Lyric Explains it All! “Slumber Party” is a sex/relationship/life-advice column by the one and only Lyric Seal. Read Lyric’s past posts.

Dear Lyric:

I want sexual intimacy in my life, but I’m too Demi-sexual for casual stuff, and once I’m friends with people, I feel really awkward offering or asking about sex. What can I do?

Demi Love-ato!

Okay I have no idea how well that joke came off. Demi Lovato, please don’t twitter attack me.

Hello! I feel you, sib, I am not necessarily demisexual, but I am also a person who doesn’t easily imagine sexual hookups happening with people I am not familiar with. Unless it’s work/art. And that’s okay! And yeah, the awkward bug is real. But guess what, direct, honest communication is the only way that we can even hope of getting what we want.

One of my questions is, does your demisexuality apply to romance, wooing, and flirting as well? Because if for instance, you feel funny asking your closest friends to hook up, what if you begin certain relationships with the intention and possibility that eventually you might have sex? No pressure, but then if/when you start to get those sexy feelings for someone, romance/sex have already been put on the table. On OKcupid, on some Facebook groups, even perhaps in your network of acquaintances at work or school, there are people like you maybe have a partner and so are not hankering for sex but would like to take it slow, need emotional to sexual intimacy to be a slow transition always or for now, and those who are also demisexual! You deserve sexual intimacy and you deserve to not feel weird about it!

My other question is, are loving, intentional, facilitated orgies off the table for you and your closest friends? There have been times when the idea of that feels really good to me, and times when it does not, but it’s something to think about, and that kind of thing doesn’t have to change your relationship with your buddies! If you tell a friend that thinks it’s an awesome plan, it doesn’t even have to seem like your idea, to alleviate your awkward feelings. ;)

xo Lyric

Dear Lyric,
I first want to say that I love your work and your column, and am so excited about everything you’re doing here! My question is probably pretty basic but nonetheless frustrating, so I wanted to ask… (I am a mixed-race queer femme cis woman, for reference)… though I started getting myself off pretty early and consistently, beginning around early elementary school, I was fairly late to partnered sex and claiming a public sexuality (ie, queer, bi, etc) for a multitude of reasons related to sexual trauma, eating disorders, and mental health issues. I’ve been in several satisfying relationships and hookups thus far, but I have always struggled to come and more broadly to stay “in the moment” during sex. Everything that’s going on will feel amazing, and I am definitely very attracted to the people I’m sleeping with, but for some reason the only way I can come is to intensely visualize a totally unrelated fantasy.

I don’t know if this is just something I’ve made into a problem that isn’t/that I should just accept, but it bums me out that I can’t come while being fully “in it” with someone. Are there any strategies or ways of reframing things that you could share in terms of shifting from a very fantasy-oriented solo sex life (that was decades-long in the making and very much my primary sexual experience for most of my life) to a partnered one where I can maybe have orgasm be more engaged in what is actually happening physically? Thank you again for all your amazing work!
~Rakshika

Hi Rakshika!

Well first of all, thank you for your compliments, and thank you for your amazing work! I don’t know what else you’re doing in the world but I bet it’s breathtaking, because it is very impressive to do the kind of self-reflective, compassionate, historically grounded and building sexual-emotional work you are doing with yourself, and present such a question so concisely.

Your quandary is totally frustrating, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s simple at all! Darn! But I am so stoked to get into it, because it happens to be something I’ve thought a lot about for myself. There are some ways that my experience intersects with your’s, and some ways that it diverges. For me too, I made myself come far before another person did. But it took me a really long time to make myself come too! As a disabled (also mixed race Black, also queer, also femme but I didn’t know what that was then ;) ) teenager with medical trauma, being touched, touching, and even touching myself creeped me out. So although I craved sexual attention and release, it wasn’t until my friend got me a vibrator when I was 17 that I worked that out, and had an orgasm for the first time.

My friends would sometimes tell me that they didn’t really fantasize, that they imagined waterfalls or themselves in space (which is rad and romantic and empowered though it does not turn me on personally), but I imagined really ornate sexcapades amongst various groupings of women pretty consistently. While I was having sex with other people regularly or intermittently from this time and throughout college, I never really got out of the fantasizing in my head thing. I could be really into whoever I was boning, and just closing my eyes while I was getting off pushed it right over the edge into wild frenzied release.

I read this really beautiful thing one time in Jazz by Toni Morrison, where a Black female character is trying to describe the feeling of not being in your body to the extent of not being able to imagine your own self in your sexual fantasies. Or imagining another body replacing your’s in a fantasy. A whiter one. A more able-bodied one. A more perfect iteration of your assigned gender. Something like that. I have known that level of internalized oppression, shame, and disassociation. I don’t think that picturing something else while you’re with a sexual partner is the same thing as that, but it has been for me! Are you in your fantasies? Do you remember that you are the rad person having rad sex?

But you know what? I don’t think it’s a problem. I think it’s a growing process. And it might just be the way your brain works. It’s okay to be an extra visual/internally cinematic sexual person! I am! And it’s really normal. We are erogenous all over our bodies. And what you might think is you having an orgasm “less related to what is happening physically” might actually be your somatic mind being like, “Oooooh! You know what this sensation reminds me of? This other thing that turns me on!” Maybe body/mind is tryna help you out! What I have found is kind of fun, is to try inserting myself or the person I am having sex with into this sexual fantasy in my mind’s eye. What is it like to see your own body, or a part of your body having cool stuff done to it? What is it like to see your partner being fucked by a magical fantasy version of you?? Fantasy, in my opinion, doesn’t have to be received as escapism. Fantasy, role playing, dreams, therapy, these are all places where we work things out, move things through our bodies, discover new echelons of self understanding. Aaaand, maybe you can incorporate things you fantasize into the corporeal realm as well.

It sounds to me like you actually have a really beautiful sexual relationship with yourself, and as long as your sexual interactions with other people are feeling comfortable, or at least edge play level comfortable, consensual, and generative, then it’s okay to give yourself time! Getting into a fantasy in your head might always be a part of your sexual schema and practice, but you can add intentionality to it. You can learn ways to be present and grounded, by say, letting whatever physical sensation is happening morph and affect your fantasy. Invite your partner into your world, even psychically, the results can be really hot! Just picture it, you might find yourself having sex with your partner in your head, and in person, so double the fun, really.

Let me know how it goes and what you learn?
xo Lyric

Dear Lyric:

How do I get over thinking my junk and other’s are weird and creep me out? I feel embarrassed about feeling this way. I think it’s partially from being a childhood sexual abuse survivor, but just knowing that doesn’t fix the feeling. Thanks! You fucking rock!

Hey there my sparkling gem, you rock too.

I want you to know that your question hits me in the place good poetry hits me – that is, my eyes, my chest, my wrists, my knees – my core. First of all, I must employ some necessary disability justice here as a cool salve to hot wounds. Don’t attempt to “get over” anything. Be gentle with yourself. That whole thing about how the best way to get over your fears is to face them is true for certain things, but often only in small, facilitated moments. Be easy with yourself and your unease. Go slow, and get creative.

I truly believe, that one of the best ways to get comfortable with your own genitals/junk, is to take part in grounding, somatic, erotic practice. There are different methods which have different cultural histories, so finding what feels the best, most ethical, and most sustainable for you personally is key, but two people who both do erotic breath-work, and whom I really like the words and practices of are M’kali-Hashiki and Barbara Carrellas. Free webinar on erotic breath-work by M’kali coming up!! (More info here.)

Sometimes, re-acquainting ourselves with our bodies is an indirect, gradual process, much less like harsh exposure. Due to my own experiences of medical trauma, childhood sexual abuse, and other trauma, for a long time, certain kinds of sensory experiences, especially touch on certain parts of my body, was horrifying to me. I have also been a survivor of assaults in recent years, and the same kind of oversensitivity will occur in my body. It’s like, when you break something, and have to keep it protected, say in a cast for a long time, then when the protective sealing can come off, it’s still sort of shocking for that part of you to be in the world. You might think it’s looks bizarre, ugly, or out of place. We can experience xenophobia about our bodies, or parts of other people’s bodies, when through traumatic experience those body parts become othered. I know that you know this, and I know it doesn’t make it easier, but for now, it’s okay for you to accept that genitals are triggering for you. Rather than harp on yourself or feel shame for feeling this way, recognize it as a trigger, which will shift and change as you grow and experience new things. All in good time!

For now, what’s it like to read erotica, in which genitals might be described, but they aren’t necessarily yours or a person you know? What if you take away the visual or directly physical aspect? What are things that turn you on? What about things that are sensual, like dancing, wrestling, or massage, that don’t involve genital contact? What about phone sex? Are there parts of your body that are erogenous, like nipples, fingertips, lips, ears, ass, wrists, brow bones, toes, that you can give lots of loving attention, and take the pressure off your junk for a while?

Sometimes, it’s triggering for me to have my junk touched on the outside with fingers, unless it’s a pulling sensation. By yourself, when and as you’re ready, you can experiment with what kinds of sensations feel better or less creepy than others! And in the meantime, guess what, looking at or interacting with junk doesn’t have to be something you like or even something that turns you on! Bodies and feelings are vast! Junk is beautiful but it will understand if you need to give it space for a while!

Obviously I can’t make assumptions about whether or not you are a romantically or sexually active person, so if any of this doesn’t apply to you, disregard it, but also check back in and follow up if you wish!

xo Lyric