Ep 120: Queer Pleasure, Storytelling, and Sexual Liberation with Dr. Jaime Grant
Art by @reesabobeesa
What does desire have to do with LGBTQ+ liberation? Is there room for eroticism within the fight for equity?
Often when we tell or hear queer stories, they are stories of trauma, sadness and hardship. Even happy tales tend to be stories of overcoming obstacles, winning against adversity, healing from hurt.
In this episode, Effy and Jacqueline speak with Dr. Jaime Grant about how stories of pleasure, delight, satisfaction, and discovery are equally effective within the work towards LGBTQ+ justice - and even more so because they keep us focused on the world we are trying to create.
Dr. Jaime M. Grant is a lesbian feminist activist, coach, and a sober mother of two, who came of age in feminist and racial justice movements in the 80s. Her sexual liberation workshop, Desire Mapping, has been produced on campuses and at LGBTQ rights conferences around the world; and her podcast, Just Sex, captures the stories of Desire Mappers. Grant’s research has appeared in The Harvard LGBTQ Policy Journal and in SIGNS, the Journal of Culture and Society. Her autobiographical writing appears in Leslea Newman’s The Femme Mystique and Rachel Epstein’s Who’s Your Daddy? She currently serves as research director for the National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey.
To find more about Dr. Jaime Grant, check @drjaimegrant on twitter, justsexpodcast and transformationsconsult websites.
Dr. Jaime Grant's books:
Great Sex: Mapping Your Desire
Friendship as Social Justice Activism
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla on Instagram.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Jaime Grant
I have to say, in the 90s, we told much more at work, you know, sitting next to somebody at your desk, the stories we told each other the things that we came out with the ways that we would laugh together in the middle of so much death, so much distraction, so much hatred coming at us every day. I mean, it was much more vibrant, really, than if you go into a National LGBTQ organization today. It's, you know, it's so much more professionalized and you know, they have all these donors and you know, deliverables and, and whatnot, but it was like such anarchic resistance.
Effy
Welcome to the Curious Fox podcast, for those challenging the status quo in love, sex, and relationships. My name is Effy Blue.
Jacqueline
And I'm Jacqueline Misla. And today, we're talking about the power of stories to heal and unite. In particular, as we continue to celebrate Pride. We want to amplify stories of queer pleasure and joy.
Effy
We are so fortunate to have the space this podcast where we get to craft and write our stories and offer this platform to others for them to tell their stories, which, though at times can feel heavy and vulnerable. It ultimately feels affirming and liberating. Often when we hear or tell queer stories, there are stories of trauma and sadness and hardship. And even those happy ones, they tend to be stories of overcoming obstacles, winning against adversity, healing from heart. Today's guest reminds us that stories of pleasure, delight, satisfaction and discovery are equally effective. And even more so because they keep us focused on the world we're trying to create. Joining us today is sexpert, queer, feminist, racial justice activist,
Jacqueline
writer podcaster and radical mom.
Jaime Grant
Yeah. Hi, I'm Dr. Jamie grant. I am a queer, feminist sex activist and racial justice activist based in Washington, DC.
Jacqueline
That's fantastic. What an introduction, I was just gonna say anything, my bio now. So we had an opportunity to talk to you before it and kind of hear some of your backstory. But I would love for you to tell us a little bit about how you got into this work. Well, I
Jaime Grant
grew up outside of Boston, in the 70s, in a pretty much a first generation Irish American enclave, very tight knit family and extended family. And the two things that were sort of going on that were really huge in my childhood were the Vietnam War, and the violent desegregation of the public schools in Boston. And those two events really shaped my thinking about what was right and what was wrong in my family. And it really shaped me as I started to build my own identity and build my own community. And one of the things that was really clear was that being born and raised a girl, I just was not supposed to ask questions in the way that I was, I wasn't supposed to be critical of what was going on. Everything was not lady like, constant reply. And, you know, I think I was just a gender resistor from a very young age, because I also had a critique around, you know, race, religion, the structures of our families, and communities and violence. And I could see all these things adhering to all these different things, right, including just violence I experienced as a young girl growing up, right, whether it was, you know, verbal, physical, sexual. So, you know, very early on all these things sort of came together in my mind as activist fronts to work on toward my own liberation and just liberation.
Effy
It sounds like as you were sort of making sense of that, that was that's kind of a part of what the work that you do today telling stories of how to find your identity. So I'm curious to how you got into that work? How do you find the power of story? And why do you think it's important to make sense of our stories, especially as queer folk?
Jaime Grant
Well, I guess then, you know, fast forward to the 90s. And I get to DC and the AIDS crisis is, you know, in full bloom and your crack is in full bloom. And gentrification is starting all at the same time. So I would just say to save our lives, I was in recovery. I just started recovery and addressing you know, my active addiction, which I came down to me through my Irish family and also was really exacerbated by the kind of violence I survived as a young person. And so I was in a very political, interesting, vibrant, recovering community. And in that community, you you tell each other your stories every day, right? I mean, it was saving my life every single day to sit in those rooms among queers, and among straight people among, you know, people who were running the city among me, you know, you sit in those rooms, I always say, you don't have to do outreach in a in an NA meeting, you know, the entire freaking structure of society is there from the very rich, privileged people who are running everything, to you know, the homeless guy who lives on your street. And that was just a such a revolutionary space for me, because in the NA contexts, the homeless guy can be, you know, the mayor's sponsor, you know, depending on how much time sober you have. And I mean, that space of learning, the power of story was really important to me. So I brought it to my work in LGBT workout, one of my best friends started lesbian services at the whitman walker clinic in the 90s. It was the first lesbian centric health organizing space, one of the first ones in the country. And we just started organizing and asking people to tell each other our sex stories, because it was enlivening right in the middle of all this death, and all this stigma and all this, really, I mean, they were in a pandemic, now that the pandemic that we were in, then everyone blamed us for and told us it was good that we were dying, because we were, you know, a cancer on the community, right? And when we actually heard people say things like that to us, well, we were losing, like, you know, so many people every week, right? That were our age peers, right? I mean, people in their 20s. And we started to think about if we were going to take care of LGBTQ women's health, we needed to talk about our sexuality, because it had been such a site of violence, stigma and shame, you know, in our formation, that it was it was a form of resistance to say, here's, here's how I started having sex. Here's the best sex I ever had. Here's what I like to do. Here's who I you know, I'm a lesbian, and I actually fuck XYZ genders, you know, and people, people just told their, their stories. And I mean, you could just feel you could feel the, you know, the roof come off the top of the room. And also, it just helped us organize, right, people started to want to come to get their breast health exams, you know, or their annual physical, because we created this space of resistance and vibrance around our sex and our sexuality. So that's where I really started with my dear friend Amy Lucerne, who I always love to credit, this incredible organizer here in the 90s, who's been a therapist for now for like, 30 years. But it was really her idea of she ran the AIDS hotline, and she ran the lesbian cancer hotline, right. So she was getting so many stories all the time of people in need, and we needed to push out with stories of our love and our connection. And you know, all the things that were getting us hot and getting us off and giving us a reason to build, right. And to resist.
Jacqueline
There's a few things in it that I'm sitting with. One is the power of honesty in the recovery spaces, and how truth is healing. And for folks in those spaces to be able to be participants have that kind of truth telling, and then to go back into the world and have to mask and cover that up and feel ashamed again. And so you're kind of breaking the barriers and opening up the room. And also the fact that the stories that you were telling were not just stories of trauma, which is probably stories that people tell often, but always a pleasure. Yes, stories of joy. That's the thing. I
Jaime Grant
mean, I say so I've been in LGBT organizing space and in organizations over this stretch. And I have to say, in the 90s, we told much more at work, you know, sitting next to somebody at your desk, the stories we told each other the things that we came out with the ways that we would laugh together in the middle of so much death, so much distraction, so much hatred coming at us every day. I mean, it was much more vibrant. Really then if you go into a National LGBTQ organization today, it's you know, it's so much more professionalized and you know, they have all these donors and you know, deliverables and, and whatnot, but it was like such anarchic resistance, it just, I'm so happy. I had that experience as a young person, because it's helped me understand the importance of anarchic resistance, where you're not just sort of hewed to what a donor wants you to do, that you're accountable to the community and each other, and you just you just build differently. You know.
Effy
I mean, that's so fascinating, and I and I think what I see you do is take all that experience all those beautiful stories and create a format so that people can actually figure out how to tell their own story, which I think is so so powerful for those who don't find their weigh into those rooms that feel safe and stories are shared. How do you tell your story? And like you, you have a guide for that?
Jaime Grant
Yeah. So Emily, and I really just created this desire mapping format out of those early organizing days. And I think one of the reasons that we've been doing the workshop for 15 years domestically all over the globe, all kinds of people in you know, desperate situations, I mean, people, people in Russia, you know, have done the workshop folks at the Beijing Community Center people whose expression is much more repressed than ours, and surveilled and regulated by the state, right. And I think the thing that we do that makes it work everywhere, it's a couple of things. But the container that we create is really intentional for the stories, right? So one of the things about the container is we always have a multiracial team. And if we're in another country, we our team is built of people who are local, so that we're never sort of parachuting in. And we're also not centering a white supremacist idea of sexuality, which in so much sexual liberation space all across the globe, it's male centric, it's white supremacist, it's sis and heterosexism. Right. And so we really, very consciously in the teams that we've built, have tried to turn that on its head. So we always have people of color majority on our team, we often have, you know, trans and gender non binary people, if not, in the majority, at least half of the people in the faculty on any given time. And so the faculty for any one of these workshops that we create consists of four or five storytellers. So we're very conscious about gender, race, sexual expression of ways of being and trying to curate a team, and then facilitators and five watchers, which means, you know, at the beginning, after we lay a very clear set of ground rules that really encourage people to be self reflective, rather than commenting on anybody else, or a lover or someone else's embodiment or way of being or, or group politics, right. It's, it's speaking from the eye through the whole time. And then we introduce anywhere from two to five people who are dedicated to their well being in the room, because we note that trauma very often comes up when we start to think about our sex stories. I mean, things are very complex in our stories, and a lot of times in not the best and untenable and even abusive situations. We've learned things about ourselves that are important about our sex, our sexuality, and our desire and trying to sift those things out together in a room of 10, or 150, or 200, people can be challenging, so we identify them by watchers, they're everything from people who really have a spiritual approach to healing, indigenous approach to healing, to Western medicine approach to healing. And again, lots of different embodiments genders races, so that if you're in the room, you can look over at a vibe lecture, and someone sort of reflects you better, right, and then somebody that you feel like you could talk to about whatever's going on. So we put the Bible lectures together, we lay our ground rules. And I think setting that container is one of the most important things about desire mapping, I always send her that I'm a survivor of sexual violence when we start the process, because we want to center that survivors are in the room rather than have it be kind of like an off to the side thing or something that people think they can't share. Or that, you know, they're the only one in the room or it's wrong. And you know, often in our storytelling group, it's a majority of people who, who've survived sexual violence and talk about it in some way, right, in terms of how they identify or how they've healed or whether it's a part of their story that they want to share. So in that way, I think I always say I'm a racial justice actor, activist, intersex activist, I'm doing the work of all those things at the same time, right, which is really important to me in the work again, I think, so much, quote, sex lib spaces are their exclusive. And we're really trying to change who gets to tell the stories, who's whose stories are centered, what is the sexually liberating way of our communities and building our lives. So who's telling the story is really important, who's in the room is really important? So I love it. I just love doing it.
Jacqueline
And then do you walk the storytellers through the process through these are the ways in which you're going to tell your story?
Jaime Grant
Yes, I mean, I always do prep with people. I now have, you know, a group of some like 50 to 70 people who've been doing this with me for years and years. So I often ask different storytellers to come back. But if I'm going somewhere new, like often if I'm on a college campus, and a mapping on a campus, I'll just ask the people who've brought me to give me three or four volunteers and then I do you know, zoom or and in person prep, and I just take them through the six questions that are our core questions and ask them to think about their own journey and come up with one story they want to tell. And then we'll have some back and forth a lot of times people don't tell me exactly what What they're going to say, but they tell me what they're thinking about an hour, just be helpful, I think around him, making sure people are going to be self self referential. And also making sure people aren't just talking about politics, which is, you know, what everybody talks about, right? They, they really rather not go, um, so many of us. I mean, nobody's ever asked us what we're actually doing in bed, how it feels, what kind of vulnerabilities come up for us, you know, what, how we experience ourselves when we maybe feel a little out of control when desire like, just clobbers you and it's like, oh, this is what I'm about, right? Oh, this is something that's meaningful to me, I have no idea. Those are the kinds of pivotal experiences of our desire that this workshop really helps us go back and look at a lot of us file those away so quickly, either because we're overwhelmed ourselves, or the people that we're with, don't really know how to support us as we're going through it, right, a lot of people because of their own stuff around their sex and sexuality, you know, don't mean to, but often shame us or make us feel like we're too much, or like, they don't know what the hell to do. Right. So, for a lot of us some of the moments that have been most important to us, we've just stuffed them. And in the workshop, you just see it over and over again, people come upon their story, and it's like, oh, my god, i How could I have forgotten this? Right? Forgotten? Everybody wants us to forget those moments, because they're powerful. And they're, you know, and if we can claim them, I mean, I'm more powerful, because I know those stories about myself. And I've can build my own, you know, set of relationships, connections, sexual practices, sex sexy connections on those stories, rather than sort of flailing around out here without a path. Yeah.
Effy
So Jackie, and I were really curious about this process. I spoke to you, you told us about these stories. And we were really good. And we like didn't look at anything. I'd love to be a part of this process. Yeah.
Jaime Grant
It is my book, great sex map and your desire, and I wanted it to look like something you'd scribble in as a teenager. You know what I mean, sir. So you want me to give you a couple other key questions when you're ready, please. Okay, you're gonna write them down? I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you three. Okay, you're ready? What sexual encounters or encounters with my desire stand out as most memorable over the course of my sexual life. So sexual encounters or encounters with our desire. And when I set this up, I often say, sometimes, you know, these encounters with your desire could be in passing, it happens at a bus stop, it happens with someone you don't even know their name, right? But it stayed with you, for some reason, because of what happened in the moment. So think about sexual encounters, or encounters with your desire that stand out as most memorable. What six or desire experiences made me feel most true to myself? And why? Okay, I'm going to do for when did I learn something important about myself? Even if it was something I never wanted to learn? What was it? And this one happens to be a favorite among mappers? What lover or crush? Do I miss the most? And what do I miss about them?
Jacqueline
Um, just things that are happening, right? Like, I just have a huge grin just in thinking about the answers to these things. And I feel a real excitement about the ability to be able to talk about these things, unless one has, I think, really close friend or friendships. One doesn't necessarily talk about their sexual adventures. And even then, I feel like unless the Dine that you know, depending on the dynamic that's limited, right? No, right and get into the detail of
Jaime Grant
you know, in some ways, like our friends can police us on these things, right? Or you know, the ways or depending on what the ongoing conversation is among your friends. It can be very hard to have these. I would say most of the people in workshops, this is the only space they've ever spoken in this way. And again, I lay those questions out and then I have five people actually answer the questions before people go to their own worksheets, right. So they've seen five people have all kinds of different embodiments genders, ages, relationship configurations, answer these questions, right in five to seven minutes stories, and then really, the roof comes off the room. I mean, really, everybody just is like, this is the space it's liberation baby. We can say whatever we want, because you know the thing that we sent her as long as you have consent, and we mutual respect, it doesn't matter what our identities are, we can do whatever the fuck we want. That's the whole point of sexual liberation, right. And for many of us, whatever identities we've constructed in the communities we've created around those identities, it can be very binding and limiting around what it is we're supposed to be doing in bed, what we're supposed to want, what our favorite practices are, how we want people to relate to us how we want to relate to them. It's just crushing to me having been tossed out of my Irish Catholic family for being queer, to then come into lesbian community ostensibly in the 80s. And be so shut down because I liked penetrative sex, because I wanted to bottom because I really was looking at pain and ecstatic experiences. Because I was interested, I was always polyamorous and I always had everybody trying to shove me into a monogamy box. I mean, I was just the worst ad lesbian you could imagine. You know? And so it's like, wow, you know, I mean, I lost my family for this. And I just thought, I'm not going to do this, I have to find my people, which, thank goodness I did. And again, the recovery spaces of learning how, like, really telling the truth is gonna get you where you want to go. Telling the truth is the thing that is going to help you build your path. So again, I was able to take that and move it into the SEC space.
Effy
I have a question for you, just as a reflection from your experience. 80s lesbian experience to current deal has been experience. And I know that you mentioned in more of the sort of the nonprofit world, the sort of the more of the, the corporate side of sex, it's become more style, it's become more conformist. It's become more corporate. So that's in the workspace do how do you think the social space has changed?
Jaime Grant
Well, I do think the 90s, we created something of a revolution around sexual practices, what we could do, I mean, I think a lot of the 90s Organizing was really throwing off that sort of fundamentalism that came into the 80s, which I think, you know, not to shit on 80s lesbians. I mean, there was just so much violence people were recovering from, and, and so much precarity in our lives, it makes sense that you have kind of us a fundamentalist moment about identity, right. But in the 90s, I think so many of us were just busting out of that together and found each other and you know, you just have so many people writing, you know, and I think about Dorothy Allison, who wrote best or another Carolina at that point was the first lesbian to win like a National Book Award, she had been vilified as one of the founders of the lesbian sex mafia in New York, in the 80s, when everybody was anti BDSM. And then, you know, foof, in the 90s, really, so many people did so much incredible work. And that shifted. Now I think, one of the things that I worry about this generation, and I won't speak or evaluate, in any kind of way, for folks who are younger is that, ah, you know, everybody's observing everybody so much, right? And everybody's branding themselves, which, you know, I just think is the death of any kind of liberation, like, Fuck branding, do your work, be yourself, you know, building brands in organizations, or death to movement organizations, I think the same about building brands with people, it's like, if you are so worried about who's on the balcony and how they're perceiving you, you are not going to live the life you want to live. So I worry about that. I mean, I see it in my own kids how observed they are how much they're they're struggling with people parsing language and parsing every bit little expression that they have. I'm so happy. I had some privacy around my own mistakes and my own journey of, you know, hunting and pecking and figuring out things. I think, just partly because of the 90s organizing and the organizing that's happened all the way along, there's a much broader set of understandings about what LGBTQ women who partner with women are partner with anybody. You know, what our sexual expressions are, like, what our sexual practices are. I think we've carved that space so well with each other. But I do worry about how observed everybody feels.
Jacqueline
Yeah, I think right now, part of it was the trends that we're seeing in social media, particularly in Tik Tok. It went from authenticity to now. Now pseudo authenticity, now branded authenticity, right? So it went from being very made up and having the right lighting to now that actually not being the thing and you and you have to look like you just woke up and the cameras at a strange angle, but down that is intentional. Now people are preparing themselves to show up in that way. And so I think the original intention around sharing authenticity sharing authentically, to have connection and representation was was wonderful. But now that there's an audience for that, there is now a shift in terms of how do I grow my audience in this authenticity space, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are around in term then being able to tell one story, like the motivation of being able to tell one story because it does feel so personal. But could we then utilize that in a bad way, if you will to say, like, here's my story, but really trying to draw in an audience for that.
Jaime Grant
Yeah. I mean, why are we telling our stories? To what end for me, I am a gender and racial justice, revolutionary, I want to see this entire order gone, I want to see a totally different way of organizing our lives, you know, top to bottom. And so that's why I'm telling my story. I'm not telling it to build followers, I'm not telling it to build my livelihood, right. And in desire mapping space, one of the things that happens is 150 people in a room, all of a sudden, they're in community, talking this way, and one of the things we say is the most important thing is to find that conversation, where you started here is to go out and find the people who can hear you, you know, create these spaces together. And we have given you a way of thinking about it around centering, respect and mutuality, we've given you a way to think about it around care, and taking care that trauma is here, because we live in such a fucking violent order. And we can do this we can be ourselves and, and people are like, Well, why tell these stories? A pleasure. I mean, I am, I am not here to liberate everybody. But myself. I mean, the vision I have, for a just world is a world full of pleasure. Where pleasure is central, where it's how we meet each other. It's, you know, there's so much laughter, there's so much connectivity, there's so much more touching that feels good, you know, consensual and casual and amazing than what we have now. Right? Because we live in such a violent space, it's difficult to even think about touching people write in public people that we don't know, what if we lived in a place that was completely different. And it was just like, touch was welcome. We can't even imagine building a world where touch casual touches just welcome from all kinds of people because they all have our best interests at heart. Right? They you know, they're not trying to get something from us, they're not trying to use us in some way. That's the world I'm headed toward. And that's why I want to tell these stories, not just to belong to a violent order, or get my own piece of it.
Jacqueline
Yeah,
Effy
I think that's probably why doing them in these workshop style, closed intimate rooms, is more effective than doing it on on tick tock, where you kind of, you're sort of speaking out to the interwebs. Whereas in I think in in these intimate, cozy rooms where everyone's in the same boat, I can see how doing it in that format is more authentic and and thus more healing and informative and insightful. So I think your medium is the message right? doing them in that format. I can see how it's more effective and try to do them on Instagram or Tiktok, where you're kind of narrating to your
Jaime Grant
follower followers, right? Yeah.
Effy
It was a performative space, rather than a healing and introspective space, I'd imagine.
Jaime Grant
Yeah. But I mean, I don't want to dismiss those spaces. I think a lot of good work information is happening in those spaces. So some of my friends were talking about the difference between fighting and building, right. And, you know, often in organizational Spaces, we're fighting the forces that are coming at us, which is work we have to do. And I just, you know, I'm 61. Now, I want to be in building space. I've fought my ass off for 40 years longer. And I really want to build I love the building spaces. And I think if we don't have enough of them, we lose hope. And we tire out, we were out. We don't know what we are building toward. I mean, the thing people say about the workshop space, is that it's kind of a future space, like for the three hours, five hours that you're in it. You're in a space that we it's, it's aspiring, it's imaginative. It's like, what if we lived like this all the time? Yes, you know, and those spaces are so precious to us as organizers, we gotta have them. I just think let's just build out let's just build out like I'm in there for three hours. And now I have this community of like 5060 people I can talk about sex with all the time. The thing we say to each other's what's on your map. Now, you know what's up for you this year? I found a new thing on my map. I can't believe I didn't have this on my map more. It's a language right. And we're doing it over 15 years. There's and there's never, you know, nobody ever stops finding things. It's incredible. And you know, I, every time I give a workshop, there's a mind blowing moment for me. There's just like, I can't believe this person just shared this, whether it's, you know, the faculty of setup or somebody in the room, who just stands up and says something that is just such an unbelievable gift to me around and all of us around what we need to just imagine and go forward.
Jacqueline
Yeah, yeah. Fe, do you? Do you want to choose one of the the four questions during your your story? Oh, let's see.
Effy
Yeah. Okay. We'll look at these questions quickly. I think I want to go with the first one. What sexual encounters or encounters with my desire stand out most memorable? I feel like that. I can think through that. And I think, let me just gather my thoughts. Scroll through the memories. I can
Jaime Grant
do one if you want me to start while you scroll. But
Effy
yes, yes. Yes. Show us how?
Jaime Grant
Well I had this two column, a lover I had this was an encounter over many, many months, was this person who I met online to such a sexy story met online when I was, you know, in a open relationship, but the terms the relationship was the person I was with was the decider, right? Which I was a bottom. And I really liked that he decided who I could be with. And so this person approached me. And we had lots of things lined up, but it was like, oh, sorry, you know, my partner picks me does not pick you. So, so the person went away. And I, then 10 years later, I'm not with the person who was deciding anymore, and their parenting partner, but not a lover anymore. And I run into them again. And it turns out for 10 years, they've been following my work, you know, like they and you know, first I was like, This is creepy. But but the thing is, they did not intrude on my life in any way. Right? They just actually had a Google alert on their phone about anything. And I was, like, 10 years. I mean, and here's the thing, when he told me, I was like, This is so fucking hot. Why is this so hot? It you know, so we get into the thing. And I mean, he just he read my articles, he, you know, I was just like, damn, and it's like a neuro scientist, right. And he's got a full life himself. It's not like he's sitting around, waiting for me or anything. But it's just like, it's so interesting to have been observed all these years. And I'm a middle child. And I was unobserved in my family, except to correct me, right? I mean, the sort of attending kind of stuff. No. So I'm like, Oh, my God, this is hitting me in such an intense way. So we build this relationship where I do the Find My Phone, you know, find you on your phone thing, right? So every time I leave my house, I go to work, I get in the car, he gets an alert that I'm moving somewhere, right? And so I said to him, you know, what is this doing for you? Know, he says, I get hard every time and I was just like, oh my god, I'm so and I am so in. And then I would just get aroused. Now, just leaving my house thinking it's the knee was, you know what I'm saying. So we just had this crazy thing for a few months, that actually just got to be too much for me if you know what I mean. And I tried to bind it, and then it didn't really work. So he, you know, shuffled off to this life. But I have to say, learning this desire point that I actually felt so cared for, and so desired around somebody really wanting to observe my movements, and again, not control them not intrude on them, but that they felt gratified. Watching me go through my day. Oh, my God, I had more orgasms in those three months. I mean, it was fucking insane. I just felt so turned on constantly. It was it was just nuts. Amazing. So again, I think this, this thing from my mother used to say, Oh, you were such a good baby, you could put you down in the crib and never think about you again the whole rest of the day. She was a very overburdened person, right. And so I just started to think about that story in my childhood and why this particular way of desiring me was so meaningful to so anyway, that's a great story.
Jacqueline
I want to know just hours of telling the story.
Effy
I also wonder if he still has the Google Alert?
Jaime Grant
Yeah, don't you? Only do I have no idea. Do you want to know I have no idea but interesting. He does. I know he's not I'm again, he can't observe me on my phone anymore. I took that up
Effy
and maybe he's gonna get a Google alert about this. Okay, if you're listening. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. Nice. Again, my story. I've told the story on this podcast before I just strike of luck that despite being born, a woman to go in another country that's, you know, still traditional and have seen and heard all the stories, somehow, my relationship with my body and sexuality just didn't get the memo, I got the memo about everything else. But when it comes to my sexuality, I remember discovering my vulva, at a very, very young age, who told them I like for thinking, This feels good. And thinking that we're going to be BFFs forever, like I and then once that connection was in place, and I was an only child, so I spent a lot of time on my own, which gave me like, the space and I was unobserved as well, my parents were busy and doing their thing. And I was unobserved and by myself and I just had plenty of space and privacy to get to know my body. And somewhere along the line, it got shrink, wrapped in thing, impenetrable shrink wrap. And I just never felt shame around that what I did feel was I felt like people were uneasy if I was to talk about my sexuality openly, so I just didn't with the with thinking, like, I don't want to make them feel awkward. Like, you don't get it, it's gonna be awkward as I'm just gonna keep it to myself. Even if you shame me, I'm like, it's just comes from ignorance, like, you don't know what I know about my body. So like, Thank you, but no, thank you is kind of my attitude for a long time. It also what it also did is because I stopped talking about it, it stopped me from aligning with people who are interested in sex. So what I was having was, you know, healthy amount of sex with people who were interested in either me and my body, or their own sexuality. And then years went past I had, you know, average sex, normal sex. And then when I moved to New York, about 1011 years ago, I met somebody who, for the first time, I'd met somebody who was not only interested in having sex with me, or their own pleasure, but they were interested in sex as a topic. And they were learning about it. And they were adventurous, and they want to try things. And for the first time, it was like, oh, kindred spirits. And those encounters with that person, which look good three years, we dated for a good three years. And they, we went to six parties, and we had orgies, and we tried things and toys, and it was a safe experimental space, where for the first time that I could really just like, try BDSM, try spiritual sexuality, try toys, try fetish, like, all the things. And it was just like an adventure playground for adults, with somebody who was as nerdy as I was about, like sexual experiences. And they took so much pleasure in crafting and creating stories and adventures. So I'd be like, let's try this, and you just go away and the kid get all the things and you'd be like, Okay, here's the story, we're going to do this and do that. And that those three years were probably where I felt most sexually self expressed. It was like the hottest and the most varied and different adventure sex that I've had that allow me to get to know myself, even if it wasn't good enough, even when I was like, Oh, this didn't work, or this actually doesn't feel good. It just, it felt like information and insight, and wonder and discovery, not like, oh, this was a shitty experience, and I don't want to have it happen again. So those are my three glorious years of really following my desire with somebody who was also interested in sex. Is this like, powerful, fun place that you can hang out in?
Jaime Grant
Hmm, can I ask you some questions? Please? Oh, yes. So do you think that they've seen like, like, a conductor and or, you know, they're doing they're conducting the orchestra? They're, they're putting all the things together? Do you think that was a big part of it? Or do you think the nerdiness or that you were sort of on a similar plane of discovery together, like, are all of those things in there, like,
Effy
honestly, it felt like a real collaboration, like I could come up with the ideas, and he could really like color them in, like, I would give, like sketch things out. And I was allowed, like, I could go anywhere. And I think that's what was hard about that there are no boundaries other than my own. And he was a willing partner and I could like sketch out ideas. And he was just very creative and imaginative, he would just like color them in and make them like brighter and shinier and more adventurous and more eccentric that I could ever imagine. And I think just the journey part of it that I could then go on this journey that I sketched, but it was still new and there was like unexpected twists and turns. The part of it was like he was also in discovery journey of his own. He had his own experience and I was very clear about that. And that I was a tool and I say that from like a good place like it was a tool in his in his adventure, and he was a tool in my adventure. My like that too. I liked being a part of someone's discovery. And that was also that was also hot. You know, like, as they were touching my body, it wasn't that they were touching their body. They were like, looking for things, seeking things and like learning things about themselves and being so part of that experience was really hot for me. Like really intimate, like intimacy into me. You see, I was like, Yeah, we're literally seeing each other right now.
Jaime Grant
So collaborator, you really like a collaborator, you like the collaborator to bring a different set of things than you have? Yeah. But thank you for your story.
Effy
That's incredible. Thank you for listening.
Jacqueline Misla
I will I will answer the same question then, is that also spoke to me. So if he did not get the memo, I got both hers and mine, I got a double set of memo. I grew up in a very religious environment, and soaked in all of the shame that exists around my body. And I'm someone who was and is very sexual. So turn on get turned on really easily can have multiple orgasms, like just my mind and my body crave that part of who I am. And so that felt incredibly destructive as a young person because it was continual shame around, particularly masturbation at some point. I don't know if I shared this on a podcast, I had made a deal with God, that if I, I made a net like a proclamation, I would never masturbate again, which I didn't even know that language at that point. But I would never touch myself again, because I knew that that we weren't supposed to do that. And that if I did any future family I was supposed to have if I was supposed to have three children, I masturbated one more time than God would take away one of those children. Oh my god, I did it twice. And God would take away two of those children. Because I thought to myself, I have to figure out what is the largest consequence that will get me to stop, because I can't stop, right? And there were all these like, work arounds. Like I would not do anything with my hands. But then I would lean up against the bed because maybe that didn't count. Like it was really just insight, like, all of these things were happening inside of me. And it wasn't until I was married, I was married to my ex husband, that I felt like, Okay, now this is okay. Like, I'm having sex. And, and it's okay. Like, like God, and my ancestors and all that, like, there's no judgement now. But it's and so that brought me joy. But it still felt closed off because I knew, but yet didn't express that I was pansexual that I was attracted, I knew and couldn't express yet that I was polyamorous. And so I was having now sanctioned sex. But it wasn't the fullness of what I wanted to have that still was off the table. You know, many years later, my husband and I were together for over a decade had had a child. And at some point, I was really trying to work on opening up our marriage and it built a friendship and then romantic connection with my now wife. And for many reasons, including my desire to open up that that marriage ended. And I started to then now date my wife, but that still felt all these things, I still felt like I'm not supposed to be with a woman and I'm not supposed to be doing this. And for a period of overlap when we were separated, but not divorced, I'm still married. And it was just such a shame that I I like finally had the thing I finally like could now be with multiple people because she was also open I could now finally be with different genders, but I couldn't I couldn't yet still enjoy it. Love public displays of affection, but we would go outside and I would you know retreat my hand. Because when when people think and see and and if children saw this, what message is this to children to see me doing this. And I remember one time in particular, we were at her house. And I remember we we were making love, we were having sex and I remember being laying down on my back and with my you know, looking kind of up to the to the ceiling. And in that moment thinking this cannot be wrong. And having a direct conversation with God and saying, I am inviting you into this space. Because this just cannot be wrong. It felt so meaningful and beautiful and real. That I could not imagine that God did not want that for me. And it was the very first time in my life with those two pieces of my my faith and my religion, all those things could come together with my sexuality because my faith was important to me as as much as my sexuality. And so there was I remember just looking up at the ceiling and and naming that and saying this is not wrong. And I invite you into this space.
Jaime Grant
Yeah, it's incredible.
Jacqueline
You know, it's been a journey since but,
Jacqueline Misla
you know, now I am on a podcast and talk about 600,000 people. So certainly there was an evolution there. But it was the first moment where I just rejected all of the noise that I had heard and I decided to listen to that internal voice and then I didn't want to look back after
Jaime Grant
incredible Yeah, incredible. I'm One of the things that really strikes me is about how much you know, I mean, grooming is such a word everybody's using right now for us again, I mean, everything old is new again, I feel like I'm, you know, back in my 60s childhood. But I feel like the ways that religious shame gets thrown on us the ways that familial shame gets thrown on us, it grooms us for violence, right? Because it grooms us to give away parts of ourselves that are so crucial, so young, you're talking to yourself as a child and saying, I, you know, you can take my child, if I do this again to myself, right? I mean, that kind of psychic violence in which we are taught to turn away from ourselves to like, core, you know, things that are about our essence, right, that are about, you know, what I think of as a spiritual core, you know, our values core, our pleasure core, and so that when people start to act violently toward us in this, you know, environment, we don't even know how to respond, because we've abandoned ourselves so long ago, around what we've been told we can have what's appropriate. I just think that is a kind of grooming all women get around our sexuality that we we have to abandon ourselves early, because it's wrong, whatever, whatever kind of sexuality we have any kind of pursuit of pleasure is wrong. So when people start aggressing, on us, we think we have, you know, no claim with to our own bodies, we think we we can't even respond, right? So. And I think that moment you're talking about, about turning it on its head, like, you're actually telling God, they can come into the room, rather than God telling you whether this is an okay thing, right? You're saying I'm, you can come along here, because I have found the truth about myself, you know, I have found God in the space, I've found a spiritual opening that I can't deny that nobody could deny this is real, right. And I do think when we can find those stories and bring them back together, I mean, shame is so corrosive, it takes up power, it takes so much from us. I mean, this is what our enemies know, they want us to be powerless. They don't want us to envision a world better than this. Right? And to go toward it, they want us to be mired in the ship. I'm just in the ecstasy of your story. And, and the power of it. It's like God, you, I invite you here, if you know, cuz I found it. Right. That's just incredible. So thank you. Thank you.
Effy
Well, yeah, it was beautiful to be able to share our stories and answer your questions, or one of your questions. We are wondering if we can learn a little bit more about you. Sure. Sure. And our rapid fire round. Yes. So we have four different questions that we ask everyone. And we have everyone's answers. So there's no right answer. Just whatever comes up for you. Yeah, Jackie, you want to be?
Jacqueline
Sure. So the first question is, what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self about love sex, or relationships?
Jaime Grant
I think we just really want to affirm myself, because I think very early on, I was a critical thinker, and I was pushing back on stuff, and I would just want to say, you're right, they're wrong. You know, like, just, you know, you keep doing that. Keep doing that this is this is going to get you where you want to go.
Effy
Nice. Love that. What is one romantic or sexual adventure on your bucket list?
Jaime Grant
I would say I still, I've had plenty of group things and triads and whatever. But you know, I've never had one where everybody's really just focused on me. And I would say that is still really where I'm just really the sub the sub sub. And there's a lot of Dom's, and there's just discussion about me. And you know, just just, it's really about me. Nice. I would say that that is still on my list.
Jacqueline
So that somehow now just made it to my list. Nowadays, thank you very much for that. Talk to grant. How do you challenge the status quo?
Jaime Grant
Hmm. I think this work. I mean, I again, thinking about building all the time in this, you know, I would say about I come from a basketball family. I feel like I'm in the fourth quarter, right? And if you are a basketball fan, everything happens in the fourth quarter, you lead up, you have a good game, you can lose it all. You can win it all on the fourth quarter. It's crucial. So I feel very strongly about this fourth quarter being about building. Of course I'm fighting, but I don't want to fight as much. I don't have the appetite for it anymore. Really want to be in those rooms where we're in future spaces where we're creating the kind of world we want to be in. And we're giving each other a lot of hope and a lot of ideas. And we're just we're doing it regardless of what else is going on in the ether, you know?
Jacqueline
Yeah. Thank you for that reframe between fighting and building that is something that I'm gonna take with me.
Effy
Yeah, it's like the difference between surviving and thriving. Right? What are you curious about lately?
Jaime Grant
Hmm. Well, I'm not having a lot of sex right now, I would say the last couple of years. I'm just very curious about that. I mean, I, I'm really happy. I mean, my kids are doing well gone through this accountability process with my ex. And, you know, there's just so much more love between me and my parenting partner, who has been in my life for 15 years, I have this amazing child with, I have eight people in my life, my eight that I sort of used to say, I always had like one bed, you know, at one one in a rather inattentive girlfriend or boyfriend, you know. And now I have eight overly attentive, best friends who are really like, having the best lover you could ever imagine. Except not we're not having any sex, right? Although I do have sex with one of them. But she lives far away. And I mean, I see her a few times a year. So one person in my eight is a sex sex partner. But it's a very non sexual group. And it's so enlivening. And they're so doting. And I see them all the time, they call me all the time, they text me all the time. They tell me, they love me all the time. So him in this incredible basking kind of time of being seen in my fullness and appreciated, and I'm not having a lot of sex. And so I just am like, perhaps curious, that's very curious. And what do I think about it? And you know, and occasionally somebody pops up as a possible new sex partner, and it's like I think I really am looking for that DOM who's going to orchestrate that? That Sunday moment for me? Otherwise, I'm fine.
Jacqueline
I've had so much sex.
Jaime Grant
I've had such an incredibly full life I, I'm really loving being attended to in the way that I am. So that's a very curious moment for me, because especially because I'm in all these spaces where I'm talking to people about sex, and I'm not having a lot of sex. So it's just like, that's
Effy
okay.
Jaime Grant
That's curious.
Jacqueline
Well, thank you. This was a very meaningful conversation. But
Jaime Grant
yeah, for me, too. I loved hearing your stories. Thank you so much for them for you.
Jacqueline
To hear more from Dr. Jamie grant, find her on Twitter at Dr. Jamie grant, or on medium or you can listen to episodes from her podcast, the just sex podcast. To get her workbook on great sex mapping your desire, visit politics dash proz.com. We would love to hear your stories. Head to our Facebook group, share your story and discuss the episode with other listeners. Email us at listening at we are curious foxes.com Or give us a call at 646-450-9079 and give others the gift of stories by sharing this episode with partners and friends. And by leaving us a rating and comment on Apple Spotify or wherever you're listening. If you're still curious, join us on Patreon for many episodes, special after-hours content, and over 50 videos from educator-led workshops. Go to Patreon @wearecuriousfoxes.
Effy
This episode is produced and edited by Nina Pollack, who was instrumental in us telling our stories. Our intro music is composed by Dancehall we are so grateful for that work. And we're grateful to you for listening. As always, stay curious friends. Yeah, I have to be like softly spoken. There's exactly NPR voice. DM talk to you Jim Grant. I do not just Lulla Lulla Lulla. Curious Fox podcast is not and will never be the final word on any topic was solely aimed to encourage curiosity and provide a space for exploration through connection and story. We encourage you to listen with an open and curious mind and we'll look forward to your feedback. Stay curious friends. Stay curious, curious, curious and curious. Stay curious. Stay curious.
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