Why You Should Talk About Sex + Talking Like it is Normal (because it is)

Welcome to the community. Where passion for life and healthy sexuality connect beautifully and easily. I'm your host Amanda Ammons and my goal in life is to help you thrive and a huge part of that is your sex life. Your one life was meant to be amazing, sex included. You most likely haven't been shown this but I'm here to tell you beautifully and intricately made. Made for more made for the best. However, your journey brought you here join me in a new conversation about one of the most amazing things ever created. Intricate, passionate intercourse. Together let's break the shame cycle. Let's learn how to please and be please. Let's fight fear, find freedom, and freaking have fun. Welcome for the passion connected show.

Alright friends, we're jumping right in today. We're gonna be talking about something I'm very obviously passionate about which is having open conversations about sex. I mean it's what the entire podcast is about, but I wanted this episode to give you a little bit of a reason why I think it is so important. Last week we covered in episode 2 how to have hard conversations with your partner in a healthy way. A lot of that has to do with making the conversation comfortable, making it easy and being vulnerable with each other. But what if we manage to do that with everyone? When is the last time you had a conversation with friends or family about healthy sexuality? I'm talking about really having a conversation. When is the last time you checked in with someone and ask them how their sex life is? You probably think I'm crazy right now but really hear me out on this. These are the kinds of conversations I have with my close friends all the time. I've learned at a level of openness and vulnerability is so needed in this culture today and of course people are initially shocked when I really want to talk about sex with them genuinely. I have found after the initial shock they usually come away from the conversation telling me how much they appreciated my openness and how much they've been wanting to talk about it with somebody.

So quick story on this. When I was engaged to my husband, I had a really hard time keeping my hands off him. If you take a woman who is passionate about sex, who's first love language is physical touch, and who is a go getter enneagram 8. I mean that's a pretty intense combo. We can laugh about it today, but really it was a struggle. But I remember walking out of one of our university’s chapels one time and this session had been about song of songs. Which if you don't know song of songs is a book in the Bible that describes the relationship between a man and his soon to be bride. The book is also an allegory to Christ coming back to be united with his church, to be intimate with his bride, his people, his church body, and it's a pretty intense book. I mean it's pretty much like a sex novel just smack dab in the middle of the Old Testament. So, I remember walking out of that Chapel, and I joked to him and his guy friends who were standing around and we were all just talking and I just said, “you know if sex is an image of Christ uniting with the church, then I want more of Jesus and Kileab I am ready to bring the Kingdom baby”. They we're so shocked for like half a second. They had to process and then there was so much laughter. We were all cracking up and, in that moment, there was more tension release than anything. It was so good. His guy friends were shocked but when they relaxed into laughter we got to share in community, in that moment, what is often a suppressed understanding that we're all adults here. We do in fact think about sex sometimes. We just don't typically say so. But when I decided to bring it up to let everyone know hey, I'm thinking about it, I know you're thinking about it, I want it with my fiancé, like this is all clear, we all had these feelings. Everyone relaxed and it was so good. To be clear, talking about sex desiring sex did not mean me and my fiance went to bed after that. It didn't increase libido; it wasn't like had to rush off. It didn't push his friends away and it didn't make them think weirdly of me. In fact, they ended up being closer to me. They felt like they could actually talk to me and a lot of them came to me with their own struggles and questions and things like that, that were so good. Kileab and I were able to be there for them in their own struggles.

Talking about sex doesn't put you in a bad headspace. If you do it right it's not going to push people away it's gonna bring close community in. You can call it a little much and you can call it whatever you want, but my friends, our married friends, his guy friends we've all talked openly about it about how we're doing. Why? Because I am willing to talk about it, and in those moments any fear or shame disappears. We get to be there for each other support learn from each other and enjoy each other’s presence. It is real talk people want to have and it's not the only subject out there that is a deep topic that needs to be brought up, but it is one of them. I think people are too afraid to bring it up because they don't know what's that person's reaction going to be. “Am I gonna make them uncomfortable?” All of that sort of stuff, but it is good talk, it is needed to talk.

So, I had a little bit of fun doing some research for you guys. I was thinking about this episode and it's going to blow you away. Get this, people are very obviously talking about sex online they just don't do it a lot in person. So, I searched some different terms on Google to see what was out there. How many results were out there for different search things and all of that? Here’s what I came up with. OK so when you search the word food on Google you get over 700 million results. You search the word clothing you get 6 billion. You search the word sex, and you get almost 11 billion results. You search the word God you get over 11 billion results. This is all in less than a second, I mean really guys sex and God have more results than what people consider basic needs: food and clothing. You know it isn't just the results that many results wouldn't be out there if there weren't people searching for those things. So, are you in it? Are you in on the conversation? Are you searching are you contributing because you should be. I'm not saying just go search the word sex on Google, honestly please don't, but what I am saying is that you should be a part of the conversation. Read books on it, find a person you trust, listen to safe podcasts, talked to a friend. Be an advocate for people. You are a part of the human race and no matter where you are in your life stages or your sex life, how it is an action, whatever it looks like, you should be talking about it.

Why? Honestly because I believe that people listening to this podcast are the good ones and shouldn't the good ones be controlling the conversation? Shamelessly own that sex and God are valid things to talk about. I feel like I'm getting preachy but it's because I am so serious guys. I am so wanting to see the world talk about it like it is something that can be talked about. Not something that has to be in hushed whispers or just played off in a joke. A lot of those results on Google are being controlled by the wrong people. I don't have to tell you there's a lot of negative stuff out there surrounding sex and the image of sex on both sides. People go from way too much shame on one side to no shame at all on the other in a bad way. But I really personally believe that God made sex one of those universal things, like the need for food, clothing, sleep. He made sex so gosh darn beautiful. At least in my own life I can attest it's been a workout, it's been a conversation, it's been a growing point, a passionate connection, and a worship session. It has been so much and at the beginning of creation, sex was good. It was really good! Both man and woman were naked and unashamed and I bet you anything that a shameless human and a shameless marriage has some pretty awesome sex going on. It was originally created beautiful and we have the opportunity to bring the Kingdom baby!

I'm not telling you, you should shout the word sex to the world. I mean you can leave that to me if you'd like. What I'm telling you is to practice comfortability with the topic. Practice owning it's an important piece of life and we should learn and talk about it together. I can promise you'll find a safe community here to listen and talk about sex openly. I don't know everything and I'm certainly still learning but I can tell you my main passion is to see the conversation on sex change. For there to be healing that takes place. In order for us to heal we've got to work through it as a community. I wanna be here for you and whatever stage. If you don't feel comfortable stepping out and conversing about your sexuality around people, know you have me here. Start easy, start by listening, feed off this energy if you have to. Learn and take the growing pains at your own pace. You don't have to have a dirty mouth in order to talk about sex. You don't have to let the whole world know how and where and when you did it last night. But you should feel absolutely free to share that it is a part of your life that you like it, that you want it, that you want it healthily and rightfully so! Share if you're saving for yourself and that you can't wait for that day. Don't be ashamed of that. Share the pains that you've had or that you and your spouse are struggling with. Share with someone now so that they can relate with it. They need you to be the first one to open up so that they can open themselves up. Get vulnerable. Vulnerability is love and vulnerability fights shame and I know we are all in the battle of fighting shame. When I talk about sex I talk about it on all sectors. I mean light conversation and natural conversation. I mean the hard conversations, and if you don't know how to have hard conversations about sex please go back and listen to episode two. It has so many good tips for how to talk to the important people in your life about sex. It was originally just talking with your spouse, but it really those tips can be used for talking to anyone about hard conversations. With me and my friends or my family or whoever it is or talking about sex, it typically looks like this music playing in the background friends on my couch. A really good cup of coffee because I'm kind of a coffee snob. But it also looks like quick checkins over text, a hug and a whispered encouragement if I know that they've been struggling with something. It looks like loving my people by being willing to recommend counseling if I know that it's needed. It looks like giggles and laughs when we tell hilarious stories or fails that only can be told after the kids go to bed. Again I'm not telling you to talk about it like I talk about it I'm just saying learn to get comfortable with the topic for your benefit and everyone else around you. It's an amazing way to love people that most people don't do.  

I want to make a quick note. You got why we should talk about sex and a quick encouragement of how to talk about sex and that it's needed. I also want to say how to not talk about sex. Do not purposefully make others uncomfortable and trust me I'm guilty of this. I have a tendency to say what's on my mind and what's important to me I like talking about the hard stuff, but I do know when to back off if the conversation puts someone in a place where they feel unsafe. This episode is specifically to let people feel comfortable with it. We also don't need to use the ‘we should talk about sex’ idea to open the conversation in order to accuse or hurt or shame someone. This world has enough of that. Don't add to it. Someone having a different view or opinion of sex should not shock you. People it really shouldn't instead let's talk with love about making love.

Alright I feel like I've been on my soapbox long enough. This was a pretty intense episode and I know that and if you have hung with me here still you are amazing. I am so proud of you. I know a lot of people probably are clicking out because this this is hard to talk about and a lot of people are not ready to handle it yet and that's OK. But if you are I would love to see you over on my Facebook community, I would love to see you over on my Instagram, join me in my email list. Wherever you're at on this journey I am here to help you help the world. Really it means the absolute world to me that you are here and I love you all so much. So next week is going to be a little bit lighter I promise. We're going to have lots of fun. Next week is going to be about making the bedroom a fun place to have sex and how to cultivate that good environment. I can't wait to see you guys next week. I love you all. Have an amazing week