Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What if your sex drive isn't broken? You're just exhausted from trying to be the confident seductress, the nurturing partner, the emotionally stable one, everyone's fantasy of what sexy is supposed to look like all at once. Because guess what? That shit is not sustainable and it's definitely not arousing. If anything, it's a one way ticket to resentment, dissociation and faking orgasms that you're too tired to explain. Foreign hey love, welcome back to Untamed Ember, the podcast where we get real about shame sex and why your ex was probably the problem. I'm Dr. Misty, sex therapist, erotic liberation nerd, and the human embodiment of don't tell me what to do. Around here we talk about the messy, the magical, and the downright rebellious side of desire. And this week we're burning the binary gender rulebook to the ground. In today's episode, we're diving into how gender roles, quietly or not so quietly, kill desire for all of us. I'm going to share a personal story about being stuck in a sexual role that felt all wrong. And then we'll break down the cultural scripts, mess with our pleasure. You'll also get some juicy reflection questions and there's always the companion worksheet waiting for you in the Ember vault. If you're ready to unscript your sex life, let's get into it.
[00:01:29] So let me tell you a little story about a time when I felt like I was doing everything right in a relationship and my sex drive was still like hard pass. This story is about my experience with an ex partner where I realized the expectations were not meeting my needs. When we first got together, this partner portrayed themselves as sexually compatible with me. There was talk of mutual desire, shared interests, a dynamic that felt reciprocal. But over time, things shifted and he started sharing more and more about his fantasy of being dominated by a woman. And that quickly became the unspoken expectation. Every time we had sex. I didn't consent to that shift. It didn't meet my sexual needs. I didn't want to be in a dominant role, but somehow I found myself stuck in it anyway because the only way we had sex was was if I led. I had to make all the moves, carry all the energy, hold all the structure. And the more I tried to stay present, the more I realized that I couldn't. Because domination, at least the way that he needed it, it really kept me in my head. I had to stay cognitive and I had to make the decisions. There was no room for surrender, no dropping into my Body, no dipping into subspace. In the wild part, he thought he was being accommodating, like I was the one in power. But I didn't feel powerful. I felt stuck. I felt like my own desire had to be suppressed so his fantasy could play out. And slowly, sex started to feel like work, like obligation, like something I had to initiate and maintain just to keep the peace. It didn't hit me all at once. It crept in slowly. Every time I felt numb instead of turned on every time I went through the motions, but my body was checking out every time. I told myself, just get through it instead of what do I need right now? And eventually, I couldn't ignore it anymore. I wasn't choosing this dynamic. I was enduring it. That's when I realized it wasn't dominance. This wasn't power exchange. This was erotic self abandonment. I had traded my pleasure for the illusion of control. And underneath all that performative confidence was a really simple truth. I didn't want to lead. I wanted to let go. But somewhere along the line, I'd been taught that asking for softness made me weak, that surrender was a liability, that craving to be held, guided, ravished, meant I wasn't strong enough, capable enough, feminist enough. But the truth is, my desire doesn't make me weak. It makes me honest. And I was never meant to carry the weight of someone else's fantasy at the cost of my own embodiment. Once I finally named what was happening, it was like I couldn't unsee it. This wasn't about just one partner or one dynamic. It was about the messages that I'd absorbed my whole life about what desire is supposed to look like and what I'm supposed to be inside of it.
[00:04:22] The gender roles we're taught to perform, especially when it comes to sex, are built on a binary that's rigid, narrow, and, honestly, pretty boring. There's the dominant masculine, the receptive feminine, the pursuer, the pursued, the confident initiator, and the passive object of desire. And these aren't just personality traits. They've been marketed to us as defaults. And if you don't fit the default, you get shamed or ignored or fetishized or told you're the problem. These roles go way back, like Victorian purity culture and colonial repression levels of back. And they weren't about pleasure. They were about power. Women were expected to be modest, chaste, and sexually passive until marriage, when they were supposed to be magically sensual, giving, maternal sex goddesses. Meanwhile, men were taught that wanting sex was their nature and not wanting it was emasculating. Desire became a performance of gender, not a personal, embodied experience. In that performance, it lives in our bones. Now, even if we intellectually know better, a lot of us are still acting out scripts we didn't write. Maybe you learned that being turned on means being loud, flirty, or always in the mood. Maybe you were taught that your job was to please your partner first, that your own arousal was secondary or even selfish. Desire isn't supposed to be a performance. It's not a role to master or a character to play. But when you've been fed a script your whole life, taught to look hot but not hungry, confident but not needy, sexual but only in the right ways, it's no wonder your turn ons get tangled in shame. That kind of conditioning doesn't just live in your brain. It lives in your nervous system, in your body, in the way you second guess your wants before you even feel them. That's not your truth. It's programming. And just because it's been rehearsed a thousand times doesn't mean it deserves an encore.
[00:06:24] So let's pause here. Not to fix anything, but to get curious. Because when you start asking whose voice you're channeling in bed and whose gaze you're performing for, that's when shit starts to shift. So here's your invitation this week. No judgment, no fixing, just curiosity. Ask yourself, what role do I default to in sex or relationships? Is it the one who nurtures, initiates, waits to be wanted, performs competence? Where did I learn that role? And who benefits when I stay in it? Do I actually want to show up in that way? Or is it just what's expected of me and what do I notice in my body when I try to step outside that role? These aren't questions to answer perfectly. They're questions to sit with in the body, in your journal, maybe even in your next orgasm. Because your real turn ons, they're hiding behind the scripts you've been taught to memorize. If those questions stirred something up or made you want to burn an old version of yourself to the ground, you're exactly where you need to be. I created this week's companion worksheet to help you go deeper into all of that. It's called Unscripted and Unbothered Dismantling the Gender Role Turn Off. And it's not about being more empowered or more confident. It's about being more you. Inside, you'll find reflection prompts to help you unlearn the sexual roles you were handed. Get honest about which ones you're still performing and still making room for desire that doesn't fit the binary. You can grab it right now in the Ember Vault, our member hub@untamed ember.com It's $19 a month to join and it gets you weekly worksheets, podcast extras and exclusive resources to help you reclaim your pleasure without apology or gender, scripts or performative bullshit. Just the good stuff before we wrap up today, I want to share something that came into the inbox recently. A listener we'll call her Sam, wrote in with something that really resonated with this month's theme. She said she's been in a long term relationship for over a decade and while it's not abusive or overly toxic, it's just kind of flat. She described years of performing a role she didn't choose, always being the caretaker, the emotionally safe one, the one who keeps things moving. And in the bedroom, that pattern showed up too. Sam told me she realized recently that she's never actually asked herself what she wants, sexually or otherwise. She said it hit her one morning while folding laundry the the house was quiet for the first time in a long time, the kind of quiet that feels like too loud. And her kids are grown, her job is stable, her marriage isn't awful. It's fine, predictable, safe. But something about the stillness of that morning made her stomach twist. She told me I couldn't remember the last time I did something just because it felt good, not helpful or productive and just good for me. She started tracing it back years of being the emotional anchor and the reliable one, the one who just showed up with a clean house and a calm voice and the right words. The one who always knew how to make other people feel okay. And in bed it was no different. Every interaction built around keeping the peace, preserving comfort, making sure her partner felt wanted even when she didn't feel anything at all. She said it wasn't that I hated it, it just didn't feel like mine. Now she's in her 40s and she's sitting in that quiet with her folded towels and her clean house and this aching question that won't leave her alone. What if I don't even know what I like sexually anymore? Like I've performed so many roles for so long I don't even know what's real.
[00:10:05] Sam, I felt that so deeply in my chest. My chest muscles tightened when reading your words, and I wanted to start here. Because what you're naming that fog or ache, that realization that you've built a whole life while your own Wants quietly receded in the background. That's not just real, it's common. And it doesn't make you late to the game. It makes you brave. You've done what a lot of us were taught to do. Be the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the one who gives and gives and gives. And now you're in the pause after the storm, the moment where everything is still and you finally have time to ask yourself that question. It's been waiting under the surface for years. What do I actually want? It's a terrifying question because it doesn't just open up a door to desire. It opens up a door to grief, too. It opens the door to all the times you silenced yourself for somebody else's comfort, the sex that you tolerated to the moments you said yes with your mouth, but no with your body. But here's what I want you to know, Sam. That question. That means you're coming back to yourself. You're not behind. You're not broken. You are finally becoming. And right now, the most powerful thing you can do is to stop trying to have a clear answer. Desire doesn't always arrive with a name or a plan. Sometimes it starts with just a little feeling, like a flicker or a pulse or a whisper of curiosity. You don't have to go digging for fantasies or force yourself to figure out what turns you on. You can start smaller and really slow. Just start with this noticing. Ask yourself, when do I feel a tiny bit more alive? What softens my jaw? What makes me laugh without thinking about it? What happens in my body when no one is asking anything from me? Let that noticing be enough for right now. You spent so long holding everyone else. This moment, this question. It's the first time you're offering your body a soft place to land. Let that be the beginning. This version of you that's asking this question, it's so worth listening to. She's not a problem to fix. She's a voice to trust. That's your inner instinct. Sam. Thank you so much for trusting me with your question and that part of your story and allowing me to share it with all of our listeners. I know how vulnerable it is to even ask, especially when you've had a lifetime of being the one who holds it all together.
[00:12:29] And for anyone else listening who felt a little too seen just now, you're not alone. These questions matter. Your voice matters. And the parts of you that feel uncertain or quiet or newly curious, they belong here, too. If you have a question you'd like me to explore on the podcast, whether it's something you've never said out loud or something you're still figuring out how to ask. You can send it to hellontamedmber.com you can stay anonymous or use a nickname. Or I'll make a nickname up for you if you'd like. I read every message and I'll always respond with care.
[00:13:09] All right, loves, let's bring it home. Today we unmask the role we named the performance. We touched the edges of what happens when desire isn't allowed to be yours. And in the next episode, we're getting nerdy in the best way. I'm diving into the science of why binary roles mess with your brain, your body, and your ability to feel actually turned on. You don't want to miss it. So here's your reminder for this week. You're not too much. You're not broken. You're not confused. You're just done being cast in someone else's fantasy. And honestly, that's hot as hell. You deserve a sex life that's shaped by your actual wants, not gender. Scripts, not expectations, not roles that look good from the outside but leave you disconnected inside. We're not here to be sexy cardboard cutouts of what someone else finds desirable. We're here to feel, to choose, and to burn the rule book and write something wilder, messier, and way more honest. Next episode, we're going even deeper into what happens when your erratic brain gets forced into a binary it's never meant to live in. We're talking neuroscience, nervous systems, and why curiosity is way sexier than control. I'll see you there, love.
