Let’s talk about sex baby!
If you’ve ever wondered why sex, pleasure, and intimacy often come with guilt—you’re not alone. In this episode of Financial Feminist, I’m joined by Casey Tanner, AASECT certified sex therapist and author of the book “Feel It All: A Therapist’s Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship with Sex.” We dive deep into how capitalism, purity culture, and gender norms are shaping not just your finances—but your sex life too. Yep, capitalism might be in your bedroom.
Casey and I unpack how productivity obsession, religious trauma, and internalized shame creep into our most intimate moments. We explore how queerness, pleasure, money, and identity intersect—and how healing from societal conditioning around sex can help us build better relationships with ourselves and others. Whether you’re partnered, solo, questioning, or just curious, this conversation will blow your mind and soothe your nervous system all at once.
Key takeaways:
Capitalism conditions us to prioritize productivity—even in bed.
Casey explains how our obsession with achievement doesn’t shut off when the workday ends. It follows us into our sex lives, turning pleasure into performance. We fixate on orgasms, timing, and doing it “right,” often forgetting that pleasure itself is the point—not the outcome.
Religious trauma and purity culture leave lasting impacts on sexual identity.
Growing up evangelical, Casey internalized the message that queerness and desire were inherently bad. The journey to healing involved unlearning that shame, embracing their queerness, and helping others do the same. These early belief systems often linger in the form of self-suppression and guilt.
Pleasure is political—and deeply tied to race, gender, and power.
Purity culture, as Casey breaks down, is rooted in white supremacy and colonialism. The image of the “sexually pure” person is racialized and weaponized against BIPOC communities, reinforcing harmful stereotypes and systems of control that extend far beyond the bedroom.
The way we experience sex reflects the way we move through life.
From foreplay beginning after your last sexual experience to patterns of emotional repression showing up in difficulty reaching orgasm, Casey shows how our attachment styles, traumas, and communication habits mirror our sexual dynamics—and how healing those patterns can lead to better sex.
Our relationships with sex and money are taboo for the same reasons.
Casey and I draw powerful parallels between how society treats sex and how it treats money: full of shame, silence, and stigma. The people who talk about it are often labeled “too much.” But just like budgeting or investing, navigating your sexuality with intention and honesty is empowering.
Desire, frequency, and communication matter more than “shoulds.”
Whether you’re in a long-term relationship or exploring your identity, Casey challenges the myth that there’s a “normal” amount of sex to be having. It’s not about what’s typical—it’s about what aligns with your values, needs, and life circumstances.
Notable quotes
“We don’t flip a switch and become somebody totally different when we get naked with people. We bring this obsession with productivity into the bedroom.”
“Purity culture is implicitly racist. It venerates whiteness, and the idea of ‘sexual purity’ was created to sustain the idea of race.”
“While sex is not typically at the root of our distress, many of our anxieties dance on the stage of sexuality.”
Episode-at-a-glance
≫ 00:48 Religious Trauma and Sexuality
≫ 02:09 Early Money Memories
≫ 04:02 Casey’s Journey: From Evangelical to Queer Advocate
≫ 08:59 Purity Culture and Its Impacts
≫ 14:25 Virginity as a Social Construct
≫ 18:20 Productivity and Sex: The Connection
≫ 27:05 The Taboo of Money and Sex
≫ 29:50 Gender Roles and Financial Dynamics
≫ 31:49 Degendering Sex: Unlearning Societal Norms
≫ 44:19 Exploring Sexuality and Seeking Therapy
Casey’s Links:
Queer Sex Therapy’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queersextherapy/
The Expansive Group’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theexpansivegroup/
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Meet Casey
Casey Tanner (they/she), AASECT-certified sex therapist, author of Feel It All, a creator of @queersextherapy, is a thought leader in millennial and Gen Z sexuality. It is her mission to inspire your sexual awakening through anti-oppressive queer sex education and mental health support.
When her initial pursuit of a career in evangelical ministry was disrupted by a mental health crisis, Casey was forced to reckon with the harmful impact of purity culture and systemic homophobia on her sense of self. After coming out as queer at a college that expressly forbid “homosexual behavior,” Casey made it her mission to disrupt misinformation and barriers to authenticity by pursuing her masters in counseling with a specialization in sexual and gender diversity, and ultimately received her Sexual Health Certificate from University of Michigan.
Casey launched @queersextherapy on Instagram, marking a new era for sexual and mental health on the app. In 2020, Casey founded The Expansive Group, a queer-centered sex therapy practice that serves hundreds of clients per year, both online and in person. While they are the CEO of the practice, Casey continues to create content, and is a producer and co-host of the Safeword Podcast, offering listeners guidance to undo their sex miseducation, cultivate authenticity, and expand their relational imaginations. Casey also lends her thought leadership and expertise to brands, businesses, universities, and publications around the world, including Oprah, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Health, InStyle, and more. Casey can be reached for consulting, partnerships, and speaking events on their website.
Their first book Feel It All: A Therapist’s Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship with Sex has been hailed as “a masterful blend of research, personal anecdotes, and practical advice, Feel It All addresses the profound effects that cultural messaging and attachment wounds have on sexuality.” – Lori A. Brotto, PhD, Professor, University of British Columbia
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, great, another thing capitalism is ruining. We’re talking about sex today and how that capitalism monster might be ruining that for you too.
Our guest today is Casey Tanner, a AASECT-certified sex therapist, author, and creator of Queer Sex Therapy.
Casey Tanner:
I could not have put words to my queerness growing up, but I think I equated that queerness to that badness. Like the thing inside of me that was bad, that was my queerness.
Tori Dunlap:
Casey is a Gen Z and millennial thought leader in sexuality, and it is their mission to inspire your sexual awakening through anti-oppressive queer sex education and mental health support.
Casey Tanner:
Coming out has set me on a path to becoming a person that I like more, a person that is a better member of community, a more thoughtful person, a more loving person. Only good things have come out of this.
Tori Dunlap:
In this episode today we get into all of it, including religious trauma and the ways that dogma upbringings can affect the way we embrace our sexuality and pleasure, especially if you grew up in purity culture. Me too, girl. We also discuss ways in which this directly translates to how we embrace conversations around money, rest, and capitalism.
Casey Tanner:
We don’t flip a switch and become somebody totally different when we get naked with people. We bring all of that into the bedroom. We bring this obsession with productivity into the bedroom.
Tori Dunlap:
We also dive into queerness, virginity, the double standard on women around their sexuality, and the idea about how we have sex might actually influence the way we live the entire rest of our lives too. And why this matters when it comes down to managing your money.
Casey is so incredibly insightful, and I think you’re going to get so much from this episode. Let’s get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.
Casey, I’m so excited that you’re here. Thank you for coming on. We had a fun little moment before the recording where we’re-
Casey Tanner:
We did.
Tori Dunlap:
… just commiserating about life and what it means to be human, so I appreciate you being on the show. We like asking guests their first money memory. What is the first time that you remember thinking about money?
Casey Tanner:
My parents wanted to instill money management in me from a very young age. And so probably by the time I was four or five, I probably had a $4 a week allowance. And I remember the chart on the fridge wherein 25% of that went to a nonprofit, 25% of that went to fun. And 25% of $4 is $1. But at the time, especially, that was a big deal.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, a lot of money. That’s the exciting part is you don’t seem to remember. Oh yeah, the first time seeing $50, I was like, “Oh my god, this is so much money.” What does a four-year-old need $4 for? I don’t know.
Casey Tanner:
I’m sure I found something,
Tori Dunlap:
But that is a practice we hear from parenting, finance experts that it’s like, okay, a fourth to savings, a fourth to spend, a fourth to give, and then some people do a fourth to invest, which is interesting. Yeah, if you split it in fourths or thirds, it’s always great.
I would love to ask you generally, give us the two to three sentence overview of what you do and why it matters so much.
Casey Tanner:
Yeah. I am a queer sex therapist. I became a queer sex therapist right before the pandemic hit, so I feel like I’ve been a part of, probably at this point, hundreds of thousands of people’s sexual awakenings because so many of us had sexual and gender awakenings over the past five years. But I’m also the CEO of The Expansive Group. We are a gender and sex therapy practice, and we work with over a thousand clients a year. I think probably doesn’t even need to be said, today in this administration why doing work with queer people is so important.
Tori Dunlap:
My favorite quote from you, you say in your book, “Before I was a sex therapist, I was a client. Before that I was an evangelical youth leader teaching kids that premarital sex, masturbation and queerness was to be avoided at all costs.” So can you talk about your journey from there to where you are now?
Casey Tanner:
Totally, yes. I was raised evangelical, which involved going to Jesus camp, being saved, being baptized more than once, and very much got the messaging that queerness is a sin, that sex before marriage is a sin. Most of us have been exposed to this in one way or another.
Tori Dunlap:
I was raised Catholic, so I got you.
Casey Tanner:
Totally, right? Other side of the same coin.
When I went to college, and I went to college actually to become a pastor, so I went to an evangelical Christian school where I had to actually sign a document that said I wouldn’t be gay or I’d be expelled. I was almost expelled because I did come out at that place. I actually started publicly dating somebody to the upset of many people on campus, and it led to a sort of mental breakdown. I had no support. The campus had one therapist that was willing to even work with queer students, and so my girlfriend and I were seeing the same therapist, which is so deeply unethical.
And coming out of that experience and coming into my queerness, I just felt like I never wanted anybody to feel that way ever again. And so if I could just be somebody, one voice opening the door for people to be authentic and to have a place to go with that, then that’s what I want it to be.
Tori Dunlap:
Can we dive more into specifically how your faith affected your journey and especially at the psychological level, because I think that the evangelical to queer pipeline, the road, is pretty deep? It’s well traveled. Or even just evangelical to no longer repressed. We’ve had probably a dozen guests on this show at this point that have that same journey.
So can we talk about psychologically what was going on, especially when you realized, oh, I might be queer, I might not be straight. How does that affect my relationship with my identity and my religion up to this point?
Casey Tanner:
Totally. I feel like I’m still on this journey today. I think the core belief that it instilled in me that I continue to struggle with is you are intrinsically bad. There is something intrinsically bad or evil about you that nothing you do will be good enough to overcome that. You need something outside of yourself in order to overcome that. And that has been the hardest thing to shake, even 10 years after going to school. I could not have put words to my queerness growing up, but I think I equated that queerness to that badness. The thing inside of me that was bad, that was my queerness.
And so what has been so transformative over the last decade has been seeing how my queerness has become one of my favorite things about myself. Coming out has set me on a path to becoming a person that I like more, a person that is a better member of community, a more thoughtful person, a more loving person. Only good things have come out of this. And so over time, it has chipped away at my struggle with that core belief.
But I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because when I was younger, when I was growing up evangelical, and I think a lot of people would say this, my experiences with God when it was like me and God chatting, many of them felt real, many of them mattered. And there was a period of time where I could not figure out how to contend with that in my 20s, like either you’re real or you’re not. But if you’re real, and you’re saying, I’m bad, how do I believe in this?
I think now I don’t identify as a Christian; I don’t identify as religious, but I do believe those moments were real, and I still have them today. And I just consider myself a spiritual person that is in touch with the universe and something bigger than myself.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, I feel like again, with my personal experience too, I have very much changed my opinion on organized religion as someone who went to 18 years of Catholic school, went to church every single Sunday, sometimes multiple times a week. I think that there is almost two different relationships. There’s the relationship you have with the church or the synagogue or the organized religion, and then if you still are believing in a higher power or God or universe or whatever you want to call it, there is a separate relationship that you have with that higher power or that spirituality.
Casey Tanner:
I was going to say, and I think even then, even if you’ve always had a relationship with a higher power, a lot of healing looks like understanding how much we projected onto that higher power based on that religion, and realizing actually the higher power I want to be in relationship isn’t the one I was… There’s a core there that may be a similar, but there was a lot of projection.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. As we transition into talking about sex, speaking of organized religion, but there are many real consequences to people socialized as women because whether you were religious or not, when we talk about sex, sexuality, there’s so much shame, there’s so much judgment. So can we talk about some of the pitfalls of purity movements on us both individually and societally?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah, totally. First of all, purity culture is just implicitly racist, venerates whiteness, and venerates the things associated with whiteness. From a ground level, it was created and perpetuated in order to create and sustain the idea of race. Beyond that, just the sense that it gave us that we are dirty, that we should be ashamed by listening to our bodies, by following our desires and our pleasure. I think it both desexualized us and overly sexualized us at the same times, and certainly depending on your identity, potentially one more than the other.
And so I think a lot of us came into adulthood being really adept at gaslighting ourselves around our desires. Maybe we notice a desire, but we’re really good at talking ourselves out of it. And what that means is that a lot of us go into adulthood having pretty bad sex, and not knowing how to ask for the sex that we want, or even if we do know, not feeling permission to do so.
And honestly, I think this is true of all genders in various ways. Limitations were placed on all of us on the allowances that were made for the way that we show up during sex. Whether it’s men feeling like they can’t show up and be vulnerable, they can’t cry during sex, whether it’s gender queer people not being able to show up and have their bodies named and called the ways that they deserve to be named and called, or women not feeling like it’s okay for somebody to spend 20 minutes going down on them. We all have versions of that.
Tori Dunlap:
Can we talk about the P word, the pleasure a little bit here? Because we’ve spoken with previous guests on this show about how pleasure, both sexual and otherwise, is just demonized. And we think about the pleasure of eating for women is always with a side of guilt and shame of thinking about, okay, the calories in and the calories out. The pleasure of just enjoying rest is then demonized, right? Why aren’t you doing more? Why aren’t you being productive? You’re putting yourself first. How dare you? And then, of course, with sexual pleasure, right?
So can we talk about just how much we’ve demonized pleasure in a capitalist society for women?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah. Well, I think what you’re speaking to is that pleasure isn’t just about sex. There is pleasure to be had in many areas of life, and that includes work. And I think that when we’re talking about what capitalism wants for us, it is to pay attention to productivity. And very often, productivity is sort of at the opposite end of the spectrum of pleasure. Productivity and pleasure often do not go hand in hand. And so it is no wonder that we’re conditioned out of it.
But yeah, if we were allowed to show up at our jobs and just pay attention to our bodies, we’d probably work more slowly. We may actually get more done at the end of the day, but we wouldn’t show up in the way that we’ve been tasked to show up by capitalism. This makes our way into our sex lives. No doubt. We don’t end our jobs at the end of the day and flip a switch and become somebody totally different when we get naked with people. We bring all of that into the bedroom. We bring this obsession with productivity into the bedroom. And that’s why, as a culture sexually, we are so obsessed with orgasms. We are so obsessed with hard penises and ejaculating at exactly the right time.
All of that is a sexual manifestation of productivity obsession, and it is through letting that go that I found in my work, people really start to experience real pleasure.
Tori Dunlap:
I want to go back to something you said before we move on about the racism related to purity. I don’t know if I’ve heard it put that way. I mean, racism is everywhere, obviously, and white supremacy and white culture. Can we talk specifically about the way it shows up in purity culture specifically?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah, certainly. One exercise from a research study that I actually write about in my book, in that one exercise a researcher asks a group of women, all BIPOC women to close their eyes and write down, when you think about a perfectly sexually pure person, write about what it is that you see. And what this study found is that the vast majority of these women wrote a white woman, long, blonde hair, white outfit.
And that really just speaks to, I think, the equating of purity and whiteness that all of us have been exposed to. And the implications of that are and have been frankly deathly, like extremely dangerous. When we venerate one group of people as pure and good and another group of people as bad, dirty, over sexualized, et cetera, we know how that plays out because it has played out. So does that start to resonate?
Tori Dunlap:
That makes total sense, and that’s where I figured we were going. Can we talk about virginity as a social construct? Because the first time I had ever heard that phrase was about four years ago, and it blew my mind. And I think if listeners have not considered this, Casey’s about to blow your mind too. So can you talk about that? Speaking of purity, like virginity is a social construct.
Casey Tanner:
Yeah, right. When it ever comes to any social construct, we have to ask the question of who created this and for whose benefit? Construct of virginity, which is the idea that people with vulvas are born with intact vulvas and that on their wedding nights theoretically that those vulvas are no longer intact. The hymen breaks. That person has lost their virginity. And of course, this is for the benefit of people with penises. This is also for the benefit of capitalism. If we can track who people belong to, then we have more control over them.
When in reality, this idea that the loss of virginity happens at the breaking of the hymen is first of all insane because the hymen can break from putting in a tampon. The hymen can break from being a runner. It is not just a penis that can do that. So first of all, biologically, it doesn’t even make sense.
But then, of course, this idea that we’re born with something that we lose via sex, if you really play it out, there’s just no basis for it. We are born with our bodies intact. We die with our bodies intact. There is nothing that can happen to any of our tissue that makes us more or less broken. And yet it is sort of the main thing that we talk about in sex ed growing up, in the church. We become obsessed with it. It makes it very, very complicated for people who do choose to have sex before marriage and were raised in that way.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and I think the interesting thing too, the weight of course put on virginity it’s still dramatic to this day in some countries when considering who the men are going to marry, a virgin bride is still the pristine thing. And I’m putting pristine in massive air quotes here. And then again, someone who has had sex or has even had their hymen torn via something other than sex or other than a penis is then dirty or is less worthy.
Yeah, to your point, there’s so much shame immediately with virginity and there’s so much expectation. Oh my God, I remember the first time I had sex. There was so much expectation because it was so much pressure.
Casey Tanner:
Totally. And that pressure gets extended. We find virginity making its way into even other concepts like body count, this idea that the number of people we’ve slept with, that’s just an extension of the concept of virginity.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Or even typically men are very derogatory where it’s like, oh, is she tight or not? That’s one of those things too, that gets discussed as again, the body count, in a negative way. Stereotypically, men are aiming for a higher body count, but they expect their female partners to have a minimal body count. So it’s all of these things too. You’re right, with virginity getting extended into body count expectation of what sex looks, feels, sounds like.
Casey Tanner:
I didn’t connect the dots until I think I was watching a movie maybe a week or two ago where they used the term loose woman. I’d always thought, oh, a loose woman was a woman who was kind of like a slutty woman. That phrasing was actually [inaudible 00:18:12] reference to the vagina.
Tori Dunlap:
It literally physically means loose.
Casey Tanner:
My stomach dropped. I was like, there it is again. It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere.
Tori Dunlap:
When we come back, we’re talking about the connection between our productivity and sex. That might blow your mind a little bit. We’ll be back.
Well, when you were mentioning productivity and sex, which I think is so interesting, and again I want to talk about it more, it seems like you’re connecting how we have sex mirroring how we go through life. So do you think that’s common in your clients?
I know for me, I’ve had many conversations with my partner about how foreplay is what happens in our interactions the whole day. That’s the foreplay of our conversation about sex. It has nothing to do with… It has something to do with the actual buildup when you’re naked with somebody, but I’m like, no, foreplay isn’t how you’re treating me all day.
Casey Tanner:
Right. I like to say foreplay starts at the end of your last sexual experience. From there on out, everything is foreplay for your next sexual experience, if that’s to think about it.
Yes, it is true. There are some exceptions which I’ll speak to in a second. But I do find that generally the way that people relate to themselves is going to be the way that they would still relate to themselves when they’re naked. I do a lot of work with folks who have never had an orgasm before or who struggle to have an orgasm, and I see the metaphors sort of write themselves. People who maybe have a really hard time letting themselves express their emotions might also have a hard time allowing themselves to fully let go in orgasm. People who have a hard time taking up space in a conversation are likely going to also have a hard time letting a partner focus on and enjoy their bodies and just be in that moment with their pleasure.
What I will say is that on occasion, and this is not rare, there are people who show up in sex almost the opposite way that they show up in life. I think this is traditionally. I’ve seen this more true of men, because men often are socialized to think that sex is an okay way to express desire, sex is an okay thing to want, emotions are not an okay thing to have, but sex is. So with men, I might actually see folks that do struggle to take up emotional space, not struggle as much to express their sexual desires.
That’s really unfortunate in every direction. Ideally, we all feel permission in all of the ways. You can see the purity culture and gender dynamics, racial dynamics, sexual dynamics, all of those make their way in.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, there’s this quote in your book, “While sex is not typically at the root of our distress, many of our anxieties dance on the stage of sexuality,” which is such an incredible way to put that.
Casey Tanner:
Thank you.
Tori Dunlap:
Can you dive into that more for us?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll talk about folks who are in a relationship for a second. So often what will happen is a relationship will come to me for couples’ therapy, and they come to me because I’m a sex therapist, and so they think that we’re going to just work on sex. And what they discover is that actually most of our time together is not spent talking about sex. It’s spent talking about all of the dynamics between them that are playing themselves out in that couple’s sex lives.
So more often than not, there’s no issue going on with anyone’s body. The issue is what’s happening when clothes are on. And often the issue isn’t even what’s happening when clothes are on with one another. The issue is trauma from 25 years ago that that person has never gotten to fully process.
So our childhood traumas, whether or not we’ve processed them, I think that they do make their way into the way that we have sex because sex is an attachment behavior. So if you’re an anxiously attached person, that’s going to show up in sex. If you have an attachment trauma, that’s probably going to make its way into sex. Which means that sex is really complicated, and that sex can be a really, really beautiful place to do healing because when you heal around sex, you are healing other parts of yourself too.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay, so we’re talking about thinking about productivity or even the ways capitalism seeps into our actual sex, but I think there are sometimes too when people can either feel more sexual or less sexual depending on what’s going on in their lives, of course, or what their days look like. So can we talk a little bit about how our relationship with sex changes depending on the seasons in our life, or what’s going on emotionally for us?
Casey Tanner:
Yes, absolutely. So depending on the way your personal desire shows up, and this is true for everyone, we all exist on a spectrum of spontaneous desire to responsive desire, meaning that some of us tend to be able to get more easily turned on out of nowhere. You’re like, I don’t know. I just saw a tree. I’m hard. Okay, great, cool for you. A lot of people are like that.
And then there are a lot of people that are on the more responsive end of the spectrum, who are like, you know what? Actually, I need a pretty specific situation to get me there. I need to have not had a super stressful day at work. I need the house to be cleaned. I need us to not be in conflict with one another. I need to be feeling good in my body. I need to have not just eaten dinner. We’re all on that spectrum.
And certain seasons of life might push us more towards the responsive end of the spectrum. If you’re in a particularly stressful season for a lot of people, that’s also going to be a season when you’re not potentially super desirous. Now, for other people, stress can actually lead to more sex. So again, it’s super individualized.
But one thing that I think is really important at home is that a lot of times, just because sexual desire is present, it doesn’t mean that you have to act on it. And I know that sounds really obvious, but I’m going to break it down in a way that I think is less obvious. There might be times where sex is on the table, but you’re actually more excited about reading a book, or you’re actually more excited about going to the gym, or you’re more excited about taking a nap. And I think a lot of times, especially when we’re in a relationship, especially when we’re in a long-term relationship, there’s this pressure that if I feel it, I got to pursue it.
And sex takes energy. I mean, once you get into your 30s and 40s, especially, and beyond, it’s like when you make a choice to have sex, you’re making a choice to expend energy to work your body in a particular way. And we’re not always in the mood for that.
So I just also want to say it’s okay to choose to spend your energy on other things, even if you are desiring sex.
Tori Dunlap:
At what point does it feel like a problem if you don’t want sex, or you are not as sexual? At what point? I am an anxious person. It is very easy for me to interpret anything as a sign that something’s bad. So at what point should we be concerned?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah. Well, in my book, I tell a story about a couple, and really this is an amalgamation of many couples who came in, and they were like, we’re not having sex. We haven’t had sex in six months. And I’m asking them a lot of questions and getting to know their relationship. And they’re like, we’re great. We’re in love. Our lives generally look the way that we want, but we’re not having the amount of sex that we want to have.
I looked at them, and I was like, let me ask you something. If there was no outside pressure for your relationship to be sexual, do you think it would change the way that you’re experiencing this “problem”? And the answer for them was, yes, we feel pressure to be a sexual relationship because we’ve been taught that a healthy relationship is a sexual one. And for some people, sex absolutely does need to be part of a relationship in a regular way. For other people, six months, it’s really not a big deal, except for the societal pressure makes it feel like a big deal.
So part of my work is helping people and couples in relationships get in touch with what are our actual relational values around sex? Screw this idea that everyone should have sex once a week in order to be happy. What is doable for us, and what is doable for us right now? Did we just have a kid? Did you just get a promotion? Are you taking care of a sick parent? Okay, our value of taking care of that kid, that parent, may supersede our value of having regular sex right now, and that’s a healthy choice for us.
So I don’t think it’s ever a capital P problem when there is no sex. But what I work with is the distress that people feel when there’s not sex, and helping them figure out like, okay, are we actually still in line with our values? Is this us responding to societal pressure? Or in a lot of cases, they say, we do want to work together to figure out how to have more sex, and then we start that journey. But we do it from a place of this is what you want for your erotic team. This is not something we’re doing because of a should.
Tori Dunlap:
When we talk about sex generally, it’s very similar to money, right? It’s extremely taboo. It is not really discussed. It is something that inherently, unfortunately, comes with a shit ton of shame. So, do you see a relationship between how people feel about money and how they feel about sex?
Casey Tanner:
It’s interesting. I think it actually may even be more difficult for people to talk about money than sex.
Tori Dunlap:
It is statistically, actually. It is the hardest thing to talk about.
Casey Tanner:
I think it’s the hardest thing to talk about. That is a good question. I bet you that depends really heavily on folks… like cultural locations.
Tori Dunlap:
And family stories.
Casey Tanner:
Totally. I think that’s going to be really dependent on cultural narratives, family narratives. I work with a lot of white clients, and I think that there’s a lot of encouragement to not talk about it because not talking about it is a protection of power around it.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, I think the taboo is definitely there both at a societal level and also at an individual level. I think, again, like I was saying, the shame is definitely there. I think anytime a topic is taboo and is not discussed, if someone has the audacity to discuss it, they become the odd one out. That can be really hard, especially if you’re trying to have sex with other people. If you’re trying to manage money with other people, if you’re trying to have sex with other people, then you have to, if you’re the one who’s going to talk about it, but the other person won’t, or the other people won’t, then it becomes really, really difficult.
Casey Tanner:
Now that you say that, I will say one place where I really see the parallel is when I see the way that Gen Z is learning and figuring out, and frankly teaching the rest of us how to talk more openly about some of these things. And I think frankly, the disabled community really leads the way here because they have a lot of language around advocating for their needs and being able to say when an accommodation is necessary.
And I think that we are hopefully, fingers crossed, starting to see that lead into the way that we’re talking about both sex and money. People feeling the freedom to be like, hey, I actually can’t go to the restaurant you suggested. I’m on a budget. Could we, as a group of friends, make a different choice that accommodates me? Or in sex; actually, this position does aggravate my chronic back pain. I know it feels great for you. Can we figure out a way to add a cushion so that I don’t have to be in pain all day tomorrow?
I think there’s a parallel around freedom to be asking for accommodations across the board.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, I think that’s so true. That’s a great point.
You mentioned in your book during a chapter about gender roles, how when you entered your first relationship, and you made more money than your partner, you didn’t feel empowered; you felt scared. So gender mis-education, as you put it, can condition us to believe in falsehoods left and right, that we need to be taken care of. We need to embody this person that is not empowered. How do you navigate this relationship when you were making more money than your partner, and how can we unlearn those roles?
Casey Tanner:
Totally. I’m so grateful for that relationship and that dynamic that scared the shit out of me and then led to me having a much more empowered relationship with money. My partner was in grad school when we were together, and so it didn’t take much. But yeah, there was a big chunk of time where I was supporting both of us, and initially I felt terrified. I’m like, nobody raised me to think I could do this by myself. Nobody raised me to think I could do this without a husband, or even a single person, let alone as a partner taking care of a partner. And then I watched myself take care of us for over a year in that way, and my fear shifted into curiosity. I brought a lot of this to therapy. I brought a lot of this into my friendships, and my friend group has gotten better at talking about money, I think, or maybe they were really good at it, and they’ve started helping me be better at it.
But yeah, I think slowly it took watching myself walk the walk of it to believe that it was possible. And to this day, I frankly don’t have a lot of women my age in my life who are financially supporting their partners. I know there are many, many, many out there. Just so happens that in my circle, that’s not the case. I’m no longer in that situation, but I imagine if it was, I would still feel a little lonely in it, and I would be craving community and craving the normalization of it, for sure.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and diving in deeper, how do we de-gender sex?
Casey Tanner:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the thing is that sex isn’t actually gendered. We have gendered it. So it has a lot to do with unlearning everything that we learned in fifth grade when they were like, girls, you go to this room, boys, you go to this room. There are different things you need to know. All of that. Because actually guys do need to know about periods. Women do need to know about condoms. And also [inaudible 00:32:21].
Tori Dunlap:
I would argue you have to be in both rooms. It would’ve been more useful for me actually to be in the other room. That would’ve been more useful for me.
Casey Tanner:
Totally. I think it starts with maybe putting pen to paper or getting with a therapist, getting with a friend, and asking the question, how is it that you as an individual or you and your relationship, gender, sex, what are the unwritten gendered rules of sex for you? Is it about what role somebody plays in a particular sex position? That is often gendered. Is it about what noises you’re allowed to make? That is often gendered. What you’re allowed to wear or not wear? Who’s responsible for the contraception? All of these things are rules that all of us were taught very explicitly and then hammered home implicitly, but may just feel like Bible at this point.
And so it does sort of writing them down to really hear yourself say things that you’re like, wait, actually, why does it make sense that the woman or the person who could get pregnant is responsible for contraception? What? Where did that come from? Not very hard to answer that question.
So yes, start with the ways that you’re gendering it. Go from there.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and I think even what you were talking about before of like is anybody allowed to cry? And I love the sounds too. Who’s allowed to make sounds? What kind of sounds are you making?
Casey Tanner:
Right.
Tori Dunlap:
Who’s crying?
Casey Tanner:
If your male partner makes a high-pitched noise, does that suddenly turn you off? Why? It’s interesting to think about.
Tori Dunlap:
The way we’ve gendered sex is the same way we’ve gendered money. And I love how Casey talks about untangling our beliefs around what sex and sexuality are supposed to look like.
If you’re listening, I wonder what ways you notice in your life how you maybe have assigned certain gender rules to how you manage or talk about your finances. Do you expect that a certain person handles the finances in a couple? Have you been taught that men are better with money? I know you have, because society tells us. And if you’d like to share, and you’re listening on Spotify, feel free to leave a comment and let us know.
When we come back, we’re answering some of the biggest sex and relationship questions. Stay tuned.
So when we’re talking about sex, I have to ask you some of the biggest sex questions. How do you have good sex with a new partner?
Casey Tanner:
Gosh, you ask a lot of questions. You listen. You talk a lot about sex ideally before the clothes come off. You look at that person, and you realize that they have a wealth of knowledge about what their body needs, and you don’t have to guess. So stop guessing, start asking, and start telling. Don’t wait for them to ask you. You can also just tell them.
Tori Dunlap:
How do you have good sex with yourself?
Casey Tanner:
I think you give yourself the same attention that you would give a partner. So what this means is if your sex life with your partner involves lighting a candle, dimming the lights, going on a date, but your sex life with yourself involves five minutes in the bathroom before work, that is not an equal dynamic. Can you start giving yourself some of the things that you’re willing to give a relationship?
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, that’s really smart.
How do you have good sex with someone who is a different gender identity than your previous partners?
Casey Tanner:
Whether they’re different or the same, I think it’s recognizing this person’s body is a totally different body. The language that use might be different language. The things that trigger them might be different. So I actually don’t think it matters what the gender of the person is, because even if you’re having sex with a person with the same body parts, they’re going to want to be touched differently. So approach every partner as if they’re an entirely new terrain to be explored.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, I want to double-click on that.
Casey Tanner:
Double-click.
Tori Dunlap:
I think a lot of people who… Well, let me assume. If you are having sex with a woman for the first time, for example, and all you’ve done is date men, I imagine there might be some intimidation there on your part.
Casey Tanner:
Sure.
Tori Dunlap:
So maybe can we talk about that? Because I do agree every person’s body’s going to be different regardless of their genitalia, regardless of their needs, and you have to talk about them, but that might feel a new brand of intimidating.
Casey Tanner:
Of course, and it does, and it typically does. I would say if you are encountering body parts that you have not encountered before, that this is an especially important time to have those conversations around how that person likes to be touched. And today, we are so, so lucky at the resources that are available for us. So, for example, if you’re somebody that has never interacted with a vulva sexually except for maybe your own, there are places like omgs.com. I just did an entire course on Flo’s app where they literally have an image of a vulva on the screen, and you can use your finger and practice different techniques to touch a vulva.
These things are out there. So you can practice before you get in the room.
Tori Dunlap:
God, technology.
Casey Tanner:
I know. So good.
Tori Dunlap:
What a treat.
Okay, how do you have good sex with a long-term partner, and maybe you’re at the roommate phase?
Casey Tanner:
Totally. There’s so many beautiful, wonderful things about being in that long-term energy stage, the roommate stage. There’s a lot of comfort with one another. If that’s working for you, there’s no need to intervene. But if there’s pieces of that that aren’t working, like if there’s distress because you’re not having the kind of sex that you used to or the kind of sex that you want to, one thing that’s majorly different from pre roommate stage to post roommate stage is the amount of accessibility you have to one another naked, and one another getting ready before dates.
So think about it. In the roommate stage, maybe you’re sharing the same mirror, you’re getting ready at the same time. There’s not that really cute big reveal before the date that kind of turns you on. That’s a loss that you have in the roommate stage. From a nudity perspective, maybe there’s a lot of comfort now just walking around the house naked or walking around the house in a way that you never would have in the early stages. Again, so many beautiful things about that. Nothing to be ashamed of about that.
But I have at times tasked people in this situation with, what if we tried for one month you don’t see each other naked unless you’re initiating sex with each other? What happens to you when your partner’s body starts to feel really exciting and rare again? Or what would it be like to get ready in different bathrooms, or if you share a bathroom, get ready different times and bring back that kind of big reveal?
So I think it’s taking away some of those comfortable things to bring back some of the tension that really pulls desire out.
Tori Dunlap:
The excitement.
Casey Tanner:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. How do you have good sex with someone with a different sex drive than you?
Casey Tanner:
I think you start out with noticing any judgment you have about that other person’s sex drive because people with low desire over time there can tend to be resentment build that their partner always wants to have sex with them, is always wanting something, right? That can turn into a judgment. They want too much. And people with lower desire can also turn that judgment around on themselves. I’m not enough. I’m not giving enough. Same thing on the other side with folks who tend to have higher desire. Could be the sense that I’m wanting too much. I’m too much, or they can build resentment towards their partner. Why don’t you ever give me what I need?
Those are often the beliefs that people are walking into therapy holding that are really getting in the way of intimacy. And so I start out with being like, okay, think about a food that you both enjoy but enjoy in different amounts. Maybe one of you is obsessed with cheeseburgers. You could have a cheeseburger every night, and you would be super happy. The other one is like, I love cheeseburgers, but twice a month is great for me. You wouldn’t sit there and judge each other and say, well, why don’t you like cheeseburgers as much as me? This is not something that needs to be judgment-laden, although it becomes that way because we are so afraid of being the one who is wrong. We want our partner to be the one that’s wrong.
So take that away, and then I think get to know your partner’s desire style. If they are somebody with more responsive desire and the context really matters, then you want to get really curious about what are the contexts that turn you on? What are the contexts that turn you off? And then together you work on building more moments when the contexts are going to be right for desire.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. I think that makes a ton of sense.
You posted on your Instagram, and I loved this, how we tend to put on a pedestal our romantic and our sexual partnerships over friendship and over our friends. And it just reminds me of this dominant narrative that we see online, this idea that as you get older, friendship stops being sharing your life and just starts becoming brunch dates once every three months, just talking about your life, instead of actually living your life together.
How did we get here as a society, and what advice do you have for people who are feeling this dynamic of the romantic relationship as the pedestal?
Casey Tanner:
Totally. In America, we got here colonization. If you think about the ways that indigenous people were living their lives. It was extraordinarily communally. And there weren’t these two-person marriage property owning contracts the way that colonization has now imposed. Why did colonization impose this? Again, for control, to track us. If we can track an immediate family, we can track the immediate family’s finances, their property ownership. That was done very, very intentionally. And people are lonelier than they have ever been.
How do we shift this? I’m a sex therapist, so I’ll talk about this as it relates to sex. I think we see very commonly late teens, early 20s, we’re sharing all about sex with our friends. Fast-forward 10 years later, particularly if you’re in a long-term relationship, particularly if you’re in a long-term monogamous relationship, that starts to be protected content. And, of course, privacy is important. You want to negotiate those boundaries with partners, but there is something so beautiful that gets lost. It’s knowledge sharing, it’s shame decreasing, because we have been so taught to centralize those partnerships.
Tori Dunlap:
No, that’s so true. It’s easy to believe it’s not as exciting. Because I remember when I was actively dating, even taking the sex off the table, it was like, oh my God, he’s so hot, and we’ve been out for two dates, and it’s really exciting, and blah, blah, blah. It’s like, oh, how’s your partner? He’s good. He’s having trouble at work. That’s the update. But it’s the same person.
Casey Tanner:
Yes. But it’s also a shame. It’s also this idea that if I’m dating around, I’m 24, it’s totally fine if I had a horrible sexual experience last night that was embarrassing, that I want to talk about. If I’m 36, and I’m in a monogamous relationship, and we had bad sex last night, there’s a whole other level of societal shame that we are taught around that. It becomes very hard to talk about. And that’s so sad because everyone is having bad sex. Everyone has bad sex sometimes. It’s so normal, even with people we love and feel safe with.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s the same thing with money, right? It’s easy to just be like, oh yeah, everything’s great, and I’ve never overspent money on anything ever.
Casey Tanner:
Totally. Yep. We’re not having a hard time right now.
Tori Dunlap:
Definitely not. I’m a financial expert. I still fuck up, and it’s so helpful to hear, I think, especially from my friends when Tori fucks up, because it’s like, thank God, she’s human.
Casey Tanner:
I’m sure.
Tori Dunlap:
After our sponsor break, we’re wrapping up our conversation with Casey. We’re going to talk about how to explore sexuality in a healthy way and how to know if you need a sex therapist. Stay tuned.
How can you explore your sexuality in a healthy way?
Casey Tanner:
I think that you start with honestly closing your eyes. And if you’re listening, and you’re not driving, you can afford to close your eyes, maybe do it. Just taking a breath, and asking this question of like, is there anything that I’ve wanted that I’ve been afraid to want or to ask for? I think what has been unhealthy or unhelpful is how detached we’ve gotten from our guts and from our bodies. I think exploration. If you can start on a somatic level, and actually bring something to mind that you’re not sure if you want or not, and then just breathe with it. See how your body responds to it. Our bodies can tell us what it is that we need and desire around sex, and we rarely ever listen to them. So that’d be the place I’d start.
Tori Dunlap:
How do we know if we need you? How do we know if we need sex therapy, sex coaching? How do we know?
Casey Tanner:
I think if you’re a human, if you’re a person, you could benefit from it. I think if you’re in a relationship, even if you’re not in crisis, I think it’s really great to have someone again on your erotic team so that if it ever does get challenging; you have somebody who knows you. I think far too often; I have people come to see me sort of at the last minute when it’s become dire, but it’s really wonderful when I get to build a relationship with a couple or a person or a relationship such that I get to move through the ebbs and flows with them before shit hits the fan.
I would mainly just say, if you can afford to do it, if it’s accessible to you, don’t wait. In terms of accessibility, The Expansive Group, my therapy practice, we work with folks literally all over the world, and through a queer affirming lens, but it’s not just for queer folks. And we work with folks all over the world because there’s a lot of states today, a lot of countries, where this work just is not very accessible.
Tori Dunlap:
How do we get more comfortable talking about sex? So much of us feel the shame. We don’t know how to have healthy conversations with sexual partners, and with friends, you were just talking about. What advice do you have for us to get more comfortable with not only our own pleasure, but also talking about it?
Casey Tanner:
I think like any fear, it’s exposing yourself to the fear and seeing that you’re going to survive it. So it’s maybe going down the list of like, okay, who could I talk about sex with? And who on that list is the least scary? And what is the least scary sexual topic I could bring up? Let’s start there. Let me show myself I can do that. Our relationship is going to be fine, probably even deeper at the end of it.
If even that is too intimidating for you, I have assigned clients the homework of just listening to sex podcasts, because even just hearing people talk about sex unapologetically can shift our nervous system responses to the idea of sex being in the room.
Tori Dunlap:
No, that’s so smart. It’s what I like to think this podcast does for money.
Casey Tanner:
Yeah, absolutely.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s very similar for sex.
Thank you so much for your work. Thank you for your honesty and your expertise. Plug away my friend. Where can people find out more about you?
Casey Tanner:
Yes. I already mentioned The Expansive Group. You can follow me at Queer Sex Therapy. You can follow The Expansive Group as well. Both on TikTok and on Instagram. I think those are the main spots.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much for being here.
Casey Tanner:
Of course. Thank you for having me.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much to Casey for joining us. You can check out her book, Feel It All: A Therapist’s Guide to Reimagining Your Relationship With Sex, wherever you get your books, and you can follow them on Instagram at @Queersextherapy.
Thank you for supporting feminist media. Thank you for supporting the show. You can subscribe to the show. You can share it with your friends. You can share it on social media. It is the best way of supporting all of the incredible work we’re doing at Financial Feminist. Thank you for being here, as always. We hope to see you back here soon. Talk to you later.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K Podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
