On The Couch with Aleks Trkulja from the Pleasure Centre

[00:00:00] Jennifer Farinella: Hello and welcome to an episode of On The Couch, where we collaborate with experts, practitioners, authors, advocates, and influencers to explore current social themes, sex positive topics, and share stories and insights that matter. This podcast was recorded on Aboriginal country. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands that were never ceded on which we live, work and record upon.

We pay our respects to elders past and present and to those who may be visiting our website or listening to our podcasts today.

While listening, we encourage you to practice good self care. Check the show notes for content details and references.

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, enjoy this episode of On The Couch.

[00:00:43] Maddy Stratten: If you've been following Caddyshack for a while, it'd be no surprise that we're interested in the sexology space. I'll give a bit of a definition to kind of settle us in. Sexology is a scientific study of human sexuality. It includes human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. You may have read our blog, noticed in our newsletter, or followed some of the tags that we share on social media. Don't worry, none of that is a prerequisite, but it's always there if you'd like to go back to read a little bit more.

I like to acknowledge that we are all joining with diverse personal and professional experiences to reflect on and draw on when we're discussing sex and relationships. Sit back, get comfortable and, I guess just enjoy this 45 minutes of your day really dedicated to learning about how we can be sex positive in the work that we do.

It's my honour to sit with Aleks On The Couch and chat about sex and pleasure and relationships.

Aleks is a certified sex therapist and clinical counselor. Her therapeutic practice is sex positive, trauma informed and guided by multiple evidence based therapeutic approaches.

So welcome, Aleks.

[00:02:00] Aleks Trkulja: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here and thank you for your acknowledgement. I would also really love to add to that, that I want to acknowledge all the brave queer souls that have fought for our rights to speak openly about sex, sexual health and relationships, those people that, have essentially lost their lives as well in that fight.

So I feel incredibly privileged to be having this conversation today.

[00:02:28] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Love that. Thanks so much. I think rather than reading out your very impressive qualifications list in your bio, I think maybe a better place to start is to hear a bit of a backstory. We love a backstory at Caddyshack Project. We love hearing about how how you've landed in the sex therapy space.

[00:02:48] Aleks Trkulja: Absolutely. So I was doing an undergraduate degree in psychology at Sydney uni and it was, am I allowed to swear in this?

[00:02:58] Maddy Stratten: I'll cut it out, but yeah.

[00:03:00] Aleks Trkulja: I'll just try really hard not to. It was really boring and dry. So I essentially, like, had a bit of like a quarter life crisis where I was like, am I even supposed to be in mental health.

Like I'd always been interested in it, but in undergrad, I did a careers quiz online and it was like, you should work in mental health. And I was like, oh okay. Like, well, at least I'm on the right pathway. And then along the sidebar of the careers quiz results, it suggested all the different pathways you could take. And one of those was sex therapy. And I was like, what in the hell is that! Looked into it and was like, oh it's talking therapy. You focus on sexual function, sexuality, relationships. And I just thought how wonderful to be able to have those kinds of taboo conversations, which I think, in small safe spaces, people are having any way. To create, I guess, more of a space for that.

So then I went on to do a master's in counselling to get my mental health qualifications, but I wrote a thesis on female sexual dysfunction in that masters. So it was a research masters. And then I went on to do a post grad in sexology, which was then the sexology certification.

Oh, and I did a two year internship with, a sex therapist here in Sydney. Her name is Tanya Koens, she's my supervisor. So I had some like sort of interning experience in undergrad.

[00:04:31] Maddy Stratten: So I think I heard a few of those key terms and I think it might be a good place to start with some terminology.

We hear about sexologists, sex therapy, body therapists, sex coach, sex worker. These are all terms that just kind of get thrown around. Can you give us like a brief, you know, main difference between what they are and what you do?

[00:04:56] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, sure thing. So sexology is essentially the umbrella term of the study of human sexuality.

And then under that umbrella, you have different pathways, so you can have the sex therapy pathway, which is where you need sexology plus mental health certification, sex education, which is sexology plus education degree. Um, sex coaching can be studying through like an Institute, which is just about like somatic sexology. So sex coaches don't necessarily have a mental health or education certification but they have studied like a equivalent to a degree in sex coaching. Sexological body workers provide one way touch and they will have studied sexology, but then also they're looking more at like the, physiology of what's happening with sex. And then sex workers, are people who it's two way touch and that's not necessarily focused on things like education or therapy, but a lot of sex workers can play a very important role in terms of working collaboratively with some of those other professionals. For example, if you have someone who arrives to therapy with very little sexual experience, they may want a safe space to explore sex and sexual activity, and they may employ a sex worker to guide them through that.

[00:06:17] Maddy Stratten: And is that something that you all kind of crisscross over and know of each other and refer to each other?

[00:06:24] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. So it's kind of like a multidisciplinary approach to sexuality at times for sure. The other sort of professionals that I would collaborate with include pelvic floor physios. So those are physiotherapists that specialize on the pelvis and the muscles around the pelvis.

And that's really important for people who present with sexual pain. And sometimes even like, I guess you can almost, it really just depends on the client presentation, but I think the more sort of a holistic your approach to a client presentation is the better.

[00:06:56] Maddy Stratten: Love that.

[00:06:57] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah.

[00:06:58] Maddy Stratten: I guess, you know, a question that we get asked a lot as sexual health promotion officers is, um, people want to know what we do on a regular work day. And they're like, okay, well, what is health promotion? Like, what do you actually do? Like, what do you do when you show up to work? So I think part of that is really people love getting a glimpse behind the curtain.

And, you know, we put out on social in our social marketing strategy, this is what it looks like. But actually what, what is the nitty gritty behind that? So I'm going to ask you the same question. Take us behind the scenes. Tell us what like, a typical day as a sex therapist or, you know, as part of your work.

[00:07:40] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, sure. So I guess like, maybe it's easy to talk about my week because it's varied in what I do. The main component to my work is client facing work. So I work with individuals and couples in private practice, providing talking therapy two days of the week. That's on Zoom, telehealth. Um, one day of the week, I have a therapy room in Surry Hills in Sydney that I'll do in person sessions.

So the sort of average day there looks like me waking up, making a cup of tea, walking the dog, going to yoga and then my sessions usually start at midday and they go through until 7 PM at night and my sessions are 50 minutes each. So I have like, little breaks.

[00:08:26] Maddy Stratten: Okay.

[00:08:27] Aleks Trkulja: And then on, for example, yesterday is like a bit of an admin day for me, where I will organize content for social media.

I get contracted to write paid articles for different brands online. So, that was a really nice start to the day. It's just sitting there having a cup of tea, writing an article on lubricants.

[00:08:46] Maddy Stratten: Yes.

[00:08:49] Aleks Trkulja: Um, and then I'll do things like for example, if I have some difficult client presentations, I'll be reading up on how to work with like porn use or something like that. It's just a sort of chance to like, get on top of like, the background stuff, I guess.

[00:09:04] Maddy Stratten: Yeah.

[00:09:05] Aleks Trkulja: Um, and then also creating content as well for other brands. So people want reels where I'm talking about certain products or concepts, sexual health related, and I get paid to do that as well. So there's, there's a few sort of areas to my work, but that's kind of what the week looks like.

[00:09:24] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. And so do you have a team that you work with or you have people who work with you?

[00:09:28] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. I have a social media manager slash graphic designer because what takes me like five hours to do on Canva, takes her like 10 minutes. So, so I pay someone to like, I give her the content, written content. I'm like, this is what I want you to just make it look sexy. And then I have a student reached out to me who wants to get into sex therapy. And she was like, I just want like some insights. So it kind of was a bit of a full circle moment from when I was interning for Tanya to have someone be like, can I like, just help you? I was like, Oh my God, this is so weird.

So yeah. She helps me out a couple of hours a week. I give her all the boring stuff and then she does research, which she loves. And so I'm like, Oh, can you research BDSM this week? I want to, you know, talk about that. Like, I just need some notes and that just like frees me up in the time that she's sort of working for me, I can then write a paid article.

[00:10:24] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Big question now. And I think it's probably a question a lot of people would like to know - why would someone go to a sex therapist? Can you talk us through the most common reasons, couples, individuals, groups, access a sex therapist and book an appointment with you.

[00:10:44] Aleks Trkulja: I can. And you know, it was actually really funny.

I had supervision the other day and my supervisor his name's Matt Tilley, he's based in WA, but he was like, I want you to look at the populations, like the presenting issues that are coming into private practice. So I literally have like, a a list right here.

[00:11:02] Maddy Stratten: This is not planned everybody.

[00:11:06] Aleks Trkulja: This is a complete like, happy coincidence, but, essentially the most common presentation in private practice, are issues of desire. So I get both individuals and couples coming in reporting lower desire and sexual interest.

The next most common thing is like, relationship issues. So whether that be, we're not having enough sex, we're feeling disconnected, our communications not good enough, those kinds of issues surrounding relationships.

I get a lot of sort of like anxiety, but that manifests in different presentations. So whether that manifests as sexual pain or like erectile issues, or trouble with orgasm or performance anxiety. It kind of anxiety is a really common, um, I guess, component of the presentations that come in.

I work a lot with eating disorders and body image. So I'm also a trained eating disorder therapist. And that's something that I really enjoy working with, even though it's really difficult. Um, I really enjoy it, but, that's really common like body image concerns comes up a lot. What else do we have here? I also have a lot of people questioning their sexual orientation, people having troubles with porn use, becoming too dependent. Um, a lot of like sexual trauma and wanting to sort of re-enter sexual experiences safely. And then we also have things like issues with orgasm, erection, you know, dating, I get a lot of people trying to navigate poly relationship dynamics, sexual pain, that kind of stuff.

[00:12:44] Maddy Stratten: And so a lot of those topic areas, I would imagine are not a quick fix one appointment and you're done. It's like, more of a long term.

[00:12:53] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, absolutely. And for things like sexual pain, that's where it takes time because you also have to set up a multidisciplinary approach to sexual pain.

All the research shows that it's, it's already a really difficult issue to work with and it's key to have a team of people supporting the client. So it takes, like, I've been seeing, I have one client that I've been seeing for six months and she's only just gotten herself a pelvic floor physio because that's how much again, anxiety and avoidance creeps in and she got overwhelmed by the idea of it. So it's just taken us six months to build a rapport to the point where she can kind of trust, okay, this is something I have to do.

[00:13:34] Maddy Stratten: Let alone trying to get in the books with another professional. Yeah.

[00:13:40] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah.

[00:13:40] Maddy Stratten: Just building off this, I think another big question really is how do these sessions work with you? And I think they would probably be different depending on why someone has booked that appointment, but what might someone expect when they go to a sex therapy session?

[00:13:58] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. Look, I think sex therapy will really depend on the practitioner.

So much like, like, I guess, general mental health support. It's really going to depend on the sort of trainings that practitioner has done, which is why I think it's really important to talk about the area, the continuing professional development that you do do, because it informs your practice. So, generally speaking, though, what to expect is that in the first two sessions I do history taking, where I go through the presenting problem, a sexual history with the client, which includes sexual health questions where they learned about sex, how they identify. We look at mental health history, medical history, family history.

We look at sexual function as well. So what's happening with things like desire, arousal, masturbation, lubrication, pain, and then sexual dynamics. So I will literally be like, what generally happens in a sexual interaction between you and your partners? Um, so yeah, that's kind of what to expect from the first couple of sessions. And then after that, it really is dependent upon the presentation of the client.

I will kind of tweak my approach if I need to. But generally speaking, I do rely on like, the same sort of sets of resources. It often does apply because as I've mentioned, anxiety is such a common underlying component to any sexual function issues. So I'm often actually talking more about anxiety and shame than I do about sex.

[00:15:31] Maddy Stratten: Totally. And I guess, yeah, really similar to mental health, you don't need to be in crisis, or you don't need to have experienced a trauma to access a therapist. And so I'm imagining that's the same in sex therapy, right?

Like you don't need to be like, oh, there's a real big issue. It's just part of your holistic sexual health.

[00:15:50] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think it's also nice because a lot of couples are coming and going, oh, we're in this new relationship and we just sort of want to maintain the communication.

And so those are my favorite coming, coming, being like, we want to do the work, but we're not in crisis. It's just value the relationship and know that communication is so important. I'm just like, oh, heaven.

[00:16:13] Maddy Stratten: So I imagine as a sex therapist, you have a real toolbox of referrals and resources on hand. So how can workers best talk to clients about sex and relationships and make those referrals?

[00:16:28] Aleks Trkulja: So if you haven't already looking into the PLISSIT Model, so that is P L I S S I T it's an acronym for how to structure like conversations around intimacy, sex and relationships. That's a really good sort of framework for how to sort of talk about sex with people and get an idea of their needs.

And then once you know what their needs are, I think it really is a case of that reflection of like, is this something I can actually work with? Because if it's not, there's probably someone else out there who can offer better support. So in terms of sexual function, sex and relationships, I'm constantly referring out to pelvic floor physios, you know, other couples, therapists, because there can be people that. I mean, like, I have very niche areas of specialty, like body image, eating disorders, like sexual function and relationships, but there are some people that can specialize in things like IVF. So if I've got a queer couple of come in, but they got about to go through IVF, it's probably not my area of expertise. So I'm going to refer out to, you know, practitioners I know who can support them around that.

I think it's just about the case of like, talking and networking and chatting and even just googling people and being like, who can maybe help? I think it's a really important part of supporting your clients, but in no way, does that sort of invalidate the work you do do with them. It's just about like, strengthening that sort of multidisciplinary approach.

[00:18:03] Maddy Stratten: And I guess, recognizing and knowing that we don't have the answer to everything, but we can find out together.

We're going to jump on Aleks's website. There might be a really good blog. There might be a good link through here and, and kind of navigate that in a way together. And that kind of, you know, we're not all experts, right?

[00:18:24] Aleks Trkulja: No, no, we're not all experts. And that's why I think it's great to just, and also it's just so nice to connect with other practitioners and just be like, oh, hi.

Like, honestly, I've actually met a lot of practitioners through Instagram, just like following the Instagrams and then being like, hey, it looks like you would be great, can I refer this client to you with this kind of presentation? And that's happened to me as well. So like, it's crazy how social media even plays a role in our referrals.

But yeah, I definitely think it's a really important part of working with sexual health and sexuality is to sort of give your clients that added support. Because you just never know what's going to walk through the door, what kind of presentation. So yeah, it's great to just, I think have like, a network of practitioners you can refer out to and them to you as well.

[00:19:15] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Yeah, especially when we're thinking about, disability or intellectual disability or young men or older couples, or, you know, there's just so many, so many people who access this service.

Right.

[00:19:29] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. And that's something that I always say to clients in the very first session, I'm like, you know, we're doing our history taking. But if it gets to the end of this session and you don't feel like I'm the right therapist for you, you can let me know without justification that you don't want to return and I will help you find another practitioner.

[00:19:47] Maddy Stratten: So important

[00:19:48] Aleks Trkulja: Right? Because I'm like, I don't want you, I mean, we're talking about such an intimate part of your experience and I want you to feel safe and comfortable enough to make the most of this service. And if I'm not the right person, I'm not going to take that personally. Like, you know, you can be the juiciest peach in the world and there's always going to be someone who doesn't like peaches.

So it's just like, that's fine. I'm not going to take it personally, but let me help you because I know how hard it can be to find, you know, the right kind of practitioner.

[00:20:16] Maddy Stratten: Has to be the right fit. Yeah.

[00:20:17] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, for sure.

[00:20:18] Maddy Stratten: I'm going to maybe jump to when we're talking about trauma, we've had a couple of questions that have come through. How can trauma impact sex and relationships? And how do you work in that really important space with, individuals and couples?

[00:20:34] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. Okay. So I'll answer the first part of that question, which is how does trauma affect sex and relationships? So trauma, and it doesn't have to be explicit sexual trauma, it could be some kind of emotional trauma, physical trauma from like a surgery or like difficult birth. It can be very varied. The way that it impacts sex is that it affects the nervous system. So, it all comes from like Polyvagal Theory by Stephen Porges, so when we look at trauma, we're looking at the nervous system and how it's impacted. Is my client in a stress response when they enter any kind of intimate interaction with a partner? I had a client last week, she lives with her partner, who said, ' every time I go into my bedroom, I'm scared he'll come in as I'm getting changed and touch me.'

And so she started to become vigilant to the fact that her boyfriend, and he was literally like playful, like, oh, you're so cute, like running up, giving her a hug, a kiss, but she would go into like a full stress response. And so what we need to recognize is that trauma impacts how the body is feeling and interpreting certain situations.

One of my clients put it really well, trauma severs your connection to your instinct. So people have a very difficult time interpreting events and making decisions about how to move forward and their bodies will take over. How it affects relationships is that people may actually start to sit in their stress response of like a fawning or friending position. So this is where, we’re people pleasing, we're looking toward attachment figures for safety, but overall, there's a sense of threat, even if it's mild and we don't want to be entering sexual interactions. If we're in that, if there's a sense of threat, because it enables a difficult, complex cycle and relationship to sex that your partner is the threat, that sex is dangerous.

Then the second part of the question was, how do I work with that? A lot of education around just this. I give them the Polyvagal Theory. There's a YouTube video that I give them. I will talk them through the stress response, what that looks like in their bodies.

So they're starting to build an awareness of like, oh, my body is tense. My shoulders just went like this. Okay. Maybe my body's telling me it doesn't feel safe, my heart is beating, my breathing is shallow, like, my mouth is dry. These are all your body is signaling, babes, we're not feeling too good here. So then we look at grounding and regulation skills.

So that's more of like the intrapersonal, their internal experience. And after that we look at the interpersonal. So how are we then relating to people? Can we set boundaries to encourage safety? So for example, the client with the boyfriend that comes in every time she changes had to set the boundary of, I need you to not approach me when I'm getting changed unless I ask you to.

Right. So that was like using communication essentially. So that's sort of how it starts and I could keep going.

[00:23:41] Maddy Stratten: Oh my gosh, it's so interesting. I mean, I love, you know, communication, but also like the listening to your body stuff, like it's, you know, it sounds so simple, doesn't it? But so important. And I think it's part of everything that we do is to, recognize that and listen to our bodies.

I think I'll stick with this kind of trauma theme for the moment. How do clinicians best support people with sexual violence based trauma and history?

[00:24:06] Aleks Trkulja: Hmm. So I think the first thing that's really helpful is to go get training in like, working with sexual violence. If you haven't already, um, just to sort of understand the context within which the client is presenting.

And I know there are some good places where you can do that. If someone's kind of coming in and you're looking on how to work with them. The first thing I do is build safety with the client. So if the outside world and the other relationships are dangerous, I want to feel like a safe space, right?

So I will actually set boundaries and say, we're not discussing what like, explicit experiences of trauma. We're going to just spend time talking in a way that you feel comfortable talking, right? So I'm not going to push the client like beyond their capacity.

[00:24:59] Maddy Stratten: Yeah.

[00:25:00] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. So I don't want to become yet another perpetrator, if that makes sense.

Like, I don't want to, I don't want to violate or push their boundaries.

[00:25:08] Maddy Stratten: Bring everything up, repeating.

[00:25:09] Aleks Trkulja: That's right. So I'm going to, even like, when I do my sexual history intake. And I say like in the first session, I'm going to ask you about If there are experiences of sexual trauma or trauma of any kind you're welcome to answer that, but if you're not ready to, please let me know.

We don't have to talk about it today. Or at all, if you don't want to, you know, so this, I think the safety comes through creating those containers and being very explicit with your expectations with the client and establishing that sort of boundary of, I'm not going to push you for information. We're just going to move at your pace.

So that's sort of the, the first thing I do. And to be honest I have a client that we literally didn't talk about sex for a year until she was like, I couldn't take a sexual history with her. She wouldn't do it. And I was like, that's fine. We won't do it. Like, and it's cool, cause we had other things that we were going to work on like, anxiety or like mood stuff. But after a year, she goes, Aleks, I'm, I'm ready. You can ask me the sexual history now. And I was like, okay, great let's do it. And so it was, it just took a year and that was okay.

[00:26:21] Maddy Stratten: Yeah, clearly building trust.

A couple of things that we did in preparing was to do a bit of a Google search and come up with I would call it a hot list of questions around sex, pleasure and desire. But let's dive in and try and destigmatize some of the myths in this space.

The first one I think comes up I'm speaking from my personal experience, sitting around a fire pit, chatting with mates, how many times on average per week are people having sex?

I don't know what it is but I think maybe I want to know from you, Aleks, why is this such a common question? Why do we want to know? Why do we care? And does it even matter?

[00:26:58] Aleks Trkulja: So I'll answer the first part. I remember reading research. It was a few years ago now, and this was a study on like marriages and long term relationships.

So this doesn't really accommodate to, and they'll probably all straight and cisgender too. So typical in research, but essentially the, the research showed that couples were having sex at 1.2 times per month. Mm-Hmm.

[00:27:24] Maddy Stratten: Wow.

[00:27:25] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, and I was, I was always like 1.2 times and then I would like make a joke to clients being like, oh, oh.

[00:27:32] Maddy Stratten: What's the 0.2

[00:27:36] Aleks Trkulja: Um, and so, yeah, I don't know. I always, I, I always share that stat because I think, it really lowers the standard for people. People hold themselves at such an incredibly high standard for the frequency of sex in their relationships.

So I think we want to know because we're social creatures and we constantly create comparisons to our peers, right? We sort of set the bar based on what other people are doing. You know,

[00:28:02] Maddy Stratten: What they're saying that they're doing.

[00:28:04] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. Or what they say that they're doing exactly.

So, um, I think a lot of unhelpful comparison occurs in relationships and specifically in regards to, you know, the success of our sex lives.

Um, I also think pornography can influence people's expectations of sex massively. And I, I think the reason why we care is because we are wired for negative bias, right?

So our brains, our nervous systems are constantly looking for things that aren't going well, and if we make these unhelpful comparisons and assume it's not enough, um, it sort of feeds into this, I guess, mentality around sex.

I have a theory that when people say everything is great, except for the sex, it's not actually about sex. Like when people are complaining about sex, it's not actually about sex. It's always about something else. It's always about the quality of connection. A sense of friendship in a relationship, communication, these things are more often the underlying issues as to why the frequency of sex has changed.

There are also so many other reasons why the frequency of sex will change throughout the lifespan of a relationship, stress, family, money, like illness, you know, like all of this stuff happens to us as human beings. I think it's unrealistic to expect ourselves to stay in the state of limerence that occurs in the first year of our relationship.

The research shows that that only lasts for about a year and that at the two year mark is when we start to sort of adjust to the relationship changing and growing. So I think it's almost like educating and just validating people being like, you know, it's okay. Like, you don't have to be having sex all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, who has energy for that honestly. Wild! I mean, if you can go for it, like praise be to you, but, yeah, I think at the end to answer that last question, it really doesn't matter. I think what I ended up sort of telling people is that you just got to stick to your lane. What, what qualifies as a satisfying sex life is whatever feels and looks good to you and your partner, partners, right?

Like it doesn't need to include the rest of the world. They shouldn't have a say.

[00:30:27] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

Um, and I guess now we're really kind of talking about sex specifically it might be a good time to ask this question. How do we define sex? Cause I think how we define sex really influences that previous question on how often we're having sex. Right. So how would you, how would you define sex?

[00:30:49] Aleks Trkulja: Sure. So, I mean, I ask a question to my clients. I say, Oh, you know, if, um, your friends said they went on a hot date and they had sex, what behaviors do you imagine happened?

And they'll go, I dunno, I guess there was like some kissing and maybe like, you know, some other behaviors, but mostly like penetration. And I imagine that like there was ejaculation or orgasm. And so then we might go, okay, well, if sex is therefore defined by the presence of penetration, orgasms, and ejaculation, um, like what does this sort of mean for the quality of our sexual interactions? And also if penetration by penis in the vagina is what qualifies as real sex, what does this mean for the queers? Like, are they just all virgins? Like, how does that work?

Even like, looking at oh yeah, that's all, again, all this conditioning that we've received around like, If you haven't been penetrated, you're not sexually active somehow.

Like it just, there's so, so many problematic messages that we've received. And so we'll then unpack all of that and just be like, hold on a second then what actually qualifies as, as a sexual experience. And when we peel it all back, people will often, uh, notice that sex, can be defined based on like their own set of what they think qualifies.

And that could look different for different people. And that's totally fine. I've also noticed like, when I ask people when they first became sexually active, they'll often say to me, when I lost my virginity at age, whatever. And I'll say, well, you know, I'd be curious, were there any earlier sexual experiences?

Because those, those are still sexual experiences, you know, like it doesn't have to be defined by penetration by a penis. So that's when they'll be like, Oh yeah, I guess I did actually have some earlier experiences, and a lot of the time it's like, and they weren't necessarily with like. Just one, uh, gender identity, you know, that's sort of, then we talk about, I guess, like the fluidity of sexual orientation at times.

So, yeah, that's how I, I kind of, I don't really have a definition for sex because I feel like it's, it is subjective. But I encourage people to consider taking penetration, ejaculation, orgasm off a pedestal and placing it on the table with all the other sexual behaviors.

[00:33:18] Maddy Stratten: Hm, Yeah, I love that. And I like the idea of defining it for yourself as well.

I was kind of thinking about a global definition of sex, but I actually really like everyone's going to define sex differently. And some of the things that I was thinking of was intercourse, penetration, but outercourse, and solo sex and intimacy and group sex and kind of moving right along to masturbation when I say solo sex, self pleasure, I love that that's included in the definition of sex, depending on who is defining it for themselves.

But I guess growing up in media, movies, TV, magazines, we only really hear about boys having a wank, but we know that all genders masturbate. So why do you think there is such a big stigma around masturbation and how can we start to change that in our work and the way that we talk about sex?

[00:34:17] Aleks Trkulja: Okay. Big question.

[00:34:18] Maddy Stratten: Big question. I know.

[00:34:19] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. Yeah. No, because I think it's the way that we relate to masturbation and self pleasure is so complex and historical. Like I'm thinking of, um, have you read that book Sapiens? It's too random to refer in this conversation, but I promise it connects. Essentially, he's talking about like the history of humanity and how we've gotten to where we are today. But during the sort of like, medieval times, when we started to really like formulate religious moral frameworks and how that informed our thinking. At the time, they viewed the mind as pure because we could think morally and make decisions, but the body as dirty because the Dottie, the Dottie, that's not a word, the body, um, the body, you know, excretes urine and poo and saliva, but it's also like it was animal in a way.

It connected us to like lesser beings.

[00:35:19] Maddy Stratten: Right?

[00:35:19] Aleks Trkulja: Is to sort of like have this function. And so sex was seen the same way. It was like sex was like dirty.

[00:35:27] Maddy Stratten: Like, ew. Any, any Schitts Creek fans out there like, Ew, , ew. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:35:31] Aleks Trkulja: Ew David, Ew .

So essentially, essentially this is where like our relationship to, and the, the kind of discrepancy, the separation of our mind and bodies began, which is kind of ironic because now we're coming, we've done like full circle and we've just been like, hold on a second they're connected. Like we need to connect our mind and bodies, not keep them separate. And I think that coming to masturbation, that's what really informs the stigma around, masturbation is seeing the body as dirty, as bad, as wrong, as immoral, you know, to kind of like experience self pleasure, when actually there are so many benefits to masturbation, that it's insane. Like if you could put the benefits of masturbation in a pill, people would take it every day.

[00:36:19] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Cause someone would be making money from that.

[00:36:22] Aleks Trkulja: Oh, yeah pharmaceuticals would be knocking onto that yeah.

[00:36:26] Maddy Stratten: How do we change that in our work? Is it the language that we use? Is it we just talk about it more openly?

[00:36:34] Aleks Trkulja: I think definitely the language that we're using. So when I start to talk about masturbation with a client, I'll introduce language, masturbating, mazzing, flicking the bean, you know, wanking, and they all kind of contribute their own language. So I'll use the client's language. So for some clients, they want me to say self pleasure for other clients they want me to say, you know, wanking. So I'll say, you know, wanking, solo sex. But it's like using the language that they sort of relate to. Then also debunking the beliefs we have around masturbation.

Um, but I also encourage people to start slow with reconnecting to their bodies. So one thing that I get them to do is like, uh, kind of like a five senses exercise, grounding exercise, but you just notice three things per day that bring you pleasure and it can be non sexual. So, you know, you might have like a nice cup of tea or cup of coffee in the morning, noticing the sensation of that in your body and how it feels and just checking in with that sensory experience.

That's one way that I might slowly integrate someone into reconnecting with their body in a central, pleasurable way.

[00:37:41] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, you know, we, when we think about solo sex, we often think about sex toys. It's a, it's a choice, I guess, whether you do or you don't. It's more really about that exploring your body. Why don't we hear about using sex toys in partnered or group sex? Why is it so like, when you're thinking about masturbation, you think about sex toys and we're not kind of talking about it in partner sex.

[00:38:08] Aleks Trkulja: I think because we're often sold the idea that partnered sex, to include toys somehow means that partnered sex is lacking. And so like a toy is a replacement almost.

[00:38:23] Maddy Stratten: It's like competition.

[00:38:24] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah, it's like you'll become threatened by the idea of integrating sex toys into the sexual repertoire. Which I, I, I definitely challenge with people because I encourage them to sort of reframe it as a sense of, you know, like additional resources to an already great experience.

I will also educate people on the orgasm gap, because I think a lot of what stops, women and female identifying is that. Well, just anyone with a vulva essentially means that like in partnered sex, they're often not integrating the use of sex toys when it could actually facilitate a lot of pleasure.

[00:39:04] Aleks Trkulja: It's like encouraging that, again, I think this is the whole, like making comparisons. I shouldn't need sex toys, like these weird beliefs that just come up. And so we'll just challenge all of that and be like, let's look at what your body needs and what you want. And let's just advocate for that.

[00:39:20] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. And I guess, you know, we obviously can't talk about sex without talking about communication. And we know how important it is. I think something that comes up often is how do we do it? When you're working with your clients what are some of those methods and tips that you share for communicating your wants, needs, and desires?

If it's, you know, to include sex toys if it's to, you know, have different kind of experiences. How does this communication actually happen?

[00:39:50] Aleks Trkulja: Sure. So when I'm working with clients and we're looking at improving sexual communication, I always start by encouraging them to have conversations before a sexual interaction.

I find a lot of people assume they should be communicating during sex, like on the spot being like, oh, I want you to actually do this. It's like, like, babe, slow it down, like reel it in a little. So creating containers for conversations to happen. So, you know, would it be okay if we discuss the kind of sex we want to have tonight after this day, or like, however you want to sort of open the conversation. I call it having like an erotic conversation because a lot of people think it has to be mechanical. So I would really like you to, um, move a little to the left when you're licking my clitoris at it, like, no, it doesn't have to be like that.

[00:40:37] Maddy Stratten: I mean, it can be, if that's what works.

[00:40:39] Aleks Trkulja: I mean sure but more often than not, people come back and they go, that was so erotic talking about like what I wanted done or what I wanted to do to them or hearing what they wanted to do to me. Um, they're just like, Oh my God, that was like, so erotic. I'm like, yeah, it's really fun to communicate.

It's amazing. So we'll always encourage having a conversation before, checking in during the sexual interaction. And then, uh, again, after the interaction, what that looks like is, Hey, what do we want to happen today? During, is this still good to do? Do you still want that to happen? Uh, or did you want to like, maybe just like not do that today? Afterward, what worked well, what didn't, that kind of thing.

[00:41:23] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. And then I'm thinking about the flip side of that probably more in those pre conversations, like not when you're actually in bed about to have sex, maybe not the time to have that conversation, but the importance of how we respond rather than react to that communication or those bids to something that might be a little bit different.

[00:41:44] Aleks Trkulja: I think the most important thing to do if someone is initiating a conversation around sex is to show curiosity and compassion.

You know, if someone's kind of going, oh, like, I'd love to sort of talk about sex. I'm finding like this is, I'm struggling to reach orgasm or something. Hmm. It's I think people might get like, a bit defensive of like, what do you mean? Like, why didn't you tell me like, or whatever, but actually what we want to do is kind of treat it like, oh, you're clueing me into what can make this experience better for the both of us.

Great. Like how, you know, you're being vulnerable, you're communicating. So I'm going to show you that respect, that curiosity, that compassion, and it's an opportunity to learn more about the person you essentially want to get weird with, you know, like how great.

[00:42:34] Maddy Stratten: I guess it opens up, it opens up the opportunity to then go, oh, well, they've shared something they're into and well, actually I've also been thinking this. Maybe this is something we could, so it's, it's just an opportunity, isn't it really.

[00:42:46] Aleks Trkulja: You can work together. Yeah, for sure.

[00:42:48] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. Something that I'd like to take us back to an early part of the conversation. It's something that I've been reading in your blogs. I love this idea of queering sex. What happens when we flip the heteronormative script? What is queer theory? Tell us about it.

[00:43:04] Aleks Trkulja: Okay. So this was like a, an idea that I came up with based on like queer theory, which is all about subverting the norm. Right? So queer theory wants, wants you to take something from society that you've been taught and to just flip it, to challenge it. It's like anarchy.

It's great. I love it. So what I kind of thought was a lot of people are given a bit of a heterosexual script. Regarding sex and the repertoire, no matter how they identify. Right. Everyone is often conditioned with a bit of a heteronormative script around sex, which means there's usually kissing there's touching.

If we're lucky, there's some outer course, but it's mostly centered around penetration of a penis in a vagina, and then there's usually an ejaculation, and if we're lucky an orgasm. So what we want to do is it comes back to that idea of taking things like penetration, ejaculation, orgasm off the pedestal.

And what I encourage the analogy I use is like, it's like the hetero, heterosexual sex menu is like this main is penetration. Dessert is an ejaculation. Right. And we want to go, okay, this is limited. I don't want to, I don't want to eat the same menu day after day. Or 1. 2 times a month, you know essentially what we want to do is we want to put all sexual behaviors on a buffet.

And if you've ever been to Las Vegas, they have like the most amazing breakfast buffets. When you walk in, they have like the, you know, omelet station, continental breakfast bar, but they'll also have like a sushi bar and then like a Christmas ham and like roast veggies and like dessert, like cake. And there's just everything that you could want in this buffet.

And this is how I encourage people to see sex is that you walk up to your buffet with your partner with your little tray and you go, all right, darling, what would we like in this sexual interaction? Shall we have some fingering? Shall we have some kissing? Should we have a massage? Do we want toys? Do we want some aftercare?

You know, what are we going to put on this tray for this eating experience that we're about to have because our desires are going to change with every interaction that we have. We can't just prescribe this sort of menu of sexual behaviors and assume that it's going to, I guess, be satisfying every time because our needs change, our moods change, whatever.

So that's kind of how I encourage people to reframe seeing sex and the way that they can practically do that is I give them a sexual repertoire table. So if you imagine a bingo sheet, if you will, but instead of numbers, it's sexual behaviors, but it's everything from like kissing, cuddling to fisting, toys, aftercare, like whatever you want on this table.

All of it there. And then you circle, like, I'm in the mood for this. I'm in the mood for this. What are you in the mood for? Compare your bingo sheets. Oh, look at that. We have things in common. Let's do that. So that's how I kind of guide people through the communication.

[00:46:17] Maddy Stratten: I think that's brilliant. And doesn't it make it easy when there's an analogy and something we can visualize?

You can be like, oh yeah, actually no, I do want cake for breakfast. I absolutely want cake for breakfast and a Christmas ham. And it's like, no, I don't want that.

[00:46:34] Aleks Trkulja: Yeah. And I think also what's really great about the, the queer sex buffet concept is that no matter what you put on your tray, it qualifies because it's what suits you, you know?

So if you're like, oh, we just want mutual masturbation, most people wouldn't, wouldn't regard that as we had sex, then it's kind of like, no, you did, you know, this is a sexual behavior. You, you quantified it as a sexual behavior and it happened. So therefore it's a sexual experience, you know?

[00:47:05] Maddy Stratten: Yeah. I love that idea. I really do feel like we could chat for hours.

[00:47:10] Aleks Trkulja: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

[00:47:14] Jennifer Farinella: Thanks for listening to On The Couch. We create this podcast because we are allies in actively challenging discrimination, microaggressions, and exclusionary behaviors. We want to create spaces where people feel safe to share their thoughts, knowing they will be heard and respected. Such an environment fosters collaboration, innovation, and contributes to a more inclusive society.

Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook where you can share On The Couch with your colleagues, friends, and family. On The Couch is made by Jennifer Farinella, Naomi Viret Maddy Stratten and Winnie Adamson.

Until next time, peace, love and protection.

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