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.

Hi Babes! I missed the fuck out of you. This past year has been a weird, hard year for me. One of the best and most opening, and one of the worst and the most earth-shattering. I dealt with a grand depression, even grander than the Grand Depression of spring 2013, springs tend to be rough for me, all that mud poking through the snow, and sometimes crocuses. I was sexually assaulted. I lost a few friends to their not so great boundaries and or politics. I lost a friend in the dying sense. RIP Basil xoxo.

I lost a little faith that I could be someone that could give you advice. Particularly about sex! Which I was suddenly not so sure had anything to do with me. I almost killed Lyric Seal, people. (The persona, not like my body). But I am so glad I didn’t.

Because you know what else happened this year? I healed some of the greatest relationships of my life. I came to terms with some intergenerational trauma. I fell deeper in love with my partner and myself. I became recommitted to my life’s work. I started taking online classes towards a new degree. I became a published writer. I played a major role in Shine Louise’s Houston feature film SNAPSHOT. I redefined Lyric, and I re-found myself, my voice, in incredible ways.

Which brings me back to you! I missed you. Thank you for your patience. In the future, expect to see Slumber Party in new places, including in vlog form. It’s going to be hosted somewhere else that you can view even if you are not 18 or if you are at “work” (NSFW..or something?). For now you read can old issues without fear of reprisal on slumberpartywithlyricseal.tumblr.com.

Oh and my Tumblr changed! To make room for my fuller-time performance and writing voice, Neve Be. Neve Be is the creator of Lyric Seal, Neve is me! Visit Neve, and keep up with Lyric sometimes too at littlebeasthood.tumblr.com. You can send me questions there, and of course you can still leave them in the comments, or by tweeting/msging @FancyLyric.

Stay tuned! More info soon! I promise! Happy Holidays and a Happy NEW YEAR. I hope you get warm and cozy and have a… SLUMBER PARTY!

Dear Lyric,
Lately I have completely lost my sex drive. I have been with my partner for quite a long time and I love having sex with them, but lately not much has been turning me on. I have read that it could be a side-effect of the contraception I am using. My partner is very respectful and it okay with this, but I miss wanting to have sex. What should I do?

Hello my sexy friend! I know that this is several months late, and I’m sorry. As I explained above, 2015 was a trying year for me. I found myself missing wanting to have sex, or missing feeling good and excited about sex quite often too! My advice to you is multi-fold, and as usual, involves a lot of questions!

Is this a new kind of contraception? Is it a pill or an internal device? Is it possible for you to talk to your doctor or other medical/holistic professional about it and see if there are other contraceptive options for you that might not have the same side effects?

What is the reason you are on the contraceptive? Is it primarily to protect against pregnancy, or are there other hormonal factors (like mood swings, etc), that you are seeking to interact with in a smoothing capacity? I’m curious because as a person with chronic anxiety, depression, mood swings, and PTSD, I have been recommended birth control as a cure-all many times. I totally respect the choice to go on it FOR ANY REASON, just wondering if there is a combination of things you could be doing that could help you find/regain your sexy feels. Like a combination of herbal and pharmaceutical treatments, in addition to barriers to protect against pregnancy. This of course, all making no assumptions about who your partner is and what kind of sex you like to have.

The next segment to my feedback is this: things you can do without going off of the contraceptive, should you choose to stay on it, or need to go back on after trying a break. As is cited in the advice column answer I linked, a lot of people experience a decrease in sex drive due to exhaustion or stress. In my case, I have gotten more anxious or put off by sex during times when I am depressed or not feeling good about my body. Do you have an emotional/somatic outlet for working out your feelings in your body? Are you getting enough good food, water, and sleep? Are your body and soul getting affirmed in the way you crave? Create an alternative affirmation and intimacy practice with your partner, like a compliment night (something better than what Chanel Oberlin and Chad pull off on “Scream Queens”), joint movement practice, and time of intentional touching that does not have to lead to sex. Cuddling and making out and dancing are all hot on their own!

Do you find that your decrease in sex drive relates primarily to two-person sex? How do you interact with masturbation? If you are still into that, you could try bringing your partner into this in anyway that feels safe and or sexy! Mutual masturbation is still sex!

I hope you found the answers and changes and sexy times you desired without my assistance. Sorry it was such a long time coming. ;)

xo Lyric

How do I talk to my straight cis male partner, whom I love, that I have never been able to orgasm during sex without feeling as I am less than or not enough?

[I got this question, and the following, in my workshop at the University of Oregon for their Women of Color Conference Intertwined 2015. It was a beautiful and open group of people and we all laid about in a brown and sometimes queer and sometimes crip circle and shot the most important shit about our private hearts. When it came time for advice, we approached it collaboratively, answering the anonymous questions as a group. I always want to make it clear that I do not position myself as an expert, but rather as a conduit for your own intuitive wisdom, and as a conduit for our lived/shared/grown wisdom as a community!

We weren’t able to get to all the questions during the workshop, and while I think I said I would answer all of the questions in the brown bag full of wonderful colorful slips of paper which I carried around for months, I AM A LIAR. Or rather, I was not at capacity to answer them all. It’s hard to choose favorites, but I wanted to get to ones that seemed like I haven’t covered in the past, and which moved me.]

Letter to O!

Hmmm. I think it feels instinctually hard to answer this immediately, without some reaching and digging and looking around. What kinds of conversations about sex have you and your partner already have? Have you brought him to orgasm and has he ever given you feedback on what he likes and doesn’t like? Do you know what you like and don’t like? Could there be a night that’s all about you? Would that attention feel comfortable or possible for you? Would he be into this? He better be!

To backtrack, are you saying you have never had an orgasm (this may have changed by now!), and you want to know how to tell your partner without feeling like you are less than or not enough, or that you have never been able to orgasm without feeling like you are less than or not enough? Which one it is, is not actually the most important thing. Because orgasms aside, we are talking about that delicate wrench, Shame.

Not everyone wants to have an orgasm, but it seems like you do, and it seems like you want to have one that leaves you feeling filled and good about yourself. Rad! I do find that experimenting by yourself, with your partner and the assistance of toys like vibrators, butt plugs, dildos, cock rings, and lots of lube, and watching things or listening to things that turn you on is a great place to start. The more turned on you are before you actually touch yourself or are touched, the closer to orgasm you are likely to be! Not everyone takes the same amount of time to come or can come in the same way every time. Find out what works for you! All my friends masturbated in high school and told each other about it all the time. They had all apparently had orgasms! By seventeen, I had tried, but never had. My friend got me vibrator for my birthday that year and while I was scared to use it at first, one night, when I caught myself having a sexy thought, I got it out, and gave it whirl. I didn’t know what an orgasm was supposed to feel like, but I knew that had to be what that was. After that, I played with myself off, and eventually began to bring other people into the mix. The sex I had had prior to my successful jerk off times had been without orgasm. I continue to learn and grow with how I like to and can come. No time is identical!

In terms of not feeling like you are not enough, there is absolutely nothing wrong for being someone who is still learning about their body. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If you haven’t had an orgasm, and if your partner hasn’t given you an orgasm, that’s not either of your faults! Your partner probably wants to make you feel good, and if you haven’t been telling him how you feel because you don’t want to hurt his feelings or admit to something, please don’t worry about that. If your partner is straight man, I am going to harken a guess that you are a femme/girl/or female identified person, and let me just say: Patriarchy never taught us shit about how to come. Your partner has likely had different kinds of societal models and encouragement around achieving orgasm, not all kinds of bodies get that. If you love your partner, I’ll bet he loves you too, and it’s so important to be honest and vulnerable with the people we love.

If you are telling him that you haven’t come and that you want to with him, what an honor! If you are telling him that you want to come and feel good about yourself with him, what a huge honor. The most mind blowing orgasms come when we feel present in our bodies, even for a moment. You deserve to talk, or kiss, or tiptoe, or dance, or crawl your way there. You’ll get there, if you haven’t already.

xo Lyric

What are some ways to tell my traditional parents and close family that I am queer? & cope with the aftermath? Or how has it benefited you?

Queering Tradition!

Such density in so few lines! Based on the information you have given, I cannot draw any conclusions about in what tradition your parents follow, but my guess is that you are worried about how they will be able to fit queerness into their idea of a good world. There are a lot of ways to tell them who you are! Some ways vary in the amount of information you give. You could tell them that you are growing changing person, and that your understandings of your gender/sexuality/politics are changing or have grown. You could give them resources to read! These don’t have to How-Tos or political manifestos, they could also be a YA Novel you read and loved. Ones I particularly love are Girl Meets Boy (I cannot find this online when I search it I’m sorry but it’s a YA book), Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, and anything by Francesca Lia Block. You could come out with a particular partner, telling your parents about your love for them, love can be an even stronger selling point than individual identity.

An important thing to remember is that you don’t have to come out to your whole family all at once, in the same way. We all have different kinds of relationships and histories with different members of our families. You could come out to your parents one at a time, and you could come out to some members of your family not at all. Ask your family to respect your decisions about who you come out to. This is your moment not theirs! But if you have friends whose parents have received news of queerness well, you could connect them to these parents as resources!

No matter what their reaction, remember that feelings grow and change. Your family will have a process, just as you have a process. Who you are is beautiful. Who you are is okay. You are allowed to come out all at once. You are allowed to come out over and over again. You are allowed to stop talking about it whenever you want to. You are allowed to take space, and then resume the work. You are allowed to take space. I know that taking space involves a lot of circumstance and the privilege of an alternative support network. Gather your friends around you when you are ready to come to your family. Gather other people you trust. Ask who is willing to be just a phone call away.

Coming out can go much better than expected. My parents have been used to me shocking them my whole life, starting with my birth. My relationship with each of them has grown and changed, and I have come out to different family members at different times, in different ways. I have even told family members different things about who I am, based on what I believed they could receive at the time. Some of my family do not know that my partner is trans, and some of my family do not know that I am genderqueer. Coming out is a dance, and it is multi-momental, it is layered. The benefits of coming out as a queer person, as a radical, as a sex worker (to a few), have been huge. I love the fluidity and comfort of knowing that I can be my whole self with people that I love.

Your family probably really fucking loves you. You might be surprised at what they can hold, even as they hold the beliefs that have carried them this far. A lot of Gods and a lot of Cultures have room for Queers. You’re worth it.

xo Lyric

I like to think of myself as someone who is fairly self-sufficient and does not need the validation of anyone else…sexually. But I still yearn for it a lot and I can’t find it. I think I struggle a lot with the fact that I am not found desirable. I mean I can (and always tell myself) always use my vibrators to get the job done. But that doesn’t change the feeling of undesirability? How can I overcome this? Lots of love!

Desirable Babe!

Lots of love to you too. There is often such a difference between what we see ourselves as needing, and what we actually just fucking need sometimes isn’t there? I’m sure you’re doing a great job with the self-love pep talks and the vibrators, and brava to that! But yes, social/sexual validation of our desirability can still matter.

This is the first thing I recommend. Flip the script. You are desirable. You don’t need it in writing, from me or anyone else, but I can guarantee you that you are. If you have felt a lot of rejection in your life, or have just not felt outwardly desired by others, this can be hard to see and feel though. A really cool practice that I have seen particularly queer crips introduce into their trusting friendships is flirty affirmation sexts. Sure it can seem weird to send a naked picture to your platonic friend, but also, introducing flirtation into relationships which feel safe can be a way to warm yourself to feel desirable in other contexts. Ask a friend if they would exchange cute photos with you, in exchange for affirmation and love and bolstering up!

There are often people, quiet people, shy people, bottoms, and not the first to jump on making the move people that we overlook as people who could be thinking we’re hot. It can be really healing and sweet to practice flirting, the next time you think someone is cute. It does not matter if you intend to kiss them or do anything with them sexually, and in fact, you don’t have to know if you want to. But remember that everyone flirts in different ways. Try giving a cute person your full attention and warmth sometime, and see what you get back!

You are hot. You are so so hot. Even the careful way that you worded this question shows me a person full of juice and spark. Watch yourself jerk off sometime. Give yourself some extra loving attention in the mirror. Dance with your eyes closed just to feel your body. When you like someone, don’t be afraid to ask them to hang out, to ask if you can touch their hand, to ask to kiss them, or just to tell them they’re beautiful. Just wait, I bet lots of people want you. And you won’t always not know it.

But truly, it’s not about never feeling unsure of yourself. As I said to a kickass cutie friend of mine the other night in the car, it’s about creating moments when your high highs can flip a compassionate double bird to your low lows. Feel me?