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Don’t lose your peace.

The sex isn’t worth it.

“People wanna fuck, People have wanted to fuck since the beginning of time. The only thing that makes it weird is who we determine should fuck, or at what point they should fuck, or at, or like what gender should be allowed to fuck at what time. And I don’t get any of that. Like, if you wanna fuck, fuck. Just make sure you’re smart about it. And the smart part comes from conversations like this.”

– Chris Thompson

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My dear listener…

Welcome to my heart. I am more unvarnished than I have possibly ever been in this conversation, unexpectedly, with a beautiful stranger, who is now a beautiful friend. Chris Thompson also known as @supdaily is an Influencer worthy of the name.

Our unexpectedly deep conversation was recorded, of all places, at Podcast Movement 2022, at the iHeartRadio booth, fueled by the finest cold brew and the excitement of meeting a new kindred. He is full of empathy and emotional intelligence, warmth and care. I love him. So do millions of other people. I am very lucky to know him.

We began by talking about sex and gender and dating, and gendered dating, & bondage… and we wound up talking about core wounds, therapy, sexual assault, healing, EMDR, and trauma. Join us for this deep sea dive, darling.

PS! Episode 3: Sex, but make it self-worth!

[00:00:00] LILA: Since I was a child, I’ve… for some reason felt that I was unworthy of that love and, and….. uh, that challenge persists to this day. Now I’m dealing with it in therapy and I have a team and I have support. I actually don’t know where it comes from because I was a child who was loved and, and valued, but… I don’t know. I don’t know. I really, um… I don’t know. I came to think so, so little of myself that I was, I was engaging in choosing these relationships in which I would not receive what I really wanted and it would reinforce my wounds. Like I would choose… choose to… it’s like each of those relationships, I chose to pick the scab of the biggest wound of my existence. 

[00:01:06] 

[00:01:23] LILA: My dear listener, welcome to my heart. I have perhaps never been more unvarnished than I was in this conversation, unexpectedly, with a beautiful stranger who is now a beautiful friend. And my friends, as you will come to know if you don’t already, are the loves of my life. 

[00:01:46] So here we are sitting at a high top in a hotel hallway, in a makeshift cafe, faux living room set, the iHeart booth at Podcast Movement 2022, during a spontaneous recording session, in which I expected to ask Chris Thompson for a story about one of his first times, one of his sexual debuts, and instead, we began by talking about sex & gender & dating & gendered dating, & bondage, and we wound up talking about core wounds, therapy, sexual assault, healing, EMDR, and trauma.

[00:02:25] I wasn’t certain I was going to share this with you actually, but then this is the truest thing I know. There is nothing that affects our sex lives more than how we feel about our own selves. What follows is a Polaroid, of where I was in the process of holding myself as I would hold my lover in the month of August 2022. As I would hold one of my many beloveds. And I hereby invite you to see it. While you’re listening, my wish is that you will hold yourself, and me, with the utmost grace with which you are capable. I know we have the capacity for this miraculous balm of self grace. I want this for us desperately. I want this for us, and I am certain that it is the soil from which pleasure grows. 

[00:03:25] I could tell you now how I met Chris. It’s through another one of my beloveds, the storyteller Dawn Fraser. But our meet-cute is inconsequential in comparison to this tandem deep sea dive that we do here. And so I will just say that I don’t believe it takes: the end of the earth, and I know for sure it doesn’t take a mountaintop or heavy doses of plant medicine or a journey across the desert on foot to call ourselves to the task of transformation and outfit ourselves with the right tools to be used for the right trial in the right moment that make profound inner landscaping possible. 

[00:04:12] My friends, those loves of my life, have convinced me that this recording is a gift and that I would do us a disservice not to give it. So here it is.

[00:04:26] I’m rooting for us, our healing, our growth, our self grace, and always, always, always our pleasure. 

[00:04:40] This is Positively Sex, and I’m your host Lila.

[00:04:44] 

[00:04:50] CHRIS THOMPSON: When I have open conversations with women about sex, there is an immediate defensiveness that comes up because I think there’s a handful of men that look at a sexual conversation with a woman as an invitation for those things to happen. And so the more that we normalize just people talking about sex, ’cause I think outside of the U.S., it’s so much more common.

[00:05:16] When I was in Europe, I could sit and talk to women about sex, and nobody was stressed about it. And I think the reason people are stressed is because nobody’s talking. They’re all hiding for either fear or discomfort. It’s like this weird taboo subject, but everybody does it. So it’s like if we, if we keep it in silence or keep it behind closed doors, less people get exposed to it. And I think people also get, the only place they can get conditioned, especially young people, is through porn. And porn is not a realistic idea of what a actual sexual experience is. They’re actors. 

[00:05:51] People are just weird about sex and I think it’s ’cause we’re kind of all talking amongst ourselves. It’s kinda like preaching to the choir. We need a female led conversation to have that kind of reach across to, to, to someone who is outside of whatever group they’re a part of. If you’re a strong woman who can lead that conversation and, and display it in a way where it’s not, it’s not sexualized in nature, it’s just a sexual conversation. I think especially with women leading these conversations, men can see that these conversations can happen without intention. It’s just conversation. 

[00:06:29] The only way that we’re gonna truly understand the needs, wants and desires of somebody else is if they tell us, you know. I was in a relationship with someone who struggled to communicate and I was trying to explain to her like, the way I learn how to love you is through your voice. And she had never had someone actually ask to use her voice. So, she actually herself didn’t even know how to tell me how to love her. 

[00:06:55] I mean, how many of those people in purity culture have some sort of scandal that comes out where they’re not even practicing what they preach? It’s a lot of hypocrisy. People wanna fuck, People have wanted to fuck since the beginning of time. The only thing that makes it weird is who we determine should fuck, or at what point they should fuck, or at, or like what gender should be allowed to fuck at what time. And I don’t get any of that. Like, if you wanna fuck, fuck. Just make sure you’re smart about it. And the smart part comes from conversations like this.

[00:07:29] Me personally, I have faced like a handful of sexual assault at the hands of women, so it takes me a little while longer. So the idea that someone is saying, Well, I believe this is the catch-all reason why you should wait, that doesn’t work for me as an individual. The reason that someone might need to wait a little bit longer before they engage with someone in a physical manner is because of their own personal needs.

[00:07:54] Religion is a personal belief that people seem to want to apply to everybody. It’s like a level of arrogance that their way of thinking is the only way to be. So I just give ’em a healthy, um, mind your fucking business. Yeah.

[00:08:14] LILA: I’m friends with the sex scientist, Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, and she’s absolutely brilliant, and her main thought leadership currently is about relationship orientation. Not only do we have a sexual orientation, we have a relationship orientation and there is less choice in it than one might imagine. We are more or less wired in a certain way. That doesn’t mean we can’t engage in relationships that are otherwise, but that there are types of relationships that are, that are going to suit us and our needs and our soul, better. And for some people that is monogamy. For me, that’s, that’s probably monogamy with some flexibility. What Dan Savage calls monogamish. 

[00:09:02] So maybe it means that we, we are monogamous for a, a year and then we go to a sex party and we have a threesome. Or maybe it means that, that we, uh, do a, a partner swap or we have a foursome once in a while. Or we, we voyeur together. You know, I think there’s, there’s a strong desire in me for novelty and flexibility, in some way, to not feel caged. Because I can’t stand to feel caged. I mean, I’ve never had a desk job. I’ve never had a Monday to Friday nine to five thing. I’ve never done that, and I’ve, I’ve suffered because of it. I’ve been poor for most of my life because of it, because I could’ve, I could’ve been a lawyer, I could’ve made a ton of money, but I didn’t go that way because I was always focused on freedom. And freedom is a, a tenet of mine. So freedom in relationship is also a tenet of mine. If I feel caged, I will probably blow it up. I’ll probably sabotage it somehow.

[00:10:07] That’s not to say monogamy is a cage, that’s to say, forcibly placing the constrictions of somebody else’s idea of how you should relationship on you and your person or people is a cage. And I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in developing my own agreements, my own form of relation- my own container with the person or people that I love and engage with. That’s what I’m interested in. 

[00:10:38] A lot of people will, will employ a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” type understanding… when they are wanting to explore. And a lot of times they, they give each other a, a, what they call a “hall pass.” Like, Oh, you’re at a conference, you wanna fuck somebody, Go ahead. You know, you’re, you’re staying in hotel. You wanna play like, go ahead. I don’t need to know, just be safe usually is what people say. Right? So usually the agreement is you’re gonna use condoms with other people. If we’re fluid bonded, if you and I are having sex and we don’t use condoms and we don’t use barriers and I’m not on birth control or whatever, then, then I’m gonna use protection with anybody else, even if we have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you know, then that’s gonna be our agreement and our understanding. I think that’s really, really common. I don’t, I don’t know always how well it works, you know? Because, because the things that you don’t know about, that you have an inkling of, become insidious sometimes. And, and they, they, they grow in… in fetid imagination!

[00:11:53] They begin to mushroom cloud sometimes in your imagination where, whereas if you had gotten the information, “Okay, I met this guy, I found him really hot. We did this, this, and this in his hotel room. I’m not gonna call him, Love you baby.” You know, like if you knew that, that that might actually be easier to digest and handle, than, I don’t know, maybe she did something while she was in Dallas. I’m not sure. I wasn’t there. 

[00:12:26] My partner has one, one and a half lovers, let’s call it. Like, at first I said, “I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna know. Don’t tell me. All I need to know is that you have those lovers and I don’t wanna know when you see them or what happens.”

[00:12:42] And then, there was a night that he wasn’t available and I was, like, whatcha doin’? And he was like, “I’m not, I’m not sure what to tell you in this situation.” And I was like, “Ohhhh.” So then I had a night of, you know, like a, slightly dim night of the soul. I’m not gonna say dark night of the soul, like slightly dim night of the soul where I’m with myself going, I know my lover that I’m madly in love with is fucking somebody that he likes a lot and cares for, right now. And I’m alone! By myself! In my home. You know? And I coped with that, because I knew that it was happening. And it’s, it’s not, it’s not a violation, it’s not a, a boundary issue. But then I said, “I made a mistake. And I would like to know when you’re gonna see somebody.” 

[00:13:41] I can prepare myself- if he’s on Thursday night going to see this woman, then on Thursday night I can go see Thor. You know what I mean? Or I can like, make sure that I have a friend to cuddle with, or I can make sure that I’m, I’m just taking myself out on a date or I’m just like loving, I’m like, I’m doing self-holds or something, you know, because instead, it was me, a little bit blindsided, not he, I’m not blaming him, he did not have the obligation to tell me… in the fetal position with my stuffed voodoo doll. Honestly, just like- I did not stick anything in the voodoo doll, okay, it was like, not that kind of thing. But I have this, I only have one little stuffed thing to comfort-ly comfortingly cuddle with, and it’s this little stuffed voodoo doll I got in New Orleans. So I’m like, with my Ash, my little voodoo doll, and, and just in the fetal position, like dealing with the maelstrom of emotions that came up for me… even though it’s okay, like I’m, I’m okay with having those emotions. 

[00:14:38] I also don’t demonize jealousy. I don’t think that jealousy is the heinous emotion that people make it out to be. And in fact, I’m gonna do a course on this. I’m gonna do a whole thing. There is a tremendous amount of erotic juice to be gained from jealousy, if you can spin it that way for yourself. Because, from an evolutionary psychology perspective, mate competition makes you really hot for your lover. It can absolutely rekindle something- you can be, you can be so bored in your sex life, you see your partner being flirted with at a party by somebody who’s, I don’t know, younger than you, hotter, has some great job or something and you’re like, “Come home and fuck me right now!” You know?

[00:15:32] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. Yeah. I guess it also, what I find is when it comes to, especially like casual, and this is, this is why I rarely do casual, because I’m struggling to find people who are honest. They don’t understand their own… they might, they might understand their own wants, but they’re being dishonest with not only you but themselves. And I’ve had several situations in my past where, someone was like, “Hey!” I, I’m very direct in communication. I’m like, “Hey, this is just casual. If you’re not okay with that, let’s just be friends and everything’s okay with that.” And then they’re like, “Yeah, sure!” And then it happens. And then the next day I get the, what are we conversation? And I was like, “Huh?” And it’s like, I don’t know if it’s conscious or subconscious where they’re like, I’m gonna have sex with you and you’re gonna fall for me. And, uh, in my experience, at least with my brain, that’s not how my brain operates. It’s, we make an agreement before anything happens. And then I, if something changes, we can talk about it. But the expectation that I’m going to change because of my interaction with you, is unfair. And it just, I started to associate sex with drama, so I just stopped having sex altogether. Even though we had very direct communication, they still felt wronged by me, and I don’t know what that is.

[00:16:51] LILA: Uh, yes, I understand this very well and I, I’ve come across it a lot. I’ve been it as well. My sense of that is… a good portion of the time, when asked a relational question, people speak about themselves aspirationally, they would like to be okay with casual sex. I think a lot of people would like to be all right with Seize the Day. That was wonderful. And sometimes it turns out that they’re just not okay with it. 

[00:17:28] CHRIS THOMPSON: I’m literally mind blown when I get done with a sexual experience that is casual and they’re like, Hey, that was awesome. High five, hug. And then they leave! That’s not been my, my, my usual, like. People just aren’t being honest. 

[00:17:42] LILA: Are you just in the wrong community? Are you not in the sex-positive community, searching for your lovers?

[00:17:48] CHRIS THOMPSON: I don’t even know how to do that. 

[00:17:49] LILA: Oh, I can help you. 

[00:17:50] CHRIS THOMPSON: Okay!

[00:17:51] LILA: Oh, let me, let me link you in. Yeah. 

[00:17:53] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I guess I was just dating like, like normal, and being communicative, right. 

[00:18:00] LILA: I have your people. 

[00:18:01] CHRIS THOMPSON: Okay! 

[00:18:02] LILA: Don’t worry, you can have sex again!

[00:18:05] CHRIS THOMPSON: I hope so. I’m so touch-deprived, it’s really sad, but, I prioritize peace at this point in my life! 

[00:18:11] LILA: I know your people. 

[00:18:13] CHRIS THOMPSON: Good.

[00:18:13] LILA: Oh, I’m so- And you are going to be such an add to the community, because a lot of the guys who come in, they mean well, but they’re like, they can be like bulls in a china shop initially, ’cause they don’t know, they don’t have the communication skills. They don’t have that basic skill to say, “Hey, this is casual and if you’re down for that, let’s do it. And if you’re not down for that, no problem.” They don’t have that skill. You already have that skill. You are leagues ahead! The sex-positive women are waiting for you. 

[00:18:43] CHRIS THOMPSON: Hmm! I’ve had so many like conversations around the subject of sex and like I, I love talking about sex and I’m not, what I call “fuck focused.” I’m not like, I’m not doing it because I want to come. What I’m finding is: so, I’ve done a lot of research on like, what I am. I’ve taken that BDSM test so many times, and since I’ve gone to therapy and dealt with a lot of my sexual trauma, a lot of it has shifted. A lot. 

[00:19:10] LILA: Are you, are you willing to share how it’s shifted?

[00:19:12] CHRIS THOMPSON: I was very like, vanilla, switch was really high and, after that it got more… aggressive. So now Dominant is high. Sadist showed up, but, I don’t think I, I don’t have a predilection for inflicting pain. I just seem to attract women who want me to do that to them. And so I finally found it ’cause people were calling me a Dominant and I was like, look, I guess I kind of identify, but when I heard the term Pleasure Dom… that is what I identified with. 

[00:19:49] LILA: I would call you a service top.

[00:19:51] CHRIS THOMPSON: Service top. Yeah.

[00:19:52] LILA: You are the holy grail! 

[00:19:54] CHRIS THOMPSON: What?! 

[00:19:54] LILA: Of kinksters. Seriously. There are, I’m telling you how many women are searching for you! I’m gonna – where do you live again? 

[00:20:01] CHRIS THOMPSON: Colorado. 

[00:20:02] LILA: Do you ever come to New York? 

[00:20:03] CHRIS THOMPSON: I mean, I can fly! 

[00:20:06] LILA: Oh, I have a whole world for you; I’m so excited for you. I’m so excited for me that I get to introduce you, this is amazing! 

[00:20:13] CHRIS THOMPSON: One thing that also popped up a lot was rigger. 

[00:20:16] LILA: A rigger is the role in Shibari, or, Japanese rope bondage, of the person tying the rope. Their counterpart is the model. Or, Bunny, or as I like to be called, Rope, Kitten. Kitten.

[00:20:38] CHRIS THOMPSON: But I didn’t have that skill. So I practiced, and I practiced in a video. And it got 4 million views, and it, the reaction, it got a lot of weird DM’s after that. And because of my sexual history of assault, I just, I haven’t looked at it since. People were like, “Come time me up!” And I was like, “Whoa!” I’m like, just, I took to it, like a duck to water, but I don’t know how much I wanna involve, I. It’s gotta be a trusting environment. 

[00:21:09] LILA: Are you open to seeing my butt? 

[00:21:10] CHRIS THOMPSON: Absolutely. 

[00:21:11] LILA: Okay. This was last week. 

[00:21:15] CHRIS THOMPSON: That is elaborate. 

[00:21:16] LILA: It’s such a beautiful harness. I, I met someone… it’s hard to find a person you really align with to, to tie you. And I met someone who was just so, so skilled, so open, so, so generous. And, and I wanted to- I was heartbroken at this moment. I wanted to feel held, so he, he tied me, and I wanted to feel beautiful. And I wanted to do something on the floor. And I, I wanted to feel, tenderly attended to. He did all of those things. And so he tied me this elaborate harness where I had this huge protection over my heart and felt so, so held and so safe. It was absolutely cathartic! And, uh, I’m s-, I’m so grateful. It was, it was so beautiful. 

[00:22:03] I’ve shared the photos from that session with my favorite rigger in New York, Ben, on my Patreon for my patrons, it’s patreon.com/horizontalwithlila. If you wanna peek. Be warned! You will see my butt. Butt, butt.

[00:22:20] CHRIS THOMPSON: That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m fascinated with it. I’ve just never, because my focus is on the pleasure of the person that I’m with, and I’ve noticed that a lot of women are not used to men who can be present… about their pleasure as well. It’s like that little lizard brain takes o-. I understand it from the male perspective that like, when that horny part of your brain kicks off, it literally takes over everything and it takes a certain amount of, uh, awareness to calm that and focus on the other person as well. Me, I’m just naturally inclined to wanna please the person that I’m with. And what I’ve noticed is: because women are used to being with selfish men, or self-focused men, when they meet me, they forget I’m there. It’s like they switch the role. So, I’ve done all this exploration on my own, but I’ve never been able to explore with someone else.

[00:23:13] So it’s like, yeah, I, I know I like these things, but do I? Like, and how do I even find the environment to, like… I want to feel safe. I was raped by a woman. When I called the police, they laughed at me. When I told a girl I was dating. She said, “That doesn’t happen to men.” When I told the story online, women told me I hadn’t been raped enough for them to care. Women have been cruel! 

[00:23:38] And so, when you get into stuff that’s like, about control and about… exploring something that’s maybe outside of the norm, I just don’t feel safe… I’m a confident person, but when it comes to that, I haven’t been able to find women that will work with me on that, ’cause they don’t think it’s a thing. If that makes sense. 

[00:24:01] LILA: It makes a lot of sense. And it’s horrible. I’m fine. Maybe I’m a little extra emotional because an, an ex of mine was raped and also was not believed and was fired from a job and, and, and… yeah, I just, uh, I also felt into what that must have felt like to you, to not be believed and be told that that doesn’t happen to men; that’s so awful. And this, that’s why men don’t come forward. And that’s why there’s so much harm and there’s so much, so many people don’t come out like you, in terms of turning that into service and care. So many people come out hurting other people. And it, it is horrible. The opposite of the virtuous cycle right? It’s this horrible sinkhole of, of harm. 

[00:24:46] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. 

[00:24:46] LILA: That gets perpetuated. That hurts everybody. My real, real belief is that if we were to eradicate shame from sexuality for everybody, and, and that’s from all your choices, including celibacy and, and, and multiamory and, and anything, we would have 99% less violence in the world. I just think so much of it comes from shame and sexual … barrenness and, and longing and, and inability to cope with the intensity of desire. 

[00:25:27] CHRIS THOMPSON: I think it’s a natural thing that we all go through and, as someone who was raised by emotionally-intelligent parents, my mom and my father allowed me to be the sensitive person that I am, while still also maintaining like I’m a, I’m also a masculine person. A lot of people didn’t get that and a lot of people have had poor experiences and haven’t done the work to work through that, so they only see the world through the lens of this. These few experiences that I have means this entire group is that one thing, and I understand where that comes from to a degree. But because I, I managed to maintain the attention of a lot of women- like, I was a relationship coach, my clientele was a hundred percent female. My audience on TikTok is, 87% female. And I’m able to kind of bridge that gap between the conversation of men and women, ’cause it’s like, some people seem to be just satisfied, finger pointing instead of trying to figure out the source of why these behaviors happen. Like me trying to get to the source of why men act problematic. They wanna focus on what they did; I wanna focus on how they got to that point. Because, demonizing what they did, while I don’t excuse those behaviors, there’s a reason that it happened. And if we just focus on what happened, it’s like throwing water on the smoke instead of the flame.

[00:26:48] Ultimately my goal is to make everyone feel safer because I’ve never felt safe! And so, I, I can have these conversations with women and they feel safe with me, and I can gently offer different perspectives from a male perspective that they will receive. And I do the same thing with men, but men don’t do it publicly. They have to do it privately because even in online spaces, like say there’s a TikTok-er that has a safe space for men, what I notice is when men express themselves, women will go find them in those spaces and berate them there too. 

[00:27:23] So the anger doesn’t happen in a bubble. The anger is a response to something. But there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of sympathy for that, which is actually creating a even less safe space for women. ‘Cause, think about when you feel like no one gives a shit about you. You know, you get angry, you get sad, you do problematic things! So, my hope is that eventually we can get to the point where we start talking to each other and having conversations like this.

[00:27:51] But we have to do the work, internal work on ourselves. Your personal triggers are your responsibility, not somebody else’s. So accountability for that stuff I think is gonna be huge. On, on, on all sides. 

[00:28:05] LILA: I wanna go back to your desire for like, where are these people and, where can I feel safe? I can’t guarantee safety of course, because, nothing is safe. My sense of it is that safety is an illusion, but there are safer places and safer people and safer spaces, and I know many safer spaces and I’m going to introduce you to them. I would love for you to come to New York. And I will give you a timeframe in which several events are happening, and I will take you to all of them. And I will personally introduce you to everybody. I think I, I think I know your people. 

[00:28:43] CHRIS THOMPSON: Anytime that I’ve been around groups that are more involved with kink or sex positive stuff, like even you talking about that I could, I could feel myself tensing up because my experiences have just not been good. 

[00:28:56] ‘Cause it’s really just been, my whole life has been about other people. And so, it would be nice if someone is like, Hey, I, I see where you are. And, it’s okay if nothing really happens. It’s okay if it goes this direction or that. And, and someone who, would like, for once, just hold my hand a little bit. My natural personality is confident and I have a dominant energy, even in the bedroom, so I feel like sometimes the expectation is: I am going to control everything… and I’m- 

[00:29:26] LILA: You’re tired. 

[00:29:27] CHRIS THOMPSON: I mean, think about it, like, I know I have a habit of going for strong women. I just love that. Like lawyers, CEOs, you know, people who really know what they want and go for it. And what is the common thing about them? They tend to be the most submissive. They spend their everyday making so many decisions. When it comes time for bedtime, they wanna relinquish that control. I don’t get that rest. I am dominant in everything and I’m, I’m frankly tired. And I also have trauma, you know, and I’ve dealt with a lot of that trauma in therapy, but there’s certain, kinda like with relationships and probably even sex, there’s certain things that that you can’t work out outside of the experience. But the person has to be understanding that that is your experience and like there’s gonna be some, some struggle in there for you. 

[00:30:21] LILA: There’s so much of this mentality, and people are preaching it everywhere, that you have to like go heal yourself before you get into a relationship, which is frankly… impossible. You can do some healing, but you’re not going to heal wounds that were relationably- hmm. Wounds that were inflicted relationally… outside of relationship. You’re going to heal in relationship. That doesn’t mean don’t take a break. A lot of people need to take a break of, often, quite a long time, six months, a year.

[00:30:58] CHRIS THOMPSON: I’m curious your perspective on this, because my recurrent experience is, say there is a time where a woman is interested in engaging with me sexually, and I say, “Hey, that’s not really what I’m interested in.” It becomes about them. It becomes either, like, I have been told things like, “Oh, you must be gay,” or “What’s wrong with you?” Or it be, all of a sudden me communicating my needs becomes somehow a rejection of them as a person. And where does that come from? 

[00:31:35] LILA: I think that so much of our lives as women in this society is centered around a feeling of powerlessness or, or literally power-less-ness, less power than. And we have learned from a very young age, too young, that our power in our society lies in our ability to be desirable. When… we are rejected, or experience a relationship in which… in which somebody’s desire for us dries up… or is impacted in some way by something else, stress or a job or, or whatever. I think it feels like impotence to us. I think it feels like powerlessness. I think it feels like the one real currency that has gotten us anything that we’ve ever had… we are bereft of it, and that means we’re empty… and we cannot get what we want. So I suspect, subconsciously, it’s touching on that: if I am not desirable, I have nothing. 

[00:33:03] I really admire the women in the world who are like, “Pretty, is not the rent I pay for occupying a space marked female.” I really admire the women who are like, I don’t care. I’m not gonna shave my underarms. I admire the women who don’t wear makeup and do videos. I don’t do any of that. I obviously am fully made up. I am presenting myself in a fabulous and particular way, partly because it brings me great joy, but I cannot un-braid that from the power that it gives me in society, to be charismatic and desirable.

[00:33:45] I have been rejected of course, and when I have been rejected it is so, the feeling, the hurt is indelible. And part of it is practice, lack of practice. Part of it is that you were taught that you pursue, and I was taught that I am the pursued, and if I am the pursued, and I am not being pursued, then what am I?

[00:34:15] CHRIS THOMPSON: So it’s about finding your value beyond your, your desirability, essentially. 

[00:34:22] LILA: I think that’s the… the wound that it scrapes when you reject these women, even though it has nothing to do with, whether you physically desire them, or not. Now, I don’t know if you will ever be able to convince someone who is chafed by that rejection that it is truly not about their desirability, but you could, should you so wish, if it’s true- and I I’m sure you wouldn’t say it unless it was true. If it’s true, you can express what you find sexy and desirable about them. You can express that you are attracted to them and you can express that your experience of vulnerability and trauma in sexuality, currently does not allow you to engage with them in that way, but that you value whatever it is you value about them and you understand that they might not be interested, but if they are interested in connecting in a different way, like as a, an artistic collaborator or as a dance partner or as a massage buddy or as a pen pal, that you would like to do that.

[00:35:47] I think, even when people are good at rejecting, “good,” quote unquote at rejecting, doing it in a kind way, doing it clearly, doing it preemptively so that people don’t get strung along, they don’t necessarily offer what they are available for. If this is not on the table, what is? 

[00:36:08] CHRIS THOMPSON: So, I’ll push back on that a little bit.

[00:36:10] LILA: Go ahead. 

[00:36:10] CHRIS THOMPSON: Because, as, um, a man who communicates well, this applies even outside of the sexual experience. What I found is if, say I have a problem with, with someone’s behavior, and I’m not saying this is all people, but I, I have heard this and experienced this myself. Say, I disagree with a behavior that you have, and I communicate that. What I have noticed is, the pushback against that upsets the woman. And then I am now consoling her about her hurt feelings about what I just said. So once again, it is not about how I feel, ’cause what if, in that moment where I don’t want to have sex, I don’t have the capacity to console you. I’m going through my own thing. At what point do I get to feel that support? At what point are you, are you responsible for that yourself? And I don’t have to do the emotional labor of figuring it out for you. 

[00:37:12] LILA: I think the thing is that you get to feel that support from somebody else. It’s not gonna be from that person. 

[00:37:20] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. So, say it’s somebody that I am in the context of a, a relationship with. So if, if, if this was someone that like, I don’t really have that connection with, I’m not gonna go through all that effort. But if it’s someone that I, I do have that emotional connection with and that I’m going to continue to see, obviously in that moment it’s, that conversation’s not gonna happen. I wanna wait for us to be able to have more of a rational conversation around it. And when emotions are heightened, that’s not the time for it.

[00:37:52] So say, say this is happening between you and I, and I said, “I’m not interested in having sex with you”, and you’re having an emotional feeling about it. Right. What is a way to, I guess just you personally, what will be a way to approach that conversation, where I’m expressing how I feel, and you’re hearing me, but I’m also allowing you the space to tell me how in the future we could have done that exchange differently.

[00:38:22] LILA: Like a a, a course correction or- 

[00:38:25] CHRIS THOMPSON: So I have a friend, I have a friend that has an anxiety disorder. I can’t ask her how to be there for her or how to have that conversation while she’s having an anxiety issue. 

[00:38:35] LILA: 100%. 

[00:38:36] CHRIS THOMPSON: So I ask before: What’s a way for us to either, I can either be there for you or have a conversation surrounding this situation before it happens, so I have a course of action. 

[00:38:49] LILA: I’m gonna have to ask you to rephrase your inquiry, but the thing that kept coming to mind that I was like, I can’t, I can’t lose this, is: you’ll never be able to control their reaction. Even if you step on all the steps, all the rickety steps in just the right place so that they don’t break, you won’t be able to ensure that they are not triggered.

[00:39:15] CHRIS THOMPSON: But I can make sure that I don’t do things to extend that triggered state. 

[00:39:22] LILA: I agree with that. 

[00:39:24] CHRIS THOMPSON: So what can I do in that moment to make sure that I am not extenuating that circumstance and making it worse so that we can eventually get to a point where we can try to come to an understanding of what happened in that moment and what both of our needs are.

[00:39:43] LILA: I’m a big fan of the, what I call the ‘multiple choice version of relating,’ because, I’m a person with depression, who- I’m a, no. I’m a person who has battled depression at different points in my life. I also cannot express what I need from people when I’m depressed. So I need to express it beforehand. I’ve, in fact, I wrote a list: How to Love Me When I’m… And it has like 10 things on it. I wish I had given it to people when I had my last episode, but I didn’t. I learn. 

[00:40:21] So yes, you wanna preempt that kind of thing, but maybe you can’t, maybe you don’t know this person well enough to preempt it, cuz you kind of have to know them a little bit to be able to do that. But if it’s a new person, maybe you don’t, and maybe it just happens and you trigger them and it’s not your fault, it’s not their fault. But, but there’s emotional upset and it’s in the space and it’s affecting you and it’s affecting them. And then suddenly, you feel more responsible. What I wanted to bring up was the, the a word that I identify with, which is codependent. Mm-hmm. And my desire to make sure everyone else is okay so that I can be okay.

[00:40:56] And one of the things that came up in my experience is that I have to be, okay with, uh, flack. When I draw boundaries, when I, when I am advocating for myself… there’s a beautiful quote from Prentice Hemphill. They say, “Boundaries are the point at which I can love you and me at the same time.”

[00:41:19] CHRIS THOMPSON: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That, that, that hit, that hits with what I was asking you. 

[00:41:26] LILA: That might be something you could share. I’m saying this so that I can take care of both of us at the same time. I’m taking care of me and you in this moment to the best of my ability. And then back to the multiple choice thing. So say I’m, I’ll take it away into, into depression land. So say I’m in bed, binge-watching TV. Which is not gonna be good for me after like a day. A day is okay, but more than that is, is really not okay. And you’re my friend, and you love me and you wanna help me. I have almost zero capacity to tell you, when I’m in that state, that I would like you to do X, Y, or Z for me or with me, because I am so afraid that if you reject me, reject what I ask you for, which is really what I need. Now, I’m not asking you for what I want. I’m asking you for what I actually need. And if you say no, I won’t give you what you need. Or if you give me what I need from an empty cup, or if you give me what I need when you don’t really want to, I am going to feel so much worse. And I am already at a nadir. I am already beneath the floorboards. So if I ask you and you say no, or you do it with an obligation – that is so triggering to me because I feel very obligated to my mother. So like, if you do it with a sense of obligation, I don’t want it. I don’t want it, and it will make me feel worse.

[00:42:56] So what would actually work, is if you said, “Lila, would you like to go to the drive-in? Would you like to go to the garment district and buy fringe and decorate your jean jacket? Would you like me to come over and hold you for 30 minutes without saying anything?” If you offer me three things, no more than three… it’s too many. The paradox of choice will kick in. But if you offer me two, two is also good. This or this. But I like three, I think multiple choice, just ABC is really good.

[00:43:34] If you offer me ABC, I know that what you have offered- because I trust that you are a human with integrity, who’s going to offer only what they truly want to give and does not deplete them in such a way that they will be harmed, then I can trust that I can choose A, B, or C, and you want to give that to me and I’m not depleting you; I’m not harming you. I’m not siphoning off life force that you don’t really have to give me. Then I can accept, and I can receive and I can heal with you. 

[00:44:14] So, if in that moment you were able to say, ” I know this might be tough, I’m, I’m seeing that maybe this is difficult for you. Would you like me to leave and send you a text tomorrow? Would you like me to hold you in any kind of way for a 10 minute time period? Would you like me to, tell you the things that I really enjoy about you?” Whatever those three things are that you’re willing to offer that you think may be useful to them, that would also not deplete your cup, that might be helpful.

[00:45:00] That doesn’t solve the problem of you being the one who’s always taking care and taking control and making the choices and helping. That doesn’t solve that problem at all. I think the only thing that I can imagine that would really help with that is for you to find somebody who has a facility with giving and receiving themselves, both. So that you didn’t feel guilty, that you’ve flipped the script and now she’s giving everything, and you are giving nothing. But somebody who actually has an understanding that… we give the energy that we have in relationship. 

[00:45:42] For the man I told you about who’s currently celibate, the energy that he has is money, logistics and certain kind of social power. So I never ever had to think, who’s gonna pay? Do I have to pull out my wallet? No, I don’t. How relaxing, how delightful. That was energy that he had to offer, that was valuable to me. Not because I can’t pay for my own dinner, but because it is a pleasure to be taken care of by a man like that. A pleasure to me. Makes me feel so loved and feminine and good, and that’s not politically correct and I don’t care. It feels so nourishing. 

[00:46:29] What I have in spades is emotional intelligence. The ability to communicate clearly and to anticipate both of our needs and potentially strategize to get them all met. So that’s what I offer.

[00:46:48] CHRIS THOMPSON: My question is, why are you engaging with someone where there’s such a massive disparity in the investment? 

[00:46:55] LILA: I’ll tell you the real reason why. And it’s because, since I was a child, I’ve, for some reason felt that I was unworthy of that love and, and, uh, that challenge persists to this day. Now I’m dealing with it in therapy and I have a team and I have support. I actually don’t know where it comes from because I was a child who was loved and, and valued, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I really, um, I don’t know. I came to think so, so little of myself that I was, I was engaging in choosing these relationships in which I would not receive what I really wanted and it would reinforce my wounds. Like I would choose, choose to… It’s like each of those relationships, I chose to pick the scab of the biggest wound of my existence. I am working on it. 

[00:48:07] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. So, we have a very similar experience. I spent all last year doing, uh, EMDR therapy. 

[00:48:14] LILA: I’m gonna, I’m, I’m starting next week. 

[00:48:16] CHRIS THOMPSON: It is the most massively helpful thing, like, see this tattoo? That was when I completed it and it was about me healing my inner child. In the place that you create in your mind, when it gets too intense. 

[00:48:31] I’m gonna let you know, it is one of the hardest types of therapies you can ever do. In the beginning, what they do is they identify what your negative core belief is. Mine was that I was worthless. I come from a loving family. Where does that come from? It, it’s hard to understand, but what I would find myself doing is almost auditioning for people to love me. I would find people who didn’t value me and then I would find a way to show them that I was a valuable person. But in reality, I was valuable the whole time, and they just didn’t have the capacity to see who I was.

[00:49:19] And now, oh honey. And now I don’t allow people who don’t see me to exist in my life. And that healing was really, really painful. It was a really hard lesson. If I could give a suggestion, do EMDR on days where you have nothing else to do, ’cause you will be- because you are just drudging up all that stuff and not once, but twice, but however many times it takes to zero out how traumatic that is.

[00:49:50] LILA: Yeah. We haven’t even started yet. And the two sessions I’ve had with her, I’ve wept through the entire thing. Yeah. And, and I have, I’m, I have already taken your advice because I have made sure that there was nothing afterwards because I am going to be in the fetal position mm-hmm and like humming with the, my body will be humming with the intensity of that experience.

[00:50:15] The reason I’m doing it, because I’m aware of this, this belief and, and also because I have very few memories. And what is that, that, what is that if not trauma? Like there’s, there’s no reason for me to have such little recollection. I’m a person who memorized entire plays. I’ve done one woman shows. I remember things. But I have almost no memories of my childhood, of my young adulthood, my teenage life. I mean, it’s, it’s pain, you know? 

[00:50:44] And for, so many years, I was like, Well, I can’t say that I have trauma. I’ve never been in war. I haven’t been raped. I have, um, my parents love me. I don’t have alcoholics in my life. I’m a white woman. I don’t get to say that I have trauma. I know that that’s not true. I know that trauma comes in all kinds of ways. And I know that trauma is not the events that happen to you, but how you code them. And then how they are activated when you are reminded of that wounding later on. Now I know that’s what trauma is. 

[00:51:27] And when I began to go through my trauma map for my therapist. I actually have two therapists right now, and the one that I used to see in college that I’m seeing again, I just traced, traced everything for her. I traced her a map of my, consequential events of my life. And I finished, you know, an hour later and she said, “The word that just keeps coming up for me is resilient,” …..because it isn’t just one thing. It’s many things and it’s a lot of pain and it’s a lot of poor treatment in different ways that I didn’t deserve. And, ooh…. and, um, and I know that now, that I didn’t deserve that. 

[00:52:26] And I cried looking at your tattoo because I went through a visualization of sitting next to myself at 12 years old, which was like the worst year when my mom took me away from my father and moved me down to Florida and, and I had no friends and I, I was rejected and I ate lunch in the bathroom and fell in with these Baptist kids who were so mean to me. And, and, and I sat next to, you know, 35 year old, 37 year old… version of me sat next to the 12 year old, who’s like, you know, got the, the magazine, uh, clippings all over the wall and the… and, and so it’s, I’ve got you. It’s okay. It’s gonna be better, I promise…..

[00:53:22] So at least now I feel love for her… and how, she did the best she could. To forgive myself for making all those choices that reinforce my sense of unworthiness though, will take a lot of work. Because I have, like I said earlier, like, participated in my wounding so much. Hurt myself so much with my choices.

[00:54:01] I tried once. I used to keep very elaborate journals. I have them all. Let’s say there’s 40 of them, starting from when I was 10. I organized them in or in chrono- chronological order once….. and I tried to begin reading through. I opened the first one- and I did it again the other day. I opened the first one, this is probably 10 years ago, and the first one is from when I was maybe nine or 10. In this like big, vulnerable handwriting. Tried to read it. And I think was on the second page, it said….. I don’t know why people hate me so much. And I was like, I can’t do this. I can’t do this, I can’t do this alone. I can’t do this alone. And I put it away for 10 years. A reason why I hired an MDR – EMDR therapist was to have somebody to do that with.

[00:55:07] CHRIS THOMPSON: I’m, I’m so proud of you. You are about to have an evolution that you, you can’t even fully grasp in this moment. My, my understanding of like, what happens in your brain when you do EMDR. He was very good at making visuals. So he said, “You have short-term memory over here. You have long-term memory over here. You have a pickup truck that takes those memories from one side to the other. Throughout the process of transferring, memories will fall off the back of that truck. Most of the time those are memories that don’t really mean a whole lot, but sometimes they’re really traumatic memories, which is why you don’t remember it a lot, ’cause you haven’t fully processed it.

[00:55:54] And that’s what a trigger is. It is a memory that didn’t make it to its destination. 

[00:56:00] So you are going to go in, you’re gonna go into those memories and it’s gonna bring up other memories that you don’t remember, repressed memories. And that’s gonna be really painful. But as you go from memory to memory to memory, and you reframe it in a way, like, I’ll give a light example: When I was in middle school, I was in a talent show. And I always, I’ve always loved to sing. And when I got done singing, I went to walk off stage- and I was bullied relentlessly all through middle school. And one of my biggest bullies screamed that F word, derogatory towards gay people, at me. And the entire audience just starts laughing at me. And I, I, I wanted to defend myself in some way. So I flipped him off. Nothing happened to him; I got kicked out of the talent show, right? So that was frustrating. So he is like, describe what you see when you go into that memory. And when I first started in that memory, it was like I was watching 13 year old me from the rafters and at big open stage alone. It was like nobody was there. It was very isolating. He’s like, “What words do you use to associate with that memory?” And I was like, “Loser, alone, unwanted.” He’s like, Okay, stick with that. We went with the memory over and over and over again, and as we went through that memory, the way I viewed it in my mind’s eye actually changed. And he was like, “What words would you like to describe that?” 

[00:57:42] Eventually, I came to the realization that I was brave for standing in front of an audience and singing in general, but especially a bunch of people who don’t like me. I was talented. By the end of that memory, by the end of processing and reframing that memory, I was sitting in the audience watching myself. And I was proud of me. And I am no longer affected by that. It doesn’t make the memory go away; it just makes you look at it differently. And you can apply that to pretty much- there’s a reframe for everything, but you gotta get to the point of being able to actually like, pick it up and look at it and investigate it. 

[00:58:22] I’m so excited for you because I think this is going to, this is gonna change your relationship with everything. Do you know what I have now? Peace. Uhhuh. That big, that big, uh, gasp you just had there? You want it too. That peace? I would’ve paid a million dollars for that because man, I have known nothing but white knucklin’ life and just figuring it out and trying to make people love me. And now: you either do or you don’t, but I’m good.

[00:58:53] You’re gonna get there, but it’s, you’re gonna have to bleed to get there though, for sure. But! It is worth every moment. Make sure you lean into it. 

[00:59:08] LILA: My oldest friend is my friend Joe, from high school, and he’s now a doctor of Osteopathy and he has helped me various times throughout my life since he’s become a doctor. And this time, when I was in the depression and I called him, he helped me again and, I said, “Oh, I’m giving up sugar, but it’s my only vice!” And he’s like, “Can I tell you something? I don’t know if you want to hear?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “I don’t think sugar is your vice. I think your vice is forgetting.” This is somebody who’s known me since I was 15 and I’m about to turn 40. He said, “I think in order to heal you’re going to have to …..remember the Lila that learned to forget.” So that’s what I’m gonna do now.

[01:00:13] CHRIS THOMPSON: I really hope that you, keep in touch with me throughout this process. I’d like to be a support for you, as someone who spent all of last year doing this. I’d never gone to therapy before and I didn’t realize I jumped straight into the deep end, but that’s literally my personality. He’s like, my therapist was like, “Man, you came ready and you were like, ‘I’ve got trauma. Get this shit out.'” But, I’m glad I did it that way ’cause after that, I dug it all out, reprocessed it, and then I got into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is just tools, and man that is so much lighter! My vice is also sugar, you know, so I always had s’mores prepared for after my EMDR session. So figure out what your version of s’mores is. 

[01:00:59] LILA: I think it will probably be getting dressed up really pretty.

[01:01:03] CHRIS THOMPSON: You have such co- I’ve only met you today, but like, you look like you’re ready to, I don’t know what this outfit is, but I’m obsessed with it. It’s like, it’s a way of expressing how you feel inside. You’re this: you’re spikes and fringe and sequins. And I’ve just met you today. I met you today, and we’re crying together. It makes sense. It makes sense. 

[01:01:24] LILA: It certainly does. Oh my God, I didn’t know this conversation was gonna be like this and I’m so immensely grateful. 

[01:01:31] CHRIS THOMPSON: Remember when we sat down to talk about sex and then we talked about all of our mental anguish for the last, I don’t know how long? It’s the best though. 

[01:01:39] LILA: I do. And I think it was the most beautiful thing because sex is not ever isolated from, trauma and identity and desire and, insecurity, and it’s not isolated from any of it.

[01:01:54] CHRIS THOMPSON: I think that’s probably been my struggle in the sexual world is that that’s what I was viewed as, as an object for that. You know, men face this as well. We’re sexualized as little boys. What can you, like, how, who can you get and how good can you and how long and all this stuff that’s, so I think that’s actually, it’s a little bit of a realization for me is like, it’s not that I want someone who is willing to like walk me through the, maybe some of like the kinks or things that I’m more interested in exploring. It’s someone that understands the stuff underneath that and my, my needs, my needs outside of the, I just don’t, it’s weird as a man to say this, but I think a lot of us feel this and don’t say it: I don’t want be a sex object.

[01:02:37] I want intimacy is what I want, and that doesn’t involve insertion. It can, but there’s so many more aspects to that. And so I’ve experienced sex my whole life. I’m great at it. What I haven’t experienced is intimacy. So I hope in some way I can find someone who has the capacity to provide that for me as well, instead of just focusing on what I can do for them.

[01:03:02] 

[01:03:10] LILA: Positively Sex! is produced by Dylan Fagan for iHeart, mixed and mastered by Andrew Howard, and most every episode is researched, recorded, in person, edited, and hosted by me, Lila. Positively Sex! began as a featured show in Clubhouse’s Creator First Program. My most joyous thanks to my formerly of Clubhouse Maven, Stephanie Simon, this episode’s wise, tender, and generous guest, Chris Thompson, also known as @supdaily on the socials, S U P Daily, and the Hacienda Community for giving me a home, all that sex education, and my sex-positive street cred.

[01:03:56] 

[01:04:12] LILA: I have so much desire hearing that to matchmake for you. 

[01:04:20] CHRIS THOMPSON: I’ve never had a matchmaker, so. 

[01:04:25] LILA: I really haven’t offered that to anybody, but I think it would be my, my pleasure. So I already have someone in mind. We can talk about that off the record. 

[01:04:33] CHRIS THOMPSON: Okay. We’ll work on being friends first. You and me. And then we’ll, let’s, let’s baby step our way through this

[01:04:40] LILA: Okay. That’s me. That’s me going from zero to a hundred… thank you. 

[01:04:45] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yeah. This is, this is why we’re here, right? I mean, and that’s what we were talking about earlier with like, allow the squirrel to happen ’cause you never know what it’s going to lead to. This conversation was enthralling and the fa- and I applaud you for the ability to display that vulnerable to essentially a, a, a stranger. It makes me feel like I’m in the right place to create that space for someone to do that. 

[01:05:12] LILA: And you are. Because, while I do have that, I’m gonna call it a gift- while I do have that gift… it is also a deliberate choice because I have the facility to choose, because I don’t put it all in the pressure cooker. Because there are release valves in my life. I don’t blurt, which means I chose you. Chose to go there with you and that means you created, you are an environment in which that- you are a hospitable environment for vulnerability.

[01:05:54] CHRIS THOMPSON: I feel. I felt an immediate openness from you. I sense people very easily and you were- for a second. I was just like, why is she? Like I’m gonna, I don’t know how to say this in any other way. I don’t meet many, physically beautiful women who are immediately open. There’s always that hesitation to open up. So I was almost like mystified and a little confused why you were so nice immediately; I’m used to almost having to prove myself safe, and it was almost like you, I didn’t go through that with you at all. 

[01:06:26] LILA: It’s because I have the same sort of ability with people, and I immediately marked you as safe. 

[01:06:33] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yes! Which by the way, hasn’t always worked out for me in the dating world. Being safe is, I guess I’m, I’m boring, but that’s, I realized that that is their journey, not mine.

[01:06:43] LILA: That’s other people’s trauma. 

[01:06:44] CHRIS THOMPSON: Yes. I, I get that, but it’s just like, I never thought that being vulnerable, emotionally available, present, and consistent would be a detriment to my dating life. Like I hear women talk about wanting that all the time, and then they meet me and they’re like, Oh no, because what they don’t recognize is that if I’m vulnerable, you have to be vulnerable too. It’s not a one way street. 

[01:07:08] LILA: And just like what Meghan Tonjes said: If you throw yourself at a closed gate, you can throw yourself as hard as you like, knowing it’s not gonna open. If you throw yourself at an open gate, you will sail right through and then what happens? And that’s the fear, for them, is my understanding of it.

[01:07:34] CHRIS THOMPSON: Vulnerability’s scary. I mean, I’m good at it, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy! 

[01:07:38] LILA: No! And I don’t, I don’t suppose it ever will be. 

[01:07:41] CHRIS THOMPSON: If it was easy, it wouldn’t be special. Like everybody would do it and it would be just the norm. What they don’t realize, they throw themselves through that gate. I’m there. I got you, but, they have had so many other experiences to the contrary, just like I have. And, they gotta work through that. And people, I, I get, they mean it as a compliment. I have a large female audience and they’re like, I wish there were more men like you. And the truth is there’s lots of men like me, but it, those men exist on the other side of your own healing. ‘Cause you can’t see them.

[01:08:16] LILA: Oh, we have to end on that. Oh my god. I have chills. Fuck! Those men exist on the other side of your own healing. Oh!