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None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real.
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We are very different people, which I love. You know, I love that we're so different. And I think a lot of it is tough, too, because we have our own ways and rules of how we live our lives. She's a planner, and she wants to have a five-year plan, and I'm more of a go with the flow. She talks about her life as if she wants to be sort of a nomad and not really...
just tied to any place or necessarily anyone. And part of that scares me because I wonder, I'm like, ooh, is that, you know, I'm not part of the picture?
I made a conscious choice to be my own primary partner as I explored consensual non-monogamy. We are poly, even though I'm very new to it. You know, there are a lot of things that I think she's struggling with in terms of coming out to her family. I'm the first femme in my mother's lineage to...
not have my clit cut off. Female genital mutilation. It's not funny, but it's just like that's what it is. And I, there are times when I just literally cannot feel my clit. Essentially, it's really hard for her to come. And that like makes me feel really, you know, insecure and I don't really know what I'm doing and
I don't know how to please her. And I see herself trying to feel something that she can't. And she thinks it's sort of like an ancestral block. And I don't really understand what that means. You know, I don't have that history.
There's this space now in a spiritual healing context, like address that. And I feel like sex is where all of those things meet. I want to have a conversation and a container to hold that, to hold the complexities of all the things in terms of communication, in terms of our future plans, in terms of our sex, our intimacy, our
When I came into this session, I had heard about the discrepancy of desire, a challenge around pleasure. And initially, I could see this as an individual challenge or even just a challenge of two women.
But very quickly did I understand that the subject of pleasure here was going to be a matter of reclamation. And a reclamation on the heels of a long-standing cultural tradition and cultural loyalty. And for that to happen, they sensed it in advance. Before I ever walked into the room,
in the way that they had set up the room. The room had flowers that were being dedicated to this reclamation. There was a spring of the air. There were ancestors that had been invited who needed to be part of this intergenerational conversation about female sexuality. I had a sense that this was going to be not just an important conversation, but a big conversation.
A conversation that goes beyond the specifics of what these two women were going to try to address. One of them often focused on the pragmatics of what needs to be done, and the other one often more focused on the ritual and on the meaning and the intention that accompanied what was being done. Hi!
You know what? Since you've been sitting here for a while, why don't you just stand up for a second? Sure, sure. And just get yourself... We did a little walking around and shaking. You did? We did a little walking around. We can all do a tiny bit of this. And I think for many of us, the ground is moving at this moment. Yeah. Yeah.
In all kinds of ways. So how is the ground moving for you? Yeah, I mean, it's been a really, obviously, I'm sure you've been hearing this like an interesting year. No, where? Really? Yeah, it felt, so I turned 35.
And for some reason, that number felt very different from any other number. It felt especially large. In what way? Yeah, it felt like, holy shit, I'm supposed to have all these things figured out. Everything, you know? Let's name a few. Yeah.
So I'm supposed to have, I'm supposed to, um, that sentence starter is already interesting. Totally. Yeah. I know. So yeah, I, I want to make sure that I know where I'm going to be. Right. So this past year I've been in between two places. I've been in New York and I've been in New Orleans with her.
So I want to be anchored, centered in a place and like really think about cultivating community and family. And so, yeah, I'm supposed to have a baby, right? Like 35 is like you're with your person, have a baby, you know, like be settled in a job that you like or have some sort of steady income. I've been wanting to be a writer my entire life and I have not really finished anything or published anything yet.
And so it's like, you're supposed to have all these things. I'm one of those people who really stick around. Like if it's, if it's not, if the shit's not broken, you know, seriously, I am there, you know, like I've been in my apartment for 14 years. I've been in my job for almost 10 years. I've like, I stay, you know, and when the quarantine sort of shifted all of that and I,
essentially moved to New Orleans for the big part of the year, I saw all these possibilities of leaving. It felt really freeing. That was expensive for you. Yeah. Which is like such a big reason why I'm attracted to her, you know, because she sort of, she embodies that.
And yet it's also really scary, you know, because I always like to have a plan. The plan can change, but like want to know what we're, you know, try to be aligned. Do you have any idea, any sense as to why that is so important to you? I mean, I think my father is very much like that. I'm very much like him.
That being? Meaning like, what's the plan? Very timely, sort of like, yeah, making our life around these sort of like rules, essentially. Whereas my mom is very much the opposite. Doesn't rush for anyone or anything. And for me, that feels like I don't, like I'm out of control or something if I were to do that. And yeah, that doesn't feel freeing for me to feel that way.
From the moment we are born, we seem to have a way of thinking developmentally that says, at this age, you're supposed to be sitting upright, crawling, walking, talking. And it goes on like that. And here she is at 35, and she still is saying, at this age, I should be married, with a child, settled, in a house, with my own finances straightened out.
And do they unfold or do we structure them? And this is a distinction that exists between these two women from the start. So what I'm hearing is you like to be on terra firma, you like to be on solid ground, and you do it by planning, by enforcing stability, right?
By creating continuity, but underneath there is a sense of precariousness. I'm going to zoom out for a sec before I go into... I don't know anything about you, so tell me a little bit about you, who you are as a couple, and why we are here. Okay, I can start. I used to be a hairstylist for 11 years in New Orleans, and I was able to create...
a chosen family outside of the one that I left in Virginia. I grew up in a very tight-knit Sudanese community in Northern Virginia where I learned everything about, you know, where I come from and my people and my language and all of that, but also was not able to be an individual or be a gay person without stigma and
So it was, I went with all this shame to New Orleans and became shameless. Which I feel like that is, we have this joke like in the rest of the country, queers are proud. There's pride. One would hope. And in New Orleans we're shameless. So that process for me happened there and a few months before the pandemic happened.
Can I ask you something? In order to become shamelessly gay, did you have to leave your family and the community and everything? No, just physically removed. I still have really close relationships with my siblings, with my cousins. And with them, I am completely myself. And out? Out. Out.
But with my parents and most of their generation, I'm basically don't ask, don't tell. For most everything, it's fine because I don't feel like they're even worthy of getting the inside parts of my life because they haven't shown up for me emotionally in those ways. So I've come out in other ways to them, but we've had...
a pretty drawn line. And that's the place where we can love each other simultaneously. The truth is relative. It's for the most part, like, they're in a Sudanese way. They've been unable to show up because of their community over immediate family, you know? So... And particularly paying attention to the truth is relative. Mm-hmm. How is that concept for you?
Because that's a concept of truth that is also very cultural. This is different from a certain norm in the US that does not think that truth is relative. Yeah, I mean...
It's very different from my own reality of my relationship with my family and how I've grown up and coming out and being just very American, first of all, first and foremost, and kind of being a joke between us of how American I am, which is true. I see that. And so, yeah, truth doesn't feel relative.
I think I'm just trying to sort of understand what that means for her family, you know, and I don't want to put any pressure on her at all to feel any particular way. I don't feel pressured. So what I'm hearing here is that the word coming out is broader than just declaring her gayness, her queerness.
That she came out by wanting to assert herself as an individual in a community where the collective is more important than the person and the individual. That she became a professional. That she has moved away and lives in a community of women. So she has her definitions of coming out that are the ones that also have preserved the harmony with her family.
The same thing happens around the word truth or honesty. There are conceptions of honesty that are about telling all, transparency. But there are also understandings of honesty that are about what is it that it will be like for the other person to live with the truth.
And this is the understanding of truth that she has carried that is deeply cultural and that allows her to very comfortably say truth is relative.
Truth interacts with other values that are equally important, such as maintaining harmony, preserving closeness, not shaming the honor of the family. And truth gets titrated within these other important values. It doesn't stand alone above all else. I feel like you're right on, and I don't hear people say that. It feels almost...
It's refreshing. Yeah. Yeah, I've never met her parents. And you have met her parents? Yeah, we just met. And you are together two years? Yeah. I thought it was a really big deal to meet her parents, and she thought it was a whatever. I think that there are certain rituals and rites of passage that one should be prepared for. So I would like to know when, you know, this occasion comes up, because I would like to prepare and be prepared.
I don't know, just present my best self because I feel like it's a milestone that means something. We are committed to each other, so then we talk to the parents about it. And then the nature of our relationship will change because the circle has widened. I'm very much into the ritual of how things will be done. And into that, I think that's where we can meet together.
As I'm listening to her talk about the importance of ritual, I also begin to think about how does that highlight of the ritual contrast with the "at this stage I should have done this and that." And one is a kind of a list of pragmatic accomplishments that need to be done in order to mark
where one is at in life. And the other is the need to mark each event separately, to give it its unique meaning in the moment versus the looking at the big picture and what all of that represents. I'm like, for this particular situation, I was like, I'm going to need to jump in some water after this session, so let's plan something after. And... You mean today? Yes, today.
We have a spa day afterwards. So she plans for life cycle stages and you plan for rituals. Yeah. You mark the event, she plans the event. Yeah. Not only had they prepared the room...
and given it a ritual before we started the session. They had also agreed in advance that they would have a ritual at the end of the session, that it would involve water, dunking, purification and joining. But then it led me still to ask, why a relationship now? What is it that you feel ready for at this moment that you were not ready for before? Who do you want to be in this relationship?
And what I'm hearing her talk about is that she's looking for a way to be able to remain grounded in myself and connected to you. Would like to become what? I think clear in my communication. And who do I want to become in my relationships? An attentive and expressive, self-contained person.
Because my experiences had been either completely melting and meshing with another person or doing the hiding so as not to become stuck in that polarity. With you, I feel like
Because you're so attentive and I feel like you're secure and you don't take things personally in the ways of, I say, no, I can't do something. You're not like, you know, devastated by it. It feels different, you know, and it feels possible that I can show up to be that person. Yeah, and then I really want to be
my own primary partner. And I think... What do you mean? Like, so, coming from, like, a polyamorous framework, you can have primary, secondary, whatever hierarchical relationships, which I don't think, you know, hierarchies work for some people. But for me, I just, I want to be my own number one. I see that as, like, an ancestral healing because I've never witnessed...
any of the femmes women in my life do that for themselves. And I also see what pain and suffering that causes. So I witnessed my mother and learned, had to learn behavior from her modeling to put myself last. To not spend money on myself. To think that, you know, it's okay to like
work beyond my body's capacity if it's in service to others. To not say no if something is asked of me, even if I can't do it. And to just repeat that cycle. This is a queer couple, two women.
One born in the United States, grew up here, sees herself in her own words as "very American." The other, the daughter of a Sudanese family that arrived as refugees when she was 11 years old.
One grew up within the individualistic culture of the United States. The other grew up in the United States within a very intense traditional communal structure. So when at some point they begin to talk about words like "the self" or "my primary partner" or "loyalty" or "truth" or "honesty", these words need to be unpacked culturally
Because they may sound the same, but they certainly don't mean the same. I think what's important to say is that when she's talking about being her primary partner, that is a radical idea when you have been steeped in a communal structure in which there is no self that exists separately from your connections to others. So...
I witnessed myself showing up in ways that I feel like I'm supposed to, but nobody asked me to do it. And then feeling resentful because I should have said no to begin with or been more clear on what my no's and yes's are. And my body will tell me, you know, there'll be, sometimes I'll just, won't be able to, just can't do it, you know, just have like debilitating cramps or get sick.
Something, you know. So you're talking now sexually and non-sexually. You just brought sex into the conversation, but you didn't mention it. While you want to embrace more of the individualistic model of me and self, you also realize that you still do carry very much a certain...
presence for others. The presence for others is one where responsibility is more important than pleasure. Now you say, but I want that pleasure too. And that demands that I be able to say no, because if I can say no, then I can say yes. But you also don't come from a tradition where female pleasure
Suddenly sexual pleasure. No, I'm the first person to not be genitally mutilated. Yeah. It's always heavy to say. It's okay, don't talk for a second. Yeah. Yeah. But even though I have all the parts, I don't always feel. What just came up? So much grief for the loss of pleasure. Big grief. Big, big grief.
It's a weird thing because it's like I feel the torture in it, but I also feel the rite of passage. That it's a shared practice that's led by women for women in service to I don't know what. It feels like something that was taken and distorted. It's like hiding our magic. And it's also...
painful and horrible and scarring and continues to this day. But for some reason, my line has stopped with me. I have people younger than me, born in the States, who were taken back for the rite of passage. And the rite of passage? It's called "tuhur" or it literally can be translated as "purification." But I feel the shame
from that practice, I can feel like... Do you know when you're... Either you've met your grandparents or you've met people who are now ancestors, there's like, you can feel them around. And I feel like they're hiding my grandma's because they're ashamed of having done this. And I feel, yeah, just like sad about it. And I also feel like
empowered to have more sex and feel more on their behalf. Like, it is an act of intergenerational healing for me to have an orgasm and feel clitoral stimulation and to enjoy that. Like, they want me to do it, you know? High pleasure is a reclamation. Yeah, it is. Why else did I incarnate in this time
with this body in the States, like, you know, it wasn't a thing. It's something that comes up. Even though it hasn't happened to me in this lifetime, I still sometimes just cannot feel my bits of flesh. Like, it just is not available to me. What I understand her saying to me is, "I didn't get mutilated. I have my clitoris, but I can't orgasm."
I may be biologically or physically intact, but I am sexually bereft. I've been trying with my partner to do it, but I think that I'm sitting on something that is way bigger than what the two of us can overcome.
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I still...
sometimes just cannot feel my bits of flesh. Like, it just is not available to me. And it's like something I want to work on specifically in sexy time ritual. And it just feels so big and deep to bring up. And so that's why I need other partners, sexual partners, other relationships to go there with that feel supportive in that way.
Maybe just compartmentalize that away from what we have so that I can just have fun and joyful sex sometimes and not always. I want to create a ritual. And not always. It's so heavy. I mean, sex with her is the heavy sex? No. But sometimes I need to have it and I can't. I don't feel like she can hold it. I feel like it's too much. What is too much?
It takes more than the two of you to reclaim centuries. Yeah. Finish the sentence. Yeah, it takes a ritual container to hold the centuries of grief and to remember those bits of flesh. Like, it is...
is what it feels like. It's a remembering. And to remember, I have to go to intense places. Is it a one person or do you imagine it in a collective? I'm open to what it could be. And I want her to be a part of helping me imagine that and maybe even facilitating it. I don't think just the two of us can hold it.
And I want to be prepared and our foundation and our agreements to be solid so that I can enter into it with as much safety, whatever that, you know, as possible. Tell me what you're hearing. It's interesting because... And are you hearing it differently? I don't think so. This is the first time I'm hearing it so clearly. Oh. I've heard it more framed around like...
wanting to be my own primary partner and not wanting to kind of lose myself into you and things like that. But I think less about sexual healing in a collective, in a space that I would facilitate. I've never heard that specifically. And I feel like happy that you would trust me to facilitate that process. And like, that's something that I want to enter in with you
Because I don't necessarily know what that looks like. You know, I come from a very different background and I am always trying to find out ways to make our sexy times more fun and playful and without all the like pressure of an orgasm or pressure that it has to feel this way or pressure that it has to look like this. And so this is something that I'm excited about. And I don't think I've felt excited about this possibility before because I've heard it in a different way before.
I mean, I think the story that I told myself was she is sort of like a free spirit in the wind, doesn't really want to settle down and is interested in many different partners and doesn't see, and this is like my worst fear, doesn't see a long lasting future with me.
And I know that she loves me. And I know that, like, that's the bad place story. That's not a story I tell myself every day. It's just, you know, one of those, like, ooh. That was just a fear of mine. And it was also something that I wanted to try because I also don't want to lose myself into one relationship. I grew up sort of collectively in, like, a family structure with lots of people, right?
And want to make sure that the same family that I cultivate has a similar structure. And that feels very poly, regardless if I'm having a lot of romantic sexual partners, you know. But I couldn't really wrap my head around, like, the multiple sexual romantic partners aspect of it.
But since we've been in a pandemic and we've been very strict on our protocols, we have not been meeting any people or it's not even been part of our, it's been more of a fantasy than anything in practicality. Theoretical. Yeah, we're theoretically very poly, but not in practice. So yeah, this is just a new, this is new information and one that I feel excited to participate in. How do you imagine, do you imagine the ritual?
Some of the stories that have blown me away over the years are the ones where people turn tragedy into triumph. And I sense that she can use her keen sensitivity to ritual as a way of overcoming the grief, the loss that she associates with so many of the women in her family and in her tribe.
And then she proceeds to tell me one of the most extraordinary stories of healing I have heard. She goes back and sets up the whole ritual, the way that it is done in Africa for her, but with a completely mind-blowing outcome. I could never have come up with something like that myself, nor could I have ever predicted where she was going.
But what I knew is that we had created the container in the room that started with the wish they both set the room up before I even came in, that was going to make this possible. And suddenly we were in this therapy office that was anything but a therapy office at that moment. I imagine... What's your fantasy? My fantasy is that... Okay, so I'm in a room...
you know, maybe like candlelit, but there's like, it's ambient lighting. And there's like a lot of like smoke medicine and I'd be wearing red. It'd probably be like a Sekhmet altar or something like that. I do feel like there's people there. It almost feels like I'd be recreating the ritual, the Hur, but like in a pleasure way. And instead of getting like
Just all of the sensory things that could happen to my pussy are happening. It's like from like something cold to something hot to like something soft. It's just like all of the things are being teased almost. Maybe I'm restrained, but I just have to like release, surrender. I feel like it needs to be a surrender. Like I'm just totally pillow princess. Like...
I don't touch anybody. And... Who touches you? They seem like faceless people. I don't think it even matters who they are. How many? There's maybe like four or five people in the room. Not everyone's touching me. People are doing other things. There's maybe chanting. I hear the like Sudanese folk songs, you know. Do you know it? Sing it. Yeah.
The one that came to me is actually a song that is sung during a jiritic ceremony, which is a commitment ceremony. And all of the femmes from both sides adorning and blessing the union. And the chant, it's... ♪
I don't know why it makes me so emotional. I just feel like they are singing with me. These are all as queer person gates that I will not be able to enter unless I do them for myself or I find my community to do them for me. You are right now. That's exactly what you're doing.
Well, I think it's true that she is in this moment claiming and entering those gates on her own. It is also true that part of the intense emotion that she's overcome with is the grief and the loss of something that she's leaving, that she's decided she doesn't want to live with. But that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of attachment to it either.
And this is true for many of us, that when we leave something that we've chosen to leave behind, we have to be able to hold both the desire for where we're going and the feelings of what we're leaving. And with her as the emcee. Yeah. Yeah, it is true. I'm doing them for myself. I have the people who want to do them with me. You're transforming the whole ritual.
Your word that it's a sexual healing is, it's more than sexual. It's a healing that goes through the sex, but captures a lot of other things. And part of why you haven't been able to talk about it, and part of why you then hear it as, I'm not enough and she won't stay with me, is because you're using a language that hasn't been as helpful. You have used the word poly and you think about your extended family. I know.
And you are using the word poly and you're talking about wanting more partners. And that may be the case. But this conversation cannot take place when you're using a word that you are each defining so completely differently. And so what you want really to make sure that you hear is that when you present it like this, she's honored. She's not excluded. She's honored. Right.
Yeah, did I hear that? Yep, totally. And then when you navigate away from this particular word and can describe in detail what you want, I feel excited for you and excited to be included in the process. Thanks, baby. Thank you. You're welcome. It was today that I saw that.
It's not insignificant that you are imagining this ceremony, this returning woman into her body, this keeping that little foreskin clit, which is the one thing that has no function, any other than pleasure. Normally evolution would have taken care of that. Evolution has basically done away with anything that doesn't serve a purpose. Mm-hmm.
And part of why I'm imagining you want to do it now has to do with the degree of commitment that you feel toward her. That is a question. When she thinks commitment, she thinks sacrifice. And in order to be able to make a commitment to you, she has to go through this ritual with you because then she will feel that she owns her sexuality and not that it is being offered up, but rather than offered to.
That resonates. So tell me, or tell her, what's your experience of hierarchy and power? Because all you said is, my mom comes last. Women come last. But that doesn't mean that he comes first. Oh, yeah. First is community. It's not a person. Okay. It's community. And the community has its own, you know, the group soul. Yeah.
is like, has its own rules. And so community and the relationships that keep you in good standing in community come first. Do you understand this? Mm-hmm.
I understand what she's saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too, I speak English. But I think this, when I hear these things, it feels to me like it's an entire world. And the word community is like the word poly. Mm-hmm. It's one of these words that if we don't, in a relationship, really translate them... Mm-hmm.
in detail what does it represent, then it can lead to all kinds of misses. Because you also feel like you come from a community. You have the black queer community, you have the family community, you extend that network. You think you also come from a communal structure. And you both do, but they are different. Mm-hmm.
A community is like, oh, my parents have been storing people's stuff in our garage for my whole life. Everybody uses our address for their green card application. Our house has always been a place where people are staying. It means that if I have a bed that's open, it belongs to someone in my community. What's mine is ours. And if you have something, then I have it too. Community means you never are anywhere alone.
Yeah. Community then also means my sexuality doesn't belong to me. No. Community means we do rituals regardless of how we feel about it. Yeah. You have more? Community means no decisions are your own, really. It feels strong, but it also feels suffocating. So the ancestors that are here with you today...
who have just heard you describe this ritual of reclamation, what are they saying? There's not so much saying as, like, yululating. That's what I hear. Do it. Do it. So, I mean, just as an attempt on our part to hear what you hear. I hear, that's what I hear. Yeah, I'm not very good at it. That's what they sound like, though.
And it says? It communicates. It communicates joy. It communicates a completion, an arrival. So they're supporting you. Oh, yeah. I mean, the ones that I've called in, they are.
Yeah. I didn't know that you have that much choice. That's very interesting. I mean, just like you let people in your house, right? Not every guest is the guest you choose. Yeah, so I think acknowledging the ancestors and calling them into the room, being very specific about who you're calling, and then also having boundaries. Like, I'm not working with you, Jindou. Like, you're not ready. So can she invite some too? Oh, she did, yeah. Yeah.
Like? Yeah. My aunt, who recently passed away a few years ago, I mean, her, like, she's like my third parent and is my biggest cheerleader. And yeah, I called her in. Makes it feel that she's not just living in my head, but she's also present here, too. You know, it's so interesting. I met this friend of mine, colleague last night, Eli Finkel, and he...
research as marriage. And one of the three things that he highlighted that are features of strong relationships or thriving relationships is the fact that they have a diversification. There's a group of people around them, that they're not just two. It takes two not to be one, but it takes many to be two. Mm-hmm.
And you have that. If we had another session, we would continue the conversation about poly as a new translation for community. Her using the word poly or wanting to be poly is about her trying to find a way out. That's like the story that I would tell myself, you know, because this hesitation is something that I'm picking up on.
but don't really know how to identify like where it's coming from. You can talk to her. Yeah. Turn. Yeah. So I think that's what is feeding that insecurity. So you feel like... And so my need to plan is like so that I know or feel more grounded in a reality of having a future together. I hope that you can feel that I want this to...
Long term sounds so silly, but I want this to be, I want you to be my person. And I want this to be a sustainable way of us going together. Like, I go where you go, and you go where I go. And I feel like I belong, and you feel like you belong. Ooh, I need to hear that. And just breathe with it. Yes, you need to hear this. Just take it in.
Esther Perel is the author of Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs, and also the host of the podcast, How's Work? To apply with your partner for a session for the podcast or for show notes on each episode, go to whereshouldwebegin.esterperel.com. Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise for Gimlet and Esther Perel Productions.
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Walchover, Destry Sibley, Hyweta Gatana, and Julia Natt. Recorded by Noriko Okabe, Kristen Muller is our engineer. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker.
We would also like to thank Lydia Polgreen, Colin Campbell, Clara Sankey, Ian Kerner, Alma, Courtney Hamilton, Nick Oxenhorn, and Jack Saul.
