Sex was a marital duty – Charlotte

Charlotte experienced sexual violation by a yoga guru. After fleeing that community with her husband, they had two kids. Now she is divorced and exploring what's next.
Good Girls Talk About Sex
Good Girls Talk About Sex
Sex was a marital duty - Charlotte
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Charlotte’s sexual journey has taken the deep bends—and openings—of the yoga she practices. She met her husband in a guru community, fled it, had two daughters, reclaimed her body, and is now exploring “high-fidelity” polyamory in several configurations.

Charlotte is a 45-year-old cisgender female. She describes herself as white, and perimenopausal with an athletic body. Her sexual orientation and preferred relationship style are under exploration, and her current relationship status is “exploring.”

AUDIO EXTRAS:

  • Charlotte talks about dealing with depression and uncovering feelings of unworthiness as a college student. Then she talks about the final disintegration of her marriage.  Plus the full Lowdown Q&A!

In this episode we talk about

  • Charlotte shares her first experience of sexual pleasure, at age 18. She talks about arousal and masturbation and exploration occurring before then, but not to the level of real pleasure.
  • Charlotte grew up Catholic, with very little family PDA, and the most basic Sex Ed. “None of the juicy stuff.”
  • She meets the father of her children in a yoga community and has to keep the relationship a secret as they travel the world with their guru. They are forced to leave, quickly marry, and have two daughters.
  • Charlotte opens up about sexual violation at the hands of the guru as part of the “spiritual path” she was expected to be on. She struggles for three years before it starts outweighing the good of the mission she believed in.
  • She and her husband leave the community together and set up house. Pregnancy, motherhood, and breastfeeding take over her body and sex becomes a marital duty.
  • Her marriage struggles.
  • She finds herself alone for the first time in 10 years when her husband takes the girls on a trip. She reunites with a college friend…with benefits.
  • Charlotte talks about her current exploratory dating, Her sexual orientation and relationship styles vary at the moment, and include being in a non-monogamous “high-fidelity polyamory” with a super communicative yoga dude and being the girlfriend of a married couple.
  • After spending time digging into and undoing her wounds, she is literally bathed in new love.
  • A friend of a friend overhears Charlotte talking about her escapades at a party, and contacts her afterward to ask if she’ll have sex with her husband. He turns out to be hot enough to make her nervous.
  • Charlotte looks to the future and potentially partnering up monogamously again, as well as further pushing her sexual boundaries.

Full episode text

LEAH: Welcome to Good Girls Talk About Sex. I am sex and intimacy coach, Leah Carey, and this is a place to share conversations with all sorts of women about their experience of sexuality. These are unfiltered conversations between adult women talking about sex. If anything about the previous sentence offends you, turn back now! And if you’re looking for a trigger warning, you’re not going to get it from me. I believe that you are stronger than the trauma you have experienced. I have faith in your ability to deal with things that upset you. Sound good? Let’s start the show.

[MUSIC]

LEAH: Hey friends. Thanks to the power of social media. Periodically, people from my past contact me about the work I’m doing now. Sometimes, it’s a note to say, “I never would have guessed you’d be doing something like this.” Other times, it’s to say, “I always knew you’d be doing something like this.”

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: Today’s guest, Charlotte, is one of those people who reappeared in my world thanks to the magic of social media. We knew each other a long time ago and I always saw her as a golden child. She was pretty, athletic, popular, socially adept, everything I wasn’t. She seemed to have everything going for her. I made endless assumptions about how easy things must be for her. I assumed her life was perfect. And honestly, even if she had told me differently at the time, I probably wouldn’t have bought it because I was so envious.

It’s only now decades later that I can hear her story and recognize that her journey was challenging too. It was challenging in a very different way from mine, but the base feelings of being not worthy were present at a very deep level for both of us. When Charlotte contacted me and said she’d been listening and would like to do an interview, I was intrigued. I had no idea where this conversation would go and it went to places I never expected, including exploring many facets of her sexuality in a way kind of similar to the way I did.

Charlotte is a 45-year-old cisgender female. She describes herself as white and perimenopausal with an athletic body. Her sexual orientation and preferred relationship style are under exploration and her current relationship status is exploring. You’re going to hear several audio shifts during this conversation because we kept having issues with our connection dropping out and restarting. You’re also going to hear some traffic noises in the background because some days, that’s life. But it’s a great conversation and you’re not going to want to miss a word of it. I am so pleased to introduce Charlotte!

I am so excited to talk to you. Thank you for offering yourself up to do this interview.

CHARLOTTE: Thank you. I really want to just say that I am so grateful for the work that you do and I’ve been following you, I don’t know, for maybe three years now. After having known you a long, long time ago, I just continue to be inspired and impressed and just really honor the work that you do and the journey that you have been on. It’s important for me to say that because I don’t know if I’ve really expressed it to you.

LEAH: Thank you. That means a lot to me. This is one of those funny turnabout moments because like you said, we knew each other a long time ago and for me, you were always one of those people who I could never live up to. I wanted to be your friend and I didn’t know how. And so, to come back together as adults is an interesting and exciting opportunity for me.

CHARLOTTE: I already want to cry.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: We haven’t even gotten to any of the tricky stuff.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: Well, let’s dive in then.

CHARLOTTE: Okay.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: So, the first question I ask everyone is what is your first memory of sexual pleasure?

CHARLOTTE: Pleasure. Good question because I can think of right away of a succession of non-pleasurable sexual events, not necessarily bad, but just awkward and stumbling and not knowing what to say or how to feel. I remember a lot of those. So, I would say, the first truly pleasurable sexual experience that I had where I was engaged in a more communicative way in both giving and receiving of pleasure was probably not until I was 18.

LEAH: So, it sounds like you were having other experiences earlier than that that were consensual, but not awesome.

CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Maybe I had some pleasurable, exciting, exhilarating kissing and making out and those kinds of things, but the way that I think about pleasure now, that kind of a thing I don’t remember having until I was about 18.

LEAH: Sure. So, what about masturbation? Were you having pleasure with yourself before that?

CHARLOTTE: I also don’t remember that. Also, high school, I think there was probably quite a bit of shame and hiding around intimacy, sexuality, all those things, so I probably just sensed from a very early age that topic was taboo. I remember coming into my sexuality in early high school age and being aroused and probably masturbating. So, high school age like 13 and up.

LEAH: When you say remembering coming into your sexuality, what does that mean for you?

CHARLOTTE: It means I remember being turned on or being attracted to certain people or thinking sexual thoughts, those kinds of things.

LEAH: Were you seeking out books that had sexy scenes in them or movies or things like that or was it more of an internal process?

CHARLOTTE: Probably mostly internal. And then, starting to experiment with dating and trying things out.

LEAH: What was dating like for you in high school?

CHARLOTTE: I tended to want to date cool, sporty, popular guys, who probably I don’t know if they didn’t like me very much or we weren’t in the same level or equals. Maybe I felt too scared to be myself and to be really open, so I kind of dated guys like that that I was trying to impress and satisfy. So, it wasn’t until I was a senior in high school. I dated somebody who was also a senior in high school and we were really friends and peers and I felt comfortable and I could be myself. So, up until then, it had been a string of kind of older cool guys that I was trying to impress. I think that’s probably why I wasn’t feeling comfortable and experiencing a lot of real pleasure.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: Yeah. When you were with those older guys, I haven’t asked you how far you were going with them, but in your physical sexual engagement with them, were you doing it because you actively wanted the pleasure that you thought would come with it or because you wanted to be in your mind good enough for them?

CHARLOTTE: Probably both. I definitely felt the excitement and the thrill and exhilaration of being with boys and wanted to keep exploring that. I remember feeling being fingered and being like, “That’s really uncomfortable and painful almost. I don’t think that’s what was supposed to happen.”  I remember not being able to use my voice, not to be able to say, “No. That doesn’t feel good.”

I’ve sometimes thought back and be like, “Oh. I wonder what would have happened if I’d use my voice and told the person what would have felt better?” It’s something that I think of, not only in regards to myself, I have two daughters. I’m often thinking like, “Oh. How am I going to encourage them to really use their voice and to be able to know and honor that their body and their pleasure are sacred and that they can speak whatever they want?” It’s okay. People that they’re with, potential partners or friends, also want to know what their truth is. That’s the context.  I often think about my own experiences in regards to them.

LEAH: So, what were you learning in your childhood home about sex and female sexuality?

CHARLOTTE: Very little.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: There was, I would say, almost no displays of affection, except for just hugging and greeting. I didn’t see any kissing or touching or sexual intimacy in my home. And then, I grew up Catholic, so I think there was probably a lot of shame around sexuality. And then, when I did learn, it was just very, very basic Sex Ed.

LEAH: So, Sex Ed in school?

CHARLOTTE: Yeah. And a little bit at home, but it was more scientific. Nothing about pleasure and anything like that, any of the juicy stuff.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: Yeah. So, you said that things started to turn around in terms of pleasure for you when you were about 18. What changed?

CHARLOTTE: I probably started feeling more comfortable in my own skin. Like I said, the person I dated felt like more of a friend and we dated basically for the duration of senior year, so we had time. I think a lot of the other dating had been summer flings or little encounters at parties or things like that and not actual relationships where we were cultivating a friendship and a relationship and our intimacy. So, it was mostly that probably, the time and friendship.

LEAH: So, was this the first time that you had intercourse?

CHARLOTTE: It wasn’t, but the first two, which had been basically when I was 17, the summer before, were both not very pleasurable and kind of confused. I think I felt like, “Oh, I just want to get this over with”. And then, finally when I was ready to have that relationship, then I was like, “Okay. Now I can try to do this for real and explore and have fun.”

LEAH: So, what kinds of exploration did you have in that first relationship?

CHARLOTTE: I think it was sweet, but pretty PG.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: We did experiment with different sexual positions and I remember him reading an article, probably in a Cosmopolitan magazine or something, maybe the male equivalent to that. I don’t know what it was.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: Something that he had access to about pleasuring women and trying some things like that and definitely oral sex. I remember we had fun trying different things, but still pretty PG, not too wild.

LEAH: Were you having orgasms?

CHARLOTTE: Yes. Yeah.

LEAH: And they were enjoyable orgasms?

CHARLOTTE: Yes. Yeah.

LEAH: Yeah. Do you remember the first time you had one?

CHARLOTTE: I don’t. I don’t. It was probably masturbating. Yeah. It probably wasn’t what was one of those early on older boys.

LEAH: Yeah. So, it sounds like this relationship probably ended at the end of high school. What happened when you went to college?

CHARLOTTE: I did some more dating and had also not very many pleasurable experiences. I feel like I was still kind of trying to or attracted to somehow dating older either it was a jock-y guy or a more edgy bad guy. Those were my two favorites.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: I was really struggling with depression in college. I kind of went from feeling pretty good and super athletic and having that nice relationship in high school to then feeling like, “How did I end up here in college? Not where I wanted to be, not the college that I wanted to go to. Not my people really.” It was like a big fraternity scene and I was just like, “Where am I?”

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: So, I did have some friends, but I kind of felt like this is not for me and isolated and probably pretty depressed.

[MUSIC]

LEAH: I’m cutting in here to let you know that there’s more to this conversation about Charlotte’s descent into depression and discovering her own feelings of unworthiness in this week’s audio extra at Patreon. Over there, she also talks about the final disintegration of her marriage and we’ve got, of course, the full extended Lowdown Q&A.

As a reminder, all audio extras are free at Patreon. I decided to move from a You Pay Me to Hear the Audio Extras Model to a You Can Listen to Everything Free on Patreon and Support Me If You Want to Model because I know that this material can be lifechanging, and even lifesaving, for some people and the people who need it most may not have access to funds. And for those who do have money, it may not be safe to have a paper trail connecting them to a cause for female liberation.

You’ll need to create a free Patreon sign in to access my page because the material is 18+, but once you’re there, the audio extras and extended Q&As are openly accessible. If my work is meaningful to you and you have a few dollars to support it each month, I will gratefully accept your patronage at Patreon. If you have more than a few dollars, consider donating extra in honor of women who need this material, but aren’t in a position to contribute.

I donate 10% of my Patreon income to ARC-Southeast, an organization that provides financial and logistical support to people seeking reproductive health services in Southeastern United States, where safe and even lifesaving services are being legislated out of existence. You can listen to the free extras and become a community member at patreon.com/goodgirlstalkaboutsex.

Now, let’s get back to Charlotte.

[MUSIC]

LEAH: So, usually, I spend a bunch of time sort of digging through the early years of people’s lives, but it sounds like the most interesting stuff has happened in more recent years. So, why don’t we jump forward? I know that you’ve mentioned that you have two daughters. So, let’s talk about the relationship in which that happened.

CHARLOTTE: My girls’ dad and I met in a kind of extreme yoga spiritual group and dated secretly for two years.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: Because it was frowned upon to have relationships in this yoga community.

LEAH: Did that make it more exciting?

CHARLOTTE: Oh, yeah. It was very exciting.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: We both travelled a lot with the guru, and so we were sneaking around all over the world.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: And then, ultimately, we had to leave. That’s a whole other interview. Sort of under duress and we moved. His visa was revoked because he’s not American. We had to get married really quickly, and then we kind of set up shop and eventually, I had two daughters.

LEAH: So, let me interrupt. Once you were no longer having to sneak around, did that change the experience of the sex for you?

CHARLOTTE: Yes, and also the violation that I mentioned was on the part of our spiritual teacher.

LEAH: Oh, god. I’m so sorry.

CHARLOTTE: So, when we left, that was a big reason why we left that spiritual community. I think I had been compartmentalizing quite a bit while we were still in the community. And then, after we left and I was feeling safe, then a lot of things changed. So, it also changed, yes, there was not a level of excitement and it took me a while to even want to be intimate again.

LEAH: Yeah. Those spiritual communities where there is sexual impropriety by the guru can be really, really confusing and hard to pull apart. Did you in the moment that it was happening recognize that it was violation or did it in the moment that it was happening seem like it was just part of the community and what you did?

CHARLOTTE: Both.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: Yeah. I was in complete shock, I would say. Maybe it felt more like a sort of out of body experience. It was like part of me left my body and was screaming. And then, the other part of me was like, “Wait, but this is my teacher.” The gears were spinning and I was trying to justify what was happening in the context of being on a spiritual path.

And then, the couple of people that I did sort of try to share a little bit of what was happening because this clearly wasn’t happening to everybody, they were women, by the way. They really justified every single behavior as part of this larger spiritual either test for me personally or some kind of task that I was meant to participate in in order for him to be able to do the work that he was meant to do.

LEAH: Wow.

CHARLOTTE: A lot of justification.

LEAH: That’s a complete mindfuck.

CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

LEAH: I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Thank you for saying that and also that’s a big part of my own journey.

LEAH: Sure. I think both those things can exist in the same place.

CHARLOTTE: Yes. Totally.

LEAH: It’s not okay that these things have happened to us and they created the people we are today. I wouldn’t give back the person that I am today. That doesn’t make anything that happened okay.

CHARLOTTE: Yes. Yes.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: Yeah. Wow. So, it sounds like you weren’t married while you were in the group. Did your not-yet-husband know that this impropriety was happening?

CHARLOTTE: No. I’m not sure. It took me two years to tell him. Three years of sexual harassment and two years to tell him, mostly because there is such a huge part of me that believed in the mission and vision. I saw so much good happening, and then this small part of ugly stuff happening, and then it took about three years. It seems like a long time, but that’s how long it took for the bad to start outweighing the good and for me to start feeling like I was going crazier and crazier not sharing what was happening and just feeling so out of integrity. So, then, I started to speak more vocally and tell people and it’s when I told him. I told so many people that justified the behavior and thought that the behavior was okay or even told me, “Oh. I wish that was happening to me. You’re so lucky.”

LEAH: Oh, god. Right.

CHARLOTTE: That had been my experience so often that I was just continuing to feel crazy. And then, when I finally told my partner, his reaction was the first one that was shock, horror, disgust, anger, and then, it just allowed that whole part of me that had been feeling out of integrity to weak almost in being validated and heard for the first time. So, it took us not too long to confront our teacher, and then ultimately leave. Because when I did confront him, it was clearly not safe for me. So, we kind of had to run for the hills.

LEAH: Was there ever a tension between the two of you around the idea of infidelity?

CHARLOTTE: No.

LEAH: Okay. So, he saw it as something that you had been coerced into?

CHARLOTTE: Yes. It’s a little bit complicated because he comes from a different culture where they have also different views of sex and rape, and probably did not even consider what had happened to me actual rape, partly because I had very cleverly worked so hard and gotten myself so busy in so many important ways that I became less of a person that he felt like he could use sexually and more of a valuable asset to him in my work.

I don’t think I did that consciously. But now, when I look back, I had become very effective in my role in communications and I was coordinating all of his events, so I had too much work to waste three hours in his bedroom. Really, what happened is he ended up shifting a lot of that energy towards other young women. I know he would sometimes take me and another woman on a trip. He would say things not to me, but to the other woman like, “I brought Charlotte to work and I brought you for pleasure.”

LEAH: Oh my god.

CHARLOTTE: So, I did that. And so, I think I consider what happened to me for three years to be sexual harassment, but I think there was something in my partner’s mind that we had never had intercourse. Maybe it was just his way of being able to feel okay about it and it was also very clearly done to me. I was not participatory in any way.

LEAH: Yeah. So, once you got out of that situation, the two of you have set up house and you’re sort of sorting through all the aftermath of that. What happened next for you?

CHARLOTTE: We still, I would say, had a fairly healthy sex life. We both liked sex and enjoyed it. We enjoyed it. We had fun together. But after having kids, then things really shifted for me in terms of desire. In both of my pregnancies, I went through a long postpartum phase of breastfeeding and not really feeling much desire. And also, at some point, along the road in that ten years of marriage, I categorized sex under marital duty. So, at some point, it lost its luster.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: I was still orgasming, but we had some moments of difficulty in our marriage. We’d gone to therapy and kind of had been talking about our love languages and things like that. His was always physical intimacy and so, it was very important to him to be connected physically and I wanted to honor that. And so, we definitely continued to have sex regularly throughout our marriage. But yeah, somehow, I had categorized it as marital duty like cooking or cleaning or whatever. It stopped being fun for me.

[MUSIC]

LEAH: You’re in your comfiest, coziest pajamas drinking a glass of wine and talking about sex toys. That’s exactly what my PJ parties for grownups are all about. Fun, comfort, connection, and lots of talk about all things sexy. And if the isolation of COVID has got you feeling not so sexy, we can have that conversation too. Even if you’re lucky enough to be isolating with a partner or other loved ones, the fatigue of isolation and the stress of this year of uncertainty has probably impacted your ability to feel deep connection and that can leave life feeling a bit flat.

Every time I host a PJ party, the participants talk about how nourishing it felt to spend time talking with other women about things they don’t have the space to talk about most days. One participant said that she talks to her partner about their sex life a lot, but she’d forgotten how much she misses talking to and getting support from other women.

My PJ parties for grownups are a place for you to have the kind of conversations we have on this show to dish about stuff that’s great in your sex life, commiserate about the things you wish were different, and ask questions you would never dream to ask in the light of day. I facilitate the two-hour gathering, so it’s designed to help you feel safe, comfortable and connected. Each PJ party is limited to seven people, so there’s plenty of room for everyone to participate. And because consent is primary, you will never be pressured into talking about anything you’re not ready for. You can participate as much or as little as you’re comfortable with.

Parties are held the last Thursday of every month. Visit leahcarey.com/pjparty to register for an upcoming PJ party. Again, all the information and registration information is at leahcarey.com/pjparty. And that link is in the Show Description on the app you’re listening on now. Spaces are limited for this month’s party, so register today!

[MUSIC]

CHARLOTTE: Basically, at the end of our marriage, I was coming back into myself sort of coming out of the bubble of full-on young child parenting, mothering. Then, I started working out again, and I started doing some coaching with a friend of mine. My kids were starting to get to the age where I was wanting to be able to reengage with the world again and start working and finding my path again.

As that was happening, I could feel also my desire to explore my own sensuality and sexuality reawaken. I don’t feel like it’s important to go into great detail about this piece, but we weren’t really able to find our way back to each other in that way. I think we tried and we did a lot of therapy, but we couldn’t really find our way back or find our way into a new evolution of our marriage and relationship. And so, then it became sort of what I touched upon the beginning.

It became, for me, more about my own really spiritual internal journey of realizing that I wanted to be able to speak my truth. And so, that began this journey of finding my sacred no and my sacred yes and being able to share them. It started with my husband, just things that no longer felt in integrity to do for me. It could be really small things like picking up dirty laundry off the floor or whatever it was. I started very small and things that were out of integrity, I started saying, “No.” Eventually, it became, “No, I don’t want to be intimate with you anymore. I want to find my way back to myself. I want to find my way back to wanting to have sex and my own desire.” I want to feel it bubbling up from within me and rather than feeling like I have to have sex because I’m married.

LEAH: You said it took about another nine months for you to come into the next portion of your journey. What was that?

CHARLOTTE: That came when he took the girls away for the first time on a trip and I was alone for the first time in ten years.

LEAH: Whoa.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: That’s a really big deal.

CHARLOTTE: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: An old college friend visited who I knew had kind of been interested in me for a long time. We had always just been friends. We spent the weekend together during that time that the girls were away and it was a safe and easy way back into sex because he was a trusted friend. I remember that first orgasm actually. It was so intense, just this huge reawakening of my body and mind and spirit. But also, it came with a huge tidal wave of emotion because I hadn’t slept with anyone else in thirteen years.

A big part of this year for me has been about freedom and about becoming financially independent again and being more fully on my own path spiritually, but also sexually. And so, I haven’t really wanted to be in a committed relationship. I’ve been in several exploratory relationships.

LEAH: Oh, do tell.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: So, I had a couple. I started with Tinder and Bumble, I think, and had some pretty awkward dates.

LEAH: So, at the beginning of this conversation, I asked you your basic biographical information. When I asked what your sexual orientation is you said, “It’s sort of under examination and fluid.” I asked what your preferred relationship style is and you said, “Yeah. That one too.” So, what have your experiences been in each of those realms and where do you find yourself now?

CHARLOTTE: So, after having some awkward dates and some fun dates, I kind of realized, “Oh, yeah. Okay. I have to really start speaking my truth saying very clearly what I want.” So, I did that on my Tinder profile. I just was like, “I’m a shaman. I’m a CrossFitter. I’m a super grounded earth momma.”

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: I just put exactly who I feel like I am. And I was like, “And I’m looking for woke people who are ready to meet me in this exploration that I’m on.” I just was like, “No room for anything else.” And then, that’s what I got.

LEAH: I love that.

CHARLOTTE: I got somewhere around the fall, a few months into the exploration, I met this yogi polyamory dude, who was in a committed relationship that he called non-monogamous high-fidelity polyamory. He was my introduction into the world of polyamory, although, very high-fidelity, high-communicative. We all communicate very, very clearly. We’ve all been tested, making sure that our sexual health is all above board. Our communication about what’s happening is all above board. We know who each other’s sexual partners are.

LEAH: And just for the record, let me interject here that that is how all polyamory should be. There are polyamorous relationships that aren’t that, but when you’re looking at polyamory as a potential life choice, it needs to be highly communicative and all above board, like you’re saying. So, I’m glad that that was what you found as your first entre.

CHARLOTTE: I’m so lucky because he’s a teacher of polyamory. He’s led workshops.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: But he’s also a practiced tantra and he’s a yogi. This is one really cool thing that happened. The reason why I’m relating this all to my own internal journey and spiritual practice is because I did this whole weekend of internal journeying and investigation into my wound space and all the unworthiness that resided there. After clearing all of that out, the very next day, I got a text from him and we hadn’t been intimate yet. We’d kissed and sort of made out a little bit, but we hadn’t had sex yet. He sent me this text just saying, “I’ve been thinking about you and I think that before we are intimate, I’d really like to honor you in some kind of ceremony, where I just really want to acknowledge who you are and kind of bathe you in love and devotion and worthiness.” And I was like, “That was fast.”

LEAH: Wow.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: It was a pretty fast expression or incoming of worth after clearing out worthlessness. So, I’ve had a lot of fun. We’re still intimate and see each other regularly. I’ve had lots of fun explorations with him and continue to uncover edges of my own, just what I consider to be okay in terms of safe or feel good, things that feel good and just exploring, lots of exploration of new things with him. It all feels really fun and wonderful and amazing.

And then, I also found on Tinder early on around the same time, a couple. I don’t think they would consider themselves polyamorous, but they were interested in having one girlfriend. They are a male and female married couple. So, I’ve also been dating them for almost a year.

LEAH: Is that fun?

CHARLOTTE: Very fun. I kind of skipped over. I did in that period, in my mid-twenties, have a few experiences with women. I definitely felt like coming into this phase that women or being with two women or another woman and a man, that sort of a triangle was an important thing for me to investigate. And so, that’s been very fun and exciting too.

Like I said, when I put out really clearly what I wanted and who I was, the people really have been meeting me. So, that’s been lovely and very fun to investigate and explore all the different ways that three people can be together. There’s unlimited, infinity ways.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: You’re welcome to ask questions about any of those, but the third and most kind of interesting thing personally that’s happened, happened more recently when a friend of a friend, we’ve been at a birthday party a number of months ago, she had overheard me talking to another friend about my sexual exploration. She emailed me and she said that she was feeling pretty asexual, and so that they’ve decided to open their relationship and would I have sex with her husband?

LEAH: Wow. Oh, my goodness.

CHARLOTTE: We had a long conversation about ground rules and kind of that whole high communication thing and sexual health and all of those things. And then, I said, “I’d be happy to meet him.” I think in my mind, I was feeling so open and I’ve done a lot of exploring already. I’ve now been with this guy whose been teaching all about polyamory, so I’m like, “Hey. I’ve got this. I’d probably be leading him.”

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: He gets to my house. He was super open and just dove right in to the conversation and totally took me by surprise. He’s like this hot surfer dude.

[LAUGHTER]

CHARLOTTE: There’s a whole new level of chemistry. So, I was feeling so worthy and all my insecurities are gone. I feel comfortable with being naked. I totally got this. And then, this guy comes and I’m, all of a sudden, feeling all those things that I did when I was young. Like, “Oh. I can’t date the hot, surfer guy because I’m way too insecure.” So, it’s just brought up again, this whole theme of self-investigation or growth because it has made me realize like, “Oh no. There was another layer of insecurity laying there.” And this unexpected partner that kind of landed in my lap has shown me that.

So, at the same time, showed me a whole other level of my own sexuality because there exists some crazy chemistry with him that I had never allowed myself to experience. It just enables me to want to do so much more and be so much more open and have a whole other level of intense sexual experience.

LEAH: And so, are you still actively engaged with the polyamorous tantra guy, the couple, and this hot surfer dude?

CHARLOTTE: Yes, in communication, but physically not with the couple because they’re not in my community and they haven’t quarantined in my bubble, so we’re only talking.

LEAH: So, what is your hope for your sexual future? If you look, whatever, five years down the road, what do you hope your life will look like in terms of relationships and sexuality?

CHARLOTTE: I think that I imagine partnering up again, but in a very different kind of partnership where both of us are sovereign beings and just meet each other in very different ways with a high level of respect for each of our own individual journeys. I certainly hope to continue pushing the edges of my sensuality and sexuality. I feel like I still have more to do there. Maybe it’s with a woman alone, not as part of a couple.

Right now, I feel like I’m still in an exploratory, fun, learning, growing place, but that in the future, I imagine that there will be a partner to meet in a whole different way than I’ve ever been met before after having done so much work on myself and with myself and with these other beautiful people that have showed up in my life. I don’t yet know whether as sovereign beings in a relationship that I will feel comfortable being in an open polyamorous relationship. That’s still a question. I do not know the answer. I have to revisit that, if and when.

LEAH: I look forward to that, hearing the next stage of the story.

CHARLOTTE: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

LEAH: I am so excited for you. This journey that you’re on. I can hardly wait to find out what happens next for you.

CHARLOTTE: Thank you.

[MUSIC]

LEAH: That’s it for today. Good Girls Talk About Sex is produced by me, Leah Carey, and edited by Gretchen Kilby. I have additional administrative support from Lara O’Connor and Maria Franco. Transcripts are produced by Jan Acielo.

And I’m incredibly grateful for the financial support from Good Girls Talk About Sex community members at Patreon. If you’d like to support me in telling these stories and answering your questions, head over to www.patreon.com/goodgirlstalkaboutsex. You can find Show Notes and Show Transcripts at www.goodgirlstalk.com. To ask a question about your sex life, your desires or anything to do with female sexuality, call and leave a message at 720-GOOD-SEX.

And before we go, I want to remind you that the things you’ve probably heard about your sexuality are not true. You are worthy. You are desirable. You are not broken. I work with women just like you to reflect their true sexual nature back to them without the judgment, shame or fear that can get in the way of us seeing it for ourselves. As a coach and PJ party hostess, I will guide you in embracing the sexuality that is innately yours no matter what it looks like. I’m here to help you sink so deeply into your true sexuality that the version of yourself that was scared to speak up for her own needs feels like a mirage from another lifetime.

Until next time, here’s to your better sex life!

[MUSIC]

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Host / Producer / Editor – Leah Carey (email)
Transcripts – Jan Acielo
Music – Nazar Rybak

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