What Excites Us!

Episode 43: Intimacy Guide Michelle Renee

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Michelle Renee: I think of my own journey. I healed myself with the help of really supportive people around me. They didn't heal me. They gave me unconditional positive regard. They loved me really well. And I can pass that on.

[00:00:31] Gwyn: Hello and welcome to What Excites Us, the podcast that discusses sex and sexuality from a variety of perspectives, so that you will believe that you, your interests and your sexual desires are all okay. My name is Gwyn Isaacs. I am a certified sex coach who has been professionally helping people feel better in their sexuality and how to approach it with joy since 2017.

My guest today is Michelle Renee. Michelle, who uses she her pronouns is an intimacy guide based in San Diego, California, offering human connection ranging from platonic, nurturing, touch as a professional cuddler to surrogate partner therapy. Her passion is working with clients who have a history of trauma and being able to support them in establishing safety for themselves and others. In addition to her one-on-one hands-on support, she launched Soft Cock Week in 2022 as a week of education, normalization, and celebration of the flacid phallus. You can learn more about that at softcockweek.com. In this episode, we talk about Michelle's personal journey and what led her to become a surrogate partner. What that therapy modality is, professional cuddling. How being trauma informed shows up in her work, why soft cock week, and what that is, responsive desire and a host of other random sex geeky topics.

Thank you Michelle Renee so much. This is gonna be a really good conversation. I'm looking forward to this.

[00:02:25] Michelle Renee: I'm glad to be here. I'm excited to see what we end up talking about.

[00:02:28] Gwyn: Me too. Like this is gonna be super fun. I haven't had anybody who does surrogate work at all on yet, so can we just even talk about what that is cuz I bet a lot of folks don't know.

[00:02:40] Michelle Renee: There's not a lot of us, so that's part of why you not talk to anybody. also, most people don't know about us and I mean, or they have a really interesting Hollywood view of what we are. people might go, oh yeah, The Sessions with Helen Hunt. Right. So, Surrogate partner therapy is, uh, a modality for working with generally single clients who are in talk therapy and they're kind of stuck, right? They have some struggles around physical or emotional intimacy and they're just not making headway in traditional talk therapy. So they'll bring, the therapist will bring us in as surrogate partners to create kind of this interesting relationship with the client so that we can kind of figure out what's, what's really going on. Cuz they're gonna show up differently with us cuz we have very different boundaries.

It says surrogate partner therapy. I'm not a therapist, it is a modality. And I work alongside a therapist as a team. So, we work, usually it's a longer term, process. Usually a year or more we're with a client. Working together like sometimes people work in like an every other week, schedule. Sometimes people work in like, weekend intensives. If they're from farther away and they gotta travel. Like, we'll do a few days in a row, take a break, they'll go home and process, come back and do another couple days and kind of that order. It's intense work for myself as a surrogate. But I love it cause it's always changing and you never know what's gonna show up in the room. Right? Like we get the histories on the clients. We learn a lot about them, but you still don't know. You don't know what's gonna happen and you get to be on your toes. And I love that. I love that.

[00:04:22] Gwyn: You work in conjunction with a therapist. Are you continuing to speak with that therapist during the course of therapy?

[00:04:29] Michelle Renee: Absolutely. The general format is that the client will see the therapist in between every session that I have with them. And then I also talk to the therapist in between every session that I have with the client. So there's always communication going on between all three of us.

[00:04:46] Gwyn: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, what's the distinction between surrogate partner therapy and sexual surrogacy?

[00:04:54] Michelle Renee: I think a change of era. I think when the work started with like Masters and Johnson, it was very much focused on, here is a sexual dilemma, right? Usually erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation where you don't have a partner. We're gonna bring in this partner for you, we're gonna do some sensate focus exercises, and then we're gonna work on that sexual issue specifically. So I think of it as maybe more like The Sessions looked where it's a shorter container. The work has evolved over time and I'd say nowadays the current people in our industry, which I I'm gonna say is in kind of a renaissance at this point, like surrogate partner therapy kind of died down during the AIDS crisis. People, a lot of people got out of the work. It became very more taboo than it is right now. And surrogate partner therapy really honors the fact that we're building a relationship and this is a very much a relational model, and most of our work is not spent in erotic space. I think there was a study done at one point that said like, about 90% of our work is not done in the erotic space. And so it's really, I think a lot of putting to practice, things like the wheel of consent, that kind of work. It's like having someone to build healthy relationship skills with. And then sometimes they may need an erotic experience or a series of erotic experiences to work through that specific issue they came with. But a lot of times it's the other stuff they really needed that solves whatever was going on, right? They think that they know what's going on, but they don't really know what's going on. And if that makes sense. Like it's always a broader issue. Right? Maybe it's a safety issue. I'm a big, proponent on building safety first in relationships. And so many times we come into relationships and wanna build the safety later.

[00:06:47] Gwyn: Yeah, the the N R E just takes over and you're not thinking clearly cuz your brain is full of fun drugs that our body creates and.

[00:06:56] Michelle Renee: And, and I get to show up without the fun drugs in my brain. Right. And so I can really pace with the client at a much more sustainable pace. Right. There's times where I've had a, a client that I am actually personally attracted to, like, we build attraction. Like you always find something to be attracted to in, in a person I work with, but somebody might show up in a place where I'm like, Ooh, in the regular world I would totally date you. You know? And then I have to practice my professionalism. Right. And slow everything down. This is not how Michelle in the dating world moves, right? This is not, oh, we just met each other and your request is, I would like to make out with you. Oh, I would like to make out with you too, but we're not gonna do that right now cuz that's gonna bring a, a something into our space that we're not ready for yet. Right. That's where the professional hat really has to kick in

[00:07:49] Gwyn: Right, Oh, that's so interesting. Sure. Do you get to a place where you are doing sensate focus exercises and bringing the erotic into it? Or does sometimes that not even happen? [00:08:01] Michelle Renee: It just depends on the client. Actually the, case I presented at AASECT was a client that we never got naked. We just spent, I think it was about eight months building safety, safety between me and the client, safety with the client and himself and also safety out in the regular world. Right? That's what we worked on. Cuz there was a sexual assault background that was the thing that was needed. And when we got that, he said, oh, I'm ready to go back to dating. I don't need to go any farther with you. Perfect, wonderful. Love it. And if you get out in the real world and you realize that you weren't quite ready, you can come back. Like it's not a, you cut ties and, and you can't have access again. If your therapist thinks that there's more work to be done, then I come back. If we've cut ties because you've really hit your goals and it's time for you to generalize and kind of push the baby bird out of the nest, then. I put like a two year no contact to make sure that they really go out and start to venture into the world and not fall back on me.

[00:09:06] Gwyn: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How do you build safety with someone? Uh, you mentioned the wheel of consent, but I bet a lot of people don't know what that is.

[00:09:14] Michelle Renee: Well, I think for us the methods that I go through is we do a lot of work around yeses and nos. Right. if I've never heard you say no to anything, I can't trust your Yes. And I mentioned earlier, I have a history of sexual coercion in my previous marriage. Right? So for me, my, I didn't have a no. Right. Like it wasn't super welcomed. And I want to create a relationship with a client where I want to hear their no, and I'm gonna celebrate it because then I get to really celebrate their Yes. Right. And when somebody feels safe to say no, it changes the whole relationship dynamic. And so that's really the, I think the core to, when I say building safety, it's really trusting that the, the person can advocate for themselves and that they will.

[00:10:05] Gwyn: How do you test that?

[00:10:07] Michelle Renee: I don't know that you can test it. I think it's a build, like a slow build, like almost like rolling a snowball in a way. Like, we do, uh, I don't know if, if anybody's ever been to a cuddle party. This is a, an exercise that we do at Cuddle Party, but we take it farther in our work. Where it's like, okay, first step, if I ask you for a whole bunch of stuff and you have to tell me no to all of those things, could you recognize in your body when you wanted to say yes to that thing? Or could you not recognize it? Because that's a diagnostic tool for me, right? How in touch are we with, with our, um, body sensations? Cause our body really knows what our yes and no is. And if we just slow down a little bit, we would be able to identify that. Some people, especially if you've had an abusive childhood, that was never developed, right? We were not encouraged to have a voice. And so sometimes we have to slow down a lot to really start to develop that sense of, oh, I could actually, what if I did say yes to this? Can I change my mind?

Like, it's kind of like I said, cuddle party rules. I have, I have a Cuddle party facilitator, and so those rules from cuddle party work into regular life and they overlap with pretty much all of my work all falls under that kind of Wheel of Consent framework. Which is, questioning, who is this for? Am I wanting to touch you for you? Or is it touching you for me? Touching you for me is really okay, but we sometimes don't think about touch that way. It feels like we're taking advantage of someone, or that word take taking touch feels dirty and icky, right? But really it's just authentically breaking down who is this action for? And it's okay for it to be for you. Right? so we just keep building on that, how can I feel a yes and no? Right? And then it's like, okay, now we're gonna start asking for authentic requests. Well that's scary, right? To actually say what we want and what if we hear a no. And it's just like building that muscle up from like the ground up that a no is just good information. It's nothing personal against you. It's me taking care of myself and just modeling this kind of like neutrality to disappointment or what might feel as rejection. And I remember Monique Darling saying like, it's just redirection, right? So when they finally do give me an authentic no, I throw like a little party

[00:12:36] Gwyn: That's awesome.

[00:12:38] Michelle Renee: it just relieves so much stress for me. Cuz like, When they come in, I say like, you can always ask for touch at any time. I'm a hugger, I'm a cuddler. If you come in, I don't wanna offer you a hug. If I think that you might give it to me out of obligation, that's not starting off on a good foot. Right? So I would say touch is available if you wanna ask for it. But until I know that you can say no to me, I just can't make any offerings. [00:13:06] Gwyn: And do you find that people have a hard time asking for what it is that they want?

[00:13:11] Michelle Renee: They have a hard time identifying what they want, let alone asking for what they want. Right? I don't know what I want. One of my favorite interviews, this question came up of like, how do you know what do you want in your life? This big massive question, right? And my colleague Brian Gibney goes, well, first you gotta know the little stuff. Like, what do I need right now? Oh, my body is saying, I need to use the bathroom. Well go give yourself what your body needs. Go use the bathroom. Right? You have to start with these little things before we can even consider tackling the big, what do I want in my life if I'm not giving myself the thing that I need right now?

[00:13:48] Gwyn: I don't think people understand that. I think that for the most part, we are not taught that we are not taught to identify with ourselves at all

[00:13:58] Michelle Renee: Yeah, that's the beauty of professional cuddling. Like to bring in all my work into one little interesting umbrella. I call myself a human connection coach because I work in the full spectrum of platonic to erotic connection and the platonic cuddle space is so freaking good at this. At least specifically through Cuddlist, which is where I was trained years ago, it's all client driven. So client comes to session and we make this opening agreement to take care of ourselves. I start with a promise to the client that if ever I'm uncomfortable, I'm going to do something to change it. Right? They never have to worry, is Michelle enjoying this? Does Michelle want to be here? I am only a yes to things that I am a wholehearted yes to. Right? So they can quit worrying about me and caretaking me. Then the question becomes, can I ask the same of you? Are you able to also take responsibility and not tolerate anything? And usually they say yes. Sometimes they say, I really don't know if I can do that, Michelle. And I say, that's okay. I'm just gonna check in with you a lot more. It's all right. But then I go, how do you wanna connect today? That's their first choice. They get to make a choice, and It's scary, right? But if we can pick one thing right now that would feel okay to you, then we can just build on that. Right? And that builds their confidence. It puts them in full power of the session. Like to the extent that I'm a yes. Right? And that's a huge, uh, that can be life changing for people. I've had people come into session thinking they were just coming for a cuddle, right? And then I start to help them learn that like, again, I can't trust your yes. If I've never heard your no. And they start to incorporate these things and take them home, it might end up in needing a little marriage counseling, right? If you come home and suddenly you wanna start advocating and not being inauthentic in your responses, cuz you've learned that that's not helpful. How do you take a longstanding marriage and rework that with this new paradigm? it can be a lot, but it I wouldn't avoid doing it, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it might rock the boat a little bit, but I think everybody will be better off for it in the long run.

[00:16:12] Gwyn: Yeah. Even from where I sit as a sex coach who's been advocating for myself for more than a decade and working with others for half that. If you said to me, how do you wanna connect today? It would take me a minute. Like, that's a big question. It feels a little stymying. Um, and I,

[00:16:33] Michelle Renee: it's, and, and it's about being present, right? You could come in, I suppose, with like a preplanned, choreographed cuddle session, and I've had it happen before. It's not my favorite kind of session, but people come in and be like, okay, so I wanna start with this move and then go to this move, and I don't. I don't really work in like, cuddle positions. Like, oh, we're gonna do the mama bear and then we're gonna spoon, like, those are the only two positions I know the names of. Um, but that, that doesn't feel like you're really checking in with your body and saying, what does my body want right now? Okay, I maybe I can't identify that. Can I identify what I wanna feel? Do I wanna feel nourished, held and, cared for? Or do I wanna do that for someone else? And you can start to kind of pull that apart.

And that's part of my job, right, is to not give you the answer, but to help you figure out what you want. So, yeah. It doesn't have to be overwhelming. And then there's some people come in, they're like, I just need to feel like a bowl of spaghetti with you, right? I wanna be intertwined like octopus, and I'm ready to jump right in. And I'm like, awesome, cool. I love getting to know people this way. And then there's the people that are like, I don't really know you. Could we sit here and just talk for a little bit and get comfortable with each other? I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm ready to move at your pace, because I can do both ends of that spectrum.

[00:17:54] Gwyn: yeah. And so you, you do cuddling as a private one-on-one session and then also cuddle parties?

[00:18:01] Michelle Renee: I'm a certified facilitator for Cuddle party. I haven't honestly run a cuddle party in years. I've really found that I love working one-on-one and group facilitation is not my favorite thing to do. I love cuddle party and I've learned so much from it. And I always joke like if somebody wants to do all the legwork leading up to the party and I just walk in and facilitate, I would be a hell yes. But I haven't found anybody to do that for me yet. So yeah, I, but

[00:18:30] Gwyn: Do you find personal satisfaction in the cuddle party, like besides the admin stuff, is there something in it for you as well, or is it just that you're not getting that one-on-one that really

[00:18:41] Michelle Renee: the past I had, it was such a great place to practice the things that I needed. So I come out of unhealthy relationship marriage, right? I get into cuddling, I get into cuddle party facilitation at about the same time, and then later add the surrogate partner work. That the cuddle space and the cuddle party space was exactly what I needed to heal from really bad relationship dynamics. And so my boss at Cuddlist I guess you wouldn't call her boss, whatever, she's co-founder Madelon Guinazzo always says like, we're always just a couple steps ahead of our clients. That's all that we need. And it's true. And I've been able to keep moving that ball forward and, honestly it's kind of changed the types of clients I get to work with. So I'm happy about that.

I'm much more, working with people that have trauma backgrounds. I love working with specifically people that have difficult relationships with their moms. Cuz I come in with big mom energy. And if you didn't have like an affectionate mom, Or that secure relationship with her. I've had some really amazing clients come through that we've been able to build that at such a later date. And I just say like, you're just borrowing my nervous system. And I just get to love on you for an hour or two. I did some vision boarding a couple years back and I was cutting up some psych networker magazines, which is something I get. Cause I go to their conference every year and they had really great therapy terms in there. So as I'm laying all these things out, just accidentally the words attention therapy, were next to each other. And I was like, oh, that's exactly what I do in Cuddle Space. You're getting all of my attention and attunement And my nervous system and like, it's amazing how healing that can be yet so simple,

[00:20:33] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:20:34] Michelle Renee: but we just don't get it.

[00:20:36] Gwyn: Yeah. We have to intentionally ground ourselves. Especially in today's hectic world, but we're, so much of our lives are online on a screen, you know, go to work, come home, make dinner, kids that, blah, you know, that. Then, then we don't take the time. We don't think, oh gee, we need to, and if you never got enough of that growing up, I can absolutely see how you wouldn't even think that I should do this, that I need to put this on the

[00:21:06] Michelle Renee: Well, it's, it's like carving it out for yourself and people go like, but why would I pay for that? Right? Like, I should be able to have that. But I'm like, well, when you pay for it, it's really clear who it's for.

[00:21:18] Gwyn: Right.

[00:21:18] Michelle Renee: Right? It's not for me, it's for the client. I don't know your personal life, so if you wanna dump your crap in my space I'll hold it. Doesn't bother me at all. We can be quiet or you can talk to me I'm a trained listener. I, I thought I was a good listener until I took some training on it. I went, oh, there's some room to improve there. But like, you can't get that necessarily from a personal relationship because there's that question of who it's for is really complicated when the container isn't really clear. [00:21:48] Gwyn: Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it's really complicated period. And then, in, in any relationship, even with people who are trained and, well adjusted, there's still there are these moments. I just watched a Brene Brown reel where she was talking about her and her husband come in and talk about what percentage they're at. At for the day, and I was like, this is brilliant. I absolutely need to start using this because just even taking the moment to check in with yourself to be like, where am I at right now? Is something that's so easily overlooked.

[00:22:22] Michelle Renee: Absolutely. And by the way, that entire interview is fantastic. Yeah, that I love Tim Ferriss also. And so that whole interview is great. I actually used that for a dinner date. We had friends we were going out with and I gave them all homework to watch that interview before we went to dinner. So we would have dinner to talk about the concepts that were brought up in that. I, I wanna do more of that in my life of like giving homework to like people that we're gonna go out with

[00:22:47] Gwyn: That's super fun. Instead of a book club, an interview club

[00:22:52] Michelle Renee: Yeah. I love, I've done that with my sisters. We've listened to podcasts specifically before going on vacation together so we could discuss it. I go the extra mile and actually read the whole book that's talked about in the podcast cuz I'm a book nerd that way. but it's so cool to have this base information to jump off of. Cuz I love deep conversation and that was a really good way to catapult that.

[00:23:17] Gwyn: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I am absolutely gonna listen to the whole interview. It just hasn't, like I said, my friend has been here, so I've been a little, I'm also, shifting a little bit and I've, joined a real estate brokerage and last week with bootcamp and orientation into this thing. So I've just been going full tilt for days and then, Tomorrow I get on a train and go to my partner's house in Vermont, because my eldest kid has organized the first ever northeast Kingdom Pride Festival, which is amazing. I'm so proud. [00:23:52] Michelle Renee: Yeah.

[00:23:54] Gwyn: this whole next week is gonna be like, and then I come back and jump into real estate, whatever. Anyway, yeah, so I'm a little, a little nuts, but I will, I will float that. Brene Brown, Tim Ferriss interviewed at the top of my list. That was, that

[00:24:07] Michelle Renee: so, it's got such good information and it's well worth your time, but can we celebrate awesome kids? Like, sounds like you've got a great one. I don't know how many kids you have. I have a couple of really great kids. And it's just like, as a parent, it's such a proud, I don't know, I worried about like, ruining my children. I don't, I don't know if that's a common theme, but like, I always worry that my, you know, I don't wanna fuck them up too bad. And now that they're hitting, like I have a 25 and a 17 year old, and like I can confidently say they're like amazing human beings

[00:24:42] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:24:43] Michelle Renee: not fuck them up too bad.

[00:24:45] Gwyn: Right. I mean, you fucked them up. Of course you did. Cuz you're human and mom. Right. But you know, if not, they wouldn't have any good reason to go to therapy and everybody needs therapy, so,

[00:24:55] Michelle Renee: And, and here's the thing. I think that what I've learned is I was a really stressed out mom, right? I didn't have the tools that I have now and what I know about co-regulation and that I would need to be regulated for my children to be regulated. But here's the thing, it's not too late. We have an amazing relationship now, and I can't say that it would've been that way if I hadn't, if the divorce hadn't happened and I hadn't gotten into the work that I did. But it's never too late to like, own your mistakes and like, apologize something my parents never blessed me with. And something that I do with my children, like just as a regular, like maintenance. Oh, of course you're going through that. That makes total sense considering what your early childhood was like or you know what I mean? And I'm so sorry that I couldn't have shown up better. And you know, they have these wonderful open hearts that are so understanding for their ages. When I think of a, like a, at that age, being very black and white thinkers and they're not like that. And I don't know if it's the younger generation or if it's mine or, or what it is, but they give me a lot of grace.

[00:26:03] Gwyn: Yeah, I think it's all of it. I have so much hope for the future because of this generation. But yeah. Yep. My kids are pretty amazing. I'm excited. And that's nice. It's nice to be that way.

[00:26:14] Michelle Renee: It is.

[00:26:16] Gwyn: You mentioned trauma informed so how does that show up in your work? Does it help you regulate what you're gonna do with your clients? I don't know that everybody even is really aware of. Of,

[00:26:28] Michelle Renee: What does it mean?

[00:26:29] Gwyn: yeah.

[00:26:30] Michelle Renee: What does it mean? Hmm. I remember having a client show up that says, Hey, um, so I'm in trauma therapy and I'm doing E M D R regularly. And at the end of our sessions we do some, some eye gazing and I'd like some more time to practice that. And I was like, okay, cool. Would you like me to talk to your therapist? This is for cuddling work. And he says, oh, I talked to her. She doesn't need to talk to you. She says, just tell her not to bring up the trauma. And I was like, okay. And so I just kind of showed up like a blank slate. I'm not there to fix anything. Right? So it's like letting the client show up and present themselves as they want to, and that slowly kind of unfolds. And at some point it did. At some point he just started sharing his story with me and, we were probably weeks and weeks into our work together, but it, it wasn't necessary that I know all those things.

And so then later, fast forward, I was listening to Oprah Winfrey's book, What Happened To You with Dr. Perry. And there's a point where they talk about that in there about it's not important to know the story. Like the client will disclose that as they want to. And I was like, oh, so I'm doing this okay. Like, It's kind of like a, how would I wanna be treated? And like, I do a lot of reading and I know, the power of just being present with someone. I don't have to come in with some kind of magic wand of some sort. I'm just there as like safety scaffolding, right? Like, I'm there for the client to do their work in a safe container or as safe as container as we can hold where they feel like they can press their edges a little bit. But I'm like the person that's like, no, no, no. Slow down. I see you pushing cuz you think you need to be to this place, but that's not helping your body. And so I don't know what it means, like what the definition of trauma informed is. But the feedback that I've gotten is that I do, I handle that space really well. And I think a lot of it is just from personal experience.

[00:28:35] Gwyn: Sure. Yeah, I like the idea of a, of safety scaffolding. What you said, I'm not there to fix people. I think that so much of the work that both clients and practitioners come in with is that they are there to be fixed or to fix, and I don't necessarily think that that's helpful.

[00:28:55] Michelle Renee: yeah. I don't identify as a healer.

[00:28:57] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:28:58] Michelle Renee: I'm a little uncomfortable with that term. People can identify however they want. And this is not to pick any fights or anything, but I just, I think of my own journey. I healed myself with the help of really supportive people around me. They didn't heal me. They gave me unconditional positive regard. They loved me really well. And I can pass that on. Like I know how to do those things, right. And if it helped me, it can help someone else. And that's just the vision I have for what I'm doing, right. It is just, I'm gonna love people enough that they can kind of know what that feels like. So when they go out in the regular world, they look for people that make them feel that way. [00:29:38] Gwyn: Oh, that's really beautiful actually.

[00:29:42] Michelle Renee: Yeah. It's been life changing for me. I didn't have that until my current relationship. Where you don't feel like you have to change.

[00:29:50] Gwyn: you know, frequently when I tell people what I do for a living, they ask for a hot sex tip. So what I say, not really knowing them or any of their situations is that most sexual issues can be helped with more and better conversation, or lube or both. Now, conversation is really on you, although I can help you if you'd like me to. I do that as a coach. But when it comes to lube, there are two brands that I always reach for first. Uberlube is my go-to silicone lube. It's pure. It's not full of any unnecessary additives that make it smell, taste, or feel, unlike you me. It comes in a beautiful glass bottle that I'm happy to have on my nightstand, and it's great in most situations. However, if you prefer a water-based lube or have some other intimate needs, I recommend Good, Clean Love. They have a variety of great products to help everything in the bedroom goes smoothly, huh. They've got some vaginal care kits, some cleaning solutions, oils and candles. It's really great. Now you can find an affiliate link for these at the podcast's website whatexcitesus.com. And to be clear, you do help me out when you buy through these links, but I specifically reached out to these companies because I truly love their products and I believe in what they're doing. So help yourself. Help me help these lovely companies and get better sex with better lube. Go visit the links for UberLube and Good, Clean Love at whatexcitesus.com.

Right. You mentioned soft cock week, and I love that. Tell me about that.

[00:31:45] Michelle Renee: Yeah. I was in an interview, couple interviews last year, and I, I was like, I get approached by these men that are like, fix my penis. And I'm like, what's wrong with your penis? They're like, I don't stay hard a hundred percent of the time when I'm having sex. And I was like, and? You are basing what a healthy penis is based on porn. I mean, that's all I can consider. Right. Which is not so surprising since we have shit for sex education. Let alone pleasure education. Right? So it's like there's nothing wrong with your penis. And then also, like I get a lot of people that are like, I can't have sex cuz I have erectile issues and I'm like, why can't you have sex? I don't understand this. Oh cuz you're doing penis centered sex, right?

And so I just kept talking about this on these couple of interviews about like, I just wanna create a soft cock appreciation month. Thankfully I did not pick a month because a week is a lot of work. I can't even imagine doing a month. Then now I'm like, why did I not just do a day? Right? Like, so I am like this intensive person who when I get an idea, I just kind of run with it. So I just picked a week in November and if we make any money from it, which has not really been the case, but, we do do it as a fundraiser for Movember and link to the website and hopefully people send them money. But it's a free week of just whatever programming we come up with. Last year it was just a little bit of programming.

We did like a the soft launch. The soft cock launch. I don't know what it was. Anyways, soft opening. Soft opening, that's what it was. Which was like a town hall. It was not recorded cause we wanted to keep people's privacy, but it was facilitated by a few professionals and gave people a place to talk about their experience with their, erectile disappointments. And, just kind of trying to normalize it. And then there was a few interviews and different gatherings during the week that were not official soft cock week things. And then at the end of the week, anybody that contributed, like any of the pros that made content for that week did interviews, whatever. We gathered on like a Zoom call that I did record. I, did like the webinar version so people could participate in the chat, but they weren't on video. So just the pros were on video. It was kinda like a live podcast where we talked about our experiences during the week and just kind of sex geeked out for like two hours. And it was so much fun.

I was like, we should sex geeks should be doing this all the time. Because I think there's value in normalizing these conversations and we talk about these kinds of things so casually. I know people often say, boy, Michelle, the way you talk about x, y, z just makes me feel really okay about it. We could be doing that on the regular as Sex Geeks I really think it would be a really fascinating, like, rotation of different people to just throw a topic in the, in the center and watch us go at it. Right? So that's, that was the soft cocktail mixer was the last event where we play off of, there's so many fun things to do around soft penises. So this year we're getting a bigger headstart. I have, a sexological body worker up in Portland who is also really, really passionate about this topic. So she is helping me keep me focused and, look at the big picture rather than me just constantly going, Ooh, you would be fun to talk to about this. Ooh, you like, she's trying to give me some, some, um, structure.

And so we'll be out talking about Soft Cock Week. it's starting already. I've already done my first interview about it. Um, it hasn't come out yet for this year, but, yeah, it doesn't mean that the thing has to happen in that week. It's gonna be November 5th through 11th this year. Some of it might look like pre-recorded stuff. Some of it might be live, some of it. the way I envision it is a community project. So let's say if you were like, I have a passion for soft penises. I could add X, Y, Z, either, if you need support on it, come to me for support if you like. We're gonna promote it. Like it's just like, what do you wanna bring to the table? There can't be too much, right? And so whatever your demographic is, talk about whatever the terminology is that fits for your demographic. Like I picked Soft Cock Week because in my demographic, which I found out is a very white term, that was a really interesting thing that I learned last year

[00:35:56] Gwyn: I had no idea.

[00:35:58] Michelle Renee: yeah, it's a very white term to use the word cock. Cool. I went with what I thought my demographic would resonate with. So very much on the website is like, use the terminology that works for your people, right. Whatever feels good to your people. We are not held to this. It just happens to be@softcockweek.com. But use whatever works for you. So flacid phallus like relaxed penis, it's just important that we're talking about it and normalizing it. And, of course with the caveat first, please go talk to your doctor. Make sure there's nothing actually really medically wrong. You know, I've heard stories, right? People that go undiagnosed with other conditions that could have been picked up because of the ED showing up, right?

If those things have been eliminated as issues, there's some help out there, right? I think if you're in a relationship, figuring out if there's something happening in the relationship is really important. But also sometimes it's just sex education. Sometimes it's why are we centering penises in our sex? Like, could we expand our definition of sex? Cuz there's plenty of sex to still have. What I learned last year that I thought was really interesting was that so many people did not realize that you could still masturbate with a soft penis. Like I didn't realize so many people would just assume that that was off the table. And it's like, oh, we need more programming this year on how to masturbate with a soft penis. it's, there's a lot of education to be done. and I'm happy to do my little part of it, but I want it to be like a community project.

[00:37:30] Gwyn: Yeah, I think it's brilliant because yes, I also get a lot of those questions, or a lot of folks coming to me looking for coaching or what have you, around the fact that their penis is not engorging the way it did when they were 22.

[00:37:45] Michelle Renee: I found a really interesting, um, statement from Barry McCarthy around, when sex stops in a long-term relationship. Majority of the time it's the men pulling out of a sexual component cuz they can't rely on their erection showing up. They just pull it back altogether. Cuz heaven forbid they not have a spontaneous erection. Like, we need to teach about responsive desire. It's not just a women's or vulva owner experience. There's just so much education that needs to be done so we can have more compassion for ourselves and like show up to connect with people and let our bodies do whatever our bodies need to do. I'm really excited to get this week underway again this year cuz it's important conversations that I really love talking about.

[00:38:34] Gwyn: Yeah. No, that's wonderful. I mean, responsive desire is, when I use that phrase in the general public, people have no idea what I'm talking about. Unless they have happened to have read Come As You Are, which most people haven't

[00:38:48] Michelle Renee: Yeah.

[00:38:48] Gwyn: although everybody should.

[00:38:50] Michelle Renee: Everyone should.

[00:38:51] Gwyn: Yeah, that there is even a difference between spontaneous and responsive. That you can grow to desire something in the course of a minute or a month it breaks my heart that men don't think that that's something that's available to them as well.

[00:39:06] Michelle Renee: Yeah. I, um, I thought I was broken. I mean, that's part of the, the sexual hangups in my marriage before was this idea that I, clearly, something was wrong with me. And we just didn't know what my brakes and accelerators were. And one of my major brakes the thing that turns me off real freaking fast is expectations. So I can't even go into a, a sexual situation saying that I intend to have sex. Because that does like an internal pressure thing on me and makes it feel like I'm spinning my wheels, right. I need to take it completely off the table and be like, let's just see where this goes with no expectation and, and a real firm trust that my partner will celebrate my no. Because sometimes it's gonna show up and it needs to feel safe.

[00:39:57] Gwyn: Yeah.

[00:39:58] Michelle Renee: If I had an erection to deal with on top of it, woo. I mean, I have erection. This is beauty. We have erectile tissue, more erectile tissue than a penis in a vulva. And yet we don't consider that.

[00:40:09] Gwyn: Right. Well, cuz it's not important for penis and vagina sex, which is what people consider sex,

[00:40:16] Michelle Renee: we gotta get creative. We gotta get creative in our sex.

[00:40:20] Gwyn: Yes. Right. And expands the definition of sex to being more than insertion.

[00:40:27] Michelle Renee: Let's never say the word foreplay ever, ever again.

[00:40:30] Gwyn: Yeah, no, I don't use that term at all.

[00:40:32] Michelle Renee: It's all sex.

[00:40:33] Gwyn: I want you to do this. So do this I'm done with that don't do that anymore [00:40:40] Michelle Renee: it's just a big sexual buffet, right?

[00:40:42] Gwyn: Right. Grew up in Vegas.

[00:40:47] Michelle Renee: You know all about the buffets.

[00:40:48] Gwyn: am all about the buffet. I am absolutely gonna use that.

[00:40:53] Michelle Renee: Yeah. And who wants, like, I remember my ex-husband used to find that one thing that worked for me one time and then like come back to it over and over and over again. I was like, dude, it's a different day. Like it's, we cannot assume the same combination is going to work today, nor would that be any fun. Like this is not a, I've got the combination and I'm gonna unlock the thing. Like, everybody has their things and you know, pleasure is pleasure. So wherever you're, wherever that pleasure lands, like if it's not there, it's not there. There's no reason to like beat yourself up about it. Yeah.

[00:41:26] Gwyn: Right. And that goes back to the no to being able to trust the No. And for a lot of us, I mean, I assume it's a lot of us, it seems like it's a lot of us, not just me, it takes a minute to figure that out. And by minute I could mean years. Where that no is. And then also again, from my own personal experience, that could change on a dime. I want something for three minutes and then at 3.5, do not touch me in that spot for the rest of the night. Knock it off.

[00:41:59] Michelle Renee: Yeah. And we have to be able to communicate that, right? And that takes practice from our end practice from our partner's end of being able to like, hear it. Maybe they're watching for signals. That's what I love about like having, you know, a background in the kink community, all these things can easily get talked about. And if we could just transfer that into the rest of the world of like being okay, like hashing it out ahead of time. If I'm in the middle of something and I can't find my words, what does it look like for me to withdraw my consent? Right? And it doesn't mean you did anything wrong, it just means something changed.

[00:42:36] Gwyn: Right, I mean, so many folks who are deeply submissive have a really hard time with No, in general. To get to that place, to safe word is virtually impossible. And, yeah, I've, experienced situations where it's like, this person is going to keep pushing until I safe word out, so that they know where that is.

[00:42:56] Michelle Renee: That's a great question. I heard that like, so when, you know, when was the last time that you read that used Red? Right? I remember, I can tell you exactly the few times I've ever used red and, and they were hard to come to. Like, that world is such a great playground for figuring this stuff out if you can find a way to do it. There's always questionable players in that space, but, If you can find the right people, you can really figure some stuff out.

[00:43:22] Gwyn: Yeah. And then if you can take that information and transpose it to other parts of life and not take the no or the safe wording as a moral failing of some sort, which is hard sometimes. It's really hard, especially when we've been trained throughout our lives to always be available,

[00:43:42] Michelle Renee: Yeah. I mean, from childhood on, right.

[00:43:45] Gwyn: Yeah, that's, yeah.

[00:43:47] Michelle Renee: The things I would do differently for my kids when they were younger, as far as really encouraging them to have that voice.

[00:43:55] Gwyn: Yeah. Is there anything that you wanna make sure that we talk about before we wrap up?

[00:44:01] Michelle Renee: Gosh, we've covered so many wonderful areas. Um, yeah there is. I do lots of, professional babies and one of my babies is called the Embrace Surrogate Partner Resource group, which is at embracespt.org. And we are really about educating therapists on how to use our modality. But we have two pet projects. We are raising money for one, to broaden our field cuz we are a very white field and we want to provide scholarships for marginalized communities to take surrogate partner training so that more of the client base can see themselves in the work. Right.

Second, It's an incredibly expensive modality. So we're also raising funds to help put some people through surrogate partner therapy that otherwise would not have access to it. So that we are filing the paperwork to be a nonprofit. And I'm working on, you know, I've got some stuff on the website for donations, but we've also been adopted by a pretty well known podcast who wants to help us raise funds and it's gonna create a model for other people, maybe in the sex education world to also help be part of this fundraising effort as more people learn about the work. So that, that is the other baby that's really important to me right now.

[00:45:17] Gwyn: That's super fantastic! Do you wanna tell us more about that

[00:45:21] Michelle Renee: The ladies at, um, Shameless Sex Podcast have like, we feel like we're pound puppies, that the people were like sitting at the window being like, come adopt us. And they were like, you do what for work? We love this and we think that we wanted to find a place to start raising money for, and we think you're it. And it was just like, oh, we got picked, we're being brought home. And they, they suggested, um, we would take donations and people would get access to some of their evergreen materials, some of their courses they've created. like, they would give us access. We take the money. And I was just like, this is a really interesting way to think about helping other people. Like when other sex educators want to help support the cause ways that they could do it, this is a really interesting way to do that.

[00:46:07] Gwyn: That's fantastic. Oh, I'm so glad. Oh, what, that's really fantastic. And I love bringing people of other communities into it and getting help for folks who don't see themselves getting help in that realm, it's, yeah. Oh.

[00:46:24] Michelle Renee: Yeah,

[00:46:24] Gwyn: like, I'm a little, I'm a little verklempt over that. That's really delightful. I can't wait to help steer people in that direction, and I have no problem promoting their podcast is fantastic. Absolutely. Go listen to Shameless Sex People. Please come back.

[00:46:39] Michelle Renee: You never listen to just one sex podcast. You listen to dozens of

[00:46:43] Gwyn: right, right. Exactly. And I love them. They're, they're just such a hoot, so Yeah,

[00:46:48] Michelle Renee: So much energy. So much energy. They remind me a lot of Reid Mihalko and that whole like, golden retriever on espresso. So if you're getting tag teamed by them, so that's kind of fun. They were my first, actually, they're my first episode, or my first recording of talking about soft cock week, this year is for them. So that comes out next month.

[00:47:10] Gwyn: Oh, that's so cool. That's really great. Oh, I can't wait to listen. That'll be great. Yeah. I don't listen to a whole lot of sex podcasts because I wanna listen to history, like I wanna listen to stuff that I'm not always thinking about, but I almost always listen to theirs. There are very few episodes I skip. So I ask one last question before I finish up, which is what excites you,

[00:47:32] Michelle Renee: Hmm. Gosh, there's so much. Like, I feel like, um, what am I really excited about right now? I'm really excited coming out of this AASECT conference and presenting on surrogate partner therapy. I'm really excited about the fact that. A, AASECT Okay. So Americans Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists has historically not been super pro touch work. And we had such a really warm reception and that conference was incredibly sex work positive that I'm really excited about. I know, right? The conference had a lot of sessions that were on psychedelics and sex work. Not together necessarily, but

[00:48:19] Gwyn: That's amazing.

[00:48:20] Michelle Renee: It was amazing and it was such a comfortable space for people that some people were coming out as sex workers in that space. And I'm really excited to see what that means for the organization.

[00:48:33] Gwyn: Yeah. that's amazing. That's exciting. I can see why you would

[00:48:36] Michelle Renee: It's exciting for the industry, it's exciting for me personally, but it's exciting for the industry surrogate partner therapy specifically, but yeah.

[00:48:45] Gwyn: of all of it. But yeah, absolutely.

[00:48:47] Michelle Renee: Well, I have a video of my session, which was opened by Dr. Lex, who's the incoming president for AASECT who very much planted her flag to say, I put my stamp of approval. You know, and that's kind of big. And made a real big point to say we love to send people to Betty Dotson's work, but we can't, we could never certify her. Right. And that's some bullshit. And so things are changing. It's exciting.

[00:49:13] Gwyn: That's wonderful. I'm so glad. what a delight. This has been absolutely a fantastic conversation. Thank you,

[00:49:20] Michelle Renee: I am so glad to meet you. Like really, I feel this is very like energy compatible. I don't know, like I feel like, oh, you and I would go to coffee and end up five hours later going, we should really part ways.

[00:49:33] Gwyn: Yes. With, without a doubt. Yeah. That was fun, right? I encourage you to visit Soft Cock Week and find Michelle on social media at @MeetMichelleRenee, or check out her site, meetmichellerenee.com. And don't worry, all of these links are in the show notes so you can come back to it later. I would love to hear one thing that you are taking away from this episode, and you can do that so easily by going to whatexcitesus.com and clicking on the Speak Pipe link and talking. It could even be anonymous.

And while you were there, It would be absolutely wonderful if you would take a minute or two and rate and review the podcast in all the apps that you may have, or listen. This helps spread the word about the show and gets it out there for other folks to discover, and I fully believe that we all have new things to learn about sex and sexuality, and just talking about it or thinking about it can help so much so please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. Take that moment to rate and review us.

Are you enjoying the snippets of my life that I'm putting on the end? Well, I'll have another one in just a moment, but first I need to tell you that What Excites Us is produced, edited, and hosted by me. Gwyn Isaacs, our podcast host is Tickle.Life. All the music used is under the Creative Commons attribution license. The opening song is The Vendetta by Stephan Kartenberg and this is Quando by Julius H.

So this week I learned that a picture that I've had in my office for decades, but originally I had in my office as the music director at W G D R, terrified one of my kids. It's the back picture from the songs of Leonard Cohen and it depicts St. Bernadette in chains in a prison that's on fire now. I think of it as a beautiful piece of art depicting a powerful woman. And like I said, it's been in my office for decades, starting with that record that I had at the radio station. Now it's on a postcard and it's on my lampshade, and I guess my kid hadn't seen it in a while, so it just prompted him to tell me how he felt about it when he was younger. It just goes to show you all the random ways we impact others without even knowing. Anywho, thanks for listening and remember. You rock.