Sex, Secrets, & Sass

Sex, Secrets, & Sass

By Angie Martin, LCPC and Krissy Johnson, LMFTHealth & FitnessMental HealthSexuality
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Sex, Secrets, & Sass episodes

  • Non-Monogamy, Race & the Politics of Desire with Tiffany

    This week, Tiffany returns to Sex, Secrets, & Sass for an honest conversation about what non-monogamy actually looks like when real feelings, real partners, and real-life complications enter the picture.

    Tiffany shares how her relationships have evolved since her first appearance, including the difference between understanding compersion intellectually and navigating jealousy when a new partner enters the picture. They talk about pacing, communication, and the emotional labor of “onboarding” someone into an established relationship.

    Tiffany also reflects on growing up biracial and how moving between white and Black communities shaped her identity, dating experiences, and sense of belonging.

    Using the book Untrue as a jumping-off point, they examine stereotypes imposed on Black women—including the Mammy, the “Ho,” and the angry Black woman—alongside colorism, fetishization, dating-app desirability, and unequal pay for Black performers in porn.

    The episode takes an extremely important detour into Krissy’s lifelong obsession with her hall pass, Cal Ripken Jr.—plus a special appearance by her Cal doll, best experienced on YouTube. 😂 In a statistically unlikely—and frankly suspicious—twist, Cal is also Angie’s hall pass. Apparently, the women of Sex, Secrets, & Sass share more than microphones and sass.

    The conversation eventually returns to aging, menopause, and what happens as women move beyond the years when society considers them most sexually visible. Is aging an erasure—or can it become a different kind of power?

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • How non-monogamy feels different in practice than it does in theory
    • Jealousy, compersion, pacing, and introducing a new partner
    • The emotional labor of “onboarding” someone into a relationship
    • Tiffany’s experience growing up between white and Black communities
    • How race shapes identity, dating, belonging, and desirability
    • Attraction versus sexualization and fetishization
    • The stereotypes historically imposed on Black women
    • Colorism and racial hierarchies on dating apps
    • Race, power, and unequal pay within pornography
    • Aging, menopause, visibility, and women’s power
    • Kyriarchy—and how overlapping systems of power harm everyone
    • Krissy’s Cal Ripken Jr. hall pass and the Cal doll you must see on YouTube
    • Skirt clubs, play parties, and the adventures Tiffany may report back on next time

    Who gets to be desired, believed, powerful, complicated, and fully themselves—and who has historically been forced into a role?

    About Tiffany

    Tiffany is a licensed marriage and family therapist who brings both clinical insight and lived experience to conversations about non-monogamy, race, sexuality, identity, and relationships.

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    42 min
  • Who Gets to Define Virginity? Purity, Pleasure & Power Across Generations

    Virginity is not a medical diagnosis, a moral achievement, or a measure of someone’s worth.

    So why are girls still taught to treat it like all three?

    In this episode, Angie and Krissy sit down with Rachel, a senior and communication major at UC Santa Barbara, whose zine project examines virginity, women’s pleasure, patriarchy, and the moral weight society places on girls’ sexuality.

    Rachel shares how a college course on sex, love, and romance led her to bigger questions: Who created the rules around virginity? Why are women expected to “lose” something while men are praised for “taking” it? And why is a woman’s perceived purity still treated as evidence of her value?

    The conversation becomes deeply personal as Rachel discusses surviving sexual abuse in childhood and how that trauma shaped her relationship with intimacy. She explains how academic language helped her understand virginity as a social construct—not a verdict on her body, history, or worth.

    Angie and Krissy also reflect on their own first sexual experiences, religious messaging, consent, and the shame many women inherited before they were old enough to question it. Together, the three compare generational experiences of sex education—from silence and purity culture to classrooms where masturbation, pleasure, and power can finally be discussed out loud.

    And yes, they revisit the infamous purity-culture gum analogy—because apparently having sex once made a girl a piece of gum nobody else would want to chew. Charming. 🙄

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Virginity as a social construct rather than a measure of worth
    • Why girls are taught to connect sexuality with purity and morality
    • The double standard between women “losing” virginity and men “taking” it
    • Rachel’s zine on women’s pleasure, patriarchy, and sexual shame
    • How childhood sexual abuse can shape intimacy and self-perception
    • Finding language that separates trauma from identity
    • Religious messaging, consent, and shame around first sexual experiences
    • Generational differences in sex education and conversations about pleasure
    • Why women are often doubted when challenging patriarchal narratives
    • Feminism, wedding traditions, and questioning the rules we inherit
    • The power of women supporting women across generations

    Your sexual history is not a character reference. It does not determine whether you are pure, damaged, desirable, respectable, or worthy of love.

    Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood sexual abuse, trauma, religious shame, and first sexual experiences.

    About Rachel

    Rachel is a UC Santa Barbara senior and communication major whose zine explores virginity, patriarchy, women’s pleasure, and sexual shame.

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    43 min
  • Kink Without Shame: Consent, Power & Pleasure with Goddess Hecate

    Let’s start here: having a fantasy does not make you a bad person.

    What matters is how you explore it and whether everyone involved is informed, consenting, and genuinely on board.

    In this episode, Angie and Krissy sit down with Goddess Hecate, a professional switch and fetish content creator, for an honest, funny, and uncensored conversation about BDSM, polyamory, sex work, pleasure, and building a life that actually feels authentic.

    Hecate explains what it means to be a switch - someone who enjoys both dominant and submissive roles - and how professional BDSM differs from lifestyle kink. She also takes listeners inside the structured world of Sanctuary LAX, where clear boundaries, communication, and consent shape every professional session.

    Raised in a strict Christian environment, Goddess Hecate moved through monogamy, motherhood, postpartum depression, atheism, polyamory, kink, and witchcraft as she began questioning the beliefs and rules she had inherited. She also shares how ketamine therapy became a turning point in her recovery and opened the door to major life changes.

    The conversation explores how desire sometimes speaks through the body before we have language for it. For Goddess Hecate, tattoos, piercings, intense sensations, and curiosity offered early clues about interests she didn’t yet know how to name.

    And yes, they talk about sadism, masochism, power exchange, lactation kink, content creation, and why pretending to enjoy something for money is not the same as building work around genuine interest.

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • What it means to be a professional switch
    • The difference between professional BDSM and lifestyle kink
    • How structured dungeon settings support safety and clear boundaries
    • Consent, negotiation, power exchange, sadism, and masochism
    • Recognizing desires before having words for them
    • Hecate’s path from Christianity and monogamy to polyamory, kink, and witchcraft
    • Creating fetish content rooted in genuine interest and pleasure
    • Exploring new kinks without abandoning your boundaries
    • Finding supportive communities where curiosity is welcomed
    • Why fantasy alone does not make anyone dangerous, broken, or bad

    You do not have to act on every fantasy. But you are allowed to become curious about what it means and whether there is a safe, consensual way to explore it with other adults.

    About Goddess Hecate

    Goddess Hecate is a professional switch and fetish content creator. Her approach centers consent, communication, authenticity, and helping adults explore power, sensation, and fantasy without shame.

    Connect with Goddess Hecate

    Website: goddesshecate.com
    Instagram: @goddesshecatereigns
    LoyalFans: @hecatereigns
    X/Twitter: @hecatereigns

    Connect with your hosts

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    43 min
  • Who Are We Now? Illness, Intimacy & Body Trust with Sara Champie, LCSW

    A diagnosis - or even the possibility of one - can divide life into a before and an after. It doesn’t just change a medical chart. It can change how you relate to your body, your identity, your sexuality, your partner, and the future you thought you understood.

    In this episode, Angie and Krissy sit down with NARM Master Therapist Sara Champie, LCSW, for a deeply personal conversation about developmental trauma, hereditary cancer risk, and staying connected to yourself when your body changes the entire damn map.

    Sara shares her experience of losing her mother to ovarian cancer at age 10, receiving her own BRCA1-positive genetic results by mail with little support, and living for years with elevated cancer risk. She also opens up about choosing a prophylactic double mastectomy—on her timeline and according to her values, rather than being rushed into someone else’s plan.

    Together, they explore what serious illness can awaken: old survival strategies, guilt about burdening others, the reflex to caretake everyone else, and the pressure for women to remain healthy, attractive, capable, and “whole.”

    They also talk honestly about intimacy after illness and surgery - including body image, dissociation, scars, hormonal changes, surgical menopause, and reconnecting with a body that may no longer feel familiar.

    At the center of it all is one powerful question: Who are we now?

    Not who were we before the diagnosis, surgery, or loss - but who are we today, and what do we need now?

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • How illness can reactivate childhood survival strategies
    • The “woman who holds everything together” and the cost of caretaking
    • Guilt, self-blame, and believing you should have known something was wrong
    • Sara’s experience with childhood loss, BRCA1, and hereditary cancer risk
    • Making medical decisions at your own pace and from your own values
    • Cultural messages about health, femininity, aging, and being “whole”
    • Body image, hormones, and sexual connection after treatment
    • Reconnecting with a changed body through curiosity and compassion
    • Trusting yourself as part of informed medical decision-making
    About Sara Champie

    Sara Champie, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and NARM Master Therapist specializing in developmental trauma, grief, cancer, hereditary genetic risk, and life-altering medical decisions. She also hosts Walking the Genetic Line, a podcast exploring hereditary cancer risk, trauma, identity, and healing.

    Connect with Sara:

    Website: sarachampielcsw.com
    Instagram: @sarachampielcsw
    Podcast: Walking the Genetic Line

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    43 min
  • Childfree by Choice: Who Gets to Define Womanhood?

    Apparently, being a woman comes with a preassigned life plan: want babies, become a mother, change your last name, absorb most of the invisible labor, and eventually answer to “Grandma.”

    Angie and Krissy would like a word. 😂

    In this episode, they get honest about motherhood, choosing to be childfree, and the deeply annoying assumption that every woman either wants children or will eventually “change her mind.”

    Krissy shares that she knew from a young age she didn’t want children - partly because she watched how hard her mother worked as a single parent. She also talks about being told she wasn’t maternal, as though not wanting to raise children means being incapable of nurturing anyone.

    Over time, she recognized that her own nurturing instincts show up through her clients, relationships, and the dogs who absolutely became her babies.

    Angie offers a different perspective: she always wanted motherhood, loved pregnancy, and embraced staying home with her children. Together, they make room for both truths - because feminism isn’t about deciding which life women should want. It’s about women getting to decide for themselves.

    Then the conversation takes a very on-brand detour: Why is there a familiar word for male sexual vigor - “virile” - but no commonly used female equivalent? Why does language give men potency and women…“womanliness”? Seriously?!?

    From there, they dig into the expectations women inherit around names, marriage, family roles, caregiving, and the invisible work of remembering and organizing everyone’s lives. They even tackle the very serious question of why Krissy will be called Kiki and Angie plans to be Gigi - because neither one is answering to Grandma, thank you very much.

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Knowing you don’t want children - and being told you’ll change your mind
    • The difference between wanting motherhood and having nurturing instincts
    • Why childfree women are often assumed to dislike children
    • Making room for both the freedom and the occasional grief of the road not taken
    • Angie’s experience of wanting and embracing motherhood
    • Why feminism must include the freedom to choose either path
    • The missing female equivalent of “virile”
    • What language reveals about attitudes toward female desire and power
    • The identity shift and emotional weight of changing your last name
    • The invisible labor women often absorb in marriage and family life
    • Rejecting titles, roles, and traditions that don’t fit

    Whether you became a mother, chose not to, couldn’t, are still deciding, or built a nurturing life that doesn’t fit neatly into any category, your womanhood was never supposed to depend on checking the right boxes.

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    37 min
  • Why Women Cheat: It’s Not Just About Sex

    Let’s get one thing out of the way: understanding why someone cheats is not the same as saying nobody gets hurt - or that anything goes.

    But reducing every affair to “a bad person did a bad thing” is lazy, and it leaves out nearly everything worth understanding.

    In this episode, Angie and Krissy take on infidelity through a sex-positive, nonjudgmental lens. They explore why women have affairs, how two people can have completely different definitions of cheating, and what secrecy may be trying to provide when someone feels unseen, unwanted, disconnected, or obligated in their primary relationship.

    They also revisit the internet’s very calm and rational response (LOL 😂) to the suggestion that women may want sex as much as men. Because having sexual desire is not the same thing as wanting sex with your current partner. Desire can disappear inside a relationship where someone feels emotionally neglected, pressured, resentful, unsafe, or reduced to a role.

    Krissy shares her own experience of an emotional affair that began with flirtation and validation during a relationship in which she felt unattractive and sexually disconnected. Angie brings in patterns she hears from women who describe affairs not simply as sexual escape, but as a response to feeling chronically unseen, unheard, or obligated.

    None of that erases the hurt caused by betrayal. But shame and labels rarely tell us why something happened, and without understanding the why, real repair is pretty damn difficult.

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Why wanting sex is not the same as wanting sex with your current partner
    • What actually “counts” as cheating: sex, kissing, texting, secrecy, or emotional connection?
    • Why couples should define infidelity before they are in the middle of a crisis
    • Emotional neglect, resentment, desire, validation, and other motives behind affairs
    • Krissy’s personal experience with an emotional affair
    • How cheating can function as self-soothing, escape, or compulsive comfort-seeking
    • Why women are often judged more harshly than men for the same behavior
    • The difference between understanding infidelity and excusing it
    • Why curiosity creates more possibility for repair than shame
    • The importance of having somewhere safe to tell the whole truth

    If infidelity is part of your story - whether you cheated, were betrayed, or are still trying to decide what happened - you deserve a place where you can talk about it honestly without being reduced to the worst thing you’ve ever done.

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    42 min
  • Your Sex Life Doesn’t Have to Be Stagnant with Amy Henderson

    What if talking about sex didn’t require awkward euphemisms, blushing, or waiting until your relationship was already in trouble?

    This week, Angie and Krissy are joined by therapist Amy Henderson for an open, funny, and very personal conversation about sex, intimacy, consent, and all the shame-filled messages many of us absorbed long before we were old enough to question them.

    Amy shares how she begins conversations about sex with teenage clients, why adults often say “intimacy” when they really mean sex, and how that one word can mean completely different things to two people in the same relationship. For one partner, intimacy may mean intercourse. For the other, it may mean emotional connection, affection, or—God forbid—helping with the dishes.

    The conversation gets personal as Amy reflects on growing up in a sex-taboo household, her first sexual experiences with the man who became her husband, and later recognizing her attraction to women. Angie and Krissy join in with stories about shame, masturbation, first orgasms, and learning far later than anyone should have to what the hell was happening in their own bodies.

    They also explore consensual non-monogamy, threesomes, kink, and why exploration can be healthy when everyone involved feels informed, safe, and genuinely on board. Because there is no single “right” way to have sex—but consent is never optional.

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Why therapists should talk openly with teens about sex, consent, sexuality, and safety
    • The very different meanings couples attach to the word “intimacy”
    • How childhood and cultural messages create sexual shame
    • Amy’s experience of recognizing her bisexuality later in life
    • Navigating attraction and curiosity within a monogamous marriage
    • Why consent and emotional safety come before exploration
    • Normalizing non-monogamy, threesomes, kink, and sexual curiosity
    • Using a yes/no/maybe list to start conversations without pressure
    • Talking about pleasure both inside and outside the bedroom
    • Why your sex life does not have to become stagnant
    • The wildly different ways masturbation is discussed with boys and girls
    • Why couples who can talk about sex can usually talk about almost anything
    About Amy Henderson:

    Amy Henderson, MA, LCPC, CTRT/C, is a therapist who works with teens, adults, couples, and families. She believes sex belongs in the therapy room when it matters—and that honest, shame-free conversations about consent, intimacy, identity, and pleasure can help people create safer and more connected relationships.

    Henderson Counseling
    Website: hendersoncounseling.org

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    43 min
  • Stop Romanticizing Chaos: Dating, Parts Work & Better Sex with Karina Breezer

    What happens when you’ve done enough work on yourself to recognize the red flags - yet dating somehow remains a complete shitshow?

    This week, Angie and Krissy are joined by therapist Karina Breezer for a funny, honest, and surprisingly deep conversation about dating in your 40s, becoming more fully yourself, and finally retiring the belief that intensity automatically equals connection.

    Karina shares one spectacularly bad first date that inspired a whole new set of screening questions - including whether someone has been to jail and whether they actually pay their child support. Because apparently, these are things we need to ask now.

    But the conversation goes far beyond dating disasters. The three dig into the “knots” created by trauma, family messages, cultural expectations, and past relationships - and how those knots shape what we tolerate, who we choose, and the stories we tell ourselves about love.

    They also talk about younger parts showing up during sex and intimacy, what a genuinely safe partner can hold, and why better sex starts with being present, authentic, and responsible for your own pleasure.

    Because you are, in fact, in charge of your own orgasm.

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Dating in your 40s - and the red flags that become harder to unsee
    • Why loneliness can make us explain away behavior we know is not okay
    • Karina’s “shit moment” timeline and how old experiences shape present-day beliefs
    • Growing into who you’ve always been underneath the roles, rules, and expectations
    • Why younger and protective parts can surface during intimacy
    • Why being happily single beats being miserable in a relationship
    About Karina Breezer

    Karina Breezer, LCPC, CFRS, CCE, is the founder of Breezer Counseling & Wellness, which serves individuals, families, and professionals throughout Illinois. Her work includes relationships, trauma, divorce, family conflict, reunification therapy, and complex relational systems - all delivered with clinical depth and refreshingly little therapist stiffness.

    She is also the creator of The Plot Twist, a monthly curated experience for mothers navigating divorce, featuring expert speakers, thoughtfully selected books, community, and support through one of life’s biggest transitions.

    Connect with Karina:

    Breezer Counseling & Wellness
    Website: breezercounselingandwellness.com
    Instagram: @breezercounselingwellness
    Learn more about The Plot Twist

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    50 min
  • Women, Infidelity & the Lies We’ve Been Told About Desire

    What if a whole lot of what we’ve been taught about women, sex, monogamy, jealousy, and desire is… well… bullshit?

    This week, we’re diving into Wednesday Martin’s Untrue and using it as a jumping-off point for a very Gen Sexers conversation about women’s sexuality, infidelity, shame, compersion, cultural double standards, and the stories we’ve inherited about what women are supposed to want.

    We talk about whether women really cheat less than men, the difference between fantasy and actually watching your partner with someone else, why women are often judged so differently for infidelity, and whether jealousy is always the inevitable response we assume it is.

    We also get into some fascinating research around female sexual responsiveness, the impact of motherhood and mental load on desire, and how culture shapes everything from sex education to how comfortable we are with pleasure, nudity, and our own bodies.

    And yes, somehow this conversation also takes us through hunter-gatherers, the agricultural revolution, bonobos, and BDSM dungeons.

    Basically, it’s a normal episode. 😂

    In this episode, we talk about:
    • Wednesday Martin’s argument that women who step outside traditional monogamy may be challenging much bigger cultural rules about autonomy and female sexuality
    • Why the “men cheat, women don’t” narrative may be far shakier than we’ve been taught
    • Fantasy versus reality when it comes to non-monogamy, watching a partner with someone else, jealousy, and turn-ons
    • Compersion, or experiencing pleasure from seeing your partner experience pleasure
    • The shame and secrecy that can surround women’s affairs
    • Why women and men are still judged very differently for the exact same sexual behavior
    • Where some of our ideas about gender roles may have come from historically
    • Why the belief that men naturally have higher sex drives deserves a serious side-eye
    • Research suggesting women’s arousal may be broader and less category-specific than we tend to assume
    • Bonobos, female-led sexuality, and what our primate cousins might have to teach us
    • How culture, upbringing, and sex education influence what we label “normal”
    • Motherhood, exhaustion, responsibility, and the very real effect they can have on desire

    This is one of those conversations that starts with a book and ends up questioning a whole bunch of assumptions most of us were handed without ever agreeing to them.

    Come get curious with us.

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin, LCPC, LMHC
    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

    Follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass

    If you enjoyed this episode, follow Sex, Secrets, & Sass wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

    And if something in this conversation made you laugh, think, squirm a little, or text your best friend immediately, we’d love it if you’d rate, review, and share the show. It helps more people find us and keeps these conversations going.

    48 min
  • Non-Monogamy, Age Gaps & the Truth About Desire

    What happens when you stop assuming monogamy is the only way relationships are supposed to work?

    This week, we’re joined by Tiffany, a licensed marriage and family therapist in California, for a very candid conversation about ethical non-monogamy, desire, attachment, jealousy, age-gap dating, bisexuality, and all the rules we inherit about what relationships are supposed to look like.

    Tiffany shares her own experience of realizing that she had felt non-monogamous “in her soul” for much of her adult life, even before she had language for it. We talk about what it can feel like to love your partner deeply and still want experiences outside of that relationship, and the difference between secrecy and consensual exploration.

    We also get into the different flavors of non-monogamy, including open relationships, swinging, and polyamory, and why consent, honesty, and communication are really the common denominator.

    And because this is Sex, Secrets, & Sass, naturally we wander into some other territory too. 😂

    We talk about:

    • Dating younger men, dating older men, and what being desired can mean at different stages of life
    • Why a bad kisser may, in fact, be an immediate dealbreaker
    • Attraction to women, bisexuality, sexual fluidity, and whether everything actually needs a label
    • Attachment, jealousy, and how emotional security can change the way we experience non-monogamy
    • The difference between honoring your partner’s feelings and allowing those feelings to completely dictate your choices
    • What happens when you’ve spent years following relationship rules you never consciously chose
    • And whether monogamous marriage is really “natural,” or simply the relationship structure most of us were handed without much discussion

    We’re not trying to convince anyone to become non-monogamous. We are interested in what happens when we get curious about the things we’ve been taught are normal, acceptable, or required, especially when it comes to sex and relationships.

    Because sometimes the more interesting question isn’t, “What am I supposed to want?”

    It’s: “What do I actually want?”

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Untrue by Wednesday Martin

    Connect with your hosts:

    Krissy Johnson, LMFT
    In The Life Therapy
    Instagram: @inthelifetherapy
    Website: inthelifetherapy.com

    Angie Martin

    New Approach Mental Health
    Instagram: @newapproachmentalhealth
    Website: newapproachmentalhealth.com

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    Sex. Secrets. Sass. And the conversations we probably should’ve been having all along.

    42 min

About Sex, Secrets, & Sass

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A podcast about sex, secrets, relationships, double lives, betrayal, identity, the patriarchy, and the complicated reality of being a woman!

No topic is too taboo. Just honest conversations,…