Sex Drives, Kink, Online Dating & How Long Do Episodes Take to Make? End of Season 4 Q&A | Transcript
Find the episode shownotes here!
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things sex, relationships, dating and our bodies.
Hello, everybody, welcome to the end of season q&a episode. I hope that you are doing well. And yes, it is the end of the season. End of season five. I will say now, I don't actually know when we're going to be coming back, because basically, I'm in the middle of setting up a new office studio space. And that is very much a work in progress, I'm taking a couple weeks off work, and then also trying to get this space ready to be able to be functional to record in. So the best place to be kept up to date as to when we will return and also get all of that fun sex and relationships content in the meantime will be over on our social media, which is @doingitpodcast on Twitter, and Instagram.
So I hope that you enjoy this q&a episode, it will be all about sex and relationships and dating and then also about podcasting and making this podcast in the last season. So I hope you enjoy and enjoy the break, you know, everyone needs to have a bit of a rest. Hope you're having a good summer.
So a couple of people asked about if I had implemented a pleasure practice. And a little update on that and how it's going. This is a reference to the episode that we did with Portia Brown from froeticsexology, who talked about creating a pleasure practice. And I'll be honest with you guys, I did not intentionally create one. And I did think about it, you see, and nothing like immediately came to mind of what would be my pleasure practice. And I thought it was very counterintuitive to the intention of pleasure to try and force it. Because pleasure does not work well under pressure. And so I decided to take the pressure off trying to create a pleasure practice. And I thought, because it is about pleasure, it will just kind of come to me one day, like at some point, it'll just be like, oh, these are the things I like to do as a kind of routine and as like a ritual that help me kind of connect with that side of myself. I have recently started reading more erotic short stories when it comes to like solo sex sessions. And but I don't know if I would call that a pleasure practice just yet. It's not like a routine.
And then in terms of general pleasure, not just sexual pleasure. Things that have really been getting me kind of like connected to my body and a routine thing that has really been helping me feel grounded is going to tennis twice a week and cycling there and back. I get physical, I gets sweaty, I love that it's in my calendar. And I just go. It's like a priority of mine. You know, if other stuff is happening, like a work thing or a social thing, now that things are kind of opening up a bit, like tennis is my first priority. I'll be like, no, sorry, I cannot do that. I've got tennis. And I realize that I was talking about sex and now I'm talking about tennis. I am literally obsessed with tennis at the moment. But for me, that - it feels like a pleasure practice in a more general sense of the word of pleasure, not just sexual pleasure, because it's like a routine that I have. It's something that I prioritize, and it's something that I love doing and is good for me. That was a long answer to our first question.
And somebody asked: is it ever too soon slash too young to introduce kink into your sex life? Now as a vanilla person, I'm probably not going to be able to give the best answer here. And actually, I really want to get kinky people and people who know a lot about BDSM on the podcast for the next season. Like there's a few names that I have in mind of people I want to reach out to. And I'm so excited to have those conversations. But the too soon too young piece, I think, from what I know about kink and BDSM it's always important to go slow. And to kind of engage in the community of kink and BDSM and find other kinky people to talk to. Not necessarily people who will be your kink partners, but really getting to know that community because there'll be a lot of people who can show you the ropes and can help you - or literally show you the ropes, wow, that was unintended - who can help you navigate the space and kind of like figure out things like what your boundaries are and what you want and what dynamics you're interested in and and all of these things and kind of like hash all of these things out. And going slow and having some kind of guidance from other kinky people can help you with risk assessment when it comes to is it too soon? Am I too young? I don't know if there's like a difference in age of consent for kink as there is for like other sexual activity, but check the law where you live. And of course, you can explore a lot of kinky things in your sex life in fantasies, through porn, through sexting, like, it doesn't have to be physical and in person straightaway, there are lots of ways to explore all of these dynamics, and all of these different things if you might be interested in them, without committing to physically doing stuff IRL. I hope that helps. But I would definitely seek out some kinky voices on the matter.
I want to start online dating, but it's scary. Where do I start? Again, I have not been online dating in years. But my general advice would be: start by doing small steps and things that you find fun. So what parts of online dating - are there any small parts of it that you find less scary and that you find actually maybe quite enjoyable? Maybe you love the idea of filling out your profile with a friend. So your friend is there, you like make a night of it. So it's not just this thing you're doing alone, but it's something that you're doing with somebody who loves you, and you can have fun, and you can chat about it. Do you like answering questions about yourself? Do you love the scrolling and swiping through other people's pages? Like, find the little things that you like about it and start there, and don't really put much pressure on yourself to, you know, enjoy every aspect of it or like start going on dates with people if you're not ready. And you can always like, meet up with people and then realize, oop, no, that was too scary. Didn't like that. And not do it again for a while and build back up to it. But yeah, identify the things that you potentially might find fun about it, and start there.
When it comes to actually going on dates with people I would really recommend the episode that we did about sober sex and dating with Millie Gooch. Now, I don't know if you'll be drinking or not on your dates. But we did talk a lot about like different activities that you can do and how you can make dating less scary in general in that episode.
How do I increase my sex drive for my partner? This is such a huge question in that so many people have this question. First of all, I would say go listen to the episode that we did on sexual desire with Dr. Karen Gurney and read her book, Mind the Gap, and read Emily Nagoski's book, Come As You Are. But if you're not going to do any of those things, here's your like, quick bit of advice. So first off, ask yourself the questions: why do you want to want more sex? Is it for yourself? Is it for your partner? Is it for this imagined version of what a good sex life looks like? Are there other ways that you can make your partner feel desired that don't put pressure on you to want sex? And instead of focusing on sex drive, which is wanting sex, focus on enjoying sex. So focus on the pleasure, what sensations, interactions, contexts do you find sexual pleasure in? And also answer that question with your partner as well. And where do those things overlap? So the things that you really enjoy and the things that they really enjoy and then how can you intentionally cultivate more of those opportunities for pleasure? But if you put pleasure and enjoying sex at the centre of the conversation and at the centre of what you're striving towards, instead of wanting more sex or having more sex, then hopefully those other pieces will fall into place?
Somebody asked, have you ever questioned your sexuality? How do you feel about the idea that everyone's a bit bi? I feel like I might have answered this question before, but in case I haven't, here we go. So I don't want to accidentally queerbait or ever like profit of having an ambiguous sexuality. But I would also be lying if I said I'd never questioned my sexuality before or that I am not regularly questioning my sexuality. Like I definitely have a lot of moments of like, wait, am I bi? But I tend to just come back to: Hannah, you're straight and occasionally, you might fancy women or be sexually attracted to women or non binary people. But I don't know, for me personally it just never feels like significant enough. And maybe you're listening to this and you're like, Hannah, you're like bi-erasuring yourself. But that label just like does not feel right for me. And for all purposes of practicality and privilege, and also just like, generally being the closest word that I identify with, it would be heterosexual. I've also talked about the term heteroflexibility before and Paisley at Cosmo did an interview with me about that where I tried to be nuanced about it, because I do get nervous when I talk about the term heteroflexible because I know some people really love it, some people really hate it. And I don't ever want to like contribute to bi-erasure. But maybe that's what I'm doing right now. But that's where I'm at currently. I think I'm just always going to be in a constant state of questioning. And I want to iterate that that is absolutely fine: not knowing. But also, I really don't want to claim being part of the LGBTQ+ community, because I'm essentially not, basically, but I'm big supporters of you all. Big fan, big fan over here. Ooh, I'm getting real sweaty, it's very warm in here.
On the everyone's a bit bi thing: it's definitely an oversimplification. Sexuality is so complex. And sometimes and for some people, it can be fluid. Sexual orientation is different to sexual behaviour. And then also things like fantasies, and the porn you might watch might be different to your in person experiences and relationships or the things that you might want to do in reality. Also, there's like aesthetic attraction. And then you also get instances where for your entire life, you have had one sexual orientation, like so say, like, someone like me, for instance, like a straight woman, who her entire life has been straight, always straight. And then she falls in love with a woman. And - but it's just that one woman, she's never been attracted to women before. There's just like, just one. And I think that it is something that you see coming up a lot for some people where it's just like, there was just one person who was the like anomaly of their - for the rest of their life and all of their other experiences was different to what their usual sexual orientation was. So who knows. Everyone's a bit bi: oversimplification. Sexuality is so complex.
This person asked, how do I start to date while recovering from a mental illness eg an eating disorder? If you listened to the episode that I did with my assistant Megan, we talked about her experiences with an eating disorder as well. And so when we were pulling these questions, she wanted to give some advice as someone who has been through this. So what I'm going to read now is what Megan has said.
So she said: congrats on being in recovery. That's such a hard thing to start, and you're the coolest. I would say, if you're comfortable, telling the people that you're dating, and also people in your social circle, that you're in recovery is an important step. It might feel terrifying, and that's totally okay. But the more you say it, the more you believe it yourself, and the more people are able to help, even if it's just by knowing what you're going through. Plus a lot of dating, especially early dating, and socializing, focuses around food. If you say you're in recovery, it's way easier to be like maybe not a dinner date or a lunch date. What about a coffee, a movie, a walk in the park, a non food based activity of your COVID depending choice? Also saying you're in recovery weeds out the people upfront who aren't going to be supportive. You don't want them in your life. Best to know early on, even if it sucks. And also honestly, being in recovery is such a cool and positive character thing. It shows you're willing to put in work even on the hardest things, and that you want to grow and get healthy for yourself. And those things are both rad as hell for you and an attractive quality in a partner. Take things at your comfort level and talk, talk, talk. The more you talk about it, the more normalized it gets for you, and the more people around you learn your boundaries and what you need. Thank you so much, Megan, for offering your wisdom and I really hope that that helps.
So this next bunch of questions is going to be about podcasting in general. So somebody asked: ae you looking forward to seeing guests in person again, or has there been positives to virtual? There has definitely been positives to virtual because when I was recording in person, I had to travel a lot to get to people. And so recording podcasts took a lot more of my time, because there would be that travel piece involved. And also, another positive to virtual is I can record with anyone anywhere in the world and I'm not just restricted to people in London, or batching a bunch of episodes when I go and travel somewhere else. That being said, I am looking forward to maybe recording in person with people once I get my like studio set up. But I definitely want to be able to work with a virtual and an in person setup, depending on where my guest is and how I'm feeling and all of that.
Have you ever done an episode with a sex surrogate? No, I have not. And it's something that I really don't know a lot about. My limited understanding is that you have the client, you have a sex therapist, and you have a surrogate partner, who helps with kind of like the physical side of things, and there can potentially be sex involved in that. But the therapist is not present for that. And with the client's permission, the surrogate and the sex therapist will communicate about the client's progress and things that they need in certain areas. That's my limited understanding. But no, I haven't done an episode with a sex surrogate. If you have any recommendations of people who I should talk to, please let me know.
Someone asked: how much time does each episode take to make? Oh, I don't know if I've added it up. And also, I don't know how long it takes my editor to edit these. He's in a different timezone to me so I can't ask him right now, because I'm pretty sure he's asleep at the time of me recording this. But if I get an answer from him, I'll put it in the shownotes. So you'll have to go to our website doingitpodcast.co.uk to find the answer to that question that part of it. But recording takes about an hour and a bit, I would say, in terms of like with all the technical stuff either side of recording. And then it takes me like maybe half an hour to write and record the intros. And then there's all of the admin time for scheduling and reaching out to guests. And honestly, I don't even know how to calculate that because I tend to batch it and it tends to also just be done in like an email here and an email there. And who knows, it adds up. It adds up though, it feels like it adds up. And then the transcript and shownotes, that takes about like three to four hours to do. And then all of the social media stuff that Megan does as well - ooh, I don't know how long that takes her, maybe that's something else that we put in the shownotes. But definitely another like two to three hours is my guess. That's how long that takes. I should probably know that. I pay her! So what is that total? Who knows? All of those hours plus the editing hours. Lots of hours per episode. Maybe should we say like an entire day per episode? Does that work out? Why not? So thank you so much to the people who support me on Patreon for helping us make this podcast because it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time.
How long before the episode is released do you record the podcast? This varies. Sometimes it's the week before, sometimes it's months before. So yeah, it really, it really depends. But what I try to do is record the intro a week before. So that intro will hopefully be a bit more timely than the rest of the episode. Just in case there's like current new stuff that we're talking about in the episode that's like no longer relevant.
Any plans to do an episode on ADHD and sex relationships and intimacy? Ooh, not something that I've thought about doing because I off the top of my head don't know anyone who I would talk to about that. But definitely something that I want to look into. And actually I know that one of my upcoming webinars for the sexuality educator course that I'm doing is about ADHD and sex. So I'm excited to learn more about it through that webinar. And again, if you have any recommendations of people who I should talk to you about that, please let me know.
Have you read the book Bang! yet? It's a book about solo sex, including for disabled people. I have not but I always love a good sex book recommendation. So thank you. Honestly, my like nonfiction sex books TBR list is out of control.
Would love an episode on post-coital tristesse. It's when you cry after sex, but it's common. Yes. I don't know if we'd be able to do an entire episode about that. But I'm sure it's definitely a topic that if I find the right guest to talk to about it, either someone who has personally experienced it, or like a sex therapist or a sex coach or someone who can talk about it from that perspective as well, yeah, definitely something that would be good to cover.
And then somebody asked, how do you balance all of the different voices and approaches to sex science slash spiritual slash activist slash social? This is such such a great question, because this is something that I'm always trying to talk about is the fact that sex is all of these different things. Like sex is not just something that like happens between people in private, where they rub their bodies up against each other. Sex is science. It's spiritual, it's in activism, it's in our society, it's in our culture, it's in our politics, it's in our media, it's in our classrooms. It's, it's, yeah, it's everywhere. So how do I balance all of these different voices and approaches and perspectives on sex? I don't have a system. A lot of it comes down to just generally having a bit of a vibe of like, ooh, we've kind of maybe done a bit too many sciencey episodes, like, let's try and do something a bit more like personal, or we haven't, like had any topic around this covered recently. But yeah, I think the only one of the examples that this person gave that is maybe lacking is the spiritual piece. And I think that is just because personally, it's not something that I do, or it's not something that personally resonates with me. So I find it difficult to talk about. Obviously, it's not me just talking on this podcast, though. That's the whole point of having guests. But it does mean that a lot of the people that I follow online, a lot of the people that I engage with, I tend to not see a lot of the spiritual side of sex stuff. So I'm less like exposed to people who might want to talk about that. But yeah, it's as you can tell from the way that I'm talking now, it's not something that I feel super comfortable talking about, because I just don't really understand. And I feel much more comfortable talking about kind of like the science nerdy side of things, the education side of things, the like media representation, that kind of stuff is my jam. The spiritual side of stuff is not my personal jam. But that's okay.
Thank you so much for listening. And thank you so much for supporting this podcast. And I hope that you have enjoyed this episode. I hope that you've enjoyed this season. You can get in touch with us on our social media and let us know what your jam is. And if there are any jams that you have that are not jams of mine, but jams that you would like to see slash listen to, on the podcast. And I will do my best to kind of have those voices heard, and share different perspectives, and just nerd out about this stuff, learning new things, generally being curious about different people's experiences, and all of these different things in the wonderful world of sex. I'm obsessed. I love it.
I hope you have a great rest of your day. Please keep up to date with us on social media because that is where you will find out about when we'll be back for season five, I want to say. Five. Let's go with five. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you soon. Bye.
Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it. If you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at doing it podcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in Next episode. Bye.
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