345 - Sex Education with Sam Cat
Sam Cat, founder of the Shrimp Teeth website, has a background in consumer psychology and is an avid sex educator as well as designer, artist, writer, and social media content creator. Throughout this episode, Sam challenges us to think about the ways we communicate, approach, and talk about different topics, such as queerness, polyamory, and more.
Listen to the full episode to hear Sam’s take on rainbow capitalism and unlearning sex negativity and compulsory monogamy.
Visit shrimpteeth.com to see the resources Sam has provided queer and polyamorous communities, and support their Patreon at www.patreon.com/shrimpteeth!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're going to be talking about how things like consumer psychology and capitalism intersect with polyamory, as well as things about unlearning sex-negativity that we've been brought up with unlearning things like compulsory monogamy, and a really cool framework called BAES. To talk about all of that we have a special guest, Sam Cat. Sam Cat is a proud, queer polyamorous content creator and coach. They created Shrimp Teeth in 2018, as a site that offers blog posts, personal coaching, about how we communicate and how we think about polyamory, sex, and queerness. They also recently started the Shrimp Teeth podcast to continue these conversations and to talk with other sex educators in an audio format. Sam, thank you so much for joining us.
Sam: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Dedeker: We're really excited to have you. I think first question to the top of my mind is why Shrimp Teeth?
Jase: That's been all of our question for weeks preparing for this interview.
Emily: It's like I don't eat shrimp but I'm pretty sure they don't have teeth although maybe they do. Who knows?
Dedeker: I was like I think they have mandibles but that probably isn't as catchy.
Emily: Shrimp mandibles.
Sam: Maybe I will do a rebranding. I feel so embarrassed because everybody asks me this and it's such a just nonsense story. I'll give you really quick rundown. I was in design school. I had to make a fake website and I was like smoking a little weed. It was like, "Oh I know a great dentist for crustaceans." Off I went, made the fake website, had the domain name shrimpteeth.com. Then when it came to actually launching my company, I just kept it. People always assume that it's like a coder euphemism for a vulva vagina or something like that. I just let it slide and now I have to actually give the real reason behind it. It makes me blush every time I'm like, "Oh my goodness, what have I done?"
Dedeker: I love knowing that because when I was researching and looking into some of your social media and other websites and stuff like that, there was somewhere in there that was like a handle that I think was shrimp dentist or something like that. That's why I was like wow, she's really invested in the whole Shrimp Teeth thing. I thought for sure, it must be some really important identity aspect. I had a vision of a shrimp once when I was growing up. I like that though.
Sam: I think deep down inside, my parents when I was really young, they're like, "Oh, you're going to become a dentist." I feel like it's stuck with me.
Dedeker: Really?
Sam: In the subconscious ways. If you want to psychoanalyze me .
Dedeker: That's your ultimate reality version of you is the dentist.
Sam: I guess so.
Dedeker: Oh, funny. You didn't become a dentist. You got into sex education and queer sex education. How did that happen for you?
Sam: Much to my parents' delight. I studied to be a packaging designer and ended up working at these really big corporations then went on to do my master's in Consumer Psychology. Pretty much I just like to joke but it's not a joke that, studying consumerism made me an anarchist and then realize like, I cannot do this anymore. As soon as I graduated from NYU with this brand new master's, I just bounced. I was like, "I can't do this." I left New York and moved to Portland. Then I started just like freelance graphic designing and doing that little side hustle.
At some point, I got a contract with a safer sex education center in Toronto at a university and they commissioned me to do an erotic coloring book for them all on consent. I was like, "Wow, this project is so cool." We kept that working relationship for, I would say a few months, and they just gave me the inspiration and also, I guess the self-belief that I needed to be like, "No, you are passionate about this. You've been thinking about this talking about sex ed for a really long time, just go ahead and do it."
Shrimp Teeth like the Instagram page really started as my personal exploration of queerness, of polyamory. I'm sure we'll get into my journey a little bit later. Eventually, I found all these people who had really similar experiences to me. Then, my DMs were blowing up, and people were like, "Hey, can I pay you? Can I talk to you about these things?" I was like, "You know what? Sure, I don't know a ton but I'm definitely willing to point you to resources, I'm willing to point you to other therapists that are queer-friendly, kink-affirming, all of the lovely things."
I became a middleman is how I really view myself, where I'm technically a psychologist, but I'm an unlicensed psychologist, as a consumer psych. I'm really, really great at just finding connections and being like, "Oh, I see that you have this need, you're looking for this service. Let me point you in the right direction." I just use my training in that way to help folks who are navigating all these really big relationship and sexuality questions.
Dedeker: Nice.
Jase: I love that. It's like being the working at the tourism bureau when people are entering polyamory and queerness-
Emily: People need that.
Jase: -they'll be like let me point you to the right direction of what you're looking for.
Sam: Totally. It was like before I was helping folks find what toothpaste they wanted it was like you need whitening toothpaste. Here you go. Now I'm just like, "Oh, maybe relationship anarchy or solo polyamory for you? Then just pointing them to different options.
Dedeker: I'm really curious about it sounds like, definitely you really went on a journey from where you started with deciding to get a master's in Consumer Psychology to where you ended. I do want to go back to the beginning of that of what drew you first into getting the masters.
Sam: I just was fascinated with the decision-making pattern that people undergo when they're choosing objects, especially coming from a packaging design background. I just love things. I love objects. I really have an affinity for well-designed things.
Emily: Because your Instagram is so beautiful. It's really gorgeous to look at. It consumed from that level. That's cool. It makes a lot of sense.
Sam: Thank you. I really wanted to understand more like how do people make these decisions? Why when you're faced with an Iowa of toothpaste do you go for this thing versus this other product? Unfortunately, when I got out of school and really got more into the industry, I realized like this is only about making money. I had a project where we ended up paying Michael Phelps $8 million. I was just like, "I don't feel good about this." Honestly, this was not set right.
Dedeker: Was it for toothpaste?
Sam: It was even worse than that. It was a Colgate ad to save water. We were infantilizing our consumers to stop wasting water. We paid Michael Phelps, like $8 million. I was just, "I don't like this. This doesn't fit with my ethics. I cannot sleep well." Not to mention that the corporate just environment is a horrible place to work. As a queer, polyamorous person, I just could not be myself. I wasn't out. That was really the initiative to get out of that whole sector. I just realized I wasn't myself and I needed a big change.
Dedeker: Landing more in the anarchy camp, basically, how did that intersect with also your personal journey of coming into your queerness and into non-monogamy as well? Were those things happening in concert? Did one build upon the other?
Sam: Yes. It's one of those difficult things because I think we think of capitalism just as an economic system, but we don't necessarily realize how it really constructs the way that we see our place in the world and our relations to each other. When we think of ourselves primarily as consumers, then we give ourselves permission to consume other people. I think that's where a lot of ownership myths come from. I realized that by buying more and more and more into that system, I was really finding it hard to have healthy relationships, where I had a lot of people that I absolutely loved, great partners, but there was always that level of jealousy, possessiveness, and a lot of the toxic monogamy, I guess that, again, when I was seeing myself through this lens of constantly buying things and possessing objects, it was easy to interact that way with other people.
For me, the anarchy perspective was really just saying like, "Yes, we don't need to rank people. We don't need to try to dominate one another. We don't need to try to own one another. We are better folks when we are able to own ourselves first and be respectful and genuinely connected with other people." That philosophy pushed me into a lot more of the ethical non-monogamy camp. Obviously, that went hand in hand with my queer journey too, but yes, that's how that really did on the professional level.
Dedeker: That makes a lot of sense.
Emily: Where and when did polyamory more become a part of your life? Was it from your youth or very early on or did it evolve as this journey through ending your capitalism or at least moving out of that journey?
Sam: Yes, it's important to say I don't know that anybody can end capitalism.
Emily: That's true. I know. Exactly.
Dedeker: What's interesting, it was Emily, you said ending your capitalism. We'll and I'm like that.
Jase: That's good.
Emily: I did. When you were talking, I was like, "This is all fascinating." I do think as the culture right now we're in, I've heard the last throes of capitalism to a degree. I don't know. Clearly, it seems to matter very much to this country, but I do wonder if there's a way in which we're starting to exit that because we realize how much it's really awful to the society at large, and it's just creating a larger and larger divide between people. Anyways, all that aside, I'm interested in you and where your polyamorous journey started.
Sam: I think my polyamorous journey started as soon as I started dating back when I was like 15 years old. I was cheating on all of my partners. I know that there's a pretty big resistance to saying cheating and ethical non-monogamy are two separate things. I really want to be able to hold space for that, but 15 year old me did not have the word polyamory. I didn't know that ethical non-monogamy existed. I just knew that I could not settle for one partner.
When I started dating my now ex-husband, I was seeing two, three other people at the same time. I just felt deep, deep down in my bones that it didn't make sense for me to have to live with the expectation that I would just settle down with one person, get married, have kids and live happily ever after. That story didn't fit for me. Him and I essentially, yes, we're best friends and people were like, "You're a boy. You are a girl." I'm not now, but back in the day, I was. They're just like, "You must be dating."
We started dating and then we went off to college separately and entered like a don't ask don't tell agreement where both of us were seeing other people just practically meeting that human connection. Especially since we were so far apart that we didn't see each other once every three months, four months, something like that, and so we were maintaining multiple relationships.
It was only when we moved back in together five or six years later that we realized like, "Okay, we're trying to do the monogamous thing and it's not working." That was when I really came out as gay and was like, "You know what? I don't think I'm even bi, our sexual relationship isn't working for me. I love you so much as a nesting partner, that part of our life feels really lovely, but I can't be your one and only."
We really started figuring out, like, "What does a relationship look like for us, that gives us the opportunity to have other people in our life who are filling those romantic and sexual needs while still being able to cohabitate and just have almost like this weird platonic husband, wife situation." Yes, that was my journey through this. Obviously, your podcast was one of those first resources that our therapist was like, "Hey, if you have no clue where to begin, just listen to these people, there are other folks out there who are doing-
Emily: Cool.
Sam: -this exactly." Y’all are very cool.
Emily: Thanks, therapist.
Dedeker: Thank you, Sam's therapist.
Jase: I'd love to take us back to talking about capitalism, but not like, this is not a political show. This is a show about relationships. It's not about that, but I think that that concept of how, not only capitalism, it's like you say capitalism and it almost becomes meaningless because it's such a huge concept and such a large thing, but more specifically, I'm really interested in some of the connections that you've drawn between consumer behavior and how it affects how we approach relationships and sex. Like in more specific particular ways rather than just makes us want to own people, but how does that actually show up in practice, what kind of things have you noticed and what kind of connections have you seen with that?
Sam: Like we say, when we're talking about ownership mentality, that's a really loaded word and it shows up in lots of different ways, depending on the relationship that different folks have, but one of the things that I find is really big is our entitlement to other people's time and energy. That's really what I say when I'm using the term ownership, is that instead of asking somebody, "Hey, can I spend time with you?" You're saying like, "If you care about me, you will spend time with me." It's that desire to be able to control.
It's hard because all of this happens within loving relationships. The intent isn't malicious, and that's why the words domination feel at odds with love, but when we've been taught that, that's how we relate to one another, I think we forget that we do need to give other people the permission to tell us how they're going to behave towards us rather than us telling them how they need to behave in order to fit our needs. I know that's a nuanced way of answering that question. I hope that makes a little bit of sense.
The other thing that I see really come out of this is the idea that monogamy is the only way to exist in the world. A lot of folks don't necessarily tie that back to our economic structure, but I think it is important to talk about the fact that monogamy was socially constructed in order to help with labor reproduction and create these boundaries for how we're going to organize our society.
I think a lot of people have this tendency to be like, "Well, humans are naturally monogamous." I don't know that there's much truth to that. It's very funny that within the context of such a materialist world that suddenly we need to go back to nature when it comes to relationship structures. I like to tell folks like, "No, you don't necessarily need to be stuck in this compulsory monogamous relationship structure if it does not work for you." Again, I'm not here to tell people how to live their lives, if they want to be monogamous, fantastic, go for it, do it, do it deliberately and do it well.
I think that all of these ideas like y'all talk about a lot can apply regardless of how many people you're dating, what kind of relationship structure you end up in, but for me, the idea is really to be able to empower people to say like, "You do have a choice and you get to create relationships that are meaningful for you and other people." You have to be able to negotiate those boundaries together rather than just taking on all of these scripts. Especially since some of them don't necessarily serve us because they prompt us to act out of jealousy and I don't know how else to say that-
Dedeker: All the stuff, yes.
Sam: -just like ownership. Yes, all the things. Does that make sense? I don't know if that answers your question succinctly enough?
Emily: Oh, definitely.
Jase: It's really interesting and it's something that's been on my mind because I recently read a book about self-worth that was framing self-worth in terms of financial worth and drawing a lot of analogies and metaphors with how we spend versus what we earn in a self-worth way in terms of what we give to other people versus what we feel like we're allowed to receive and stuff like that. That's been on my mind. When you were talking about that problem of feeling this sense of entitlement to someone's time, like, "If you care about me, you will spend time with me rather than--"
Emily: Or, "If you're coupled with me, that means automatically that you're going to have to spend time with me."
Jase: I think that what this book brought up for me was the flip side of that too. Is that the same thing that might make people work for less than they earn, could also show up in a relationship of kind of like, "Well, I don't deserve that for whatever reason, because I don't think I'm worth that," or I shouldn't like, I'm not entitled to that because that's never the message I've gotten that I deserve things to be given to me or that I should ever get more than I think I deserve. That on the flip side that can also really harm us in our relationships and cause us to push away kindness or feel like, "Oh, someone did something kind for me, I've got to do way more kind things for them to the point that I'm burning myself out and that I feel miserable."
Sam: Absolutely. I think just to piggyback off of that, there's also like the productivity aspect and the time constraints that come in with capitalism. Like we're expected to always be working. Again, like if you're spending 40 to 60 hours at a job, there's good chance that you're not necessarily given enough room to be fully present in your relationships. Sometimes we default back to pretty cruddy behavior with our partners. We take them for granted. We push them aside because, A, we don't have any time or because we are fucking tired so I think there's this all these other ways in which capitalism does impact our relationships beyond just ownership. I also like to think about the way that sometimes we end up in these situations where like, I don't know how to say this like just hop on the relationship escalator and end up just pushing ourselves into marriage, whether we want that or not. Again, our relationships are being--
Emily: We should or?
Sam: They're being measured on this also very capitalist industrial, like marriage industrial complex. We're all being funneled into that relationship structure.
Emily: Marriage industrial complex. I love that yes.
Sam: For sure. I don't need the wedding dress industry, all of it. It's such a huge thing.
Emily: Yes, the ring.
Dedeker: Also on top of that, there are so many forces, not the least of which are economic forces.
Sam: Totally.
Dedeker: Like pushing that tide forward. There are so many economic incentives to not just be married, but to also appear coupled and monogamous. It's about the appearance. God knows there are so many married couples out there who are kinky as hell and non-monogamous as hell. The incentive lies in, can you look monogamous?
Sam: Absolutely.
Dedeker: Economic incentives attached to that as well. While we're on this topic, I also wanted to hear your thoughts about rainbow capitalism and what do we do about that? Well, first of all, maybe let's start. Can I ask you to clarify and explain what rainbow capitalism is for our listeners?
Sam: Yes. Rainbow capitalism is like the appropriation of queer culture in order to sell us things from companies that do not necessarily have our best interest in mind. We've seen this, I'll give you an example of like every time June hits it's pride month, Target and all of these giant corporations that just do not care about the queer community that put money into legislation that actively harms our trans rights, our ability to just function in the world will put out a bunch of merch plastered with rainbow flags, which are often not designed by queers. There's no queer involvement in it. It's really just in order for them to appear like they care. It's that façade of caring. Again, capitalizing on us. I think there's a huge like the queer community has an enormous buying power and a lot of corporations recognize that we do buy a lot of things.
They want us, they want our business without actually caring to have us in leadership positions on their design teams or anything else. I'll give you this perfect example. When I was working at Colgate, I was on their corporate social responsibility team, which deals with these types of marketing initiatives. I was not out at Colgate because I made the calculated decision that I did not believe that I would be able to get promoted and continue to have any opportunities within their corporate structure based on the type of rhetoric that I had heard from their like senior management talk about queer people, but here we were creating these advertisements that had the rainbow Tuesdays. They're still using it today, which every June, I pop off and get mad at Colgate about it now that I don't work for them.
It's very much just a, we're going to pretend like we care and we don't actually. The problem with that, because again, like, it seems like a non-issue for a lot of folks, but what happens is that smaller companies that are actually queer-owned, queer-run are having their business taken away by these enormous corporations. Again, as consumers, we're looking for something that's easy. If I'm thinking about where I'm going to get my pride merch, it might be harder for me to go find a little local shop that is queer-owned that might not necessarily have what I'm looking for versus these enormous companies that are everywhere and available. That's what we're trying to push back against as well as things like having corporations telling us that, like, we can't have canker, we can't have leather at Pride. Those are our events and Citibank doesn't get to tell us how we get to show up in these spaces. Unfortunately, since it's become such a moneymaker and that's exactly what tends to happen.
Emily: Jase.
Dedeker: Do you think along the same vein that polyamorous capitalism is on the horizon or do you think it's already here?
Sam: I bet. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like, but anytime that people can monetize a cultural phenomenon, a trend, especially things that were once a little bit more underground, they will. Y'all will have to keep me updated about what polyam-capitalism looks like.
Emily: Images of the three like--
Dedeker: Just the three pairs of feet under the sheet.
Emily: Exactly. In the bed.
Dedeker: Yeah, no, I view--
Jase: Colgate threesome toothpaste. I'm sorry I'm like, wait, how do you do that?
Dedeker: It'll be like the triple size toothpaste too with a three-pack of toothbrushes attached.
Emily: There you go. You're done.
Dedeker: It's like there you go, you're done. You're ready for the morning after.
Emily: Until they're going to think polyamory is.
Sam: I actually have a great thing to share with y'all. I don't know if you know this, but one of my cute friends owns a small indie sex toy company called Cute Little Fuckers Stef is polyamorous. He bundles his toys and calls it the Polyam pack so you can share with all your friends. There is a thing like that but that is actually queer and polyam owned. It's not mega-corporation.
Dedeker: Well, shout out to Cute Little Fuckers. I do have questions about that because on the one hand, sometimes I wonder is Polyam capitalism actually going to be a thing or is it, or because polyamory and non-monogamy shows up in so many different forms, it's going to be subsumed to all the different offsets of capitalism. Like the rainbow capitalism, or this is the subset of capitalism that's applying to the 50 Shades of Gray crowd, or is it all just going to be fragmented into those things or is there ever going to be a time where there's recognition like, "Oh, polyamorous people have all this buying power, oh, these polycules that move in together need to buy all this IKEA furniture like we got to appeal to them." Is it going to become its own very distinct thing when we're going to see like three pairs of feet under sheets? Like just everywhere we look, I don't know. I'm just really curious about what the future is going to hold in that regard.
Sam: At the same time, like there is something to be said about the like widespread acceptance. I was looking at a stat recently fact check me on this, where it was something like in 2004, 60% of the American population disapproved of queer marriage. now we're at the reversal of that. where 60% do approve. I'm not like defending rainbow capitalism at all, but oftentimes it is an indicator of more of the social changes that we're seeing, which is really, really positive. Even if IKEA decides to come out with a Polyam line, like it might be cheesy as fuck, but here we are.
Dedeker: That's the difficult thing because I've also thought that of unfortunately I think that the more that you could demonstrate that polyamorous spoke as a market exists, that would help rise that tide essentially, or help support that. It feels icky, but also at the same time, it's like, well, I guess there's a certain amount of it that works just by that normalizing factor. Corporations think it's okay, therefore it must be okay.
Jase: I think we've talked about this in the past, actually, when we've done our episodes about polyamory in--
Emily: The medium.
Jase: In the media that I know, like for me, I always think back to when I was a kid, like the only gayness I saw on, or like non-straightness for men specifically that I saw on TV was like SNL sketches where like the guys would kiss each other and it was hilarious. It was a joke, like just its existence was a joke, or like gay characters were always a joke, but even then I was still seeing that and going, "Oh, wow. That's a thing I could do." It still was better than not seeing it at all and being like this can't be a thing and that can't exist and this can't be that at all. It's like this weird thing that I see the rainbow capitalism, like you were saying about exposure to it. It is that same thing that even if that company, their practices are not supportive of it, just the fact that so many people are getting inundated with those images, it's going, okay, this must be a normal part of life then if I'm seeing this all the time from big companies. It is such this weird mix of feelings about that.
Dedeker: The real deal with the devil.
Sam: I think it really comes down to who gets to own narratives. I think for so long, it's always been CIS straight people who get to decide how queer folks are portrayed. That's really what the underlying issue with rainbow capitalism is, is that this is not giving us the ability to represent ourselves the way that we would like to be seen and that we would like to be shown, it is being filtered through like, a CIS and gays. Very similarly to how we see, talks about like the male gaze portraying women a certain way. I would say that rainbow capitalism acts in similar fashion of being able to give straight people the power to own our narratives rather than giving us the ability to have that control. Does that make sense?
Dedeker: Definitely. That does remind me of what we run into often people will reach out to us to say, "Hey, check out this Netflix show it has a triad in it," or "Hey, there's this B plot in this show that I'm watching that talks about non-monogamy." Often, there is that felt frustration of it does not feel like someone who actually lives this has written this, or it feels like maybe they did write it, but then it had to be filtered and edited and cut and made more palatable for this primarily straight monogamous CIS audience that I do still feel there is just that constant rumblings of tension and frustration of really not feeling like literally what you said, like I'm being allowed to see myself the way that I want to be seen or represented the way that I want to be represented.
Sam: I think the really unfortunate part is there's a ton of fantastic polyamorous creators. Y'all are a testament to this. Have y'all been given the opportunity to create a Netflix show? No. I think that's where the capitalism part comes back in. When we're saying like this creates a hierarchy of who is valid, it also creates a hierarchy of who gets to tell the stories, even if they have no business telling those stories, people who fall outside of the norm are constantly being cut short. Just being told like, "Hey, sit down, you don't know what you're talking about," even if we own our experiences. I think that's a real frustration of these conversations for me.
Jase: Definitely. We're going to move on to talk about unlearning sex negativity and talking about your BAES framework that you came up with. I'm really interested to learn about that, but first we're going to take a break to talk about how you out there can support this show. In order for us to do that, we do need money because we do live in capitalism. One of the great things actually about being on a sex podcast network is that the types of advertisers that will even give us the time of day are already at least closer to this side of the fence in terms of like being open to these things and stuff like that. That is something that I'm really pleased about that we're able to have good sponsors like these who give us money to help this show keep coming to all y'all out there for free.
Emily: Alrighty, we're back. I want to talk about unlearning in general because I think that is almost a low hanging fruit of non-monogamy and I guess sex education and a lot of things just unlearning all of the things that capitalism and our society at large are telling us that we are and that we should believe about ourselves and that we should believe about things like our sexuality and who we are. I wanted to talk about unlearning sex negativity. Does one do that as a means to become more sex positive or it just let's talk about unlearning sex negativity in general about ourselves?
Sam: I guess the first thing that I like to do is just define what we're talking about when we're saying sex positivity, sex negativity because I think a lot of folks, unfortunately confuse sex negativity with asexuality, which is absolutely not true. You can definitely be asexual and sex positive. What we're talking about is giving people the choice to really be empowered to decide when they're having sex and to engage in any pleasure that is consensual, that is enthusiastic and that makes them feel good. It's really about again, like deconstructing some of the hierarchies that we have society has placed, heterosexual penetrative sex at the top of the hierarchy and has pretty much said that anything below that or anything outside of heterosexual penetration does not count as actual real sex.
I'm doing bunny ears cause that's obviously not true. When I'm talking about unlearning sex negativity, it has to do with two things, it has to do with the slut-shaming, the guilt and the bad feelings that we have when we think about ourselves, when we think about our authentic sexual expressions, but it also has to do with the hyper-sexualization that happens and the objectification in media too because sex negativity isn't like we said about no sex, like we live in a society where we're constantly bombarded with sex. It's just the vision of sex is very a singular and also reinforces a lot of the hierarchies of power. We see mostly women being seen as like sex objects.
Men are always placed in this like quote unquote predator role where they have to obtain and dominate somebody else. For us, the idea is really to be able to say like, "No, we're going to expand this. We're going to place pleasure at the center of these conversations. We're going to give like a whole spectrum of sexuality some validity and the ability to be experienced by whoever, in whatever ways that they want." I know that seems again, super, super vague. How do you even go about unlearning that? That's my mission in life is just giving people the ability to reclaim what feels good to them.
Dedeker: I think that that speaks to a question that I have about this because I feel so glad to see, especially over the course of the last five, 10 maybe 15 years or so many more educators stepping up to talk about sex positivity, sex negativity, ways to undo that, ways to at least become aware of that in yourself. A phenomenon that I have noticed is, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but what I have noticed is there's a lot of women sex educators, like trans sex educators, queer sex educators who are talking a lot about sex positivity and sex negativity.
It definitely seems like a thing where, because I think men, especially like CIS straight men tend to be cast into a predatory role, just like sex fiends role, the sense of you're not allowed to really talk about sex positivity and this is something that I've run into with, I've had some clients who are men who are aware of their sex negativity, aware of wanting to change it, but then realizing, I feel like all of the resources out there are targeted towards women or non binary people. I'm wondering, is that something that you've also noticed in this space?
Sam: Yes, it is definitely something that I've noticed. There's certain organizations that are doing phenomenal work. I'm thinking of like Men Can Stop Rape being one of those. Yes, there's a few people out there, but you're right. It is a handful of folks that I can name off the top of my head, where I know tons of queer sex educators and ton of women educators too. I would say that that really goes back to a power dynamics situation. Women have mostly been told like you are a passive receptor or passive receptacle, I guess, and sex is done to you. I see the shift in attitude, almost being like part of the reclamation process.
We need women, we need queer folks to be able to step into their powers and almost giving men the opportunity to take a step back. That doesn't mean that they need to not engage in this content. I would say that men should be reading exactly the same literature and listening to these educators because we do have a lot of good things to say. Obviously, I teach from a queer perspective first and foremost, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't apply to a variety of people. I keep it pretty broad. If you can, if you're a man, this stuff still applies, consent education is gender neutral, I guess. So is a lot of the other things that we talking about.
Dedeker: Well, the things seems it falls into the same camp that a lot of these conversations fall into that often. Sometimes an unfortunate side effect of language is once you label this as, "This is queer sex ed," that then I think there's a lot of like straight people where in their brain, they're like it doesn't apply to me. It just disappears or women's issues.
Don't apply to me. Just switch it off or people of color issues. Just switch it off. I think the same thing happens here where it's not even necessarily like people are very intentionally choosing to ignore it. It's almost like, I'm not in the spotlight, therefore I don't need to care. Which is a problematic cognitive bias in and of itself.
Jase: I would say even sometimes not just that I don't have to care, but I'm not allowed to care. I do feel like there can be that feeling. It's how queer people feel a lot in mainstream culture. This isn't really for me, I'm not quite allowed to belong to this. In that way, it's not to say poor men feel like that this isn't a place for them. At the same time, that's kind of hurting all of us though. We need everyone to be on board with this. I don't know. It is a tricky thing there to find that balance of how to make it inviting, even if it's not all about you and the spotlight's on you and that's challenging, I think.
Sam: Yes. It's a really great thing to bring up. I think that this is where there is a lot of power, where there's female voices with male co-educators, I'm thinking specifically of the people behind, Oh Joy sex toys. I don't know if you're familiar with that comic strip, Erica Mowen and her husband Matthew. Both of them are talking from a woman and a male perspective. You're really getting fantastic education that changes the way that a lot of people would think about this from yes, two people who are a really sweet couple, but also just covering the spectrum of experiences. I think that's fantastic too.
Jase: That's awesome. I feel like I've maybe seen some of their stuff. I'm not sure now if it was theirs or not but that sounds really familiar.
Emily: Yes. We've heard the term and talked about it a bit on this show about sex neutrality and what do you think about that? Also is it even possible to be like too sex positive? This is something that we've discussed and debated a bit on this show, but I'm interested in your ideas around that.
Sam: I started using the word pleasure a lot more rather than sex. A lot of it is just because of how much I get censored on Instagram. They don't like that word at all. If we reframe the conversation about being pleasure positive, it really does apply to everybody. What I'm saying, when I'm speaking of sex education is oftentimes it's not even about sex. It is just about like connecting either on a physical, emotional or intellectual level with another person in ways that I have been watching a lot of Marie Kondo, so sorry but in a way that's parts of joy.
My partner has a big crush on her. I can't help it, but being sex neutral to a certain degree it's a meaningless phrase at least for me in the sense that you can not care about lots of things, but it's easy also to detach from it. I think that when we're talking about pleasure, the more you feel good, the more you do good. I think that's a Adrian Marie Brown quote. I really stand behind that.
Dedeker: Yes, no. I especially love separating out pleasure from sex as well. The idea that one doesn't necessarily directly equal the other, makes a lot of sense on this topic of unlearning, I want to circle back to unlearning compulsory monogamy or toxic monogamy. First, separately from what we've talked about already, which is about these feelings of possessiveness or these feelings of ownership, what are other common ways that you see toxic monogamy or compulsory monogamy showing up in relationships?
Sam: Yes, there's just a lot of social pressure to couple. People who are single are constantly being asked when they're going to pair back up. There's this idea that we're ranking how fit a partner is for a long-term commitment. Friends will give their opinions on the validity of a relationship. I guess with the assumption that marriage is the ultimate goal. There's that relationship escalator that we continue talking about.
These are all forms of toxic or compulsory monogamy. It's really hard to see any other choice beyond being in a two person pairing. Obviously that's not the case. We can all attest to the fact that we relate to folks in very different ways. For me, the first step is just giving people the ability to say, you do not have to follow these rules.
The script that was given to you, it can work. Parts of the script can work for you but it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to take this as a default. You do have the option to customize. For me, that's really the unlearning process is taking what we've learned about relationships and saying, "Does this feel good." Going back to the pleasure thing, "Does this give me pleasure? Is this sustainable for me? Am I going to lead my most authentic life if I followed this norm or do I need to tweak it?"
I often talk about bedrooms. A lot of people just take it for granted that when they become a couple, they absolutely have to share a bedroom, which is not true. That's just another way that we've internalized compulsory monogamy. We're just given a lot of these norms. It's really up to us to question all of them.
Emily: Okay. This is something that you created that we are really excited to talk about. It's all over your Instagram page and with your beautiful graphics, but let's talk about BAES, what is it? Tell us all about it.
Sam: Lovely. Boundaries, agreements, expectations, and support. It's talking about what I can do, what I expect you to do, what we will do together and how we're going to do it. That's pretty much the framework as we run through it in a two second explanation, but really when it comes to polyamory, especially as it relates to peer support sessions, people get stuck.
There's disagreements, they don't know how to proceed. They don't even know where to begin. We're saying, there is a period of unlearning where you've taken this script of compulsory monogamy. You've internalized it your whole life. Suddenly you have to practice polyamory. A lot of the "rules" no longer apply. Folks just don't know where to begin.
I like to tell people, first step is, what can you do? How can you be your best self in this relationship? That's going to be the boundaries. I always use the magic phrase, I will treat my partners with kindness and respect. That's an example of a boundary that it is up to me to expect with my partners. It is up to me to maintain.
Emily: That framework. First of all, just because of boundaries. Many people feel it's a line demarcation, you will not cross this. Instead you just talked about it in a way that's super positive, which is really lovely.
Sam: Like we said, anti-capitalist because I'm saying, I get to choose what I do with myself. I don't go around telling other people how they have to behave. Nobody can violate my boundaries because there's something that I can maintain for myself. I can violate my own boundaries for sure. I do a lot of times by not upholding them but really that's on me. We get to the agreements which are shared boundaries.
If two people decide, we will treat each other with kindness and respect, there you go, that's an agreement. We move on to the letter E which stands for expectations. That one I formed more as a request. We have to understand that we cannot force other people to behave in a certain way if we're going to act ethically and in our lovely anti-capitalist way. My expectations are often, "Hey, can you set this boundary for yourself? Like can you treat me with kindness and respect?
I also use examples with STIs because that's a really clear way for people to understand this. An example of a boundary that I set with myself is I will get tested once every six months. An agreement that we can have together is we will get tested every six months. We will be fluid bonded. That's a really good example of an agreement that two people can make. An expectation would be saying something like, "Can you use a condom every time that we hook up?" Or can you use a barrier with your other partners, for example. The thing with the expectation is that then people have the possibility to either accept it or reject it, right?
Like we said, you can't control other folks and I keep repeating that over and over and over again. I think that's like the bulk of my peer support sessions. It’s like let’s focus back on ourselves where we have power over, we can't force other people to behave how we want. Within the expectation part, you have to take into consideration how your partner can and can't behave. If they say, "Hey, no, I can't use barriers with my other partners, for whatever reason," then it's up to you to change your own boundaries, if they're not going to use barriers with their partners, then you can say, "I'm not going to hook up with you," for example.
That's kind of like the BAE part. The last one is the S support. I think that's really important. Because again, we're trying to create respectful, meaningful, deep relationships, at least, that's what I'm going for with my partners. There does need to be a level of validation and it's hard to set expectations, it's hard to set boundaries for yourself. Within that framework, it's really important to be able to say, "Hey, I'm struggling with this and I need this support from you," and making sure that we're creating those tangible requests from one another, in order to be able to make the boundaries, agreements, expectations actually possible in the first place.
Dedeker: You've done entire workshops, and many hours of peer support sessions and created so much content around this, so very well done for doing like the five-minute TED Talk version. Thank you so much. Something that I will say I really love about this framework that incorporates all these different facets, right. Because I think to zoom out and look at what I've seen in the non-monogamous community is, if we're going to look at the modern-day non-monogamous community and polyamorous community. For so many people who are coming out of the swingers scene in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. That was so much about, I guess, I would say very heavy in the kind of agreements and rules, where it's like, that's the engine that drives this is like we decide as a couple what happens? Who's allowed in? Who's not? What you can do? What I can do?
Then that's the only way that polyamory ever works. Then, in more recent years, of course, there's been a lot of backlash to that right? No, no, no, we got to get rid of that couple's privilege, we got to get rid of that couple hierarchy. It's got to be all about my boundaries, and just protecting me and what I do and what I will tolerate, and won't tolerate. Maybe even to an extent of being very hyper boundaried around these things.
I really love this framework that incorporates a little bit of yes, it's about you protecting yourself, and it's about you agreeing with your partner, and it's about you being able to express your preferences and your wishes, but your partner is still an autonomous individual who can reject it.
It's also about both of you getting support at the same time. I really love the BAES framework for that just knitting together of all these different aspects where it's not quite all about one tool or the other being, I guess, the silver bullet that makes everything work.
Sam: Yes, absolutely. I have to say, the reason this all came about is because I suck at all of these things. I'm not good at setting boundaries or making agreements or any of it. I think especially in the beginning of my polyam practice, it was such a struggle. When I saw my primary partner suddenly fall head over heels in love with somebody else. The process of being deprioritized as the primary partner so that somebody else could take on that place, I guess, in his life was really challenging.
We had to have a lot of difficult conversations. A lot of times, it was like, well, wait a second, what are we even talking about? Just to reframe a super controversial thing, which is like veto power, right? It's something that I absolutely do not believe in. I don't think that it’s conducive to the ethical part of non-monogamy, but it's still a temptation for a lot of couples.
What I say is if you hate your Metamora, right, that happens a lot. A lot of people just do not enjoy their presence have tons of problems with them for whatever reason. It's not right to force a partner to break up with them but within this framework, you can also say, "Hey, can you, I'm setting an expectation, I'm making a request, can you break up with this person?" Then you're giving that person the opportunity to back out and say, "Yes, I can, or no, I can't."
It no longer becomes about me holding power over my partner and their other relationships. It really becomes about me being able to assert my needs and assert my opinion, while still giving that person full control over their relationships. I think that was one of the big learning curves for me was saying just because my Metamora isn't somebody that I necessarily appreciate and I had that impulse because other people had vetoed me and my relationship. I'm just like, " Oh, wait a minute, I can do that too, fun." I was like, no, actually, that's not true at all. I don't want to be that person. How do we communicate through these really challenging situations in ways that are going to feel authentic to who I am and who I want to be within relationships?
Dedeker: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I really, really like that. It seems like this is also a framework that you really recommend for people who are just starting to open up the relationship or even before opening up the relationship? Correct?
Sam: I recommend it in the sense of here's the thing, and you take what you want from it and customize it so that it works for you. I'm definitely not like a prescriptive type of person. I don't think that there is one framework that's going to work for everyone, just like there's not one relationship structure that's going to work across the board. Some people really, really love setting boundaries in very different ways.
Some people still believe that it's about setting rules for other folks and that works within their polycule, that works within their relationship, and who am I to say that that's wrong? If this resonates with you, then, please. Usually, I offer it to people who are just stuck, honestly. I think it's a good way to at least get some kind of conversation flowing if nothing else.
Jase: Well, Sam, this has been really awesome. It's just lovely to always talk to other educators in this space. Because we get to have deeper, more philosophical conversations about all of this, and also your background in consumer psychology. It just brings a whole new interesting layer to all of this. We've loved really getting to talk to you. This has been great. Before we go, where can our listeners find more of you and your work?
Sam: Well, it's been absolutely a pleasure chatting with all of you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm not going to plug my Instagram because, again, I don't like it. This is not working with my capitalist or anti-capitalist family.
Jase: Got it.
Sam: Head over to my Patreon and go to patreon.com/shrimpteeth. Y'all can pay me for the work that I do. I'm putting in some work, so you can find me there. If you want some free content, just check out our podcast. It's called Queer Pleasure by ShrimpTeeth. Yes, that's where you can touch base with us. We've got a Discord channel and all the good stuff there too.
Dedeker: Excellent. Again, thank you so much. We are going to be staying with Sam for our bonus episode for this week, where we're going to be diving into the concept of vegan sex education, which is interesting.
Sam: I'm so excited.
Dedeker: Yes. For this week, if you go to our Instagram Stories, we're asking you what has helped you to unlearn sex-negativity, really curious to hear everybody's responses. The best place for you to share your thoughts with other listeners on this episode is on this episode’s discussion thread in our private Facebook group or Discord chat. You can get access to these groups and you can join our exclusive community by going to patreon.com/multiamory. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.