52. permission to change your mind: quickie with a sex therapist

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52. permission to change your mind: quickie with a sex therapist

This episode was recorded on my horizontal does america tour in November of 2017. I took to the road in a little blue car and drove solo around the country with two intentions: to feel as free as I could possibly feel, and to lie down and record as many episodes with fascinating humans as I could manage.

Lila:  And I hope that, going forward, I also give myself permission to change my mind, even if I’m in the middle of an act with someone, in the middle of a sexual act with someone. And it no longer feels good.

Cat:  Oh yeah, I’ve told people in the middle of it, be like, “I’m actually satisfied now.” And they’ll be like, “You’re satisfied?” I’m like, “Yeah. I’m satisfied. That’s enough.” (laughs) I’ve had, and I’m not even kidding, I’ve had the most amazing responses back. You know at first, I’ll, I’ll get like, sometimes I’ll get a bewildered look, like, “Y— you’re satisfied? You haven’t— you haven’t come, you haven’t—” I’m like, “No, I, that’s— I feel internally that this is e— good. And to stop here.” They’re like, “Oh,”

Lila:  But is—

Cat:  “Ok.”

Lila:  — “I’m satisfied” the truth, or—

Cat:  Oh yeah.

Lila:  Or is that just a nice way to stop?

Cat:  Mm-mm. No. I was satisfied. I was good. I don’t always have to have an orgasm to have an amazing experience.

Lila:  Sure.

Cat:  But I’ve really developed this internal “yes” system, or “no” system, I’m constantly checking in, to be like, Does this feel— still feel good? Like you just said: Does this still feel good? (Lila mmhm’s) Or feel this, um, satiated feeling, you know like when you eat, and you’re at this point of, Ahh.

Lila:  Satiated, yeah.

Cat:  That’s good. That’s good. Any more would be too much. So I do tune in with that. And communicating with partners now, it’s like, I’m very communicative with my partners about this. When my … body contracts, or when it expands, that’s my yes and no system. And when it contracts, I know that that’s my edge or that’s where, you know, something’s being triggered or something’s not feeling in alignment with me, and even if I don’t know what it is, exactly, I’ll vocalize it, and just let them witness it, or be there with me in it.

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Welcome into horizontal, the podcast that takes you into my bed and lets yours ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations. (Thanks to listener ghostheart for that luscious description.) I make private conversations public with the intention to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and cultivate human connection.

I’m really glad you’re here.

This episode was recorded on my horizontal does america tour in November of 2017. I took to the road in a little blue car and drove solo around the country with two intentions:

1. to feel as free as I could possibly feel, and
2. to lie down and record as many episodes with as many fascinating humans as I could manage.

In this quickie episode, recorded right before she therapized people in the morning, I lie down with the sex therapist Dr. Cat Meyer.

Dr. Cat is a spritely, sensual whirligig, with big green eyes and big brown hair and a slender, bendable body. She’s a yoga teacher, a creatrix, a playful creature, a dancer of her prayers, a licensed relationship therapist, and a reiki practitioner.

If you live in Beverly Hills, where Dr. Cat sees people in her private practice, she could be your sex therapist.

Cat’s own podcast, eatplaysex, which just sounds like whipped cream in podcast form, doesn’t it? explores subjects in the very same wheelhouse as this one.

On her Instagram, sexloveyoga, which I follow voraciously, and I suggest you do as well, she shares the writing she spins from thoughtfulness, self-inquiry, gentle nudging, and a vision she holds for us all to open the most profoundly to our deepest longing, pleasure, and confidence… her posts are little gifts for us, and each serves as a reminder of her mantra, “I choose myself powerfully.”

Find her on the interwebz at sexloveyoga.com and catmeyer.com.

We first met at a birthday party in Ojai, a 40th birthday extravaganza that was more like a miniature festival than any birthday party I’d ever seen, complete with food trucks, a musical amphitheatre carved of rocks like a miniature Sedona, an elaborate sensual ritual invoking the energies of masculine and feminine to infuse the man we were celebrating, and a giant bathtub truck with a Dr. Bronner’s “foam experience,” like the one at Foam Against the Machine at Burning Man.

The amount of glorious attention and effervescent love paid to this man made me burn with a heady potion of envy, admiration, and inspiration. “I want people to come together over me in this way,” I thought. “I want to facilitate this experience for someone else, too.”

Inside the house by the pool, in a room made for cuddling and love, festooned with pillows and soft things, people were practicing AcroYoga.

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Having taught for so many years, and drifted away from the practice for many more, I sometimes move away from people who are in the throes of it, the ones who fly people at every opportunity, every park visit and ecstatic dance and house party. But this time I was drawn in. I offered a therapeutic flight to a friend of my friend. His first. That looped me in as one of them and built a bridge for them to talk with me. One of them was an AcroYoga teacher as well. When I told him about the podcast, he said, “Oh my God, There’s someone here you HAVE to know.” And he called Cat over.

Six months later, we were lying on a shaggy rug in her living room, her pet bunny hiding out in the corner, California morning light insistent through the blinds, shaking off sleep and recording this story.

We talk about threesomes and the right to change your mind, delayed emotional responses, how the point of sexual no-return is an illusion, being satisfied before orgasm, looking for yeses and nos in the body as expansions and contractions, and how meditation and affirmations don’t have to look like what we were taught they look like.

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If you enjoy lying down with us, this is how you can make sure I continue to create independent, uncensored, ad-free radio. Become a patron of the horizontal arts.

Become a Patron!

It’s like a subscription service, crowd-funding for artistic patronage. You offer a monthly contribution, from $2 a month on up, and you get a level of special access to me and my work. You know that you are a direct catalyst for making the world a more intimate place. And I do a happy happy dance, and then horizontal again.

Become a Patron!

I have big plans, big big dreams for what’s next in the world of horizontal, and you can help me happen it.

Also: I send what I call “missives” to my email list once a week. It’s like lobbing a thousands messages in a bottle out to sea. I share my writing (the most recent missive was about my abortion and the right to choose), I share resources from the episodes, I share saucy photos, and other miscellaneous bits of interest and ephemera, like that time I was in Playboy … talking about dating outside of your political party in the era of Trump. To receive all this goodness directly in your inbox, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com and add lila@horizontalwithlila.com to your address book, for good measure. We don’t want it getting lost in some “updates” tab or something, do we?

Indeed no. No we do not.

On next week’s horizontal, I lie down with Wry of Wry Polytalks, a super-entertainer, a clear-talking, thoughtful advocate for alternative relationships, kinky stuff, destigmatizing conversation around mental health, and the host of many, many a panel. His voice is like whiskey and a rec room with burgundy leather armchairs.

You’ll see.

And now darling, come lie down with us, and a little white bunny.

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Links to Things:

Patron of the horizontal arts!

SexLoveYoga.com, Cat’s website (yoga, retreats, playshops, podcast, Goddess Celebration)

EatPlaySex, Cat’s podcast

CatMeyer.com, Cat’s other website (sex therapy, yoga, reiki, meditation)

sexloveyoga, Cat’s stellar Instagram account (I read all the words!)

Dr. Bronner’s Foam Experience / Foam Against the Machine a public bath that has to be dubbed a “foam experience” in order to get around rules against public bathing (I didn’t even know there WERE rules against public bathing)

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Show Notes (feel free to share quotes/resources on social media, and please link to this website or my Patreon!):

website link: https://horizontalwithlila.com/

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

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[8:27]  Cat tells Lila a story about an unintentional threesome.

[9:30]

Cat:  So we all went back to his house and we all crawled into bed and snuggled in, right, it was super cute, and then, (Lila mmhm’s) and he and I had never talked about, you know, having any sort of other partners together— we were exploring each other, right? But then, you know that, feeling, when you’re next to somebody, and you feel the sexual energy?

Lila:  Mm-hmmm.

Cat:  I could feel it, and I was like— can I cuss? Can I curse in this?

Lila:  Of course!

Cat:  OhmyGod, I was like, “Fuuuck!” (both laugh) Like, what? I feel it, I feel it, and I was like, “Cat, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off inside you.”

Lila:  Oooooohhhh!

Cat:  So I was trying to manage this whole sexual energy in myself and I was like, turning the whole bed on. And then the next thing I knew, like I could feel movement in the bed, you know how somebody starts movin’ in their hips (Lila mmhmmm’s) and you’re like, and at that point I was like, “Mphh, okay.” (Lila laughs) “I guess this is happening.” (both laugh) And this was, you know, before I was actually good at communicating; now, I’m a badass communicator— I’m pretty good at it if I may say so myself. Got some slips sometimes, but at that point, I was just like, “Okay, here it comes. It’s happening.” And I could feel her starting to move her hands across him, and then across me, and the next thing I knew I was just like, “Okay, if this is happening,” so I just took off my clothes and (giggles) like, dove right into it. But the thing of it is that I was so pissed off, at him because, nobody checked in with me. (Lila mmhm’s) Right, and I felt so pressured in that moment, and in the m— I remember my thoughts at the time, and being like, Cat, you’re— this is cool. This is awesome. You’re getting into a threesome right now, like, Go You. You know. And at the same time, there was another voice that was saying, I’m so angry at him. Like, he didn’t check in with me, he didn’t ask if the— I was okay with this, you know and this is happening around me. So, when he would give me sexual attention, or go down on me, or, you know, play with me, I would not let him kiss me. At all. But then with her, I, was making out with her, I was giving her pleasure, I made her orgasm, and yet, I wouldn’t let myself really enjoy the whole experience. Now watching her was really fun for me. It was so beautiful to watch her in her pleasure and her in her orgasm, and yet, I stopped myself. And, it was interesting in retrospect because, it was like I was, the resentment that I had for what was occurring… I didn’t want him to get the pleasure of seeing me get off. (Lila mmhm’s) Isn’t that bizarre?

Lila:  No. (both laugh)

Cat:  I know, right? (laughs) But it’s like, I don’t give myself the pleasure, I don’t fully allow myself to have fun, because I’m still holding the— I’m holding this resentment. (Lila mmhm’s) And, it’s so funny. And then he and I had— Wesley and I had this conversation the next day, where I was y— I brought up everything, and an— and it was primarily around— ‘cause I sit with emotions. And I sit with jealousy and I sit with, you know, upset and everything, and I tuned into that, and realized it was coming from a place of, I don’t know where he and I stand, so I didn’t feel on solid foundation, in order to invite another partner in. […] I’ve no problem with inviting other partners in, and having threesomes or, you know, foursomes, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Or my partner, you know, being with somebody else. But the, the fact that I didn’t know where we were. And in that moment there was no check-in. And in that moment there was no communication, there was just, This is happening. Jump on or, jump off. And there was that fear of being perceived as a wet blanket or, (Lila mmhm’s) you know like, Oh, you’re not mature enough or, you know. We’re gonna have fun, and … you’re ruining it. And he didn’t take that well. And that was the other thing. He just saw it as, um, “Well, I, you know, we can’t— go further then.” And it was a total disregard of my feelings. Annnnd, in that moment I realized, Huh, okay, this isn’t my partner. Like, my partner wouldn’t ever say that to me. I’m amazed that that didn’t ruin my interest in that type of play. But it definitely taught me to, ehm, look at why I’m not speaking up. Why I’m not using my voice to create exactly what I want, in a situation, sexual or relationship. And how, easily it can be that, pressure can cause us to be quiet.

Lila:  (emphatically)  Mmhmm.

Cat:  And this is, this is common, I think. Like a lot of people experience this. Where they, are in situations and they just don’t, feel they can speak up for what they want or what they need. We have needs.

Lila:  Mmhm. Not to mention the fact that this was his assistant.

Cat:  Yeah, this was his assistant.

Lila:  Ummmhmm. (Cat laughs)  Hmmm. Hmm, Wesley.

Cat:  Oh, Wesley.

Lila:  Come on. Nnn, power differential, sex— maybe she felt pressured.

Cat:  Oh no, she jumped right on. She uh, I noticed, ‘cause I was uh, watching, doyouknow? ‘Cause I was hyper-aware, right? (Lila mmhm’s) And she was, mm, crawled into bed, naked (which isn’t anything, I didn’t care about that at the time, I was like, Ok cool, you know like, we’re chill). But I, Iii asked him, afterward, and he said that they had been hooking up. For a while. So that was another thing, I, I think— and there’s no blame on her, I think that she— uh, because that was their dynamic, she probably felt that that was okay in that situation too. And it would’ve been, if it was communicated, I think.

Lila:  But I think the other piece of this is that we never know what’s happening inside of other people, until we ask, and sometimes not even then. Sometimes people can’t even articulate, even then. And she may have appeared to be fully on board and in her pleasure, (Cat mmhm’s) but we don’t actually know.

Cat:  No, we have no idea.

Lila:  How many times have women faked it? (Cat mmhm’s) How many times? In order to not be perceived as a wet blanket, in order to be perceived as the fun, carefree, free love kind of person.

[17:20]  On yeses, nos, changing your mind, and the Broadway actor who pressured Lila.

Lila:  The thing that I’ve been talking with a lot of people about recently, very inspired by Marcia B. of Cuddle Party, is: the right to change your mind.

Cat:  (emphatically) Mmhmm!

Lila:  You were “a yes,” as they say, “a yes,” I’m still kind of wrapping my head around whether I like that or not, but you were a yes to getting into bed and snuggling with them. (Cat mmhm’s) Then other things started happening. And you didn’t want to change your mind. You’re like, “Well, I’m already in,” (Cat mmhm’s) and I was talking with Pamela about this—

Cat:  Oogh, I love her.

Lila:  — this idea of a “point of no return,”

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  — that I’ve felt many times, and actually had spelled out for me, by, so there’s this Broadway actor— and why we don’t name, you know, I’m not gonna name him, and I feel annoyed, because I’m sure he’s done this to many many many other young women, and, I’m concerned, that I’m gonna get blamed, (Cat mm’s sympathetically) so I’m not gonna name him. So there’s this Broadway actor who I met because I was in a show with a member of his family. And then he came to the show. And then, as seemed to be his M.O. (although I didn’t realize it until a little bit later and talked to somebody else), he found my email— I think through the contact list, ‘cause he was doing a little something for the show. (Cat mmhm’s) And he emailed me, and started a correspondence. And I was in my early 20s, very soon out of theatre school, just a few years out of theatre school. And he invited me up to his apartment, you know, in Midtown, and I was living out in Greenpoint, in Brooklyn. And I went up to his place, and I think we started kissing and he started touching me and I pulled back for a second and I said that I wasn’t sure. (Cat mmhm’s) That I wanted to. And, he said, “Well you’re already here.”

Cat:  Mmhm. Yeah I’ve heard that one. I’ve heard that one.

Lila:  And so?! (laughs, sort of) And so? That doesn’t mean I can’t say no or change my mind. And I did have sex with him.

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  And I didn’t enjoy it.

Cat:  Mmhm.

Lila:  And he didn’t, reach out to me afterwards. And, I have seen him, a couple of times since, and there’s never been an apology or a recognition, that he, coerced me.

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  He coerced me into having sex with him (Cat mmhm’s) when I even, even found the voice to pause and say, “I’m not sure.” (Cat mmhm’s) But I didn’t quite have the confidence to say, “I’m going home.” The other thing about this is, I’m broke, I’m in my early 20s, it is late, and I will have t—

Cat:  In New York?

Lila:  And it is in New York, and I will have to take two or three subways in order to get home, super late, when it’s not necessarily the safest.

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  And I made many decisions to stay over at the apartments of many men and boys, because, I didn’t have cab fare.

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[20:57]  On convincing yourself that it’s okay, that you’re into it.

[21:37]  Cat on how she communicates when she is satisfied before orgasm.

[23:25]  Cat on checking in with her body, and the signs.

Cat:  When my … body contracts, or when it expands, that’s my yes and no system. And when it contracts, I know that that’s my edge or that’s where, you know, something’s being triggered or something’s not feeling in alignment with me, and even if I don’t know what it is, exactly, I’ll vocalize it, and just let them witness it, or be there with me in it.

Lila:  Where do you feel the contraction?

Cat:  A lot of times in my stomach, but I get it in my, in my, uhhh, chest, more near the sternum, part of it.

Lila:  Yeah.

Cat:  Yeah. Or, I also get this drop into my stomach. (Lila mmhm’s) It’s almost like my stomach’s falling out. I’ll get that one too, and those are my three, enh, contraction pieces, so I know there’s something there, whether it’s something doesn’t feel right, something’s not in alignment, (Lila mm’s) or something from my past is being triggered, so something unprocessed from an earlier time is not being stimulated here.

Lila:  Mmm, I want to listen more to the cues of my body, and it’s easier when I’m solo. It’s easier when I’m driving alone, right?

Cat:  Sure.

Lila:  But I have, pain in my solar plexus (Cat mm’s sympathetically) that I, call anxiety pain, ‘cause that’s what it feels like, (Cat mm’s) but what it is, as you say, is a contraction.

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  Contraction of my solar plexus that feels… not okay. (light laugh) And then I, I have a, a throat contraction. (Cat mmhm’s) If something triggers me in such a way that I feel sad,

Cat:  Yeah.

Lila:  Or, some kind of emotion comes up— anger can also do it, anger can constrict my throat as well—

Cat:  Sure.

Lila:  Some sort of … (sigh) grief or disappointment in the moment, or, I’ve also experienced that stomach drop, that you’re talking about. Usually I have it when— it’s my “someone’s-going-to-break-up-with-me feeling.”

Cat:  Mmmmm.

Lila:  The ughhh. (a cross between a sigh and a grunt)

Cat:  Oh shit, it’s coming!

Lila:  Ughhhh.

[26:30]

Lila:  You seem to have diminished the … mm, processing time, in order to be able to say, moment to moment, “Not that right now. I’d like something different.” And I think, maybe earlier, in both of our 20s, it took us some days to process—

Cat:  Oh yeah.

Lila:  I think it took me some days to become angry with him.

Cat:  Yes. Yes. I totally agree with you. We would disconnect or, um, I, speaking for myself, I’d dissociate or disconnect from myself, and just not feel, and then it would catch up to me for days later, I’d be angry and I wouldn’t know why, and it was crazy ‘cause, I didn’t make that connection. But now because I regularly sit with myself and I regularly, tune-in, the timing is a lot faster. Now that isn’t to say that there aren’t times in which, something unfolds, and I don’t say something in the moment. I always come back to it, if I need to. You know, so there’s nothing wrong, that you’re not too late to come back to a person and say, “Hey, you know what, I actually wasn’t okay with that, and I didn’t realize it in the moment, but now I’m able to— I want to say it now.” And I haven’t had anybody respond negatively to that either, mainly because I make sure not to blame, but to own.

[28:35]

Cat:  Which is a scary thing to bring up those conversations.

Lila:  Yeah.

Cat:  But in the end we have to remind— I have to remind myself that, you know, whatever response that person has, has nothing to do with my value. And that’s been a helpful mantra for me to keep speaking up. And there’s times where I will say, “I’m actually really nervous to tell you this right now, annnd, blubbluhbluhbluh,” you know, and tell them. And sometimes even, you know, as I’m saying that, mentally just being like, It’s not about— you know, it’s okay, you’re speaking your truth; it’s not about your value. And then I gotta shut that off so I can hear what they have to say! (both giggle) But it’s almost like this internal self-soothing.

[29:32]  Lila and Cat talk meditation.

Lila:  Do you think you’ve been able to diminish that processing time because you’ve spent so much time in meditation?

Cat:  Totally. Toootally. Meditation and, and I don’t necessarily mean meditating in perfect stillness / silence and going “Om,” but meditation as in, tuning in to my body. Being aware of um, thoughts that come up, being, giving myself space to sit with things. I have a morning practice that I do sit in meditation and part of that is a, you know, silent, tune in with my breath, and part of it is, um you know if there’s something that did come up, I sit with that event and do like a, almost like a layered, uh, practice, to see what the thoughts, the feelings, the body reactions, where that could’ve come from, and what I’ve developed, you know, what sort of belief I’ve developed about myself, as a result of it. […]

Lila:  In a way I feel like this, cross-country road trip, is a big meditation—

Cat:  Oh,

Lila:  — with myself.

Cat:  Babe, I bet.

Lila:  Because I don’t listen to music. I’m either in silence with myself, or I’m listening to a book on tape or a podcast, or I’m talking to someone.

Cat:  Mmm, yeah.

Lila:  And mmmany hours, I’m in silence with myself. And I don’t, I’m not focusing on my breath, I’m allowing— some years ago I realized that the meditation practices that require you to focus and label thinking as “thinking” and put it aside and, focus on a single thing, felt too rigid to bring me benefit. Because I am already perfectionistic, and hard on myself, and—

Cat:  Sure.

Lila:  — internally unkind, and so what I needed was a softer practice. And my friend Matthew Stillman, brought to me this idea that I could sit and just expand […] my awareness to encompass anything that entered. So I allow the thoughts; I allow the train to go, until it’s spun out, until it’s journeyed it’s journey and then, it will shift to something else, or maybe I’ll shift and then shift back, but the conscious desire to be extra attentive to what is happening — thoughts, the road, my body — that feels like meditation to me, […] and that, is powerful for me.

[32:45]  Cat on the different forms meditation can take — movement, yoga, walking, layered — and the intention behind it.

[34:10]

Cat:  And then there’s ones of mantras, that are repeated words or statements — those are ones to help me shift a programming or a thought. One of my favorites: is I choose myself powerfully.

[34:33]  Lila on affirmations. I deserve healthy, loving relationships. And I am so fucking talented.

[35:08]

Lila:  And I used to think, “Ohhh, affirmations, that’s too woo-woo, I’m not gonna believe them…” But what I found was: speaking them in front of other humans — that’s what cemented it for me.

52. permission to change your mind: quickie with a sex therapist

This episode was recorded on my horizontal does america tour in November of 2017. I took to the road in a little blue car and drove solo around the country with two intentions: to feel as free as I could possibly feel, and to lie down and record as many episodes with fascinating humans as I could manage.