The Queer Joy Podcast; two relationship therapists exploring what it looks like to see joy in queer relationships.
In this episode we talk about how to invite communication, playfulness, and openness into the bedroom.
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Keely: Well, hello everyone. This is our third episode and with, you know, the continued theme of queer joy, we're going to talk about sex today. Sex and relationships. It's time, it's time. Because for some reason, people always like, at least in the counts, I shouldn't say everyone, but in the counseling field, and mental health, somehow sex gets like forgotten or talked over when it comes to quote unquote traditional marriage counseling. And so like, we want to have that totally included. [00:00:45] Melisa: Absolutely. I find so much stigma and shame, you know, even with the clients who come to us, that I get to work with every time that they've mentioned sex before, it's kind of been just disregarded. And so we want to open that up. This is an important part of being human and certainly can be an important part of relationships. [00:01:04] Keely: So before it gets there on that top, but why don't we do a quick introduction? We will continue to introduce ourselves to begin to show, especially when we have guests on for now. We'll just do our quick intros. My name is Kelly C Helmick. . I'm a licensed professional counselor and certified sex therapist. I am one of the owners of Connective Therapy Collective. I am a white gender queer. Queer sex therapist. Somewhat middle-class able-bodied. All the things and I am just so excited. I love talking about sex and relationships instead of gets to like today talking about sex and relationships. Awesome. So, Melissa, you want to introduce yourself again to everyone? [00:01:51] Melisa: I'm Melissa. I am a marriage and family therapist and a licensed professional counselor as well. I am a white cisgender female. I'm bisexual polyamorous. Very excited to talk about sex as well. I will name that. It was not always easy for me to talk about sex. So I am very interested in helping people to have that conversation and a really normalized stigma free way. [00:02:14] Keely: Yeah. For sure. You know, we always start with this idea of queer joy and how we connect queer joy and hello, sexual pleasure. But also like looking at it through the lens of sexual health and how it relates to when we're looking at how we learn about sex, what we know about sex, how we experience sex as both folks who are are cis and folks that are trans, folks that are non binary, and folks that are straight versus being queer or pansexual or bisexual. So kind of looking at like how sex changes and then I've been really keen, keen on, you know, exploring more how in the relationship dynamic, how gender roles and how gender really interplays in sexual experiences. So Melis