This is Shaun Galanos. Hellooo, Shaun.
57. fear of intimacy: horizontal with the love (drive) podcaster
Horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down. I’m really glad you’re here. You can think of it as consensual eavesdropping.Together, we’re making private conversations public, so that we can dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize human connection.
[Note: Shaun is speaking of his teenage self!]
Shaun: I… was exchanging pictures with strangers on the internet— not pictures of myself, pictures of other people. Like, pornography— image-based pornography. This is before, you know, high bandwidth internet. So that was, where I learned about pornography, and started acquiring pornography.
Lila: And it was just still pictures.
Shaun: Yeah. Of like, teens, and people having sex, all sorts of different—
Lila: Did you just say “teens”?
Shaun: Yeah, like— you know, that’s like a category of pornography—
Lila: Yeah, like the—
Shaun: Teens.
Lila: Barely legal.
Shaun: Jailbait. Eighteen. So, yeah, like young… er people-type porn, and then— and then—
Lila: Oh, I just got turned on and that’s really strange for me. (laughs) That’s w— I don’t know, I don’t have any, desire to be with, boys like that at all, I don’t know why I just got turned on. I think, I think I’m thinking about young you, like cruising on the internet, and finding these, these, images and being super turned-on by them.
Shaun: Oh yeah, I mean w— the most interesting thing to me, that, that stayed with me for so long … is that I was really turned on by naked photos of men. (Lila mms interestedly) And I had never— at that age, I was attracted to women, and have since then always been attracted to women, that’s been a constant in my life. But men, and specifically men with uncut penises. (Lila hm’s) Such a turn-on.
Lila: (whispers) Fascinating. (regular volume) Men like you.
Shaun: Men like me. Yeah.
Lila: I also get really turned-on, particularly by breasts. Images of, women’s breasts. And even in, sort of a, like an Instagram or a catalog kind of way, where, they’re just wearing something very sheer, like Suicide Girls-style, you know, usually that kind of uh, a girl with the tattoos and the… voluptuousness, can, can really turn me on; I follow one on Instagram. itstorro is her thing. And em, just like a little bit of covering over the nipple is actually more exciting to me than nud— full nudity. (Shaun mmhms) Which I think is fascinating.
Shaun: I mean I used to masturbate to the Delia’s catalog. [Note: When Shaun was a teen.]
Lila: (laughing) I love it! I love it. Wh— how would we describe the Delia’s catalog; it was like a pre-teen… there’s lots of pink and they sold, like costume jewelry and, little crop tops and—
Shaun: Flower dresses, there’s the bathing suit section— it’s for like, y’know, tweens. […] That was sort of my go-to if I was like, on the road. And, I could usually figure out where to get a Delia’s catalog.
Lila: (cracks up) Amazing. But you couldn’t always get the internet.
Shaun: Yeah well there wasn’t, there wasn’t internet when I was out, you know, rollerblading with my buddies. […] So I’d find a Delia’s and then go to the bathroom.
Lila: So you’ve masturbated in bathrooms, like, across the world.
horizontal with Shaun Galanos in my bed at Hacienda Villa. Bushwick, Brooklyn. August 2018
Horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down.
I’m really glad you’re here.
You can think of it as consensual eavesdropping.
Together, we’re making private conversations public, so that we can dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize human connection.
If you’ve been horizontal for a while, you know that each conversation is about 2-3 hours long, and gets divided into two episodes, released a week apart (by popular demand). For instance, this is episode #57. fear of intimacy: horizontal with the love (drive) podcaster. Next week’s episode, #58. the love drive, will be part two of my conversation with Shaun.
As I said in the last couple of episodes, I’m making a big shift in the way horizontal is released, and it just went into effect on Wednesday, November 28th, 2018. All the part twos have now disappeared from your apps (unless you downloaded them, as I suggested! Thanks for being an early adopter!).
They are now gated, and available to patrons at $5 a month and up.
This is my first serious step toward making this work a sustainable career path. I intend to untether myself from my bread-and-butter job and continue expanding the horizontality … into videos, books, a TV show. I have big big dreams to spread intimacy across the globe. And you can help me happen it.
Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service. As a $5 month patron, you’ll get a special RSS feed that you can add to your podcast player, and it gives you exclusive access to all the episodes, every part two, going back to the beginning. I’ve made a little video tutorial for it, in case the RSS is confusing. It’s available on my Patreon page. (See what I did there?)
Oh, hey, Shaun.
In this episode, I lie down in my bed in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with Shaun Galanos. I live in Hacienda Villa, a sex-positive intentional community, and, just like most places on the vanguard, our neighborhood is (still) fairly gritty. So be advised: Bushwick— is a very noisy place. Trains and sirens and construction and unidentifiable buzzings and whirrings… let’s just say, you’re definitely gonna hear some local color in this episode. We’ll call it…verite.
Shaun Galanos is a 30something silver fox, a Canadian, an American, a 12-time burner, a dog dad, and the host of the podcast The Love Drive, which aims to make sex and love less awkward. He’s also a street performer who gives Free Love Advice. He sets up a sign and his recording kit all over the place, in public parks, at Burning Man, while waiting for transportation, and, before he got chased away for soliciting the customers, at the airport. Point yourself towards thelovedrive.com for everything Shaun (including that free advice he talks about).
Shaun and I met on the interwebz and started flirting and brainstorming and podcast-conspiring on Instagram. He’s handsome and charming and skilled in cheeky banter. He makes cute videos in which he talks directly to camera, Ferris Bueller-style. He cares about intimacy! He’s single! So when he came to New York, naturally, we hopped into bed. But only to record. (More on that in the episodes.)
In this first part of our conversation, we talk about cruising chat rooms and cybering, wizard sleeves and uncircumcised cocks, the pics of naked men that turn Shaun on, the pics of naked women that turn me on, self-voyeurism, check-ins, and how Shaun and I turned out to not be sexually-attracted to one another.
If you want to hear the second part of our conversation, released next Friday, in which we discuss our pheremones, the hierarchy of relationships, touch-starvation, Old Spice, my breasts, and Shaun tells me a story about risky wedding sex, become a patron of the horizontal arts!
And now, come lie down with us in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (whispers) We’re naked.
Links to Things:
Become a patron of the horizontal arts to listen to part two!
All things Shaun can be found at thelovedrive.com
But don’t miss his consistently adorable Instagram stories
Hacienda Villa, where I live in Bushwick, and where this episode was recorded
Free Love Advice, Shaun’s street theatre / performance art
Suicide Girls, photo sets of non-conventional pin-up girls (so-named because it’s a place where women with tattoos, or candy-colored hair, or piercings, those who commit “social suicide,” come together)
itstorro , the Suicide Girl that Lila follows on Instagram
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
[6:27] Lila & Shaun get naked on horizontal.
Lila: (like a Muppet) Bottoms off! We’re doin’ it! Naked horizontal!
Shaun: You won’t, you won’t be able to see my boner. (both giggle)
Lila: It’s never happened before.
Shaun: Look at this!
Lila: It’s brand-new.
Shaun: Look at these skin colors!
Lila: Whoaaa, you are very, swarthy.
Shaun: I know, this is great, isn’t it?
Lila: Even your cock is swarthy. It’s like the color of your, arms—
Shaun: It’s darker than the rest of my body—
Lila: (overlapping) that’s gotten the most sun.
Shaun: I know.
Lila: Wow.
Shaun: I have a tan penis.
Lila: That’s so interesting!
Shaun: It’s part of my virginity story.
Lila: And you’re uncut.
Shaun: Also.
Lila: Is that because you’re Canadian?
Shaun: Mm, I think my parents are just like, hippies.
[7:10] Shaun on his both Canadian-ness, and American-ness.
[7:56]
Shaun: Yeah, I was born in Montreal and then moved to a suburb of Montreal, so, like when I was 3 we moved, so I didn’t have any… experience of diversity. And then, lived in a very like white town, and grew up saying “eh” a lot, like most Canadians. […] And that, I lost very quickly because I got beat up, like, within days of arriving in the United States.
Lila: Whoa.
Shaun: For having like a funny accent and saying things weird.
Lila: In Texas.
Shaun: Yeah, ‘cause we don’t say, uh, in French we say, “Close the light,” not “Turn off the light” and my translated into “Close the light,” so I was like, sort of bullied, as soon as I came to the United States.
Lila: I also moved when I was 12 — it’s a helluva time to move; it’s really tough. And, came to a new school and was not, was not well-integrated into my school, and, I had the opposite experience where I came from a really diverse school, and then I went down to Florida with my mom after my parents got divorced and I was like, “Where are all the black people; where’s all the Hispanic people, where’s all the people? What is— what is wrong with this place?” […] Oh my God, 12 years-old is so rough. You don’t even know what’s happening inside you. You’re not even a person yet. You’re like, an amphibian. (groans a little)
Shaun: And, and still, you know, it was an adventure, to pick up with my parents and my brother and my dog and move to a different country. And drive. We drove. And we landed in Texas. And I’ve always been like, fairly robust, like I’m sure there are some, side effects of being plucked out of your childhood and moved, at the age of 12, but—
Lila: Well yeah, I wound up eating lunch in the bathroom after three girls shunned me, but—
Shaun: Right.
Lila: Tss.
This is young Shaun. Would you have thunk it?!
Shaun: I mean, I hung out with kids that were not cool. I’ve never been the cool kid. I… hung out with … the kid who had a ferret. (Lila giggles) And, the other one who wore Tevas with socks.
Lila: Do you think that’s where your goofiness comes from?
Shaun: I just never really fit in. I never really fit in, and … at one point I became okay with that.
[10:55] Shaun on his sexual awakening.
Shaun: Not until I moved to California.
Lila: Which was when?
Shaun: At the age of 15.
Lila: So you had no sense of, you know, arousal, you didn’t find any porn, you didn’t—
Shaun: Oh, no, I definitely— I used to cruise the AOL chat rooms, when I was… like 13 years old. […] And my username was and is still snohobo. (Lila mmhm’s) And I went to all sorts of chat rooms, and cybered, after school, every day.
Lila: And cybering was really just like, texting sex— sexting.
cybering (verb) = the act of sending sexual messages back and forth in real time, or engaging in virtual sex, by means of computers. Mostly an outdated term, used during the early days of the internet.
Shaun: It was sexting, but, yeah, more aggressively, ‘cause you had a keyboard. You could really get the—
Lila: (chuckles) The rhythm going?
Shaun: Yeah, you could really get the conversation— but then at one point, you’re actually just really typing with one hand.
Lila: Yeah!
Shaun: I was like, always masturbating with the other.
Lila: And then you have to go slower.
Shaun: There, yeah—
Lila: I’ve always found that challenging, but you know, the SWYPE keyboard makes it a lot easier for me to masturbate and sext.
[12:19] On Shaun’s masturbatory skills.
[12:34]
Shaun: I’m ambidextrous when it comes to masturbating.
Lila: So you’re ambi-mastur-bous.
Shaun: Masturbatory, yeah. Yeah. Left hand, right hand.
Lila: Ambi-mastur-bateous. It sounds, like the Latin term. The proper Latin term.
Shaun: I think it is.
[13:01] Shaun’s special relationship with the bathroom.
[13:34]
Lila: My early masturbatory experiences were also aquatic.
Shaun: So mine weren’t aquatic.
Lila: No?
Shaun: Mine were— the opposite of aquatic.
Lila: So you were in the dry shower, masturbating?
Shaun: No, I was, I was sitting on the toilet.
Lila: Oh, okay.
Shaun: I had like, the seat down, I was just sitting on the toilet.
Lila: Oh, okay, so you weren’t using soap as a lube or anything.
Shaun: I am uncircumsized, so I don’t use—
Lila: You don’t need luuube!
Shaun: I know, it’s just, there’s a wizard sleeve there that—
Lila: (guffaws) A wizard sleeve! That’s amazing— is that, is that a real term? Is that just you?
Shaun: No, that’s a real term. [Note: it seems to be a term that is used mainly for vulvas.]
wizard sleeve (noun) = according to urban dictionary, slang for a vulva when the inner lips protrude past the outer lips.
[14:06] Shaun on foreskin / magic scarves / jelly rolls / water snakes / sea cucumbers.
[15:04]
Shaun: So I didn’t— I never used, uh, lubrication. I, I mean I’ve never really used lubrication to masturbate except for, the few times when I’ve decided that I wanted to as a sensation, and I’ve like, you know, intentionally pulled my foreskin down, and then sort of masturbated like somebody would if they were uncircumsized—
Lila: Was it enjoyable?
Shaun: Or circumsized, sorry. Yeah, it is, it’s just not, I, I just li— not necessary, it’s just a different sensation that I don’t necessarily need, like I’m, I’m perfectly happy with the sensation that I have, masturbating normally.
Lila: That’s so interesting because it really is like you’re mastur— you have a sleeve, and you’re masturbating—
Shaun: I can masturbate anywhere.
Lila: … It’s like, the— you don’t need a Fleshlight. You are a Fleshlight.
Shaun: I am a Fleshlight. There’s no, like, lube cleanup. There’s no lotion cleanup. There’s— you can furtively masturbate— you know, anywhere, basically. (Lila laughs)
Fleshlight aka “male masturbator” (noun) = a long, cylindrical masturbation sex toy for penis-owners. Designed to be penetrated, it simulates the texture and constriction of a vagina, or an anus, and is disguised in the form of a flashlight, or other household item, such as a soda can.
[16:12] Shaun doesn’t remember having any sex ed at school in Texas. In CA, it consisted of two sessions with the PE teacher.
[17:12] Lila on skin hunger.
Lila: The skin contact just like, calms me down. Mmm. Skin contact is so important. (Shaun mmhms) Skin hunger is bad.
skin hunger (noun) = the sometimes lonely, possibly empty, feeling of longing a person may experience when their need for human touch is unfulfilled or under-fulfilled.
Shaun: I don’t get a lot of skin contact. (Lila mewls sympathetically) I know.
Lila: That’s no good.
Shaun: It’s okay.
Lila: It’s really no good for wellbeing, it really (sigh) is a strong cause of depression in my, in my estimation.
Shaun: Hmm. I believe that.
[17:40] Shaun didn’t get a sex talk. In fact, his parents never have mentioned sex. Ever.
[17:57] Shaun’s first forays into pornography and the Delia’s catalog.
This too, is young Shaun.
[22:24] Why didn’t Shaun masturbate in the shower?
Lila: I’m surprised you never figured out to masturbate in the shower. Why be in the bathroom— like why not the one-stop shopping? You know?
Shaun: Because … I s— often masturbate in front of a mirror.
Lila: Ohhhh! You like to watch yourself!
Shaun: […] Sometimes I’ll take a video, of myself masturbating.
Lila: HaHAA! I’ve done that once.
Shaun: I have soooo many, like, I can’t scroll through my phone and show anybody anything, because it’s literally just—
Lila: So many videos of you masturbating?!
Shaun: Videos and pictures. Naked pictures of me. Insane amounts of pictures.
Lila: Wow, so, it’s like a kind of self-voyeurism. That turns you on.
Shaun: Totally. And I’ll never go look at them again.
Lila: Really?
Shaun: Yeah.
Lila: Do you share them? Do you sext them?
Shaun: I sext them sometimes, yeah.
[23:17] Shaun on questioning his sexuality.
Lila: So you were really turned on by pictures of men who looked like you, and then did it, sort of, evolve into you just taking images of yourself? For your own turn on?
Shaun: I guess, I mean I also had like folders of images of dudes. Or, or even just like close-ups of their cocks. Which is why for a long time I thought I was gay.
Lila: Yeah, so was it confusing?
Shaun: It was super-confusing, for a long time, but I always was attracted to women, and I could th— the idea of giving a blow job was interesting, and a turn-on, but the idea of making out with a man, or having a romantic relationship with a man was not.
Lila: Right. You were super turned-on by the cock, itself.
Shaun: Sexually, yeah. And like not even … like, the idea of penetrating a man, not really a— not really a turn-on, […] so yeah it was really. It was really like, cock-centric.
Lila: This makes you queer. Are you comfortable with that?
Shaun: Sure.
Lila: Yeah.
Shaun: I mean I’ve also experimented to m— to see what I liked. And I realized, that I gave, you know, several blow jobs. I gave it the good old college try because I actually thought I was gay and I was like, I need to find out.
Lila: Right.
Shaun: And the only way to find out is to do it, and so I did it, and it really, it, it didn’t turn me on.
[24:36]
Lila: It’s so interesting because, when I was recording with Stevie Boebi she was saying— she’s the like, the lesbian YouTuber on lesbian sex— like the go-to authority on lesbian sex. And she’s— she says, you know, sex— your sexuality is very different from sexual acts that you like. You know. So you’re a bit queer, I’m also, a bit queer. When I, when I fantasize, I often add a woman into the scenario. So, either I’m telling her that she can just watch, and she can’t touch herself, like I’m dominating… and I’m fucking her boyfriend or something, or, sh— I’m watching her get fucked— sometimes from behind, which is not my favorite position. So I’m watching her, in a position that’s not super-pleasurable to me and then I, you know, have her go down on me while that’s happening — which is something that I have experienced, and I loved it. It’s— I’ve been in that scenario twice, where, the guy was fucking the woman from behind, and she was going down on me, and it was insanely sexy. I loved it. And then I fantasize about women going down on me, but there’s always a man present in the scenario. (Shuan hm’s) I fantasize about touching— touching women’s breasts. Iiii think about women’s breasts sometimes, when I masturbate. I touch my own breasts.
Shaun: I s— I noticed that, actually, earlier.
Lila: I just, I just naturally touch them.
Shaun: You were fondling.
Lila: Yeah. It’s just… But I’m always self-soothing. I don’t know if— I ever told you that. I’m always touching myself in some way. Not necessarily my breasts, not necessarily in a sexual fashion, but, I’m always stroking my own skin. Which is probably a function of skin hunger. And is also probably partially, the way that I assuage my own anxiety. (Shaun mm’s interestedly) Is I, I soothe myself, I stroke myself and caress myself. Touch my face and touch my lips and touch my collarbone. Touch my cuticles.
Shaun: It’s nice.
Lila: I do that usually when I’m, when I— if I, if I’m anxious you’ll see me do this; you’ll see me push my cuticles back. Like that.
Shaun: (overlapping) Yes, they’re all very pushed-back there.
Lila: Yeah. Because I’ve been doing it for years. So, yeah. But that’s, that’s a more anxious one. But the other ones are more soothing and sweet, to myself. Also like, self ph— a physical manifestation of a self-loving act. You know, because I hated myself for so long.
Shaun: You did?
Lila: Yeah. Oh yeah.
[27:23] Why is Shaun hard on himself?
[28:37] What Lila loves about the sharing format of 12-step meetings.
[29:05] On the check-ins Lila used to host at Hacienda Villa.
Lila: I used to, to host a check-in here every week, where we would, in that kind of a format, just share whatever we wanted to share about our lives, and it was not a time for advice or, asking for, specific things or asking for sup— it was just to be witnessed, to be heard, um, for people to know what was going on with us in our lives, ‘cause we— we pass by each other, it’s like, it’s like The Wizard of Oz, “People come and go so quickly here.” You know and we, we don’t necessarily know what’s going on, even if we live right next to somebody, we don’t necessarily know what’s going on with them, even in a community like this. So, every Thursday, I committed for six months and I hosted this check-in. And, we did it in different ways: when, there was a small amount of people, we would share extemporaneously, just as much as we wanted to share, and then we would say, “Check!” and everybody would snap, and then we would move to the next person. And the only responses that people were invited to have— there’s a little bit more than in a 12-step program. We were— if we felt moved by something, we could put our hand on our heart. If we really wanted to support something we could snap. And ov— obviously, we weren’t gonna curtail laughter, so we could, we could laugh. And then we started doing it timed. If we had more people, we would time it, and we would keep it to, say, five minutes. And, we would get a one minute, warning. Kind of like in a meeting. And it was so, it was so beautiful, I felt so close to everybody when we were doing that, and then we started doing— like what I called a round robin, or like a lightning, lightning round, and we s— we did— it sometimes in the hot tub, where we did a hot tub check in. And we would do one minute, at a time. And, the great thing about that, and I really like that format, is because, when, you share, and then you forget some things that you wanna talk about, and then somebody else talks about their family and you’re like, “Ah! I wanted to tell you about my mom.” And, you know, then you— it comes back around, and we do the round robin as many times as people feel like they still have things they want to share. And it’s st— it goes actually much quicker and it’s more succinct, and people get the opportunity to speak again, multiple times. So. That was really beautiful.
Shaun: I love that. I love the practice of, opening up, to people and, getting vulnerable. Which is— that’s what I do when I go to AA— well! Okay, that’s a lie. That’s what I used to do when I used to go to AA, but I don’t go as much anymore and and oftentimes, I find myself either regurgitating a thing that I say that gets a reaction from people.
Lila: Mmm, yeah.
Shaun: Even if it’s helpful. Uh, ‘cause usually that’s the goal— after you get a, some sobriety, it, it’s helpful to help other people and not to just dump your problems on other people. So… but— that’s—
Lila: But then you’re, you’re—
Shaun: I’m holding it in.
Lila: (overlapping) You’re sharing from an obligation and then you’re not necessarily using it in the way, that I think it’s intended, which is to, to open— right?
Shaun: Yeah.
Lila: To—
Shaun: Yeah.
Lila: To be witnessed, to be held in, in your opening. Which is what I think is so powerful about it. I have maybe a, a very unpopular opinion about it and I think that most of people’s healing and sobriety is because of community in that program.
[32:29] Shaun on the power of community / fellowship in AA.
[33:14]
Lila: It’s related to why I find living in community to be so important. And why I think it’s, it’s not the cure for what ails our society, but it is a cure. I love that you’re playing footsie with me right now.
horizontal and still clothed with Shaun Galanos, pre-recording, at Hacienda Villa. Bushwick, Brooklyn. August 2018
[33:52] How Shaun & Lila met, and what ensued.
Lila: So, we had been— communicating for like two months now … my housemate Leandra—
Shaun: Yes, Leandra—
Lila: Aww, it’s nice to feel your skin next to mine. So, Leandra has a tantra teacher… meow. […] You did an episode with him, and… she came to me one day and she was like, “Look at this guy!” She’s like, “Every time I look at him, I kinda get hot!” And I looked at him — and that was you — and I was like, “DAMN!” (laughs) And then I friend-requested you right away…
Shaun: And here we are. (Lila uhhuhs) Two months later, naked in bed. […] Did you slide into my DM’s?
slide into the DM’s = when a conversation on a social media platform (in this case, Instagram) transitions from public posts to private messages (DM abbreviates the term “direct messages”), usually for the purposes of flirting.
Lila: So, you slid into mine.
Shaun: Well, I’ve been known to do that.
Lila: Because you— that’s, yeah, it’s like your m.o.—
Shaun: It’s not my m.o. but (Lila cackles softly) it is becoming—
Lila: Is a m.o.—
Shaun: It is becoming an, an m.o. … in many aspects of my life that is working out really well, in terms of making connections.
Lila: But you saw, you saw that I had friend-requested you, and you’d listened to, my Lindsey Doe episode the week before (Shaun mmhms) and you wrote me a message. You were like, “HI! So cool, that you friend-requested me, since I, just started listening to you. And then I was really excited, and turned on. (laughing) And then! We have been, chatting and exchanging advice and ssszzzz— flirting.
Shaun: Definitely flirting.
Lila: Lots of flirting.
Shaun: Lots of professional colleague chat—
Lila: Yes.
Shaun: And then also some flirting.
Lila: And then also some flirting. And then you arrive… and we’re, like, bickering like an old married couple— that’s what Leandra said, that she reminded us— that we reminded her, of an old married couple, and I was like, “I don’t understand what is going on here. I was hoping… that we’d both be super turned-on and we’d have amazing sex! Like, this is what I was hoping.
Shaun: Right.
Lila: (laughs lightly) And I was envisioning what, what an episode like that would be like… if— I’ve never done an episode while turned-on—
Shaun: Right.
Lila: I was like, “That would be. That would be fascinating!” … What happened?
Shaun: So that is— so that is not what happened. (Lila titters) I think there was— I had some inklings that we might not be a great match. Like a great romantic match.
Lila: With the dog thing.
Shaun: The dog thing was the first… dog / cat thing.
The cat-ness is strong with me. Pre- Love Parade. Spring 2018
Lila: I’m not a dog person.
Shaun: I am a dog person; the dog sleeps in my bed, (Lila groans) there’s dog hair in my bed. I, change my sheets frequently; I sweep everyday, but it’s just, it’s—
Lila: It’s still, I’m sure—
[36:58] The hyper-cleanliness of Shaun’s childhood household.
Shaun: It’s there. And I’m a Virgo; I was raised in a house in a very beautiful home, where, my friends didn’t feel comfortable coming to my house because of how, like—
Lila: Oh wow.
Shaun: — put together it was. Yeah, I mean this… this is actually an interesting, bit about my personality and where I am now. So one example is that I wasn’t allowed in my parents hot tub because my mom didn’t want my pubes in the hot tub.
Lila: … Wh—
Shaun: I know.
Lila: What about her pubes?
Shaun: Her pubes are fine; it’s her hot tub.
Lila: Her— and your Dad?
Shaun: No problem. Plenty of pubes, plenty of chest hair. But she didn’t want mine in there!
Lila: Your pub—
Shaun: Yeah.
Lila: There’s something like, extra bad about your pubes?
Shaun: I don’t know what it was and so, for a long time, I was intensely private about my space, and I wouldn’t let anybody stay— especially if I wasn’t there. If I wasn’t there, forget it, nobody’s staying at my house. And, slowly but surely I became more comfortable letting people into my space. Because I realized that they probably weren’t gonna fuck it up. That was my mom’s huge … fear, was that people were gonna fuck it up…. And so—
Lila: Where does that come from?
Shaun: (under his breath) Oh, I don’t know, where does that come from? … I don’t know. She, she—
Lila: Did she grow up in a chaotic household, and so this is the only control—
Shaun: Oh!
Lila: — that she had in her life, or?
Shaun: She did. Well, she grew up in a household with four siblings and a dog in a very small apartment in Montreal.
Lila: So nothing was hers.
Shaun: Nothing was hers and she shared a room forever. (Lila mm’s) So now she— everything is hers. […] That used to be me, with my space, and now, I’m okay just opening up my space to other people — including an animal, that was sort of the point, was that my house was always so neat, and when I got a, I finally got a dog, it was just like, “Okay, now there’s dog hair in my apartment.” (Lila mmhms) And that’s just part of—
Lila: My life now.
Shaun: My life now. And I keep it really clean. But. It happens that there’s dog hair in my bed!
Lila: Okay, okay, alright, so the, so the dog thing and the bed thing and the me-being-more-like-a-cat-thing.
[39:14] On their incompatibility.
I cat alone; I cat with friends. Here with Elaine at the Love Parade, of 9. it’s my body to give: horizontal with a unicorn & 10. his fingers are always hard: horizontal with a swinger
Shaun: Yes, so. You meow a lot. (Lila giggles) That’s a— that’s a reply for you.
Lila: Y-yes!
Shaun: Or it’s a way of expressing satisfaction, or interest, or you’re happy—
Lila: (overlapping) Flirting. Flirting or I’m happy.
Shaun: (overlapping) Or flirting. And I’m allergic to cats. (Lila laughs) Like deathly allergic to cats. Been to the hospital several times.
Lila: Oh my gosh!
Shaun: Where the whites of my eyes were popping out, so much that I couldn’t blink anymore. (Lila gasps) Yes. And that noise that you just made, is the noise the nurse made when I walked in. And I said, “Come on, lady, you’re a professional!” Like, you know, get it together. Pretend this isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever seen. And, so, anything cat-related I’m very—
Lila: Averse to.
Shaun: I take space from it.
Lila: Yeah.
Shaun: Even when it’s a person acting like a cat, or having, that has like, cat-like tendencies.
Lila: Interesting.
Shaun: So that was another—
Lila & Shaun: A little—
Lila: Red flag. Shaun: A little thing.
Shaun: A little red flag. And then… I had been listening to your episodes… and so I felt like I knew you…
Lila: Yeah.
Shaun: I felt closer to you than a person I hadn’t ever met. And so when I saw you, I sort of opened with— that I, I often use as my way of interacting with people is that I make jokes. And I’m extra playful. And sometimes that can come off….. in a way that you experienced it.
Lila: It feels like you’re making fun, not just making jokes, like, when you say you’re making jokes, that sounds really like generally playful and sort of up in the air.
Shaun: Right, like a clown.
Lila: But it really f— yeah, yeah, but it really feels like you’re, you’re poking, it r— like poking is the, the image and the s— almost the sensation, of the, jokes. And like, poking not in a, like, in, in between the ribs kind of way, where you’re like, “That is unCOMFORTABLE!” Ah, ahnN!
Shaun: That is weird because, so when I got sober, I had a hard time interacting with my Dad because my Dad is really good at making jokes at the expense of other people. (Lila mm’s) And, 10 years ago I told him I didn’t like this and he, he said something like, “What does that even mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And so, I’ve done a lot of work over the years to f— to figure out how to be playful without making fun of people. (Lila hmms) And I GUESS. I still got some work to do.
Lila: (quietly) Some work to do. (both guffaw) Yeah, I, I mean I told you this but I, I think it bears repeating that— so when I was in, in high school, I, I had a math class […] and these, there were these, I think, three guys, and they were extremely smart— book smart, intellectual smart, not the, not an emotionally intelligent. And they, were super sarcastic. And they would do these sarcastic, kind of barbs at me — or that’s what they felt like to me — and I learned to volley them back. And, I learned later, by talking to one of them, I was like, “Hey! Did you know that hurt my feelings?” And they didn’t know at all. They thought, that I was cool. They thought that I was playing with them. They thought that I was smart. And I just felt like they were being unkind. And that I needed to protect myself with my sarcasm. Which is why I, I try mostly not to use sarcasm these days, ‘cause it feels cheap. Feels like kind of a, a cheap way out of connection, or, or, it doesn’t feel authentic, it doesn’t feel like a beautiful way to interact with people and so, it had a little bit of that flavor, where it reminded me of those boys, and a little bit also, of a very large dog — that doesn’t know how large it is — and is trying to play with you, and is being really rough, and is like actually kind of scratching you up a bit, but it doesn’t know ‘cause it’s just play— it’s just trying to play!
[43:22] Shaun on how his dog got kicked off the island for very much the same behavior.
[42:46]
Shaun: For not knowing his, his size. […] And not knowing his effect on other people. Which is a thing that I’m working on. How do I affect other people?
Lila: I feel like I have a really good handle on that, but I’m not sure how to teach other people, to have an awareness of their impact.
Shaun: Well what’s interesting about thisss, situation is that, I meet lots of people, often. And very few people have given me the type of feedback that you’ve given me.
Lila: Well, very few people would be willing to say something like that. Because it’s very uncomfortable to say.
Shaun: Right. Well. Okay. So that was one of the explanations of why, (chuckling) why that happened, and the other is that like I didn’t— I don’t think that I rub people the wrong way that often.
Lila: … hmm.
Shaun: So, I think that, yes, you are able to have difficult conversations—
Lila: Sometimes, in my better days.
Shaun: Right, of course, I mean it’s— that’s why they’re difficult, because we’re not so great at doing the— because we don’t have a lot of practice.
Lila: I drag my feet on them, of course, but I usually eventually do them if they really matter.
Shaun: And I also think that we have a particular dynamic, in which… we haven’t figured out, what works.
Lila: I’m not sure why though, is it because you don’t wanna drop in with me? Because, one of the things I wound up saying to you was, “You make it impossible to be sweet to you!” In a moment of exasperation, “You make it impossible to be sweet to you.” And you’re like, “You don’t know me!” (laughs lightly) But, I feel like, I want to just— I want to love you up. I want to love you up, and like, cuddle you and squeeze you and be sweet with you, and then you start poking me and I’m like, pushing you away.
Shuan: S— I think that’s because, I have a, deep-down fear of intimacy. I am scared of starting something with somebody that I think isn’t going to work out.
Lila: Yeah, yeah that makes perfect sense.
Shaun: And so, instead of even starting something, where I will have to, maybe let you down—
Lila: Ohf.
Shaun: I don’t let anybody get close to me. And I’ve been like this for a long time and I’m working on it in therapy, because I ultimately want partnership. And in order for me to have partnership, I need to back up, and let people get close to me.
Getting horizontally close with Shaun. My bed. Hacienda Villa. August 2018
57. fear of intimacy: horizontal with the love (drive) podcaster
Horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down. I’m really glad you’re here. You can think of it as consensual eavesdropping.Together, we’re making private conversations public, so that we can dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize human connection.
To listen to episode 58, you know what you must do…
