Sober sex

Content warning
Hey ladies, this episode discusses addiction and sexual assault, so go easy.

Yumi
In a lot of episodes of this podcast, we talk about sex. We also talk, sometimes, about relationships. And today is no different, but we want to talk about the relationship between alcohol and sex.

Danielle
It was awful because I was just getting drunk to have sex in the end, like I forgot how to have sex.

Anna
As soon as I got drunk, all those inhibitions just went away and I was just kind of anyone's. I remember just not remembering a lot of the sex as well and kind of waking up in horror going oh god what was I like, what did I do?

Yumi
Does sinking a few beers give you the courage to flirt with randoms and the confidence to go home with a stranger?

Tawny
It was a hot mess of blackouts and hookupsand just craving external validation from other people and quite frankly faking a lot of orgasms. My sex was quite performative before I quit drinking.

Yumi
Or is it that you need a few glasses of wine at night to dull the stresses of kids and work and the drudgery of life and that is actually the only way that you can face getting naked with your life partner?

Faye
I was in my early 40s when I stopped drinking and I don't think I'd ever in my adult life had sex with somebody without being drunk first.

Yumi
The research confirms it, we are getting drunk in order to get laid. An Australian survey run by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found 92% of people who had had casual sex in the past six months had used alcohol or drugs. And from what ladies listeners are telling us, it's not just casual sex that they need the alcohol for, it can often be to get you through sex in a committed relationship. But at the same time, being a non-drinker has become more common and more socially acceptable. There's been a meteoric rise in the alcohol-free beverage market and buzzwords like sober curious or having a dry month are all over social media. And for a lot of us, there is no grey area, we had to completely quit alcohol to control our drinking. So what happens to your sex life when you get sober if you've spent years relying on booze to get in the mood? I'm Yumi Stynes, Ladies, We Need To Talk about sober sex. In past seasons of this podcast,Ladies, We Need To Talk, we've taken a pretty confronting look at women's dependence on alcohol. If you didn't catch it, scroll back to find the episode called Anyone for a Drink? In that episode, I talked about my own battles with booze and in the years since, I'm happy to say that I haven't touched it. But in today's episode about sober sex, I'm disqualified from contributing because I'm not having any sex at all. My personal life is delightfully peaceful and the idea of having any kind of shagging right now makes me want to run screaming into the ocean. So it's not about me today, let's get to Anna, which isn't her real name. She's 34 and she's been sober for almost five years.

Anna
It was pretty rare that I would have sober sex and even if I did, it would have to be in a long-term relationship, not with anyone new ever. I really prided myself on my sexual prowess, I guess, and thought it was just like one of the most important things in the world and the most important thing of a relationship.

Yumi
At her worst, Anna was consuming up to a bottle of vodka per day and life was chaotic.

Anna
I kind of think back to how it would have looked back in the day and I just sort of see a really messy, drunk person, you know, at a nightclub or wherever, at a pub and badly flirting with someone and people I didn't necessarily, like sober I wouldn't have necessarily wanted to sleep with at all. But it's like as soon as I got drunk, all those inhibitions just went away and I was just kind of anyone's.

Yumi
Before she got sober, sex happened. But what kind of sex? And at what cost to Anna's soul?

Anna
I remember just not remembering a lot of the sex as well and kind of waking up in horror, going, oh God, what was I like? What did I do? What were they like? I was a big blackout drinker as well.

Yumi
Alcohol turned Anna into the sort of person she didn't want to be. Someone who used sex as currency, even when it was destructive to herself and to everyone around her.

Anna
Like sleep with a best friend's partner or someone's boyfriend or and used sex as a real sort of power validation thing. Yeah. And I was just kind of anyone's and wanted everyone to flirt with me and wanted to get that validation from, you know, the worst person I possibly could for sort of a sick thrill, I think. I remember sort of, you know, at times feeling a bit sore or just constantly waking up with bruises and God knows what had happened. And it's just like incredible shame and sort of hopelessness.

Yumi
Because Anna was never sober when she was having sex, consent was at best fuzzy.

Anna
There were times where it was just really, you know, you wake up next to someone and you're not quite sure how you get there. And there's that sort of blurry line of, did I say yes to this or did I really want this? Did I just cave into this or what really happened? And that was a horrible feeling. And, you know, there was a time where I was unfortunately raped and I used drinking, of course, to just drink through the pain of that and just kind of felt like I almost deserved it as well because of how I was acting.

Yumi
Because you were drunk at the time?

Anna
Yeah. And, you know, I'd put myself in that situation. So I therefore deserved it. I ended up just basically wanting to die and not wanting to be in the world anymore and couldn't imagine a life without alcohol to sort of numb myself, I guess, because deep down, really, like it was about me not liking who I was ultimately and using alcohol to sort of cover what I was. And I thought it for a while turned me into a better person, but that very quickly turned me into a much worse person.

Yumi
What was it like toWhat was it like get sober?

Anna
It was pretty tough going. They always say it's not necessarily your worst rock bottom, but it's when you stop digging. And I just sort of went, no, I'm done with this. At one stage, things were just getting way too messy. I was ending up in hospitals and ended up in rehab. I kind of felt like I was starting life again, finally, at 30.

Yumi
What did sex mean to you after you got sober?

Anna
Well, I basically went pretty much asexual for four years. I just couldn't even imagine the thought of having sex sober. I just lost my libido, like barely any masturbation, nothing, just had no desire whatsoever. And when you don't really desire it, you don't really miss it, surprisingly. It was just such a contrast to what I was like before.

Yumi
After some time sober, Anna got herself to a better place mentally. She was studying, she'd moved out of her mum's place, and then something in her shifted.

Anna
I thought, oh, maybe I'm ready to sort of start dating. Like, I did really crave having a partner and having, dating someone and just that, you know, intimacy with someone. I really did miss that after a while. And yeah, so I got back on the dating apps.

Yumi
Anna found herself in a short-term situationship with a lovely guy.

Anna
I was really, really anxious about us having sex for the first time. It came to the time where he had a sleepover, and it was exactly how it was when I had first ever had sex. It was like losing my virginity again, like the nerves. But luckily he was really kind about it and sort of made it really easy and gentle for me. But yeah, it wasn't mind-blowing or anything. It was just kind of awkward, normal sex, I guess, which I was a bit disappointed by. But it took a few goes for me to sort of, like, feel anything again.

Yumi
If you're thinking of getting sober, I really hope this story isn't putting you off. For Anna, it wasn't until she found herself in a more serious relationship that she really started to get her boom shakalaka back.

Anna
I started feeling that real intimacy and closeness, and then sex started feeling better. And it felt like I was more of a woman again, I guess. And getting it back was really nice, but it was so different to what it used to be. Like, more romantic, more loving and close. I don't regret not having sex for four years. I think it was very necessary in my sort of healing to get myself together, to be properly intimate again and get to the point where I could feel sex in a way that wasn't just self-destructive and validating.

Yumi
Well, what about for somebody who's listening now and they are having only drunk sex and are terrified of what sex is like sober?

Anna
Yeah, I mean, it's like anything. You've just got to really push through it. And you'll be amazed at just how different it is compared to drunk sex and just how much more close and intimate it is and more meaningful it is. Having sober sex is scary, but the kind of drunk sex is worse and more awkward. It's kind of worse than what you think sober sex will be. And you don't wake up with that horrible guilt and shame and blackout going, what even happened? How did that even work? It's good to remember everything now. That's the greatest thing, I think.

Tawny
My sex was quite performative before I quit drinking.

Yumi
This is TawnyLara.

Tawny
It was a hot mess of blackouts and hookups and just craving external validation from other people and quite frankly, faking a lot of orgasms.

Yumi
Tawny has just written a book called, get this, Dry Humping. It's a how-to guide for sex without booze. Tawny'sbeen sober for almost eight years.

Tawny
One ofOne the biggest parts of stigma around binge drinking is, you know, you don't have to hit rock bottom before you decide to change your relationship with alcohol. I never had that moment of like, like you see on TV where someone's lost everything and they're living under a bridge and their family's cut them off. For me, it really was just a social experiment. You know, we didn't have the term sober curious back then, but that's definitely what I was.

Yumi
Tawny says, societally, we've been taught to incorporate alcohol with dating.

Tawny
You know, take a shot of liquid courage before you hit on someone in the bar. Whether you're sober, sober curious, you drink heavily or you just want to be more mindful of how you drink, regardless, the concept of liquid courage is the through line that I found in my research. And we rely on this liquid to make us feel more confident. We don't realize that while it's numbing our inhibitions, it's actually numbing our senses. You're not going to feel as much pleasure as you could if you were fully present.

Yumi
Tell us about how good sex does feel when you're sober, when there's no alcohol.

Tawny
It can be transformative, you know. I'm very grateful that I have a partner who is also sober and he is very patient and we speak the same language. The sex that we have is so real and honest and vulnerable and I personally couldn't have that with alcohol. For me, the alcohol was a mask trying to make me someone else. So, of course, I'm not having good sex because I'm not there for myself. I was there for someone else. Now, it's for me.

Yumi
Tawny hasTawny let go of performative sex and now she puts her pleasure first.

Tawny
For me, performative sex was faking orgasms and pretending that I liked positions that I didn't really like because I was prioritizing my sexual partner's pleasure over my own. The first time I had sex without alcohol, I was very honest with the person that I was sleeping with. I was just like, look, this is the first time I've had sex without alcohol. I feel uncomfortable. I feel awkward. We need to take this slow. And they were like, okay, you got it. And that's like, you know, I would have never advocated for myself in that way when I was still drinking. And then, you know, while we were having sex, I realized there was this moment where I was like, okay, this is normally where I would start the performance. Like I would start faking. And I had this realization. I was just like, and I told them, I was like, I would normally fake an orgasm around this point. And I don't want to do that anymore. And they were like, great, let's not do that. And that was, it was so liberating for me.

Yumi
Tell me about how your sexual liberation is linked with your sobriety.

Tawny
I used to think sexual liberation was just having like really crazy group sex at a sex party or at a sex club. That's what I thought sexual liberation was. And it absolutely can be. But getting sober and working on my book taught me that sexual liberation is really just freeing yourself from the societal standards, especially for women. It could be anything from, you know, coming out of the closet to maybe realizing that you actually don't like sex or maybe you don't like penetration or, you know, it's really figuring out what sex means to you. That is sexual liberation. And of course, what does sex mean to you without alcohol?

Yumi
Tawny says that after getting sober, it took a while to feel connected enough with her body to feel sexual pleasure. But that masturbating really helped.

Tawny
Before, when I was drinking, I think masturbation was a little bit more quickie. It was like, you know, get in, get out. And now I'm just like, I'll take my time and have an intimate experience with myself. I had to really get to know my body first and get to know my mind first and have the two connect because there was a major disconnect there when I was drinking.

Yumi
What I've found, Tawny, in talking to people for this episode of our podcast is that alcohol seems to have been a bit of a self-medicating tool for women who've experienced sexual trauma in their pasts. What's your advice for women who are kind of processing this and how can they unlatch from their reliance on alcohol to so-called get-through sex?

Tawny
Sober sex can be very, very tricky if you have experienced sexual PTSD. And I strongly encourage anyone who's sober or sober-curious to find therapy or peer support so you're not going through this alone. But really, this is where the communication comes in. You know, like, I have experienced sexual trauma and I'm very upfront and open with my partner when we're having sex and it feels triggering. I tell him I need a break. I need to stop. And I would have never done that before if I didn't have the tools that I learned in sobriety and in therapy. So I would 100% say give yourself some grace and just go as slow as you possibly can and communicate as much as you possibly can. There's absolutely no rush to have sober sex if you're not ready. And if you think you are ready and halfway through you realize you're not, you can absolutely stop. This is your experience. You're not there for someone else. And my heart goes out to anyone struggling with that because like I said, I'm almost 8 years sober and I'm still struggling with it. It's really freaking hard sometimes. But that's why we say one day at a time, right?

Danielle
I always drank and passed out so I could never just have one drink.

Yumi
Danielle is 48 and married with kids. She says she was a problem drinker from the age of 14.

Danielle
Four and a half years later, one day at a time, I haven't had a drink and it's been the best thing I've ever done in my life.

Yumi
After AA and therapy, Danielle realised that she had been using alcohol to numb the memory of a sexual assault when she was young and getting sober meant she had to face that trauma.

Danielle
Something in my brain just sort of was freezing me up but I've had to work through all that and I was scared of like penises to be honest and I've gotten over that now. Now I realise sex is a pleasure that we all deserve.

Yumi
Danielle, when you were drinking, what was sex like for you?

Danielle
It was awful because I was just getting drunk to have sex in the end. Like I forgot how to have sex. So I forgot how to be my authentic self and have sex and feel those feelings. Drunk people are not sexy.

Yumi
Have youHave had some thoughts about why you feel like you needed to be drunk to have sex?

Danielle
I think as a woman and having children and the pressures of life, I think you start drinking to have sex to take the edge off but it actually makes it worse. Like I wasn't doing anything healthy for myself. I wasn't exercising. I wasn't taking any time out. I wasn't doing not one thing for myself and I think that was a big, big mistake.

Yumi
Let's go right back to that first time you had sex sober. What was that like for you?

Danielle
Oh God. IOh God. had to like plan it, sort of like get myself in the mood. So I think that day what I did was, here we go, we're going to do this. So I had a long bath.

Yumi
It was a Friday, Danielle's regular day off work.

Danielle
I was scared because I didn't know how to do it. I couldn't even remember what it felt like to like kiss, you know. Like I think we were on the bed and I just started cuddling and I was just enjoying that cuddling, the closeness. So I just let myself feel that and I had to really work through that process in my head and let my body enjoy it for what it was and try to block everything out because I was just so scared because my body wasn't even working properly and you have to have lube. Lube helps.

Yumi
So when you say your body wasn't working properly, you mean you weren't lubricating?

Danielle
I was all dried up, yeah.I was all dried up, I was all dried up. If you don't use it, you lose it. So on the Friday I stayed home, had my bath, had really good sex, really good.

Yumi
Fri yay, I say. And then afterwards they went out for pizza and ice cream.

Danielle
So it's good to have sex before you go out, not after you're really full up and then have sex, you know what I mean? Yes. You always try to have sex at the end of the night. Why? Why? After you're eaten and all full.

Yumi
Is that true? Wait, how long had it been since you'd had sex post-sobriety?

Danielle
I was hardly having sex at all, even like before that I was hardly having sex ever, like probably, you know, a few times a year.

Yumi
Now sober, Danielle made having sex with her husband a priority, taking Esther Perel's advice and scheduling sex once a week at a bare minimum.

Danielle
Now we've sort of got a bit of a sex routine now that I've never ever had before.

Yumi
It must be interesting just thinking about what it must be like for your husband. It'd be like having sex with a whole different person.

Danielle
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the poor guy. My God, I don't know how he had sex with me drunk like that. It was disgusting.

Yumi
I should add here that since getting sober, Danielle has thrown herself into all sorts of life experiences that include exercise, and she's the fittest she's ever been.

Danielle
I just know he loves sex now and he tells me, oh, you make me so horny. And I've got... I'm really strong, hey? So I've got really strong quads, so I can go hard there. Oh, my God, I'm really strong and fit, right? So I can do, like, sit on him. I can do reverse cowboy. I can go for ages and he's loving it.

Yumi
Tell me what are some of the other sexual things you're hoping to try out?

Danielle
Well, I've been into this squirting thing. I did squirt. I didn't know the other week. There's a spray come out and he goes, oh, wow, there's a spray? And it went out on the carpet and I've never done that before. I'm like, oh, wow, I can squirt, right? So now I'm going to try to do that myself. See if I can do it.

Yumi
So while Danielle is still searching for the right carpet cleaner and a squeegee, the sex with her husband has never been better.

Faye
It was intrinsically linked with my identity. I was like, well, who am I? And when I stopped, I was like, ah, OK, you're actually all right.

Yumi
Meet Faye Lawrence. She's a grey area drinking coach. Faye got sober six years ago and started a group called Untoxicated to help support others in their sobriety. When she was drinking, Faye was having the type of sex that she thought she was into.

Faye
You're doingYou're the whole swinging from the chandeliers kind of porn star-esque type of sex.

Yumi
Faye says that for her, what she liked sexually changed quite significantly once the drinking stopped.

Faye
You realise sometimes you're kind of numbing out to tolerate things that aren't what your body is telling you. And so whether that's like you're tired after a long day and you just need to go to bed or whether it's like, actually, I really don't feel like giving you a head job tonight. And I started to learn that, like, hmm, yeah, maybe I'm not OK with this particular thing.

Yumi
Oh, my God, yes. Like, this isn't sex, but can you imagine doing something that you're not into? This particular thing, like, for instance, going to a nightclub sober. Ugh! I mean, honestly, a nightclub for me is like walking into my own personal nightmare hellscape. Maybe it wasn't that I needed alcohol. It's that I needed to not go to places like nightclubs, oh, my God, and awards ceremonies and rock shows and music festivals.

Faye
So, like a lot of things, when you remove the alcohol, you start living boundaries. For example, you go out on a date and you're not really into this guy. You know you're not really into this guy. But after the sixth glass of wine, you're like, ah, well, I'm here now. And... You know? And it seems like a good idea at the time.

Yumi
Faye, what frightened you the most about having sex while sober?

Faye
Somebody seeing youSomebody seeing naked, the awkwardness, you know, all of that was just terrifying to me.

Yumi
Faye, did your self-esteem improve once you quit drinking?

Faye
Yeah, just learning to like yourself and being proud of yourself and doing things that you thought you could never do. I was always the party girl, you know, and this was just so much part of my identity. And when I started, I never thought I was going to be able to be sober. It was intrinsically linked with my identity. I was like, well, who am I? And when I stopped, I was like, ah, OK, you're actually all right. You're not that bad. You're not that bad after all.

Yumi
OK, some advice. If you're sober-curious or you've just given up drinking and the thought of sex is actually terrifying, Faye Lawrence has this to say.

Faye
Be prepared to feel everything. Take it slow. Know you're going to be probably a bit self-conscious and a bit uncomfortable in the beginning. I was going to say sit back and enjoy the ride, but, you know, I don't know if that's quite appropriate. Take the reins, girls. Take the reins, yeah. Push the pedals, rev the motor.

Yumi
It does seem like peeling back your skin, you're more exposed, more vulnerable and more real when you're doing intimacy sober. Of course it feels scary.

Tawny
You're not alone and it's hard. It's really freaking hard. Trust me, I've been there.

Yumi
This is the author of Dry Humping, TawnyLara again.

Tawny
I would treat your sobriety or sober curiosity as a filter. You know, you're going to filter a lot of assholes out and I think that's a good thing. You know, your standards are probably going to go up and because of that, you'll probably have fewer dates but you'll have more quality dates and quality sexual experiences. I made it sound a lot easier than it actually is, but instead of looking at it as, you know, I'm sober, no one's going to want to date me, I reframe it as I'm sober and I am in control of who I allow to date me. Feel empowered by this decision to not drink alcohol and that empowerment will show up on the date and in the bedroom.

Yumi
This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need To Talk is mixed by Anne-Marie de Bettencourt. It's produced by Hannah Achelles. Supervising producer is Alex Lollback and our executive producer is KylaSlaven. This series was created by Claudine Ryan. Hey ladies, I've got a true crime podcast that I want to recommend, but it's not your stereotypical true crime podcast. It's something quite different. It's called Firebomb and I've got the host here with me, Crispian Chan. Hi Crispian. Hell yeah. Hi. Really good to talk with you because you're more than just the host of something talking about a crime that happened years and years ago. You're actually part of this story yourself.

Crispian
Yeah, that's right. So this story all started when I was eight years old and my family ran a Chinese restaurant in Perth and one night, totally out of the blue, it got firebombed. And not only that, another Chinese restaurant was firebombed on the same night in the next suburb. And so this happened time over again and again and again and it becomes this terrifying situation. So this podcast is all about me going back and retracing the steps of this investigation to find out the details of what really happened.

Yumi
This is also a story about what it was like growing up as an Asian kid in Perth. Can you tell us a bit about that, Crispian?

Crispian
Yeah, so this whole story is tied up with the racism that I was experiencing as a kid growing up in Perth at the time. It's a really personal story for me, but it's also a story that involves many parts of Perth. Not only about the Asian Australian community, but it also involves punks, ninjas, secret informers. It's a story that's actually kind of hard to believe at so many levels as we go deeper into the history of it.

Yumi
And can I ask you, was it painful for you to kind of go back to being eight years old where your family's restaurant was bombed?

Crispian
It's a funny thing being eight years old at that time, I didn't quite remember the feelings. But I think it's kind of the fallout of those events, how it affects you as you grow older. And the fact that racism is something that you experience face to face, but something that you carry with you through your life.

Yumi
Racism in Australia, there's no such thing, is there?

Crispian
What are we talking about here?

Yumi
No, I'm sorry. I can't wait to listen to Firebomb. It's called Firebomb. It's the latest season of Unravel True Crime. Search for the Unravel podcast. You can find it right here where you're listening to Ladies We Need To Talk on the ABC Listen app. Thanks so much for joining us today, Crispian.

Crispian
Thanks for having me, Yumi.