so I got myself into a bit of a panic
preparing for this talk and I had a talk
half written for you I had slides
created and I worked myself up into such
a fit of nerves and it was only two days
ago that I realized what was happening
and interestingly enough it’s related to
the exact thing that I’m talking about
which is sex essentially I started
having performance anxiety I mean
actually and what I realized two days
ago was that if I tried to go through
with the half written script that I had
prepared for you and the slides and the
shiny presentation around this
particular subject I would be
perpetuating something in our
relationship with sex
that is the very problem that I want to
speak to so I am standing here a little
shaky and free vulnerable without a plan
and without a script and anytime I talk
about sex I understand that there is no
way for me to write a talk about that I
talk about sex almost more than I talk
about anything in my life it’s what I do
for a living and it’s never the same
talk and neither is sex is never the
same experience so we are gonna find our
way through this talk together I have no
idea what’s going to come out of my
mouth but in order to give this talk I
knew that I had to see your faces and
stand in front of you that I couldn’t
give a talk to a generic room or a blank
wall or people as if I was practicing
because that’s not actually what’s
needed and that wasn’t gonna draw out of
me what I needed to say and what was
needed to be heard so here we are in the
moment of intimacy
vulnerability in that I want to talk to
you today about the issue of sexual
assault and the crisis were facing on
our college campuses around sexual
assault and carve a road so that we
understand that that is a crisis that
has a lot to do with us
sitting in this room that that is not
something that’s just happening over
there but that it’s actually something
happening here and it’s something that
matters to all of us because at the end
of the day we are all standing inside of
the bodies that we are living in and it
is these bodies that engage in sex so I
want to invite you right now as you sit
in this room to just take a second and
stop and feel your body I have an idea
to share with you but more than an idea
what I want is for you to feel something
in your body because that’s where sex
happens is in these extraordinary bodies
that we live in with everything that’s
happening in them I also had like a
moment of personal crisis backstage as
I’m getting ready to do this which is
like what shoes do I wear I did my
makeup I started having an allergic
reaction take my makeup off my bra
straps are falling out how do I keep my
bra straps in I forgot my thing at the
hotel that does that you know that we
have this idea when it comes to sex that
we can’t actually just be who we are
which is very very human two years ago I
need a little sip of water someone
already drank out of this how do you
know that
there’s like seven bottles up here thank
you
see we need each other we so need each
other so two years ago almost exactly to
this day I was invited to campus to give
a lecture about sex on a campus in
Colorado because that’s what I do for a
living I give the sex education that I
never got and you likely didn’t either
and when I got to this campus I was very
very touched by the experience I had of
students after this lecture who came to
me to tell me stories about their sexual
experience and there was one woman in
particular who came to tell me a story
and I didn’t realize that her story
three days ago would become my teacher
for how I needed to show up at this talk
and what she came up to me and she said
was she said every time I get close to
having sex I freaked out I get nervous I
get anxious I start shaking I don’t know
what to do how do I make my anxiety go
away there’s this guy see and were
texting we’re texting back and forth and
we’ve never really met we haven’t really
spoken but I think it’s gonna happen and
I said I what do you think is gonna
happen and she said I think we’re about
to have sex I think we’re gonna have sex
tomorrow and she I mean it sounds like
anecdotal as I’m saying it but she was
in so much pain she was frozen in her
anxiety about this encounter and I
looked at her and I said did you ever
wonder if your anxiety wasn’t a problem
if your anxiety was actually trying to
tell you something that was important
for you to listen to they may be moving
from texting to sex with someone you
essentially never met wasn’t the right
thing wasn’t exactly like what came next
in the equation and she broke down and
she started crying and she said no one
has ever in my life told me that I could
trust myself that I could trust my body
or that I could trust my emotions ever
and this is a girl that’s walking around
every single day feeling paralyzed and a
tape running in her mind of how do I
just get my anxiety to go away when her
anxiety is the best thing she’s got
going for her that’s trying to give her
information about what wants to happen
so I wanted to find out what was
happening on campuses across the country
and I decided to go to schools all
around the country and speak to as many
colleges as I could and I learned
something really surprising which was
that we were having a very important
conversation about sex on campus about
trying to solve the issues of the sexual
culture on campus but no one was talking
about sex what we were talking about was
policy and handbooks and reporting
procedures and consent language and
freshman orientation and at the end of
the day these didn’t translate to
students naked in a bedroom with all
their vulnerability and their emotions
and their bodies and their desire and
their questions and insecurities it
didn’t mean anything to them the big
word right now in sex education
especially on college campuses is a
consent and this is very important
concept so consent is essentially the
agreement to engage in sexual activity
all the way through that sexuality all
the way through that sexual exchange but
what it doesn’t talk about is where we
actually begin to understand consent
which is in the body this is where we
get our yes and our no and that
ultimately teaching about consent and
stopping there without any conversation
about what actually is happening in the
sexual realm was like handing a pair of
goggles to someone who doesn’t know how
to swim and saying here’s a pair of
goggles have a good time enjoy the ocean
waters warm and they’re thinking I don’t
even know how to swim what is in the
ocean what is sex that we have this
paradigm set up that we are working
against sexual assault
that we are fighting rape culture with
legislation and with policy and all of
those are essential but what we’re not
doing is offering a paradigm for
students to understand the possibility
of what sex actually can be and they are
lost they are falling through the cracks
and what they come to encounter when
they’re in a room is their vulnerability
and their insecurities and their
questions and their bodies as they are
and if we’ve never given them a paradigm
for sex that includes emotion that
includes a connection to whatever the
body is trying to tell us then when they
get there that you begin to think there
is a very big problem happening that the
very fact that they’re having emotions
at all is a problem that they’re feeling
shy that they’re feeling nervous that
they’re feeling insecure we are nervous
inside of sex because it’s vulnerable
and it’s intimate and it is that it’s
the same vulnerability I feel coming out
here to give this talk and look you in
the eye
it’s that same shaking quaking intimacy
of having an exchange that means
something and when they step into that
room to have sex they think that
everything that’s actually happening is
a problem and they’ll do whatever they
can to make it go away how much alcohol
do I have to drink how silent do I have
to become how fast do I have to make it
through this to get it over with
to do the thing that I think I’m
supposed to do which is sex as if it’s
this thing with this prescription and
this equation as if a leads to B leads
to C leads to D when we do that in the
sexual realm we fall asleep in our
senses and in our hearts in a way that
is so painful to us
we begin to think that there’s something
wrong with us for feeling the things
that were actually feeling and we do all
kinds of things to get out of that a
young man who came to a lecture of mine
on the East Coast after a workshop he
said to me if the standard is just don’t
rape someone and don’t get raped that is
a very low standard for college campuses
and people as a whole why isn’t the
standard make this sexual experience as
good as possible and that is where we
come in is that we come in in this
equation in a hugely raw encounter of
our own relationship to our bodies and
to our sexuality we cannot pass
something on to our young people that we
don’t embody ourselves that one thing
that I always hear stories about people
like you know when your parents try to
talk to you about sex or the awkward the
talk the awkward sex conversation what’s
awkward about that is the fact that
we’re trying to pretend it’s not awkward
that starts making things incredibly
awkward and what I love about working
with college students and young people
in general is that they have a BS meter
that is through the roof they know when
they aren’t being told the truth but
they don’t always recognize in the
moment what’s going on they just think
something here is off and I don’t know
what but I don’t think I can really
listen to you I don’t think this is the
whole picture we walk around with a
belief in the sexual realm that there’s
something we’re supposed to know about
sex and we’re the only person who
doesn’t know that thing that there’s
something that we’re missing and the
reality is that we are all walking
around feeling like we are the only
person who’s supposed to know this thing
and missing this particular thing
and the cost of that is we walk around
thinking that there’s something wrong
with me that when it comes to sex I can
show up voll Nura bleah over here or
over here I can tell the truth over here
but you want me to tell the truth in sex
about my vulnerability about my
nervousness about my shyness about what
my body’s actually telling me right now
about how fast it actually feels good to
go in this moment we’re beginning to
lose our young people because they can
tell that we aren’t telling the truth
and that’s what has to do with every
single one of us how we show up in
everything in one thing is how we show
up in everything
what is it that we are seeking when we
come to sex what is that at its core we
are seeking for a kind of connection and
a kind of intimacy and reflection of our
own wholeness that is what is it the
core movement of the sexual impulse of
desire I believe in the power of sex as
a possibility of healing as a
possibility to give us something and be
a sphere of our being and our reality
that helps us feel more of ourselves and
not less than we have 20 million
students on call on college campuses
right now who are swimming in a
atmosphere of working to fight rape
culture if we want to solve the problem
of rape culture we have to replace it
with the real thing we have to give them
something that feels real to them in
their bones they are curious they want
to know how do we equip young people
with values such as how to explore how
to navigate in the unknown how to be
with what’s actually coming up for them
without thinking that their job is to
pretend it’s not happening for them how
do we stand in front of them and look
them in the eye and give them an example
of what an open heart and truth-telling
actually looks like one thing that I see
on campuses is that the way that we are
starting to address this is something
that we are losing them because they’re
starting to roll their eyes they’re
starting to think it’s hokey and that it
doesn’t have to do with them
I had a psychologist from college reach
out to me a couple months ago and she
said even with our consent education our
assault numbers are not going down
because I think students feel like it
has nothing to do with them we come in
we bring people in to do a skit a skit
about consent a skit on stage
that feels like a performance and
students walk away feeling like that was
a great performance but I don’t know
what to do with that here’s an online
test for you to take click through what
is yes what is no that doesn’t make any
sense to a student who is in such the
edge of their own exploration of their
bodies how do we make it so that we
aren’t teaching a sexual paradigm that
is perpetuating shame or pressure we’re
caught between these two rivers that
don’t allow us to actually show up as we
are
I almost don’t know where to go from
here
and that’s exactly what happens in sex
is that we hit a point and we don’t know
where we are and we don’t know where to
go but we’re just there how do we begin
to teach our young people to stand in
the unknown and feel like they can stand
there with whatever’s coming up for them
they have to look us in the eye and know
that we are doing that we are on the
edge of what I think is one of the
biggest sexual revolutions that we have
ever seen in this country there is a
voice around the pain of our sexual
culture that is rising to the surface
and this is a revolution that will come
from the inside and it starts with us
thank you very much
preparing for this talk and I had a talk
half written for you I had slides
created and I worked myself up into such
a fit of nerves and it was only two days
ago that I realized what was happening
and interestingly enough it’s related to
the exact thing that I’m talking about
which is sex essentially I started
having performance anxiety I mean
actually and what I realized two days
ago was that if I tried to go through
with the half written script that I had
prepared for you and the slides and the
shiny presentation around this
particular subject I would be
perpetuating something in our
relationship with sex
that is the very problem that I want to
speak to so I am standing here a little
shaky and free vulnerable without a plan
and without a script and anytime I talk
about sex I understand that there is no
way for me to write a talk about that I
talk about sex almost more than I talk
about anything in my life it’s what I do
for a living and it’s never the same
talk and neither is sex is never the
same experience so we are gonna find our
way through this talk together I have no
idea what’s going to come out of my
mouth but in order to give this talk I
knew that I had to see your faces and
stand in front of you that I couldn’t
give a talk to a generic room or a blank
wall or people as if I was practicing
because that’s not actually what’s
needed and that wasn’t gonna draw out of
me what I needed to say and what was
needed to be heard so here we are in the
moment of intimacy
vulnerability in that I want to talk to
you today about the issue of sexual
assault and the crisis were facing on
our college campuses around sexual
assault and carve a road so that we
understand that that is a crisis that
has a lot to do with us
sitting in this room that that is not
something that’s just happening over
there but that it’s actually something
happening here and it’s something that
matters to all of us because at the end
of the day we are all standing inside of
the bodies that we are living in and it
is these bodies that engage in sex so I
want to invite you right now as you sit
in this room to just take a second and
stop and feel your body I have an idea
to share with you but more than an idea
what I want is for you to feel something
in your body because that’s where sex
happens is in these extraordinary bodies
that we live in with everything that’s
happening in them I also had like a
moment of personal crisis backstage as
I’m getting ready to do this which is
like what shoes do I wear I did my
makeup I started having an allergic
reaction take my makeup off my bra
straps are falling out how do I keep my
bra straps in I forgot my thing at the
hotel that does that you know that we
have this idea when it comes to sex that
we can’t actually just be who we are
which is very very human two years ago I
need a little sip of water someone
already drank out of this how do you
know that
there’s like seven bottles up here thank
you
see we need each other we so need each
other so two years ago almost exactly to
this day I was invited to campus to give
a lecture about sex on a campus in
Colorado because that’s what I do for a
living I give the sex education that I
never got and you likely didn’t either
and when I got to this campus I was very
very touched by the experience I had of
students after this lecture who came to
me to tell me stories about their sexual
experience and there was one woman in
particular who came to tell me a story
and I didn’t realize that her story
three days ago would become my teacher
for how I needed to show up at this talk
and what she came up to me and she said
was she said every time I get close to
having sex I freaked out I get nervous I
get anxious I start shaking I don’t know
what to do how do I make my anxiety go
away there’s this guy see and were
texting we’re texting back and forth and
we’ve never really met we haven’t really
spoken but I think it’s gonna happen and
I said I what do you think is gonna
happen and she said I think we’re about
to have sex I think we’re gonna have sex
tomorrow and she I mean it sounds like
anecdotal as I’m saying it but she was
in so much pain she was frozen in her
anxiety about this encounter and I
looked at her and I said did you ever
wonder if your anxiety wasn’t a problem
if your anxiety was actually trying to
tell you something that was important
for you to listen to they may be moving
from texting to sex with someone you
essentially never met wasn’t the right
thing wasn’t exactly like what came next
in the equation and she broke down and
she started crying and she said no one
has ever in my life told me that I could
trust myself that I could trust my body
or that I could trust my emotions ever
and this is a girl that’s walking around
every single day feeling paralyzed and a
tape running in her mind of how do I
just get my anxiety to go away when her
anxiety is the best thing she’s got
going for her that’s trying to give her
information about what wants to happen
so I wanted to find out what was
happening on campuses across the country
and I decided to go to schools all
around the country and speak to as many
colleges as I could and I learned
something really surprising which was
that we were having a very important
conversation about sex on campus about
trying to solve the issues of the sexual
culture on campus but no one was talking
about sex what we were talking about was
policy and handbooks and reporting
procedures and consent language and
freshman orientation and at the end of
the day these didn’t translate to
students naked in a bedroom with all
their vulnerability and their emotions
and their bodies and their desire and
their questions and insecurities it
didn’t mean anything to them the big
word right now in sex education
especially on college campuses is a
consent and this is very important
concept so consent is essentially the
agreement to engage in sexual activity
all the way through that sexuality all
the way through that sexual exchange but
what it doesn’t talk about is where we
actually begin to understand consent
which is in the body this is where we
get our yes and our no and that
ultimately teaching about consent and
stopping there without any conversation
about what actually is happening in the
sexual realm was like handing a pair of
goggles to someone who doesn’t know how
to swim and saying here’s a pair of
goggles have a good time enjoy the ocean
waters warm and they’re thinking I don’t
even know how to swim what is in the
ocean what is sex that we have this
paradigm set up that we are working
against sexual assault
that we are fighting rape culture with
legislation and with policy and all of
those are essential but what we’re not
doing is offering a paradigm for
students to understand the possibility
of what sex actually can be and they are
lost they are falling through the cracks
and what they come to encounter when
they’re in a room is their vulnerability
and their insecurities and their
questions and their bodies as they are
and if we’ve never given them a paradigm
for sex that includes emotion that
includes a connection to whatever the
body is trying to tell us then when they
get there that you begin to think there
is a very big problem happening that the
very fact that they’re having emotions
at all is a problem that they’re feeling
shy that they’re feeling nervous that
they’re feeling insecure we are nervous
inside of sex because it’s vulnerable
and it’s intimate and it is that it’s
the same vulnerability I feel coming out
here to give this talk and look you in
the eye
it’s that same shaking quaking intimacy
of having an exchange that means
something and when they step into that
room to have sex they think that
everything that’s actually happening is
a problem and they’ll do whatever they
can to make it go away how much alcohol
do I have to drink how silent do I have
to become how fast do I have to make it
through this to get it over with
to do the thing that I think I’m
supposed to do which is sex as if it’s
this thing with this prescription and
this equation as if a leads to B leads
to C leads to D when we do that in the
sexual realm we fall asleep in our
senses and in our hearts in a way that
is so painful to us
we begin to think that there’s something
wrong with us for feeling the things
that were actually feeling and we do all
kinds of things to get out of that a
young man who came to a lecture of mine
on the East Coast after a workshop he
said to me if the standard is just don’t
rape someone and don’t get raped that is
a very low standard for college campuses
and people as a whole why isn’t the
standard make this sexual experience as
good as possible and that is where we
come in is that we come in in this
equation in a hugely raw encounter of
our own relationship to our bodies and
to our sexuality we cannot pass
something on to our young people that we
don’t embody ourselves that one thing
that I always hear stories about people
like you know when your parents try to
talk to you about sex or the awkward the
talk the awkward sex conversation what’s
awkward about that is the fact that
we’re trying to pretend it’s not awkward
that starts making things incredibly
awkward and what I love about working
with college students and young people
in general is that they have a BS meter
that is through the roof they know when
they aren’t being told the truth but
they don’t always recognize in the
moment what’s going on they just think
something here is off and I don’t know
what but I don’t think I can really
listen to you I don’t think this is the
whole picture we walk around with a
belief in the sexual realm that there’s
something we’re supposed to know about
sex and we’re the only person who
doesn’t know that thing that there’s
something that we’re missing and the
reality is that we are all walking
around feeling like we are the only
person who’s supposed to know this thing
and missing this particular thing
and the cost of that is we walk around
thinking that there’s something wrong
with me that when it comes to sex I can
show up voll Nura bleah over here or
over here I can tell the truth over here
but you want me to tell the truth in sex
about my vulnerability about my
nervousness about my shyness about what
my body’s actually telling me right now
about how fast it actually feels good to
go in this moment we’re beginning to
lose our young people because they can
tell that we aren’t telling the truth
and that’s what has to do with every
single one of us how we show up in
everything in one thing is how we show
up in everything
what is it that we are seeking when we
come to sex what is that at its core we
are seeking for a kind of connection and
a kind of intimacy and reflection of our
own wholeness that is what is it the
core movement of the sexual impulse of
desire I believe in the power of sex as
a possibility of healing as a
possibility to give us something and be
a sphere of our being and our reality
that helps us feel more of ourselves and
not less than we have 20 million
students on call on college campuses
right now who are swimming in a
atmosphere of working to fight rape
culture if we want to solve the problem
of rape culture we have to replace it
with the real thing we have to give them
something that feels real to them in
their bones they are curious they want
to know how do we equip young people
with values such as how to explore how
to navigate in the unknown how to be
with what’s actually coming up for them
without thinking that their job is to
pretend it’s not happening for them how
do we stand in front of them and look
them in the eye and give them an example
of what an open heart and truth-telling
actually looks like one thing that I see
on campuses is that the way that we are
starting to address this is something
that we are losing them because they’re
starting to roll their eyes they’re
starting to think it’s hokey and that it
doesn’t have to do with them
I had a psychologist from college reach
out to me a couple months ago and she
said even with our consent education our
assault numbers are not going down
because I think students feel like it
has nothing to do with them we come in
we bring people in to do a skit a skit
about consent a skit on stage
that feels like a performance and
students walk away feeling like that was
a great performance but I don’t know
what to do with that here’s an online
test for you to take click through what
is yes what is no that doesn’t make any
sense to a student who is in such the
edge of their own exploration of their
bodies how do we make it so that we
aren’t teaching a sexual paradigm that
is perpetuating shame or pressure we’re
caught between these two rivers that
don’t allow us to actually show up as we
are
I almost don’t know where to go from
here
and that’s exactly what happens in sex
is that we hit a point and we don’t know
where we are and we don’t know where to
go but we’re just there how do we begin
to teach our young people to stand in
the unknown and feel like they can stand
there with whatever’s coming up for them
they have to look us in the eye and know
that we are doing that we are on the
edge of what I think is one of the
biggest sexual revolutions that we have
ever seen in this country there is a
voice around the pain of our sexual
culture that is rising to the surface
and this is a revolution that will come
from the inside and it starts with us
thank you very much
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