Relationship Diversity Podcast
Every relationship is as unique as you are. Relationship Diversity Podcast aims to celebrate, question, and explore all aspects of relationships and relationship structure diversity. Together, we’ll bust through societal programming to break open and dissect everything we thought we knew about relationships. We’ll ask challenging and transformational questions, like: Who am I? What do I really want in my relationships? Am I in this relationship structure because it’s all I know or is it really the fullest expression of who I am? Being curious, having courage to look within, and asking these important questions creates the space for joy-filled, soul-nourishing relationships. Your host and guide, Carrie Jeroslow is an International Best-Selling Author, Conscious Relationship Coach, and Intuitive. Through this podcast, she helps to normalize discussions about all different kinds of relationship structures from soloamory to monogamy to polyamory, and everything in between. This is a space of inclusivity and acceptance. The time is NOW to shift the conversation to a new paradigm of conscious, intentional, and diverse relationships.Join in as we reimagine all that our most intimate relationships can become.
Relationship Diversity Podcast
Ep. 119: Healing Sexual Shame to Transform Relationships with Flo Oliveira
Episode 119
Healing Sexual Shame to Transform Relationships with Flo Oliveira
In this episode, I speak with sex educator, therapist, and relationship coach Flo Oliveira about the impact of sexual shame on relationships.
We discuss the origins and effects of sexual shame, the journey of healing, and the potential of BDSM and kink as tools for healing. Flo shares their personal story and professional insights, highlighting the importance of safety, vulnerability, and unlearning societal norms to achieve sexual liberation and deeper connection in relationships.
Connect with Flo:
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Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
Playing Well With Others by Lee Harrington
00:00 Understanding Sexual Shame in Relationships
02:17 Meet Flo Oliveira: A Journey into Sex Therapy
03:34 The Impact of Sexual Shame on Relationships
04:17 Flo's Personal Journey and Insights
07:00 Reprogramming Beliefs About Sex and Pleasure
09:52 Exploring Sexual Shame and Healing
25:38 The Role of BDSM and Kink in Healing
38:51 Final Thoughts and Resources
This is Relationships Reimagined.
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Please note: I am not a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or social worker. I am not attempting to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any physical, mental, or emotional issue, disease, or condition. The information provided in or through my podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by your own Medical Provider or Mental Health Provider. Always seek the advice of your own Medical Provider and/or Mental Health Provider regarding any questions or concerns you have about your specific circumstance.
When partners come in and they talk about the sexual shame, a lot of times they're closed up.
Flo Oliveira:There's a lot of that pent-up energy that they're not getting out, that they're not being able to get to a space of vulnerability with their partners, or they're just not able to relate in the ways that their partner is asking for, because they physically cannot get themselves to even give that to themselves.
Flo Oliveira:And so there's this stagnancy in the feelings that they are experiencing because they don't see a way out.
Flo Oliveira:And so when we start working with that, we see that we can get partners to start talking a little bit more. We can put in the work to really unleash even the ideas that are circling in their hands and put everything out on the table. And so partners often come in together with one individual or both feel such a sense of shame, and so we talk about even just starting there, talking about why it feels shameful to even say that you haven't figured it out, that you haven't had an enjoyable experience with your partner yet. Once we start having those discussions and then we get to a certain point, then we can talk about how, now that we've unlearned a little bit of sexual shame, how you've benefited and how you can connect now, or what new experiences you and your partners are having, and now this person across from you gets to share that with you, to carry that burden with you, and just changes a lot for folks. Just having that said out loud is spectacular.
Carrie Jeroslow:Welcome to the Relationship Diversity Podcast, where we celebrate, question and explore all aspects of relationship structure diversity, from soloramory to monogamy to polyamory and everything in between, because every relationship is as unique as you are. We'll bust through societal programming to break open and dissect everything we thought we knew about relationships, to ask the challenging but transformational questions who am I and what do I really want in my relationships? I'm your guide, Keri Jaroslow, bestselling author, speaker, intuitive and coach. Join me as we reimagine all that our most intimate relationships can become. Today's episode is part of our conversation series. I'm just one voice in this relationship diversity movement and it's important to bring more unique perspectives into the conversation.
Carrie Jeroslow:Today I'm grateful to talk with Flo Oliveira, a sex educator, therapist and relationship coach, about what can be a pretty challenging subject. We're going to discuss sexual shame and woundedness, specifically about its effects on relationships. They also touch on how to start a healing journey into your own woundedness and how the exploration of BDSM and kink could be a possible way to that healing. But first a little about them. Flo Oliveira is a queer, polyam, afro-brazilian sex educator who loves helping others discover and exist as their most authentic and kinky selves. Flo's platform focuses on debunking sexual myths, normalizing pleasure and holding space for deconstructing norms. Flo's Bachelor in Gender, sexuality and Women's Studies, their Sex Certificate Program and their Master in Marriage and Family Therapy inform and support their work with clients worldwide. Let's get into the conversation.
Carrie Jeroslow:Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Relationship Diversity Podcast. I'm so excited about the guest I have today and specifically with the topic we're going to talk about, which can be a very challenging topic and I think is for many people understandably. And what I'm excited about my guest is that they have such nuanced vocabulary and specialty in discussing this, so I think it's just the best person I could bring in to talk about this subject, which I'll get in in a minute. But first I want to welcome Flo Oliveira to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Flo Oliveira:Hi, thank you for having me.
Carrie Jeroslow:So we're going to get into this topic, but first I really want people to get to know you, know your story and know how you got into the work that you're doing in the world.
Flo Oliveira:My name is Flo. I use they them pronouns. I've been doing this work for about three and a half years now.
Flo Oliveira:I'm a sex therapist, which is a pretty unique field to get into, so I came in from a very different direction than a lot of people do. I started my journey at UC Davis where I got my major in sexuality, gender and feminist studies and I originally thought I was going to be pre-med, so that kind of changed it up a little bit for me at the end there. But I realized I really wanted to help people one-on-one or in group settings where I could talk and really relate to folks, and I was really passionate about gender and sexuality studies and so I just meshed those two together, got some ideas and then focused on doing sex therapy. Thankfully I was able to do some of the certificate study over quarantine times, so it helped while I was in my undergraduate to also be doing that certificate program too. And then I went into my master's of family therapy program at San Diego State and came out of it as an associate therapist which I am now and working towards my hours to be licensed.
Carrie Jeroslow:Amazing. So I'm curious what was it about sex therapy, sex education that really inspired you?
Flo Oliveira:I think for folks who get to a point of feeling liberated in sexuality, there's always that moment of like oh my gosh, how did I not know this, or how did I not even think to allow myself to explore these things. And that's a little bit of how I felt with my queer identity, my polyamorous identity and just my sexuality in general. When I bought my first sex toy, it was in college and I was shocked that I had been missing out on all of this wonderful things and all this pleasure that the world could have brought me. And so when I got invested personally and I started looking at how to make this a full-time career and how I could help people also feel this liberation, I realized that sex therapy was an actual field that I could get into. And then, once it fell into my lap, I was stuck, I glued onto it and I just would never trade it for the world.
Carrie Jeroslow:I love that and I love that. Your inspiration was the pleasure journey that you went through, and it's quite intoxicating when you start to embrace your own sexuality, your pleasure. I think we have a lot of programming about what sex is like penetrative sex, which is very heteronormative idea of sex. There's a lot of, I think, myths about what sex is and what intimacy is and pleasure and I'm wondering what are some aha moments that you had in terms of reprogramming the beliefs that are around our society about these kinds of things.
Flo Oliveira:I had quite a few early on. The first big aha moment was sex shouldn't hurt ever really. If there's any pain, something is really wrong or something is happening and you need to check that out. And so, within talking to my community and friends, I realized that I just wasn't getting pleasure in the ways that I wanted to get pleasure and getting ready in the ways that I needed to get ready. That was my first big aha moment. Once that was released and I got into the space of actually feeling pleasure, I realized that I didn't like pleasure in the same ways that a lot of other people do. It got me into kink. It got me into this dynamic of dominance and subspace and just toggling between what I really enjoyed and what made me feel whole, and that rarely ever was around penetrative sex.
Carrie Jeroslow:I think it's so important to reprogram everything that we've learned about sex.
Carrie Jeroslow:And this is leading to what I really want to talk about, which I think is a really big issue in our society and our culture specifically in the United States, but I'm sure all over the world is this idea of sexual shame and the programming that we grow up with that specifically for identify she, her or my pronouns and I was taught very young that as a girl growing up I shouldn't want to have sex.
Carrie Jeroslow:That is bad, I'm a slut and all the derogatory programming of me who. I think I felt pleasure very early on. I didn't really understand what it was because it was so early, I didn't have anyone to talk to and then I was around a lot of shaming, and so I'm several decades older than you and so several more decades of shame that are piled on that I've had to really work through. So that's what I want to focus on today, because I know that that's a specialty of yours to really look at shame and how we process through that to get to a place where we get to what you're talking about, which is celebration of my own pleasure, and that that is a birthright of mine to feel pleasure in my body. That's I feel. One of the reasons I have a body is to feel pleasure and yes, I know sometimes there is pain and sadness, but we don't focus on the pleasure part, so let's start there. Where did you start learning about sexual shame and how did that education come into your life?
Flo Oliveira:So, of course, sexual shame I learned from experience, most of all in the beginning, and it was growing up in a Catholic-based household and an immigrant household that had some really gnarly ideas about what sex should look like, and so were my mom and everyone else in my family. It wasn't something discussed actively ever. So then when I started doing sexology and getting into sexuality studies and stuff like that, I started realizing this is something that people talk about quite often and they should. This is how we learn, through mutual experiences and discussing things and just learning as we go. So then when I got into my certificate program, I started realizing it wasn't just me.
Flo Oliveira:It was a lot of folks with a variety of different backgrounds that grew up within this idea of sexual shame and feeling that it was just something really really bad to do or something really bad to discuss, and there's a lot of correlation between religious trauma and shame and sex as well, and so I started seeing that as something I related to and something that a lot of folks probably had experienced, growing up from parents and family members telling them no, this is not the right way to do things, and so once that opened the floodgates for me, I just went into sexual shame, talking about infidelity and the ways that everything comes up in bubbles in different ways for folks, and how we may make an action that isn't necessarily in line with our values, but we haven't had the time or the accessibility to explore sex without shame, and so we all go down these different rabbit holes. But that's how I started.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, and so the shame, what I found, leads to repression, which leads then to resistance, which, for different people, plays out in different ways. Some people rebel against the resistance and act out in dysfunctional ways, and some people deal with the resistance by cutting off a part of themselves. What have you found in how sexual shame affects relationships, intimate relationships?
Flo Oliveira:Sexual shame is one of the main things I see affecting relationships when my clients come into therapy with me.
Flo Oliveira:Most of the time when folks are holding the sexual shame they're closing themselves off to the vulnerable parts of their relationship with their partners and so they're unable to talk about their desires or what brings them pleasure, or maybe what they haven't liked in their relationship, even for some point of correction, and so it becomes this tight secret that people just ball up and keep inside of them until one day something explodes, and whether that's they explode through infidelity or they explode through divorce, separation or anything like that or just closing themselves off entirely to the relationship, something happens that reaches a point where we have to explore that shame and we have to explore how pent up it's been for that person and what it's holding them back from.
Flo Oliveira:It usually is a very negative outcome in having a ton of sexual shame and to work through that is a lot of unlearning societally, and so that's a lot of what I work with is starting on that journey of liberation and discussing how it's really affecting your relationship and maybe even at times putting you in a position where you shouldn't be in this relationship but you should be exploring and doing other things.
Carrie Jeroslow:Do you think? Many times people are unconscious about the sexual shame?
Flo Oliveira:myself, because I think to some extent our body knows. Our body knows that we have pent-up energy or rage or anger, something that's holding us back, and then consciously we might not be able to place the name of sexual shame or we might not understand that the ideas that we had growing up or what's causing all of that turmoil inside of us. So I think I get people in varying degrees of knowing, and none of them are wrong. I think it just is that way and so we experience it all a little bit differently in our bodies and in our minds.
Carrie Jeroslow:Why do you think there is so much shame around sex? I mean?
Flo Oliveira:I have my own thoughts.
Carrie Jeroslow:I have my own thoughts and I could probably have an hour discussion about that, but I'm curious what your thoughts are.
Flo Oliveira:Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts too.
Flo Oliveira:Could be lengthy, but I think to keep it short, I would say within colonization of our society.
Flo Oliveira:I think some really gnarly ideas got embedded here that we know of, and a lot of misogyny and patriarchy and all of these things got embedded into our society, know of, and a lot of misogyny and patriarchy, all of these things got embedded into our society as normal. And so when people look for their place in society, they look within these categories, or they're forced to look within these categories most of the time, and that doesn't give us a lot of room to explore outside of these bounds or these boxes that we've been put in. And so when we have thoughts, or when we have desires or ideas of looking elsewhere or trying something new or even being open to an opportunity, we feel that sense of shame. We feel that sense of, oh, we're abnormal or we're different from what we've been taught and what we've been told we have to do, and that's just not okay. It builds that shame, it builds that resentment. And so I think, long story short, colonization and a bunch of embedded negative reflections of how society should look like.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yes, yes, that is succinct. That could be a whole other episode. Maybe we'll come back and revisit that. Do you find that abuse meaning that some kind of sexual abuse, emotional abuse, plays into sexual shame and repression?
Flo Oliveira:Oh, yeah, for sure. I think folks who experience sexual abuse like myself which I'll be honest about, we go in a variety of different ways in our reactions. Some folks get hypersexual, some folks get not hypersexual at all and they're like, oh, repulsed and everywhere in between. But I think the theme that comes out of that abuse with it is the shame that you feel. Regardless for how long you feel it, there is some form of disgust or shame with the experience and having to reclaim what you know as pleasure later on, or unlearning that shame too.
Carrie Jeroslow:That can be such a scary process for someone sitting on the side of. I've got this stuff, even if you can't put words to it. I know that something's not right and I'm really scared to go into it, which makes me super grateful about you and your work, because you're a coach too, so people not in California can work with you. Yeah, because I think this subject, this topic, this experience can be so heavy and is so heavy for so many people that it is sometimes difficult to start to navigate it on your own, and so working with someone seems really important. Would you agree with that?
Flo Oliveira:Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of folks, including myself a couple of years ago, didn't know where to start, and so reaching out to your resources, especially folks certified in these things, can really really help, even if it's just to begin the conversation or begin the contemplation of what's happening in your body. Sometimes we just need that little bit of a push to get there.
Carrie Jeroslow:And I find that when I work with clients, I work with clients on different things, but sometimes, if I can create a space where they feel safe enough to just say what is on their mind and I say this is not the first time I've heard it, because I think a lot of us sit in our sexual shame or in our shame about anything and say I'm the only person in the world that must feel this, and that makes me feel really wounded. And so if there's someone sitting out there who feels like no one's ever been through what I'm going through and I think if I say something to someone, even a therapist, that I'll be judged and I'll feel more shame what would you say to someone like that sitting out in the world? Feeling like this is resonating with them.
Flo Oliveira:I think first I would tell them I've been there. I feel these things oftentimes even after working on myself. There are times that it comes back and I still have to work on it and I see so many people with a variety of different sexual shame and a variety of different stories that they feel are really, really unique, are really detrimental to even speak into existence and regardless of where you lie in that, I think it would just be helpful to come in to talk to someone and you wouldn't be judged. This is what we worked towards is making a safe space so that you can feel like you can finally get this out. That is the most important thing in our work is allowing for that space to finally get those things out and to finally talk to someone about what is going on or what has affected you in the past or even now in the present.
Carrie Jeroslow:I feel, even when I've been in therapy and I've said something that I've held onto and not said, and I've been met with love and acceptance, is just like the floodgates open and almost I feel like my voice is released and I'm able to then start to say more. And I think one of the important things I would say is to find someone who is really trustworthy, and Flo is one of those people. I can tell by your nature, you have such a beautiful sensitivity to you and, coupled with the wisdom of this and also your life experience, you are the perfect person. So if you're sitting out there, we're going to have all of Flo's information in the show notes so you can reach out to them.
Carrie Jeroslow:The other thing that I wanted to say is what you touched on I'd love for you to talk a little bit more of is the journey, Because it's not just okay. I've said it. Now I feel better. I have been doing my personal healing journey for over 35 years and still there's things that come up that, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize that was still going on. Can you talk a little bit more? Are you open to sharing a little bit more about your journey and how it's been ups and downs, so that people can understand that it is not just a one and done experience.
Flo Oliveira:I don't think healing ever stops. Healing is a lifelong journey, something that we never stop doing, and each season you uncover something new about yourself or you find a new thing that you have to work on. And that was very similar to me. I very much experienced this, too, when I had my first aha moment of I don't need to experience pain during penetration or during sex. That was the first little door that I opened up in my maze of wonders of pleasure. And so continuing that and finding different things that I had to unlearn or even now, I still realize, wow, I never touched on this specific kink that could be healing for me or never talked to someone about the specific topic because I thought it was irrelevant from 15 years ago. And so if you're thinking about it and if there's something there you might still want to unlearn, you might still want to discover, and that's very much what we all do. And still, even in my space and in my body, as an educator and a therapist and a coach, I still go through the same things as well.
Carrie Jeroslow:I love what you said about healing is a lifelong journey because it takes the expectations out of I need to get to a certain place. I do think healing helps in that things start to flow more, like when you work on a certain wound and you get to a certain place with it. It does flow. It just uncovers something else. And so I think, if people can get comfortable in that awareness that I'm always going to be healing, because I'm always evolving and I'm never done and there's no place to get to, yes, I want things to feel better and they do. Yes, I want my life feel better and they do. Yes, I want my life to flow more, and it does, and I think for me, releases the expectations of there's some imaginary place to get to.
Flo Oliveira:So I love that you said that I definitely think the unlearning is continuous. We all go through it and taking that expectation honestly is one of the biggest things in sex therapy. Taking that expectation and saying we don't need this, this, we don't need to reach a specific point. We can go on this journey and just uncover what we uncover when we're ready to, because pleasure is about being in a moment, in a space where you feel comfortable to embrace certain things or to experience new things, and if we're just constantly moving the goalpost and trying to run to it, we're never going to have an experience of wow, I can breathe here, I can sit here for a moment and enjoy the satisfaction of this unlearning, or the satisfaction of getting to this point of liberation, or just knowing that this exists now as an opportunity for me to keep learning more.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, I think when people get into the healing journey, at the very beginning it's hard to know where you're going. But when you get through some of it and you do experience those moments of oh, this feels different, then you have of like, okay, I don't know where this is going, where this healing is going. But I do know that I have experience and I have some somatic experience of oh, wow, that feels different. And that is sometimes the motivator to go back in and to continue to look at it, because sometimes our wounds are challenging. That's why we'll move away from the uncomfortable. We don't like discomfort and we want to be comfortable and sometimes, actually, the woundedness is more comfortable when you've been experiencing it.
Flo Oliveira:your whole life. Yeah, when you're used to something, it's hard to get away from it. You think that it's not broken and you're like, okay, we don't need to fix it, we can just stay here, it's fine. But a lot of what happens in therapy for me is telling people nothing is TMI, everything is on the table to talk about. Just bring it out and we'll see what we do with it. And if you're not ready to touch it or not ready to talk about it, we won't, we'll put it aside and we'll come back to it.
Flo Oliveira:When you're in a space of feeling like you can approach that topic, because sometimes therapy is so uncomfortable. You lead these sessions feeling like, oh my God, not only was there a huge weight lifted off of your body, there's also an exhaustion that you experience, and so sometimes we can't muddle through all of that exhaustion at once. We have to take it piece by piece. So it's okay to say it all out there and just be like I don't know what to do with it, I'm not ready to do anything with it. Actually, let's move on.
Carrie Jeroslow:Yeah, yeah, that's freeing, because I feel like we live so much in like we have to find solutions to every problem in society. There's gotta be a solution and I can't just leave it. I can't just leave it on the table. I gotta do something about it. And so there's a beauty to that perspective and also having tenderness with yourself, because it is a lot, and again having someone like Flo to really hold that space and hold the container for that healing is incredibly helpful. I wanted to go back to one thing you said it was a little while ago, but I would love your perspective because I know one of your specialties is BDSM and kink and you talked about aspects of that that can be very healing with sexual shame, and I'm wondering if you could go into that a little bit more.
Flo Oliveira:Oh my gosh, of course. So I love talking about kink and I think that my clients are always very surprised when I'm open to it because it feels like the naughty thing to talk about. But a lot of sexual shame comes from these ideas of I can't do this or I can't be this way. Or if you're a man and you're like, oh, I want to be submissive, but that's not masculine, you have all of these societal ideas of how you should enact in the bedroom or how you should relate to people wherever you are, and so you come up with these ideas and I get to just be like screw that, let's talk about King. Why can't you be submissive? Why can't you enjoy a little pain here and there?
Flo Oliveira:And for me it was super healing to realize, okay, I don't like pain in these ways, but I can go into a space where I just experience a little bit of butt slapping and I'm like, whew, all of the endorphins have rushed, I'm healed. Today feels amazing, and usually I experience these things. Or get into the subspace or the storm space. After really, really long and treacherous times in my life, I will be super, super burned out and go to a kink party and just relinquish all of the pleasure that I wanted to experience during those months, but that I didn't have time to, and then just walk away feeling wow. I don't even know what I healed, but I feel rejuvenated. I don't even know what I'm experiencing, but I'm joyful. These are just wow. And I connected with the community while I was doing so, where I met new people who had piqued my interest and I get to talk to about this now or that shared this experience with me, and now we're all here with these memories and living vicariously through what happened that day, and so I think it can be very healing for a lot of folks.
Flo Oliveira:Obviously, it's not for everyone, but I think that if you're sitting here thinking oh, oh, my gosh, I could never be that person, or I should never do that because these people are going to think about me this way, or I'm not going to be feminine enough if I take on a dominance role or if I decide to dominate my partner however I want to, then I think that you should give yourself a chance to explore those thoughts a little bit, see where they're coming from, see who's telling you that, and really try to just get down to do you really want to do this. Is this something that you're holding yourself back from because of the ideas that you have and the things you've been taught? Is it something that you're scared of because you know it's going to be uncomfortable to learn about and to explore and that can be healing on its own to just even have that conversation with yourself? Right?
Carrie Jeroslow:To even explore it, and maybe you never go into a kink party but you explore, because I think there's also in kink with the subdoms, there's a lot of gender programming that probably comes up, which you were saying of maybe masculine being submissive. And I see, looking from a holistic perspective, the beauty of that because we really have all of that within us and to explore that could be really interesting. Now, what if there's someone out there who's like it's interesting, but I don't even know how to start? So let's say someone was interested, was intrigued. What would you say would be the first step?
Flo Oliveira:Honestly, I'm a big person for social media, so that's always a really good place to start to start looking at pages that are kink friendly to people who are in the community and are experiencing this to professionals, or sex pages that are kink friendly to people who are in the community, are experiencing this to professionals or sex workers who are putting content out there to educate about it. That's a great first step If you're more of a reader and you're like less social media. There's so many books on getting started with BDSM and kink or playing well with others and how you get into these communities, or just to hear a little bit about what it would be like. What's your favorite book?
Carrie Jeroslow:or two of your favorite books.
Flo Oliveira:I think specifically for sexual shame and unlearning before you go anywhere, I would recommend Come as you Are by Emily Nagoski, and then for playing with other people or getting into the kink or polyamory non-monogamy community. I would do Playing role with others.
Carrie Jeroslow:Okay, I'll find those and link those down below in the show notes. I like what you say about looking at your sexual shame first, because if you go in with all of that wounding if you go into a kink party, let's say, and you've got all this wounding and all the sexual shame, I would imagine that it would be more challenging to watch it, to observe it, to feel yourself in the space, as it would be, if you had really looked at some of that sexual shame and sexual wounding that you're carrying.
Flo Oliveira:And I think about how it can also affect your relationship to other people around the space too, how we might project some ideas that we have onto folks that are just trying to be liberated and aren't just trying to have fun because we have so much pent up shame. We're like why are you doing that and why is that? Okay?
Flo Oliveira:I took a really long time to go into my first kink space because I felt a lot of that shame and I felt a lot of that unlearning still had to take place, and so when I started getting into the community and talking about it or learning about it, it was mostly through one-on-one conversations or social media interactions, where I got to observe and I got to hear a little bit more about things. When I first went to my actual first kink party, I went with a group of friends and I was in there just observing as a warrior, to just really get the experience and not put pressure on myself to do everything at once. I had just gotten to that place where I could be in this space, and so just enjoying that moment, just enjoying that feeling right there was what it was about for me.
Carrie Jeroslow:What it sounds like to me is that you knew yourself well enough to know how were you going to go into this new experience in the way that could give you the most success. And what I mean by that is that because I would be the same way is that I'm somewhat of an introvert and I love one on one discussions. I feel like I can go deeper within myself and I just enjoy that. And for me, being in a big group, learning is more challenging for me. So I think then, looking at how do you go into new situations in the best way and learning that about yourself, and then supporting yourself in that way to explore possibly BDSM, kink, possibly other things, and to also look at your sexual shame those two things seems like I know a lot of people just want to jump in.
Carrie Jeroslow:I think that's with polyamory, non-monogamy too. People are like, oh, that sounds cool, I'm just going to jump in. And if you do some self-work, some self-reflection work with a therapist before you really jump in, you have the ability to, I think, have much more success. And success doesn't mean to me that, oh, I'm just going to be going to kink parties all the time. Success is like that was a really good experience. I learned a lot more about myself. I healed some things. That, to me, is how I define success.
Flo Oliveira:Yeah, definitely, and I want to say that comes along with also knowing if BDSM and kink is for you or isn't for you, because healing doesn't have to look that way. It doesn't have to be about your involvement in the kink community, and so if part of your healing journey is discovering, even if that isn't for you, that's okay too. You can go and just be like you know what. That's not for me. I think I need to unlearn some things in a different way and maybe that's cool and I feel great for those people, but just not my thing or just not my pleasure style. I think the other thing is a lot of healing can happen in partnerships. Folks think that they have to be single or alone or celibate for an amount of time, and if that works for you, that works for you. But not everyone has to take that specific journey. You can sit there and talk to your partners about it. You can talk to your friends about it or, like myself, go to extensive amounts of therapy to discuss it.
Carrie Jeroslow:Those are all such great points in that the learning could be. Bdsm and kink is not for me, and so leaving space for that because I know I've been in the place of not with BDSM, kink, but with other things I should be doing this. This is how I should. There's a lot of shooting myself and so being open to the experience and allowing the experience to be what it is, it could be healing in and of itself. You talked about how sexual shame and sexual wounding can be worked on through partnership, and I want to go into a little bit more how sexual shame affects relationships and then what you've seen in your clients with the healing aspect, once people have healed that. You've seen in your clients with the healing aspect, once people have healed that how that affects relationships.
Flo Oliveira:Yeah, definitely so. Like I was saying a little bit earlier, when partners come in, or even just when an individual comes in and they talk about the sexual shame, a lot of times they're closed up. There's a lot of that pent up energy that they're not getting out, that they're not being able to get to a space of vulnerability with their partners or they're just not able to relate in the ways that their partner is asking for, because they physically cannot get themselves to even give that to themselves. They can't fill their own cup, so they can't fill someone else's, and so there's this stagnancy in the feelings that they are experiencing because they don't see a way out. They don't see a difference in unlearning the sexual shame, and so when we start working with that, we see that we can get partners to start talking a little bit more. We can put in the work to really unleash even the ideas that are circling in their heads and put everything out on the table, like I said earlier. And so partners often come in together with this problem.
Flo Oliveira:I've seen quite a few couples that one individual or both feel such a sense of shame and their sex lives are either stagnant, tarnished, they rarely have sex, or they've had sex a couple of times and it's been awful for them.
Flo Oliveira:Neither of them have enjoyed it or none of them have enjoyed it. And so we talk about that, even just starting there, talking about why it feels shameful to even say that you haven't figured it out, that you haven't had an enjoyable experience with your partner yet. Once we start having those discussions and when we get to a certain point, then we can talk about how, now that we've unlearned a little bit of sexual shame, how you've benefited and how you can connect now, or what new experiences you and your partners are having, or even just what new conversations you're having. If you're not ready to get to the sexual experiences, has it released some of the tension in your body? Has it allowed you to just speak to something that you've held for so long? And now this person across from you gets to share that with you, gets to carry that burden with you and changes a lot for folks. Just having that said out loud is spectacular.
Carrie Jeroslow:And you use the word connect, and I guess that's what I feel. Like sexual shame could be a loaded phrase, but really sexual shame is about disconnection from self, and with that disconnection from self you can't connect with another person, you're not able to connect with yourself, and so releasing that, talking about it, bringing it out into the open, is exactly what you said it connects. I know when I've worked on my wounding it starts to connect me with me and allows me to see parts of myself that maybe were hard to see before, and then I'm able to be open and more vulnerable with my partners.
Flo Oliveira:So that's pretty powerful work, and I think a lot of folks come in when they're doing couple therapy and they're like oh, we're not going to talk about me, it'll be fine, we'll just figure out the relationship. But you have to do so much unlearning of self and like your ideas to get to a space where you're vulnerable with other people. Like you said, we can't do all that filling of other cups if our own is not filled, and so we have to get to that space together, and that's usually the first few steps, which can be uncomfortable, but it's totally worth it.
Carrie Jeroslow:It's totally worth it. It's totally worth it and I really believe that this kind of work will help heal the world, because there is so much disconnect we're talking right before the US election and there's so much disconnect that I see of like disconnect of self and just such woundedness that's projected out into the world in so many ways, and it's like let's just all go see Flo, sexual shame. I love your work and I would love for people to reach out to Flo. We'll have all of your information in the show notes. But, flo, how can people connect with you best?
Flo Oliveira:So if you're in California and you're looking for therapy, you can connect with me over my Instagram, where I have all of my links to inquire about therapy or even to schedule a consult links to inquire about therapy or even to schedule a consult. My Instagram is lifewflow L-I-F-E-W-F-L-O, and if you email me at lifeofflow at gmailcom, I can help you and redirect you if you need a little bit more support in your own state. Outside of that, if you're located anywhere in the world and you're looking for coaching or just someone to talk to about how to get into the kink spaces or get resources, I can totally connect you as well, and I have some of my own resources that I've listed for free and some that you can buy a couple of guidebooks on my links as well.
Carrie Jeroslow:Beautiful Everyone. Please go to Flo's Instagram page because there's so much free information that they just put out there with love and the desire to help people heal. Can you talk a little bit more about what you put out on your Instagram page to entice people to go over there, Because it really is amazing? I have a lot of information.
Flo Oliveira:It's jam-packed with a bunch of graphics on how to get into kink, how to do certain things, what relationships would look like if you did some unlearning and some healing, and then I also have a ton of really funny reels that are sometimes pretty cringy, but we love the cringe, love the play, and I post one of those almost every day and it talks about different topics within sex therapy or within just pleasure and unlearning that you probably can relate to if you give it a check.
Carrie Jeroslow:I love that you bring some fun and cringe into it, because you know what. There's some lightness we got to bring to this subject. It can be really, really heavy, so I appreciate the fun that you bring to your page. I'm going to have the link right to the Instagram page directly down below so you can easy click on it and go follow them on their page. I'd love to leave with this flow. What do you think a world without sexual shame would look like?
Flo Oliveira:Oh, wow, that's a beautiful and wonderful question. I think a world without sexual shame would look like a lot of connection, a lot of love, a lot of holding, a lot of knowing people's boundaries and respecting them, a lot of just beauty in how we talk about things. If we're not feeling that shame, there almost isn't that knowing of anything being wrong. We just get to be an experience. However, that would be, for whoever, almost like a wonder. It's so hard to imagine because, like wow, it would drastically change things.
Carrie Jeroslow:It would and I think we would be in a place of accepting people for living their truth and not saying your truth needs to be my truth Saying. If that is true for you, I honor that, I celebrate that. I may not understand it, it may not be what I am, but you go, do you, and I love that vision. I'm going to hold that vision because I know a lot of people may say that never happened, but that brings more joy and happiness into my heart when I think about a world like that.
Flo Oliveira:And maybe we can get bits and pieces of it here and there.
Carrie Jeroslow:when we imagine things like this too, we can get bits and pieces of it here and there, when we imagine things like this too. Exactly, exactly, flo. Well, thank you so much for being here. This has been. I knew it was going to be this way. This is why I said at the beginning this can be a challenging topic, but I knew you were the one to bring us some wisdom and ideas of how we can move through this woundedness and get to that beautiful vision that you have, and then I'm going to hold with you. So thank you for being here.
Flo Oliveira:Thank you so much for having me.
Carrie Jeroslow:Thanks so much for listening to the Relationship Diversity Podcast. Want to learn more about relationship diversity? I've got a free guide I'd love to send you. Go to wwwrelationshipdiversitypodcastcom to get yours sent right to you. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast. You being here and participating in the conversation about relationship diversity is what helps us create a space of inclusivity and acceptance together. The more comfortable and normal it is to acknowledge the vast and varied relating we all do, the faster we'll shift to a paradigm of conscious, intentional and diverse relationships. New episodes are released every Thursday. Stay connected with me through my website, carrie Jarislowcom, instagram or Tik TOK. Stay curious.
Carrie Jeroslow:Every relationship is as unique as you are. Are you wondering why you never seem to find lasting fulfillment in your relationships? Or do you create the same kinds of relationship experiences over and over again? Can you never seem to find even one person who you want to explore a relationship with? Have you just given up hope altogether? If this sounds like you, my recent book why Do they Always Break Up With Me is the perfect place to start. The foundation of any relationship, whether intimate or not, is the relationship we have with ourselves. In the book, I lead you through eight clear steps to start or continue your self-exploration journey. You'll learn about the importance of self-acceptance, gratitude, belief shifting and forgiveness, and given exercises to experience these life-changing concepts. This is the process I use to shift my relationships from continual heartbreak to what they are now fulfilling, soul-nourishing, compassionate and loving. It is possible for you. This book can set you on a path to get there, currently available through Amazon or through the link in the show notes.
