat, and I've come into that awareness through this relationship largely, but you know, brat usually in the King community is associated with being a sub, and I'm not. I am very much a dom, but I'm a bratty, but it's like, I want to be served and I want to like mock and push back, but like, I want to be in charge.

So that's interesting. What are you exploring? What are you in this, in terms of that sort of like finding that spark and reciprocity, what are you exploring?

Nicole: This last year prior to this was the first time I really explored kink, right? Like really getting, and I guess I've expanded on that in a lot of different ways where I would say that, like, Like, when I was Christian, and I was taught to submit to the authority of a man, that shit's hella kinky.

Although it wasn't, it wasn't consensual because I was fuckin taught a paradigm, so then it's not kink, right, because I didn't get to choose that world, but I, I think that if we look back, right, like that's where a power dynamic even started. Starts for me of like, Oh, I'm supposed to submit to this authority.

But then it was a lot of, um, other explorations until like more recently where I had a more like DS dynamic and a lot of, um, objectification, a lot of body manipulation, a lot of submission, love that, loved that. Um, and then the sex that I'm exploring now is like, uh, like the eroticism of companionship and partnership.

Just this like caring for one another when you look into one another's eyes and like ooh, and that is hitting a very special Space right and I and I love all the different flavors, right? So I love all the different flavors and so but you know, just the sex I had yesterday It felt so vulnerable when I was having this orgasm staring into this person's eyes and feeling so tenderly cared for in that moment And not that I don't have that when I'm being called a sex addict Like that has a different level of rage and intensity and vulnerability when I'm in that space with my Dom.

Right. But like, this is a whole different flavor. And, and afterwards I was like, God, I don't know anything about sex. There's so much more to learn. Right. And so then I am thinking about the narratives around. What does it mean? Like, what does it mean when I look into this person's eyes? And what am I conjuring up here in terms of my experience and my story and who this is and how that, you know, the brain is the biggest sex organ, right?

So like all of that stuff going on and the ways that that is so deep, I am excited for my career, right? Like what a joyful space to keep exploring, right? Both professionally and personally and how that. is interconnected. Mm hmm.

Katherine: Yeah, it's funny in like a culture where, oh god, I'm like how do I even concisely, the wave of feminism in which we grew up in and like the era of like our culture's development, it's like a sort of like sweet loving vanilla sex that like connective staring into each other's eyes sex is sort of like the sex we're sort of taught as like what you're supposed to and I, you know, and I think one thing that has like Become clear to me or like come up for me and in the process of like embracing my inner kink like love of kink and like getting deeper into the kink world is like the ways that even that type of sex can be so kinky like the like Submission required not necessarily submission to the other person but almost like submission to like the divine or like interconnectedness Like, merging with someone, like, how much that can be kinky in itself, right?

That, like, these deeply loving, connected sex can still be incredibly

Nicole: Yeah. Exactly. There's so much of myself that I'm submitting and giving to in this person, right? And that is me. that power exchange and maybe that power exchange is more mutual in some ways, right? But it is still an energetic power exchange in that world.

So I definitely see it as that. I mean, I just think there's so many different ways to expand that. And I feel like the norm of what we are taught, though, is like no eye contact, you know? Like, like that is the norm is like, I hear people go like, I can't make eye contact with my partner when I'm, and I'm like, okay.

Oh God. You know what I mean? Like interesting. Interesting. Exactly. Like I am staring into the, that is power. Like you are staring into me in a moment where my body is actively being overcome with ecstasy to levels that I can't, you know, are just beautiful. Like that is a power. Like I am giving, you know, like, Whoa, you know, there is so much there I think to expand out.

I hate when people are like, Oh, I'm kinky. I don't do vanilla. Like, what? Like, these are just all different flavors of ice cream and I love all of it. Why do you have to like, you know, pigeonhole? Choose one. Yeah. And, and then to have, I have different partners that like different stuff. Right. Totally. I get, I get my, you know, ice cream, my chocolate over here and my bubble gum over there, my cotton candy, you know, like, and it is.

You know, and I love getting to explore all those different parts of myself in these different relationships and then come back to some level of wholeness and who I am through all of that, which again, I'm like, hearing the world of people like, Oh my God, she's a whore. And it's like, yes, I am. But like, it's so wild to me that we do this in every way.

Every other capacity of our life, right? I laugh with multiple people and I come home to a centeredness of what brings me joy and peace. And this is just another area of my pleasure where I explore it with multiple people and come back to a centeredness and who I am. And I find that to be very divine. I find that to be very whole and pure in my world.

Katherine: Yeah. Right on. Yeah. That's sweet. Yeah. I have so many more things and directions I could say about this, but I'm noticing we're coming close to the end here.

Nicole: I know. I know. Well, I want to hold space too, in case there was maybe something we didn't talk about that you want to hit. Otherwise I can direct us towards our closing question.

Katherine: Yeah. I don't think there's anything we missed. That was fun.

Nicole: Yeah.

Katherine: Much less about my job than I was expecting, which is always a delight.

Nicole: Good, good, good, good, good. Yeah, it's, I mean, and I think this is a space of intimacy, right? Like I meet a quote unquote stranger, right? And I'm pouring, you're opening, we're pouring.

I mean, all of that is very on par, I think, with what we're talking about, right? Is what does it mean to co create in the space and actually be present with you? So I appreciate you doing that with me today.

Katherine: Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to.

Nicole: Yeah. Well, the closing question I ask every guest is what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

Katherine: Oh my God. There's so many.

Nicole: I know.

Katherine: I know. I mean, the word normal, as you've acknowledged, is such a fraught word, right? I use it all the time, but I'm constantly trying to catch myself. But, you know, I guess what I really wish is that we recognize that there is more normal truly no normal, that there really, really isn't normal.

There's normative, the culturally constructed narratives of like what, yeah, what we're taught we're supposed to be. But beyond that, there is every possible way of doing things ever, you know, like if you, do it, someone else out there does it. And in fact, there's probably an entire community and world of people who do that, who like that, who want that, who like interact with that.

And having lean, having been leaning into the solo poly identity for several years now, we're alive at a particularly like fraught moment in the narrative of marriage and hetero marriage. And she's, you know, like, look at the reality shows around today, like married at first sight and love is blind. We're at this time when like marriage is like a more unstable institution than it's ever been before.

And yet we're like, it's like so deeply entrenched in our culture still in such a big way. And, and I've been doing so much exploration of sort of like people who've lived these more Solo poly like lives, right? People who have like done things non normatively, you know, like I have always lived in either big communities or like with one dear friend Yeah, and so like looking into that So my housemate and I this past summer we went we lived near the emily dickinson museum And we went to the emily dickinson museum and yeah, it's really rad and she's just like such a classic example of someone who like Lived her fucking own life danced to the beat of her own drum.

Like she didn't give a fuck Fuck, right? Like, I found out, like, she didn't even consent to her, any of her poetry ever being published. She just, like, the pieces that were published, she just, like, sent to friends. Like, she just, like, wanted to live her little hermit ass life. She didn't want to be famous. She wanted to, like, wander through the woods.

She did all these illustrations of wildflowers and, like, she had, like, really, really intimate, deep friendships. She was gay, like, like, like a lot of her poems were written for this woman that she was in love with who ended up marrying her brother. Arguably so that they could be next door neighbors and like be really intimately in each other's lives.

But like, she just like did that. She just didn't get a thought. She like, you know, I remember reading somewhere that when she submitted her poetry to be published, she changed the pronouns from she to he or from, you know, to like make it look like it was a hetero relationship. And then when I was at the museum, I found out that She never had her poems published.

The people that she'd send them to as like sweet letters changed them in order to publish them.

So it's like there's just so many, yeah, I just, there's so many examples in the world of people doing things the weird way you're doing them. You think you're a freak? Everyone's a freak. Everyone's a fucking freak.

Yeah. There's some people who are just more in touch with it.

Nicole: Right. And yeah, having a good time with it. Let me, let me add that in there. Right. Right. Right.

Katherine: Right.

Nicole: And I think that's, that's what's funny for me about the kink. Like, right. It's like framed as non normative sex. And then there's research showing that like up to 70 percent of people have BDSM fantasies.

And I'm like, well, that's if we're going on the statistical norm, right. As laden as that word is. That means it's pretty normal. So then it's like an inherent contradiction to call it this non normative. TOTALLY! But like words are helpful to talk about different types of sex maybe so we don't like completely drop the word out But like god, there's a lot more to expand here, you know, so and you uh, pass it on.

The Anarchist Test, which is always when someone deconstructs the like, final answer and is like, no, I won't take it. So you passed, you know, that's the secret test. You know, there's no right or wrong. Great, great, great.

Katherine: Glad I passed.

Nicole: Uh, well, it's been such a joy to have you on the podcast. And yeah, thanks so much for hosting.

Of course. Yeah. Where do you want to plug for people who want to connect with you, your work? And, and your voice.

Katherine: Totally. Yeah. You're welcome. Check out my website, katherineyagel. com. And I can like just drop that in the chat here. And I'm on Instagram and Facebook too, but I am really in a deeply hermited period and not engaging with social media right now.

So, uh, probably best to hit me up through my website if you actually want a response.

Nicole: Great. Great. Well, thank you again for joining us today.

Katherine: Absolutely.

Nicole: 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.