The following is the script I created for the first episode of my new podcast, AuDSEX! It may not be perfectly identical to what I say in the episode, but most of the time, it is!

Listen to the podcast here

WELCOME

Hello! And welcome to the AuDSex Podcast. I have been humming and hahhing about how to make a podcast, dear listener, and share what I’ve learned from my sex therapy practice. In my years working with predominantly Autistic and AuDHD clients, as an AuDHD person myself (meaning, I have both Autistic and ADHD traits), I have noticed that our community can be very self-motivated and sometimes preferring to work alone. I’ve wondered how to offer something for us that could be effective in a self-study format. And I have finally found it. Big thank you to the Podcast Sleep Magic by Jessica Porter. Not only does this podcast help me with my insomnia, it has also given me a roadmap for how I can share what I have learned with a wider audience. Thank you thank you thank you!

But before we jump into things, I wanted to take this first episode just to get oriented together. Give you a chance to hear a little bit about me, who I am, how I work, and also who this podcast is intended for. Please stick around for the intro, as there will be some very important information about who this podcast is NOT for including what to watch out for in case this is not the right podcast at the right time.

Spoiler alert and trigger warning: this podcast is going to be structured with a small introduction at the beginning about what we’re going to explore, and then I will walk you through an exercise to help you do just that. Each episode may refer to colonialism, sexual violence, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, fascism, class, transphobia, eugenics, xenophobia, fatphobia, and so forth. I will not be going into any graphic details of any of these topics that’s not the point of this podcast, but there will be moments when acknowledging their legacies and present realities will be integral to coming out the other side toward our erotic liberation.

If it sounds like we’re a good fit, I welcome you whole-heartedly! If it sounds like maybe we’re not such a good fit, I wish you ease in finding what you need right now and welcome your return any time you might be curious again.

First, please allow me to introduce myself! As I will be playing a big part of being your host.

Who am I, Where am I, How am I.

My name is Tynan Rhea Bramberger and I work as a sex and relationship therapist. I was born in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada and I am a settler with German/Austrian and Slovak ancestry. I am the first in my family line to be born in this continent. I identify as intersex, queer/bisexual, nonbinary, and have been diagnosed with AuDHD. I live with chronic pain that impacts my sexual expression directly and indirectly and I have survived all too many accounts of sexual violence.

I benefit from white privilege and sometimes male privilege. I present feminine, masculine, and often somewhere in between. I experience very low levels of sexual attraction to others with very high levels of sexual curiosity and fascination. I can more often than not get around without a mobility device. I am solidly middle-aged, gainfully employed, own property, married, sometimes present heterosexual in the world, and half-heartedly practice polyamory. I hate being told what to do, I hate being told who I am, and have a tendency toward some pretty grandiose fantasies about myself. I was once told by my supervisor that I am the most individualist thinking person in an individualistic culture, which I try to counterbalance by studying community care and indigenous ways reciprocity in relationships. I love me as much as I have hated me at times and that impacts what I say and how I say it on any given day.

I live in a lot of between spaces, which gives me a pretty unique and interesting vantage point. It also means I don’t tend to go deeply into any thing, except sex, I guess. I skitter around, I miss the point often, and hold strong opinions anyway. I care deeply about the suffering of others and easily become overwhelmed by the suffering of others. I feel intense romantic feelings towards most of my friends. I love romantic longing. I like to dream big, get scared, and do it anyway! I don’t like working that hard and often work too hard by accident. The sound of other people chewing feels absolutely unmanageable. I am forever grateful to people who want to hear my story and I think everyone’s story is a good one. ]

Defining Sex. Defining Erotic.

Before I jump into who this podcast is for, I need to define a few words. And maybe you want to take a moment to do that too. It might tell you something about you, it might tell you something about me, and where we overlap or differ.

So, how do you define sex?

How do you define sexuality?

How do you define what is erotic?

How do you define sex positivity?

I define sex as physical play that includes our arrogenous zones directly or indirectly. I define sexuality as the cultural, social, and personal stories we tell ourselves and each other about who we are as sexual beings. I define erotic as an intense whole-body energy that arises when we feel deeply satisfied, curious and playful. When I say whole-body, I include genital arousal but I don’t think it’s required. You can have sex without erotic energy, you can have erotic energy without having sex, and you can have both at the same time! No one, however, can escape sexuality: we are creatures of story, like it or not!

With respect to eroticism, sex and relationship therapist Ester Perel, often talks about the inherent push-pull of safety and risk present during moments of eroticism. While I agree that a sense of vitality requires risk-taking, I cannot anecdotally agree that all erotic moments require risk. And perhaps she would agree with me, we haven’t gotten into it. I mention it here because for many people in order to feel erotic charge they have to take the risk of being vulnerable in some way. We have to be open to what enlivens us, what is true for us, and how our partners might react without really knowing how they will react. And I would agree that at some point risks are required for really being alive! And sometimes, when the feeling of risk subsides we need to find a way to up the anty again. For others, we can fall into a welcomed rhythm and routine that excites our vitality as much as it brings us the comfort.

The term sex positivity is sometimes credited to psychoanalyst Whilhelm Reich in the early 1900’s, however, he certainly did not invent the concept of sex as a “healthy”. Generally, it refers to affirming consensual sexuality as a fluid and valuable component of our overall health. This term is radical in the context of cultures wherein penis-in-vagina heterosexual sex for procreation is seen as the only healthy form of sexual expression. This term has more recently been criticized for creating expectations and norms about what it means to have a “healthy” sex life (i.e., like we should have many orgasms, frequent sex, be completely and totally open with everyone about your sexuality, compulsory pansexuality or polyamory, etc.). Colleague and sex educator, Heather Elizabeth introduced me to the term “pro-sex” to differentiate between sex-positivity that represents affirming consensual sexuality as a healthy part of a person’s overall well-being versus the pro-sex attitudes that sex must look a particular way in order to prove a person is sexually liberated. After reading Sherronda Brown’s Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: a black asexual lens on our sex-obsessed culture, I might also call this pro-sex phonomena “allosexism”.

While it do not tend to use the word sex positive very much, I do value sex-positivity, so I wanted to be really clear about what that means to me.

When I use each of the words I’ve defined, I really do mean specific things that are not interchangeable with one another. We need each of these words because they tell us something a little bit different about ourselves and each other. When we consider what feels erotic versus what feels like “good sex”, are we always talking about the same thing? I think any answer to that question is an interesting one, full of potential rabbit holes… or perhaps glory holes. Players choice.

I, admittedly, will be pushing and pulling at the idea of connecting you to a sense of the erotic in your life to support the kind of sex you do or do not want. If you are looking to simply have sex for procreation, this might not be the podcast for you. Or it might! I’m not sure. Admittedly, I am invested in your erotic life as much as I am in the authentic kind of sex you want to have, and I am definitely invested in you exploring whether or not you want those pieces to overlap.

I also want to make a note about my use of the word wound, as it’s going to come up a lot. I know it has a lot of negative connotations, like when someone says without an ounce of compassion “oh, she’s such a wounded person.” Wounds are nothing to be ashamed of, getting wounded is part of being alive. There is not a soul alive that won’t get some sort of wound at some point from sex. It’s not even that we’re so messed-up about sex, which, we are, but again it’s inevitable when we risk some vulnerability with our bodies or our hearts… And I think this is a really accurate word because some wounds heal without scarring, some leave big scars that we grow to tolerate, appreciate, or even love. Wounds in childhood when well attended to heal quicker and with less impact than some wounds in adulthood, especially when we strike over an old wound or one yet to have even healed. And some wounds continue to bleed when we haven’t found the right medicine. This metaphor reflects perfectly how I have seen the ways in which people’s sexuality has been harmed and I think that accuracy is helpful.

How did my definitions compare with yours? What do you think that says about me? What about you?

Who is this Podcast for?

My private practice consists mainly of politized, queer and/or trans, neurodivergent people with low support needs. They come to see me to better understand themselves as sexual beings, to have more fulfilling sex, or to navigate conflict in their relationships. They largely know, or are at least aware, of the horrors of living in a racist, colonial, capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, heteronormative, mononormative, cissexist, ableist country commonly known as Canada. They know this has impacted their ability to freely express their sexuality. They have suffered the oppression of this dominant culture and have been navigating, creating, and thriving (sometimes frustratingly) within a multitude of subcultures countercultures. And as much as developing an increased awareness of the political state of the world has brought people deeper into knowing who they are and what they want to be about, I have witnessed how this political unpacking has led to increased confusion about the role of the erotic in their lives.

All too often I sit across from people who are well educated, thoughtful, informed sexual beings who are desperate to play and talk about sex but don’t believe they know how. I might reframe this as people don’t always know how to trust themselves in their own reflective process. Learning that you’ve been carrying unconscious biases throughout your life that have led to being harmed and doing harm is traumatizing.

When what I know in my mind, what is true in my soul, what is valued in my politics, and what I feel in my body are not aligned, how do I hold a confident resolve about what I want to do and how I want to do it? And then there is the question, am I even allowed to have sex like this, let alone want it?

There is another type of client I have worked with many times, as well, and that is the person who has had incredible transformative experiences healing their trauma in therapy and are asking themselves, “now what? I’ve learned how to say no. I’ve learned to accept myself. I believe I am worthy of pleasure and joy, but how do I get there? What do I even want?” Maybe you’ve been in relationships where your pleasure didn’t matter to your partner. Maybe you’ve had religious or queerphobic experiences that taught you your kind of sex is “wrong” or “bad.” Maybe sex has been so violent for so long you’re starting to wonder if fun sex is even possible? Maybe you just had your first orgasm, arousing moment with a friend, or found yourself tickled by a sex scene in a movie and you’re wondering, “oh, wow, what’s this? How do I have more of this?” This podcast is absolutely for you, too!

There is a lot of noise, beautiful prose, enlightening knowledge, and confusing paradoxes when it comes to sexuality. Everyone has an idea about what great sex means to them and sometimes we confuse this with what great sex “should” mean to everyone. We make statements of “facts” rather than owning our experiences. Or we confuse research generalities with individual experience. When we don’t see our own experience reflected in the latest sex research it is easy to wonder where we went wrong rather than how did the research miss me?

Sex education does not always include a process for understanding who we are as sexual beings; creating a culture of answers rather than a culture of discovery. If we trusted what we were thinking, feeling, and truly wanted out of sex we wouldn’t need the latest and greatest book on sex, we would already know. But there is so much information, good, bad, wrong, misleading, not intended for you, intended for you, and it’s always changing shape and somewhat staying the same. Answers can also be rigid. But erotic energy often changes, can be fussy, and surprising! It can be liberating to accept the ever-changing nature of our erotic desires, but it can also be jarring and feel like a never-ending moving target when we are hungry for the clarity of answers. When we’re hungry to play, it can be devastating when all I have to offer is a process. On a good day, it can be freeing to relinquish answers and commit to a lifetime of curiosity and exploration.

Put simply: beautiful humans, your understanding of your sexuality is overwhelmed with the thoughts of others. I want to guide you back to you and your experiences without ignoring the wisdom of your politics and field research. I want to offer a guide for how to sort through the noise and, like Mama Cass says, “make your own kind of music, [to] sing your own special song.”

This is a process, not an answer.

My hope is that we can hold all of us in our sexuality just the way we are— including parts that want more from sex and parts that want less from sex.

My hope is that you can get clarity into what feelings you may be holding about your sexuality and where they come from.

My hope is that you will get curious about what you find erotic and bring the unconscious into the conscious. My hope is that you will feel a sense of compassion for yourself by gaining insight into how identities intersect with cultural, social, and personal experiences that influence your thoughts, feelings, abilities, and sense of purpose as a sexual being.

My aim is to guide you through exploring your own sexuality to gain clarity and insight into who you are and how you got there. That’s it. I will not try to tell you who you should be, what kind of sex you should want, or what kind of sex is “normal.”

You may want to use what you find here to inform what comes next in life, but you don’t have to.

I will not be focused on providing detailed sex education, either. I do not mean to suggest sex education has no place here. It is not MY focus because I didn’t want anything to interfere with your reflection process other than your own lived experiences. There are many amazing sex educators, journalists, and healthcare practitioners who have already contributed eloquent authorship on sex education. When relevant, I will make resource suggestions for you to continue your studies in specific sex education areas.

That said, a framework that will be guiding the kind of sexuality and erotic life I hope to inspire, is from the deeply gentle and compassionate therapist Douglas Braun-Harvey who worked with gay men charged with sexual crimes in the US. In his training on Treating Out of Control Sexual Behaviour, he refers to 6 Principles of Sexual Health to guide reimaging what nourishing and enjoyable sex could look like. These 6 Principles are:

1. Consent
2. Non-exploitation
3. Protection from STIs and unintended pregnancy
4. Honesty
5. Shared Values

What I like about this framework is that it fits beautifully into the flexibility I hope to offer you here because none of these principles are fixed concepts: not all consent practices look the same in every relationship or negotiation. Sometimes non-exploitation is obvious and sometimes there is important nuance to consider (such as age and developmental capacity not always aligning). Everyone has their own risk tolerance for STIs or unintended pregnancy. We have a right to define what is honest versus cruel versus informed, and we certainly won’t agree on what the shared values should be but rather my hope is that you will have an understanding of what you value so you can find others who hold those values, too. There simply is no one-size fits all.

You might want some paper and a pen, a folder to keep your thoughts and exercises in, a special notebook, or maybe a sketchpad for a visual art journal. This is your personal world you are exploring and how you keep track of that or how private you want to keep it is under your care.

CREATING A SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR SELF-DISCOVERY

This podcast is going to ask a lot of you. Though you are welcome to engage with it as deeply or lightly as you would like, it truly is a podcast with just enough talking from me to get you started. From there, the rest is up to you.

Sometimes there are signs that we will need some extra support from friends or a therapist to stay emotionally and psychological safe in our self-reflection practice. Some signs you may need some extra support when using this podcast is:

• Increased heart rate, sweating, or shaking in any of your body parts
• Losing a sense of where your body is in space and time
• Being confronted with difficult memories and experiences that interrupt concentration
• Difficulties sleeping after listening to an episode or an increase in “nightmares”, “sleep paralysis”, or “night terrors”
• Feeling dizzy, “seeing stars,” or losing hearing or sight
• Tensing all over your body or in specific body parts
• Having an impulse to use substances or engage in high-risk activities to soften strong emotions or suppress certain thoughts
• Struggling to take deep breaths or slow down your breathing
• Increases in body pain or an increase in symptoms of known medical conditions
• Changes in beliefs about yourself or the world that lead to feeling hopeless and disconnected from others

Please remember this is not an exhaustive list and there may be other signs personal to you that I haven’t listed above. Your participation is your own choice (and if for some reason someone has told you it is not, this person is not to be trusted. Just so you know). You are going to be in charge of your own well-being through this process. What language feels good for you may not be the language I use. My tone of voice may not be the one for you. I can be quite irreverent at times! I am trusting you can make good choices for you.

I urge you to take a moment and consider talking with a friend, partner, or therapist who is able to be your go-to person if anything you discover along the way feels like too much to hold alone. I also urge you to skip any episodes or exercises that you are not feeling ready for.

All that said, I want to be really clear: this is not a trauma-processing podcast. While traumatic memories may arise, and you may experience some relief from emotions or major challenges in your sexual expression, this podcast is not psychotherapy and not regulated under the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario that I am a member of. Yes, I use all of these exercises in my private practice, but the exercises themselves are not psychotherapy. They are a tool for enlightenment about the self. Psychotherapy inherently involves building relationships of safety between yourself and a therapist in which we radically change how we relate to ourselves and the world around us. I am a disembodied voice recording and I can’t see you or hear you. This is a one way street of me teaching you how to self-reflect on your own. For my health and wellness nerds, we call this psychosexual education! How deep you go or how many of the exercises you try is totally up to you and your sense of trust and safety with yourself.

How to Use the Podcast.

Okay, okay, we have gone over all the important bits: who am I, who is this for, who is this not for, what to watch out for on your journey here… How the hell do you use this Podcast then?

My sweet dear beautiful lucious listener, I truly don’t care. Not because I don’t care about you! But because I really believe in your right to manage yourself. If you want to make a ring of salt around your body, pull out your leathbound journal, light candles playing whale sounds on one device and this podcast on another: I love this. If you want to go for a run and feel your body moving and sweating and breathing deeply: I love this. If you want to put it on in the background while you do the dishes or clean your house and vaguely consider some of the ideas and exercises with no reflection on yourself in that moment: I love that, too. If you hate surprises and want to listen to ever exercise first before you decide if you want to jump it. I just keep loving this.

If you are noticing yourself thinking, “when I listen to this podcast, I should… ” I really hope you slap that “should” right in the face. May I suggest, “Maybe I’ll try…” or my professional personal and overly clinical favourite, “I think I’ll experiment with…” Or, my every day favourite, “fuck off should! What do I want?”

Okay! I think that’s it! I think we’re ready to hit the ground running.