S01E09 – “Bearing Witness” ft. Sister T’Aint A Virgin

OVERVIEW:

What does it mean to bear witness to pleasure? In this episode, I sit down with Sister T’Aint A Virgin from the legendary Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. From the radical origins of the Sisters’ activism during the AIDS epidemic to their modern mission of expiating shame and spreading joy, we explore how witnessing sex can be transformative, educational, and liberating.

Sister T’Aint A Virgin shares her journey from curious voyeur to symbiosexual, finding profound meaning in observing the intimacy of others and embracing the diversity of queer bodies and sexualities. Along the way, she opens up about navigating consent, cultivating intergenerational mentorship, and her most adventurous sexual experiences. Whether you’ve ever been curious about watching, engaging, or just learning from the beauty of connection, this episode invites you to reconsider how bearing witness can enrich your own sexual liberation.

TRANSCRIPT:

Trevor Hoppe (00:09)
Hey, welcome to the best gay sex podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Trevor Hoppe. Today’s episode is about bearing witness. Now I know the word witness probably conjures up images of someone testifying in a court of law, but today we’re talking about the radical pleasure of watching. Witnessing sex can be transformative, not just for the person that’s doing the watching, but

also for those who are being watched. And that’s because the act itself shatters all that stigma and shame that tells us as queer men to keep our sex behind closed doors, out of sight, out of mind. And for today’s guests, witnessing can also be a form of sex education. Sister Tana Virgin is a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

nonprofit group of queer nuns that began in San Francisco all the way back in 1979. And you may recognize their kind of campy irreverent style with those nun habits that you’ll see if you’re watching the episode. They work to quote promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt. Through their ministry of presence, community service,

and groundbreaking efforts like creating the first ever safer sex pamphlet targeting gay men. The sisters have become icons globally when it comes to queer activism and sex positivity. In this episode, Sister Tana Virgin explains how watching has shaped her understanding of pleasure, connection, and queer liberation. Let’s listen in.

Trevor Hoppe (02:00)
Sister T’Aint A Virgin, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (02:04)
Hello

Trevor Hoppe (02:04)
It’s a pleasure to have you, and tell listeners and viewers a little bit about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence because they’re going to be looking at you and some will be familiar but some won’t be, so let’s just start there.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (02:11)
Yeah, of course.

course.

Great. Yeah. So this is sort of perpetual indulgence as a nonprofit organization that started here in San Francisco in 1979. We just celebrated our 45th anniversary. As sisters, we take vows to the community to promulgate universal joy and to expiate stigmatic guilt. We do that through various forms of community service, social fundraising, engagement with the community.

Trevor Hoppe (02:29)
awesome.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (02:45)
Our main thing is our ministry of presence, which is just kind of putting on these fabulous habits and then going out into the community and kind of being ministers within the community. We’re non-denominational and each sister kind of has their own ministry that they feel called to do, that we also kind of interlap in a lot of different ways.

Trevor Hoppe (03:08)
And there’s kind of a sex-positive origin story to that, right?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (03:11)
Yes, absolutely. The sisters, again, kind of founded and really rallied together, primarily as initially some gay men who were kind of tired with the fact that the government really wasn’t stepping up in any capacity for the early stages of the AIDS epidemic. And so we kind of started helping ourselves out and we did that through our kind of social activism.

Trevor Hoppe (03:33)
you

Sister T’aint A Virgin (03:40)
The Sisters put together the first ever Safer Sex pamphlet that was really tailored towards gay men, that was meant in a sense that was more positive and pleasure focused, while also providing kind of important health information. We call that Playfair. And then we’ve kind of done other kind of fundraising efforts throughout the decades, largely related to AIDS organizations, but we’ve now kind of expanded into all forms of sex positivity.

Trevor Hoppe (04:10)
I love that. And how long have you been a member of the Sisters?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (04:14)
I’ve been a member for about 14 years now. Yeah, I initially joined back in 2010 and became fully professed in 2011.

Trevor Hoppe (04:25)
Professed: I assume that’s the initiation word, right? You become Professed is that right? Yeah. Fabulous.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (04:28)
Yes, exactly. Yes, we have a very rigorous initiation

process. And then you become fully professed after kind of demonstrating your commitment to the community at large.

Trevor Hoppe (04:39)
I love that. remember living in San Francisco doing the Easter celebrations and the sisters would always be there. And I think it plays on this, obviously, the religious overtones, but what’s so fabulous about it is that it’s so campy and over the top and sexy. I mean, a lot of times it can be quite sexy. I love that.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (04:56)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah. I mean, so Easter

is our anniversary. it’s the first day that, four sisters put on habits and kind of went out to the street. they had done other forms of street theater up until that point. it was really kind of these numbs habits that really polarized the community in a way that kind of got people excited. And I think a lot of that’s going back to kind of some forms of religious trauma, or just religious affinity. but again, kind of.

Trevor Hoppe (05:18)
Mm-hmm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (05:25)
tailoring it and filtering it through this lens of kind of being the holy fool and bringing in kind of tongue and cheekness. But Easter is our claim to fame. We host the Hunky G this and the Foxy Mary contest as well. And we encourage people to be as fun and creative and sexy and flirtatious as they want to be. And it’s always fun seeing what people interpret that to be in again, a very kind of positive and affirming way.

Trevor Hoppe (05:30)
Mm-hmm.

That’s fabulous.

I love that so much. And did you grow up in a religious household? You mentioned trauma. I’m just curious.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (06:00)
No. Yeah.

My dad’s side of the family is Jewish. My mom’s side of the family was more Protestant, but it was never an issue within me growing up. Neither of my parents were super religious. My mom was more spiritual, and so I was able to dabble around and figure out what it is that excited me. And I’ve always had an affinity for

kind of the structure and the ritual related to a lot of kind of organized religion, but specifically the dogma and a lot of the kind of shame based approach is never something that’s resonated with me. And seeing growing up being gay and seeing kind of a lot of my peers and kind of generations ahead of me who are kind of processing a lot of that. I knew that this was something that I could do that kind of helps reclaim

a way that kind of feels holistic and loving and joyful and pleasure-based.

Trevor Hoppe (07:06)
How did you first encounter the sisters?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (07:10)
I think I first encountered them at Easter. Again, not really even knowing that it was their actual gig, but it was just kind of Easter in the park. Everyone goes, you go for the contests. But it wasn’t until several years later that I met a sister outside of habit at the work-based training that both of us were going to called the San Francisco Sex Information.

Trevor Hoppe (07:36)
and sleep.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (07:36)
which was

kind of tailored towards sex educators to be better sex educators and be able to sit on talk on phone lines and chats in order to answer questions. And so we kind of instantly clicked because we were just these two kind of queer weirdos within this sea of already fabulous queer people. But we just instantly meshed. so at that time,

they were explaining kind of what they were going through, because they were one of a few sisters that went and took communion at one of the Catholic churches here in the city in habit. And that got national attention. And so they were in the process of processing that. And so it was fun kind of being on the reflexive end of that and just holding space for a sister to be able to kind of have their own form of a confessional instead of the sister hearing the confessional.

Trevor Hoppe (08:08)
Mm-hmm.

I bet.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (08:34)
which is usually what we do throughout their community.

Trevor Hoppe (08:37)
Mm-hmm. And before the sisters, where did you grow up? Situate me in that, because you’re in San Francisco now. Are you from there?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (08:43)
Yeah.

From the Bay Area, I grew up down on the peninsula and then went to undergrad down in Santa Cruz and then immediately moved up to San Francisco after that. My undergrad degree was in something called Community Studies, which was unique to our campus, but it allowed you to kind of go into a pre-determined kind of community at large, working with a nonprofit. He did a

six month full-time internship and you pretty much audited that organization to see if they were kind of truly meeting the needs of their mission statement as well as kind of the community that they were focused to serve. And so my focus was on sex, gender and sexuality. And I came up to San Francisco to intern with the center for sex and culture with Dr. Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence. Yes. Yeah. And so,

Trevor Hoppe (09:26)
Mm-hmm.

with Carol Queen. I love her.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (09:40)
It was like immediately new to the city and immediately diving into like kind of the wealth of different sexual communities here in San Francisco. And it was amazing experience to really kind of see and be exposed to a lot of different communities that I hadn’t already been part of. As much of my personal experience was largely kind of in the gay male experience and the center for sex and culture was everything. And so it was lovely to kind of get that exposure.

Trevor Hoppe (10:05)
Mm-hmm, you ran the gamut. Yeah.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (10:09)
and kind of learn the ins and outs of San Francisco sexuality.

Trevor Hoppe (10:14)
Yeah, there’s really no place like it in the United States, at least, when it comes to sex. It’s kind of the hub of so much cultural, political activism when it comes to sex. What was it like growing up in that environment? As a queer person, it must be like a treasure trove.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (10:20)
Right?

You know, you would think so. I think as soon as you get outside of San Francisco and kind of down on the peninsula, I think the general pulse is still more liberal than not. growing up, it was kind of in the suburbs and it was definitely much more of a kind of quasi conservative. I grew up in the kind of late 80s, early 90s and didn’t really hit my sexual maturity until kind of the early 2000s.

and my uncle, passed away about a few months before I was born from AIDS related complications. And he was my mom’s best friend and she was super supportive and loved the fact that he was out and gay and lived in San Francisco for long periods of time. But the kind of trauma of losing her brother in such a kind of traumatic way, definitely kind of filtered down to my experience growing up and kind of feeling like.

Trevor Hoppe (11:07)
god.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (11:29)
being gay meant you were going to get HIV, meaning you’re going to kind of die from AIDS related complications. And even though I was maturing at a time where we had kind of medications and like it was no longer seen as this death sentence, there was still kind of generations of kind of personal trauma that was happening there that I still had to kind of navigate, which I think kind of turned me off to wanting to be explicitly sexual in a lot of ways.

I turned that into wanting to learn everything I could about it. And so that’s what kind of drove me to being more of an activist and being more of a sex educator was really to kind of like take control of this so that I felt more comfortable kind of navigating it myself.

Trevor Hoppe (12:15)
I can relate to that so much. remember going to the gay bar early days in the 90s and I remember the song came on, I’m horny, horny, horny, horny. And I remember my little 17 year old self or whatever thinking, why is everything about sex? And just feeling some kind of way about it. And then really discovering the wonder and beauty of sex and not just the sort of negative things that come with it. And what was that exploration like for you of turning from

Sister T’aint A Virgin (12:23)
Mm-hmm.

Hahaha

Trevor Hoppe (12:44)
you know, that kind of traumatic origin to having great, hopefully the best sex.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (12:46)
Yeah.

Right?

I think I, for me, like trying to, again, being a little bit of a control freak and a little bit of a Virgo, I like wanted to kind of dip my toes in in ways I felt comfortable with it. And so my early explorations were mostly as a voyeur and really just kind of like watching other couples.

Um, and I loved that. Um, it was able to kind of see and learn all the different kinds of ins and outs of how to pleasuring a partner, how to receive pleasure, uh, without having to kind of technically be involved in it beyond just watching. Um, and that

Trevor Hoppe (13:15)
Yeah.

How did you find

those experiences?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (13:32)
largely online. You know, these were back in the days before the apps. So this was kind of like a gay.com. I think manhunt was around at that point. Craigslist. Craigslist was a big one for sure. You know, and was like Craigslist was great, like if you were able to put up the specific ad and the posting that you were looking for. And so you’re able to kind of set those terms in a way that was much easier to navigate than I think we’ve kind of

Trevor Hoppe (13:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Craigslist.

You

Sister T’aint A Virgin (14:02)
evolved into with the apps and things like that. The apps are great for just kind of listing the yes, yes and nos, but it’s not the same as kind of crafting the whole scene, which I felt was kind of more tailored to what I was able to find on Craigslist.

Trevor Hoppe (14:19)
Yeah, there’s kind of a fantasy aspect of Craigslist where you really lay it out in clear terms. It’s creative in a way that Grindr and Manhunt or whatever, it’s not the same, it’s static.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (14:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, it’s, feel like, you know, there’s much more of an instant gratification that can happen with Grindr and Scruff and Sniffy’s and all the rest, which is wonderful and great. And I love that in a lot of ways, but there is something about the kind of the mystery and the buildup that I felt like happened more with Craigslist and some of our other apps and, you know, well before that. yes. For sure.

Trevor Hoppe (14:55)
there was a lot of mystery. Always mystery.

So,

you’re watching, you’re learning. Are these gay couples that you’re watching?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (15:11)
Um, yes, at least in the early days. Yeah, earlier years, it was only gay couples. And eventually, I started kind of seeing a couple that I would kind of go and watch every so often, and it became kind of a more of a routine thing. And eventually kind of got invited into the actual scene. And that’s where I kind of had felt like I had

already established a little bit of a connection there, and then felt comfortable kind of dipping my toes into it more. And that then led to me finally kind of feeling more comfortable kind of engaging with other people. And early on, it was almost exclusively men. And then when I moved up to San Francisco and started again interning with the Center for Sex and Culture, they were hosting much more kind of these like

Trevor Hoppe (15:42)
Yeah.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (16:01)
pansexual parties and you’re seeing a lot of different kind of bodies and genders and expressions and all of that. And that I loved even more because again, it like exposed me to things that I wouldn’t naively have gravitated towards or thinking that’s kind of what it is that I’m one or interested in. And it allowed me to kind of continue to be that voyeur when I needed.

So they were able to see and witness and kind of participate in that capacity, which then led to me kind of more engaging in a variety of different sexual activities with different partners, different bodies, different genitals, all of it. And that’s what I… Yeah. yes.

Trevor Hoppe (16:42)
Mm-hmm. I love all the possible combinations of the world. What?

How did you find- I’m just curious, like that first experience, like, watching… How did you arrange- you arranged that online, but like, what was the experience like for you? Did you know that you were just gonna watch going in?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (16:55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes, I knew that I was just going to watch going in. And there was that level of comfort that was there. At the same time, it still going over to a stranger’s house. They, the couple had a very, very young child who was obviously not part of the scene. They were not there at the time.

But I went to their house and they gave me instructions to like come through the backyard because they had like their bedroom had a patio, which then had like full glass windows. And so they were able to sit on the patio on outside and just kind of watch them. But I remember walking in. Oh, well, from a distance in that like, yeah, there was like the glass screen door was there, but it was still

Trevor Hoppe (17:48)
from a distance.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (17:59)
very close in proximity. But it was kind of like watching a window show. And so it was nice because I felt like then if I needed to, I could leave at any time. But I do remember walking in and immediately tripping over one of the kids’ toys in the backyard.

and stumbling my way in and of course making a huge noise as I’m doing so. I’m like, well, there goes the fantasy. yeah, exactly. But yeah, I loved it. mean, they had a red light on, so that kind of added to it. it was just, yeah, like growing up, I of course had seen porn.

Trevor Hoppe (18:31)
That’s the real- that’s reality though, it’s always- it’s never quite the fantasy.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (18:50)
I had kind of plenty of material that way, but nothing compares to seeing it in person and seeing a couple that’s like knows each other’s bodies in a way that like is already super pleasurable and are excited about having someone else watch them. So there was kind of these extra layers from an early experience that was really quite lovely.

Trevor Hoppe (18:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think a lot of young people would benefit from watching. And old people too. We would all benefit from watching because you can learn something. Is that something you fantasized specifically about beforehand? I’m just, did you know that’s what you wanted to do?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (19:20)
All right. Yeah.

I would say,

yeah. I mean, I have always considered myself more of like an introvert in general. And so I think early on, kind of the key things of kind of getting better at sex and having a rich and fulfilling sex life has been able to navigate and communicate my wants and my needs. And early on being super introverted, being kind of very fear based, like communication was one of the hardest things for me.

And so I was like, I’m not going to be able to communicate my needs and my boundaries or any of that. And so I think doing this in a way that I’ve already pre set up everything, which is mostly just watching was a really the helpful step of kind of like, again, slowly dipping my toe in things that finally felt comfortable and enriching. And that’s when I really realized that I do enjoy watching. mean, I love actual activity and kind of getting involved as well, but

Trevor Hoppe (20:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (20:30)
There’s something so beautiful about just bearing witness.

Trevor Hoppe (20:33)
Mm-hmm. What is it about bearing witness? I don’t have a lot of experience. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of sex myself, but it never occurred to me as a young person. Like, that just was not something that I thought was possible when I was learning about sex.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (20:48)
Yeah.

I mean, I think again, it kind of connects back to this whole ministry of presence with sisters as well. I think again, growing up, a lot of us had to specifically within kind of a larger queer community, we had to kind of blunt ourselves and we had to like kind of hide ourselves. so bearing witness and kind of being present and like seeing someone, seeing someone expressing themselves in the way that they’re super excited about and probably haven’t been able to or

are finally able to as a sexual adult. There’s some things just so fun and enriching. And, you know, obviously finding exhibitionists who are equally as excited about showing off. Yeah, for me, there’s just something something so beautiful about that kind of that level of dynamic and interaction. Yeah, I’m not sure I can put it into words beyond it’s Yeah, I just love it.

Trevor Hoppe (21:52)
No, I that. It’s something that’s beyond words. It’s like transcendental or some mystical. It’s something magical. I don’t know, but I definitely get that aspect of sex is hard to describe. What were your first forays into like actually having sex like? What was that like for you?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (22:12)
Yeah,

um, I, all of my partners were much older than me. Um, that was another thing for me that just felt more comfortable and safe. Um, there was something, some level of a mentorship there as well. Um, and, uh, through that, again, just kind of met up with, I had two or three guys that I would kind of see on a somewhat routine basis. Um,

And it started off with, you know, mostly just heavy petting, making out, hand jobs, all the rest, massage, kind of exploring each other’s body. And then kind of finally kind of developed into more kind of penetrative activities and whatnot. You know, early on, I didn’t really use any terms of top or bottom or anything like that, and was mostly just kind of there to kind of

experiment and explore and try things out. There was always the kind of overwhelming or kind of hanging over your head, this kind of fear of HIV. And so I think that kind of pushed me away from doing a lot of kind of penetrative sex for long periods of time. And then prep kind of completely revolutionized that and kind of beautiful, beautiful ways as Demon has already talked about exactly, right?

Trevor Hoppe (23:20)
Mm-hmm.

Blew the lid off it, yeah.

I remember in San Francisco back in the day, there was a lot of oral play and non-penetrative play, and I think that was part of that legacy of that now there’s so much, it’s just like, bam, fucking all the time, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, it almost feels like we’ve lost a little bit of something. I don’t know, do you feel that way?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (23:46)
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I do. Though I have been quite, you know, I think people are really polarized about the term side or kind of the role of side. But I personally have loved seeing that kind of take its time in the spotlight. Because I think it right, like so much of it is focused on penetration. And don’t get me wrong, I love it as well. But

there is something equally as beautiful and equally as pleasurable and kind of fun and kind of like then mystical about exploring other ways of being sexually active together that doesn’t always require penetration.

Trevor Hoppe (24:42)
Yeah, I remember years ago I met up with a guy who had never watched porn and did not engage in penetrative sex. And at first I was like, I don’t know, this is probably not going to be great. And then it was this just mind-blowing experience, I think because there were no scripts in place. It was just our bodies. I don’t know.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (24:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Hoppe (25:09)
Again, I can’t really describe it in words, but I appreciated the reminder and the power of non-penetrative sex.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (25:14)
Totally.

I think there’s something else that that’s kind of reminding me of is that, you know, in being in these kind of pansexual play spaces, there were plenty of kind of people that I was watching and kind of bearing witness to, who I personally probably wouldn’t want to actively engage with beyond kind of just watching.

But a lot of that then meant that there was like a lots of just kind of mutual masturbation that was happening throughout these spaces. And being able to masturbate with a partner who you’re not exactly kind of interested in kind of penetrative sex with, but also kind of loving and exploring them kind of pleasuring themselves or kind of watching them do something else was also equally as fun and engaging. And especially, you know, at the time, like seeing kind of other genders.

Trevor Hoppe (26:03)
Mmm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (26:07)
kind of exploring themselves and seeing how other genders are kind of doing sex that’s not exactly penetrative was this kind of wealth of San Francisco underbelly that I just love and it’s through San Francisco.

Trevor Hoppe (26:23)
huh. I remember it well. That was a fun two years when I lived there, for sure. A lot of times I feel like, at least, that I’ve learned some of most valuable lessons about sex from having bad sex. Are there experiences like that that you can remember that were like, god, it went bad, but you walked away feeling like, you know, a little enlightened?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (26:25)
Hehehehehe

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. think the thing that comes most pertinent to me is kind of early on in coming up to San Francisco, I was living in a kind of queer collective household that was known for throwing lots of sex parties and being the host of the parties. You were always there, which was fine. I love that. But I still hadn’t kind of fully come to owning

Trevor Hoppe (27:02)
Mm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (27:13)
my boundaries. And so I still remember kind of early on kind of being engaged with people who were probably a little bit more aggressive and a little bit more either under the influence of certain substances, where it just made it harder for me to kind of truly feel comfortable voicing my, no, this is passing the boundary. Let’s let’s pause here. And I found myself just kind of remaining quiet and a lot of those times.

and kind of just going through with something in order to kind of get it done. And it, of course, didn’t feel great in the moment. Of course, afterwards, it felt even worse because there’s like levels of kind of shame and guilt there. But it did eventually kind of lead to me to being like, like, no, body autonomy is an important aspect of what I view as sexuality, as is consent, as is kind of pleasure. And so

All of that needs to happen through communication. And I just need to kind of develop my communication skills and saying what I do want and what I don’t want and hearing what my partner wants and hearing what my partner doesn’t want. Still something I’m learning and kind of developing, but it is one of the aspects that I think it’s hard.

Trevor Hoppe (28:29)
Yeah, it’s a skill and a muscle you have to strengthen, which is… People think that saying yes or no is like easy peasy, and then the reality of it is, of course, much more intense when you’re face to face with another human being who’s desiring you, and you want to be desired, obviously, but you have to be able to set that boundary for yourself. Do you have any tips for… Because really…

Sister T’aint A Virgin (28:43)
Totally.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Hoppe (28:56)
My dream for this podcast is to help young people who are like little yous and little me’s who are trying to figure out how to set those boundaries for themselves. What do you think helps?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (29:02)
Alright.

I think finding your community, which I know is a very broad and kind of general overarching term, but like finding the people that are interested in exploring the same ways. and ideally you can find that your mentors within that, cause that’s largely what I did. And I feel like the mentors can.

were the ones that helped ushered me through being more comfortable, being more sexual, being more engaged. And I feel like within the subsets of our communities, there’s pretty rigorous mentors out there and these little networks. And it does take time to find that group that you really resonate with or connect with. Again, I’d always say,

personally going back and then enjoying just watching or going to someplace that you can kind of activities that don’t exactly or immediately need to be kind of hands-on, but kind of collectively pleasuring yourselves in a way that feels wonderful.

Trevor Hoppe (30:26)
Daddies are having a moment, obviously, but back in our day, there was so much stigma around AIDS that I think intergenerational stuff really got a bad rap. Today we’re in a different place around that, but I still think obviously there’s some intense stigma around intergenerational sex and relationships generally.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (30:28)
Yes.

Okay.

Trevor Hoppe (30:48)
What would you say to a young person, like you should have sex with an older person, but like what, how do you counsel someone who is kind of feeling icky maybe about that?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (30:54)
Yeah.

I always think of like, we don’t want history to repeat itself, but we don’t know the history. like, I think a lot of older men have decades worth of lived experience. And that lived experience is so important and so critical in kind of helping pass along kind of the ins and outs and exactly what does work for you, what doesn’t work for you.

You know, I think that intergenerational partners really kind of bring new flavor to the scene. it kind of inherently has some level of a mentorship involved with it. You know, granted, there’s can be different forms of, power dynamics that come into play there. But, my richest and most wonderful relationships, both as friends and as sexual partners, have always been with people that are probably about.

15, 20, 30 years older than me. And now that I’m kind of moving into my, moving towards my forties, I find myself also kind of mentoring some of our younger generations. And so that’s been an interesting kind of shift of kind of being the younger one in the room to now being the one kind of solidly in the middle. And so

Trevor Hoppe (32:24)
Yeah, I feel that deeply. The moment all the twinks start messaging you saying, hey daddy or whatever, you’re like, oh my God, daddy, is it time yet? But it is time. And I have come to appreciate that role. I resisted and resented it for a while. But I think, I just think about little game me and how he really could.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (32:26)
BLEH

Yup.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Hoppe (32:52)
It did benefit and could have even more benefited from that kind of mentorship that you’re talking about. Do you remember any lessons specifically that older guys taught you?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (32:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I mean, I think I was super lucky in that the first partners that I had were not so focused on penetration. Um, and so I think kind of early on learning that penetration is not the end all be all for sex. Um, and to kind of like, slow your role, take your time, really explore, um, that, uh,

was something that was super helpful for me. Just because, right, like I think so much of it was focused on like, all right, who’s gonna be the top, who’s gonna be the bottom, let’s get this done. You know, everything leading up to it is just kind of like quick little steps along the way, but the main goal is to penetration. And I think early on kind of seeing other forms of sexuality and really kind of seeing how to receive pleasure and be pleasured.

that doesn’t revolve around penetration.

Trevor Hoppe (34:07)
Mm-hmm.

That’s great. My memory, I have a specific memory, is living in San Francisco, actually. I was hooking up with this guy who was much older than me at the time, and he taught me, this sounds so stupid, but I really value it. He taught me to put lotion on my body after I take a shower, and it has left my skin supple into my 40s, and I’m grateful.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (34:25)
Yeah.

Love that!

Trevor Hoppe (34:32)
But yeah, I so I have started to really appreciate that daddies and older guys generally in our community do have wisdom. I am now one of those people. So I’m trying to appreciate what that can look like in a healthy way because there is a lot of potential for unhealthiness in those relationships. How do you navigate that?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (34:52)
Of course, of course.

I mean, personally, I’ve usually met up with partners outside of sexual setting first, whether it’s just like a quick, simple little coffee break or somewhere out in the community, somewhere that doesn’t feel kind of immediately charged and kind of setting up intentions and or expectations. and as long as there’s kind of a vibe and there’s good chemistry, then we kind of like quickly pivot more towards the bedroom. but

Trevor Hoppe (35:23)
Mm-hmm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (35:25)
because I’ve definitely, you know, you know, when you’re crafting this fantasy, when you’re chatting and you’re flirting online for long periods of time and you build up these expectations and then you show up at their house and it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, that’s always harder to navigate and harder to kind of get yourself out of versus if you like kind of initially just do a little kind of quicker touch base, let’s get meet out in the community, let’s do something that feels more comfortable.

Trevor Hoppe (35:39)
You

Sister T’aint A Virgin (35:54)
to really kind of suss out if this is actually going to be a good connection. Because our online personas are not always the same as our in-person personas.

Trevor Hoppe (35:59)
Yeah, that’s really smart advice.

Yeah, yeah, just the idea of meeting up with someone at a bar or something. I used to do that a lot more than I do these days. Maybe schedules are tough sometimes, but I like that ideal a lot. I really found it valuable as well.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (36:11)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Right.

Trevor Hoppe (36:21)
What does really amazing sex look like for you today?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (36:27)
Um, really amazing sex for me today. Um, I have recently discovered the term symbiosexual, um, which is kind of receiving or enjoying kind of watching the dynamic of someone else and specifically other couples, um, which kind of gets rooted back to my early days as a mostly a voyeur. Um, and so.

Trevor Hoppe (36:37)
Mmm.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (36:55)
that’s mostly led to like my best sex has always been in group settings. Whether it’s with another couple, I mean, the absolute best sex I’ve ever had was with a throuple where everyone was averse and everyone was like both fun and playful as well as super into each other, which I know the sooner I as a minute as.

When you add more people in, it’s harder to make sure that there’s like sexual chemistry across all partners. But for whatever reason, it worked. And it was fun to be able to kind of pair off into individual pairs and come back together, switch partners, do more of a group scene. But yeah, I love kind of being in the midst of larger group dynamics because it allows me to continue to be that lawyer, to bear witness, but also be engaged.

And it’s just fun seeing how other people receive pleasure from other people to me.

Trevor Hoppe (37:56)
Are these regular groups that happen, you know, with the same people?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (38:01)
Sometimes.

Usually if they’re couples or people that I know, then yes, I would say kind of ongoing. But if it’s more of like, kind of either play parties or sometimes I’ll go to this kind of gay men’s sketching group where it’s two hours of sketching and most of the people that sketch, we take turns modeling as well.

And then after two hours of lovely sketching, usually devolves into a lovely social hour, which is Sans clothes and very enjoyable. And so that changes the dynamic because every week there’s different guys that show up and sometimes it’s regulars and you’ll kind of see them on recurrent days. And sometimes it’s people’s first time. And so it’s nice to kind of welcome people into that group and kind of

and get matched with someone, you can kind of go back and play with them on a recurring basis. And if it didn’t work out that one time, you can maybe try some different partners. So it’s nice to kind of mix it up in that regards.

Trevor Hoppe (39:11)
Do ever find that there’s someone that you thought, I’m not gonna get along with them at all, and then you just have this amazing encounter?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (39:18)
Yeah. Um, and I find like that the group settings has really been helpful for me for that. Um, I’ll definitely like go into some of these sketch groups. I’m just like, all right, there’s the one person that I definitely am excited about. And we’ll like, are really all of us will be without our clothes on and we’ll be kind of starting to play and they’ll like immediately be aligned to someone else. Uh, and then you’re just like, all right, well, that’s not going to work out there. So let’s kind of pivot and navigate. And so

Again, it’s kind of these group settings, it kind of exposes me to people that I probably once have gravitated to online or kind of sought out individually. And then, you know, you’re in the dynamics of sex and you’re realizing that they’re quite skilled at certain things. And you kind of take beauty in that and kind of realize that, you know, your instant kind of viewing of them might not have been the most reliable in terms of

Trevor Hoppe (40:06)
You

Sister T’aint A Virgin (40:17)
really enjoyable sexual partners.

Trevor Hoppe (40:20)
Yeah, there’s something that can happen where you just realize sexual attraction to someone, you didn’t see it at first, but then they smile a certain way or they unbutton a button or whatever and it’s like, oh, I see you now.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (40:32)
Right,

right. my early, I mean, I think my kind of early experiences playing with trans men was a lot of that as well. Where, like I knew that like my attraction was mostly to kind of like masculine identified individuals. And kind of being in play spaces that were kind of gender explorative and gender inclusive.

Trevor Hoppe (41:02)
So one of the beautiful things about the in-person kind of drawing class thing is that you can kind of see people visually in different… in ways that they would not present themselves online, if that makes sense.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (41:15)
Exactly.

Exactly. You know, and like when you’re drawing them, you’re kind of enjoying the beauty of like this specific curve in their body. And it’s like not always focused just on the genitals. And you can kind of like really appreciate you know, the way that the light is hitting their clavicle or, you know, the little dimple on their backside. And I think that you can kind of find the beauty in those little things that you wouldn’t normally kind of gravitate towards that really

makes me excited to explore them their bodies more fully after drawing sessions. And yeah, it’s not always focused just around the genitals.

Trevor Hoppe (41:58)
Yeah. Do you have any tips for… because online, obviously, you lose that ability. I know you said you meet people beforehand, but before you even made up, are there ways that you try to assess people’s…

Vibe? Is that word? I’m not sure exactly.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (42:17)
Yeah, mean, I usually like I know some people and you know, no shame to it. Like they want to just like, they use the apps to get in get out. They want you know, they don’t want the banter. They don’t want the chat. They just want to know what you want. They want to set it up and they want to get going. And for me, like I actually enjoy getting to know them and kind of enjoy kind of flushing out the personality behind the body.

because that’s gonna be more key and that’s gonna be more sexy and more engaging to me than, you know, just the standard body itself. And, you know, of course, every so often that’s actually just what I want. It’s just a quick hug up. And so that’s lovely too. But that always comes with some level of, you know, is the actual dynamic gonna be there? Is the actual dynamic gonna be comfortable? So I just have to kind of be willing to roll the dice sometimes and

you know, maybe not have the best of connections initially and just hope that the sexual attraction will kind of push me through it. But usually I like to kind of, you know, get to know them on some level before kind of immediately jumping into the sheets.

Trevor Hoppe (43:31)
And you mentioned the symbiose… symbiosexual? Is that… this… Yeah, this is a term I’m actually not familiar with. What… what is that term, doofyur, that’s different from voyeur?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (43:34)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Um, I think it’s more specific about enjoying the dynamic of another couple. Um, and so like a voyeur can just be like, it could just be one single person. And the symbiote sexual is like really loving the like loving dynamic between a predetermined couple and kind of getting sexual gratification from that. And so I think it’s to me, it’s just like another layer onto voyeur or voyeur is kind of this broad term of watching anything.

versus kind of the symbiosexual, which is like really enjoying the watching the dynamic of this other couple. And you’re getting specific pleasure from that. And kind of engaging with that too.

Trevor Hoppe (44:28)
And it sounds like you’re also watching couples that are not gay men now.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (44:33)
Yes. Yeah. Again, largely through kind of these play parties that are kind of welcoming of everyone and everybody. Really seeing kind of ways that not all gay men, but kind of, kind of the larger trans umbrella, straight couples, queer couples within the kind of, you know, gender nonconforming, non-binary, all of that.

Trevor Hoppe (45:03)
that change your attraction?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (45:05)
Yes, I think so. I’m still mostly attracted to displays of masculinity or masculine characteristics, but I have a lot of loving and wonderful trans masculine partners. For me, the attraction in the sex is not specifically to a cock or to a penis. It’s the display of masculinity and that’s…

Exploring that through having partners who are trans has been amazing and wonderful. I lived in a larger queer household separate from the one that I mentioned earlier that was largely female. long stretches of time, I was the only male identified individual in the house. It was all queer. was being immersed in largely femme-focused sexuality.

made me love and appreciate a lot of kind of femme identified bodies as well. And see how sex is navigated and explored in different contexts outside of just the gay male experience. So I always have a little strong affinity for that too.

Trevor Hoppe (46:26)
Yeah, I remember going to the bar on Castro with my friend who was a trans guy. This is back in the early 2000s and there would always be like, he would be making out with someone within 30 seconds instantly. He was so handsome and is so handsome to this day. And I remember, know, time would go on and then there would be the moment where the disclosure would happen.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (46:36)
Huh?

Trevor Hoppe (46:45)
And it was interesting, even back in the early 2000s, I would say most times it was fine. Guys were like, fuck yeah, let’s do it. And I loved that. I think he was…

Sister T’aint A Virgin (46:49)
Hmm? Hmm?

Yeah. at a.

Trevor Hoppe (46:56)
systematically educating the Castro about trans bodies back.

Sister T’aint A Virgin (46:59)
totally. Totally. Totally.

Yeah, I worked at a sex club here in San Francisco for several years. And I’d say at least half of my coworkers are trans men. And it was amazing seeing this like, sex club that is tailored towards men, who was like, all inclusive of kind of the kind of larger umbrella of male bodies, including kind of trans men. And so

that was just fun kind of being part of that network. and we would post, occasional workshops, tailored towards like cis men, pleasuring trans bodies and trans men, pleasuring cis bodies. and it was really fun kind of being in these safer spaces where people could ask questions that they don’t always feel comfortable doing with an individual partner. and not feeling judged for it.

and really kind of hoping to expand their idea of what it means to be sexually attracted to kind of the larger umbrella of men.

Trevor Hoppe (48:08)
That’s fabulous. I love that. I always like to end on a fun segment I call Sorted Lives and Untold Tales or SLUT for short. What’s the sluttiest thing you ever did?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (48:16)
Huh? Uh-huh.

You know, I think it’s, you know, probably the recurrent sex parties that I’ve gone to and hosted at my house over the years. that seems kind of the obvious or the easiest answer. I think outside of that, more recently, I had my very first kind of, fisting experience, with again, someone who was older than me, very, very experienced in fisting.

And it was fun to just kind of explore that in a way that felt that I wasn’t being judged, that I could kind of make some mistakes and feel comfortable with it. I really, really loved and learned that I enjoy being a fisting top. So, you know, I think that’s going to be a new foray into other experiences that I’m hopefully pursuing. So yeah.

I’d say that was my other kind of sluttier moment as of most recently.

Trevor Hoppe (49:19)
I love that.

Yes, absolutely. think fisting is, in the post-prep world, it’s one of those things that’s become more popularized, I think it’s fair to say, and people have become open to this experience in a new way. I’d love to hear that. If people want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where could they find you?

Sister T’aint A Virgin (49:37)
Right.

Um, so the first thing would be going to the sisters website, which is the sisters.org. Um, and that’s for the San Francisco chapter. Uh, but that gives a good overview of kind of our history. Um, you get to see who our individual members are. Um, my personal social media, um, on Instagram is sister underscore taint underscore a underscore Virgin.

But the website is probably the easiest way to kind of get a general understanding of who we are and how to get involved.

Trevor Hoppe (50:19)
Thank you so much sister

Sister T’aint A Virgin (50:21)
Thank you.

Trevor Hoppe (50:23)
That’s our show for today. Thank you so much for listening as always. And remember, if you aren’t having your best sex, I can help. My services as a sex coach are designed to help you identify and overcome the barriers that are standing between you and your best sex life. Find out more on my website, thebestgaysex.net. Till next time.

S01E10 – “Taking Time” ft. Manny Ocasio

OVERVIEW:

In a world of fast food, fast fashion, and even faster Grindr hookups, slowing down can feel almost rebellious. But today’s guest, Manny Ocasio, host of the “Girl, Bye” podcast, is here to remind us that the best sex isn’t rushed—it’s savored. Manny shares how growing up with a gay dad shaped his journey, why anticipation and foreplay are everything, and how a washing machine made one encounter unforgettable. We also get into aftercare, pushing boundaries, and, of course, his sluttiest moment (college party, cops, and a twist you won’t see coming). Ready to take your time? Hit play.

TRANSCRIPT:

Trevor Hoppe (00:09)
Hey, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Trevor Hoppe. Today’s episode is about taking time. You know, it occurs to me that in today’s day and age, saying you like something slow is kind of taboo. We want fast food, fast fashion, and even think about Amazon. Two-day delivery apparently wasn’t fast enough. We want it overnight. We want it now, baby.

When it comes to sex, just think about Grindr. The quickie has never been more in vogue. But today’s guest wants us to slow down and smell the rose buds. Manny Ocasio finds the pleasure in the anticipation, the waiting, the teasing. And when the moment finally comes, he urges us to savor it, not let it slip between our fingers.

Born in the hustle and bustle of New York City where life moves pretty fast, Manny now works on his Girl Bye podcast and Cosmic Stoners lifestyle brand from the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico where island time moves a little slower. Let’s listen in.

Trevor Hoppe (01:26)
Manny Ocasio welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast.

Manuel (01:30)
Hi, I’m so excited to be on this podcast. The set is gorgeous.

Trevor Hoppe (01:32)
Hey, bitch.

Thank you. We’ve renovated. It’s great. I’m thrilled to have you with us. You are talking to us from Puerto Rico. Yes. The lovely island of Puerto Rico. But before Puerto Rico, tell us a little bit about where you grew up. You obviously have the podcast Girl Bye Now. We’ll get to that. But just go back in time. Where did little Manny, where did you start your journey?

Manuel (01:45)
Yes.

Yeah, so I grew up in New York, New York City kid. I grew up on Long Island most of my life actually went to high school out there and then moved to Florida in my high school time, which was crazy. I advise anybody who has the opportunity.

really think about it before you make those crazy decisions. Because it was very different leaving in the middle of high school and trying to make new friends, you’re graduating with people you don’t know, all of those little things. So it’s kind of crazy. But I was in New York, moved to Florida. As we all know, Florida is Florida. So.

I, since then, graduated high school and been on the move. I’ve lived in a couple different states from going out to Kentucky and Ohio to living in the mountains in Virginia. So kind of been all over the place, spent a little bit of time in North Carolina and then decided to come out to Puerto Rico for a while.

Trevor Hoppe (03:07)
You have definitely been all over then. where did you remind me your New York was high school? High school was New York?

Manuel (03:15)
Yeah, so I was born in New York. I was born on Long Island. And I lived there until I was 15.

Trevor Hoppe (03:24)
Okay. And then where was I’m just trying to sort of set like

Manuel (03:25)
Yeah.

And then I went to

Florida and I went to Tampa, from there. Just north of Tampa, Florida, actually, because my dad bought a house out there, so we moved out there and then fun fact that not many people know. But if you look on my if you become accepted on my Facebook and are able to go that far back, you can see where I turned 18 and I had a Toyota Yaris, a tiny little like golf cart sized car.

Trevor Hoppe (03:34)
Ogen.

Manuel (03:54)
and I put my own hitch on the back of that thing and tied a U-Haul to it and I moved to Kentucky with that tiny little Yaris.

Trevor Hoppe (04:03)
I don’t think the Yaris is supposed to do that, but good for you.

Manuel (04:06)
No, it was definitely

dragging itself there. By the time I got there, I needed new tires for sure.

Trevor Hoppe (04:14)
And what was it like, I mean, did you know you were a little queer boy when you moved to Florida? Was that something you were already aware of?

Manuel (04:21)
Yeah, by that point, so I would say that up until like middle school, I was pretty, pretty much always pretty fluid. Luckily, I did grow up in a household where I had a gay dad. So I really, there were some like religious things and like family members that would make comments or say things or whatever, but like,

In my personal home, you know, I was never really like frowned upon. So my mom was really good about teaching us like love is love and you’re going to care for somebody because you care for them. Not really on like a intimate relationship wise, but more like, you know, if somebody spends time with you, if somebody is invested in you, if somebody cares about you, you should care about them and you should like, you know, build relationships based off of those types of things versus, you know, building a relationship strictly on sex in the beginning.

which I thought being a kid and being taught that really kept me open-minded, really kept me like, you know, I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of people that I talked through over the years. I was never a shy kid. Even moving to Florida, I built friends pretty quickly because I’m a very outgoing person. And I think that all kind of boils down to being that open person as a kid.

Trevor Hoppe (05:34)
And you said gay dad and you just breezed right past that, but we have to talk about that. So when did you discover that your dad was gay?

Manuel (05:38)
you

Yeah, so my parents got divorced when I was five or six years old. And pretty much shortly after that, my dad had his first partner and they were together. And his first partner, they were together for a really long time, maybe six or seven years, maybe eight years. I was really young. So I don’t quite remember how many years, you And then ever since then, my dad has always been

with men, you know what mean? So it was very much, you know, he came out, they got divorced and we kind of just lived life. Now as an adult, it’s a little different because now we learn a lot more about all the different situations in life. And, you know, I learned more about my parents’ relationships and things like that. So you kind of learn other pieces to it. But luckily enough, I got to live in a household where

You know, even though they got divorced, they never trash talked each other. They never bullied each other, things like that. Like we never got to see those types of things. They were always big on like showing us to, you can get dealt a bad deck of cards, but like you can still make it work.

Trevor Hoppe (06:52)
Definitely. what did it mean to you having a gay parent? I mean, that’s an unusual experience for most of us, right? Because most of us experience difference. And you experience this kind of similarity. Did you talk to your dad about your own sexuality?

Manuel (07:09)
Never.

Trevor Hoppe (07:09)
Really?

Manuel (07:10)
Yeah, I never talked to my dad about my sexuality ever in my life. I never actually came out to my family. Luckily enough, I was just like one day showed up with a guy and was like, this is my boyfriend. So, you know, I never really had like a big coming out moment or anything like that. I never felt comfortable enough to go to my dad about those types of things. think.

A lot of people don’t realize that like, even though you have a gay parent doesn’t mean that the coming out process is any easier. Cause I feel like a lot of the things that I did try to talk to my dad about in those early stages of me getting to understand who I was and what I liked and the people I wanted to be around. I got a lot of like backlash and I don’t want to say like,

he gave me bad advice, but I think he gave me advice from the concept of also trying to understand that like, if I was a cisgender straight male, my life would be different. And I think he wanted to give me the best advice that he could give with still trying to not want me to go through those downsides of life and understanding.

you’re going to get bullied. People are going to say things. You’re going to go through these pieces of life. So I think he wanted to help me avoid those things. But ultimately, I felt like he knew he couldn’t because I mean, if you were a queer kid in the 90s and early 2000s, you were going to get bullied, right? So I think it kind of just went through that.

Trevor Hoppe (08:41)
Yeah, definitely. But so you don’t have this kind of coming out experience. When did you start to realize that you were gay?

Manuel (08:48)
so it’s a funny story. I dated women, up until my sophomore year of high school. So when I moved to Florida, I was a marching band kid. And if anybody knows marching band kids, we were crazy, fun, always wanted to have a good time.

but I also went to a very competitive school for marching bands. So we went to a lot of band competitions. We had band camp. We practiced three to five days a week. I mean, it was a extraneous process being in band because we did want to win. We wanted to be the best. We were constantly, you know, in the top five in the state. Like our goal was to be successful in band. And there was a boy that joined the color guard team.

Trevor Hoppe (09:14)
Hmm?

Manuel (09:33)
that just so happened to catch my attention. And we spent a lot of time together. We lived, oddly enough, very close together. We lived enough close where I could ride my bike to get to his house. So I would get on my bike. I would go to his house. We would hang out. And then one day, we started making out. And that was that.

Trevor Hoppe (09:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

my god, this is like a movie experience. Wow. And did this person become like a boyfriend to you?

Manuel (09:59)
Yeah

Yeah, he became boyfriend of mine. I did a lot of firsts with that person. We had a good relationship for a while. I would say up until up until my senior year, I think we were like still close and still trying to like figure out life. But I think I was also trying to figure out who I was, what I wanted to accomplish.

Trevor Hoppe (10:11)
Yeah.

Manuel (10:29)
all the pieces of my life I wanted to like really live for. And I don’t have fears as you guys already know, because I can live anywhere and I’ll pack a bag and go and see what happens. So I think, you know, getting with somebody that really had the mindset of like, my God, this is my first boyfriend and I’m in love and I want to be married and we’re going to get married and we’re going to have kids and all that stuff.

I was terrified of all of those things, right? And I was like, there’s no way. Like, I just turned 18. I’m ready to go experience life. You know, I had Grindr by that point. And my friends were telling me about bath houses and…

Trevor Hoppe (11:17)
Hmm.

Manuel (11:17)
these parties that people were going to and these college parties and sex parties and things like that. And I was like, why would I want to not experience life yet? Because I don’t even know if I like those things or don’t like those things. I have never gotten that moment to try it or see it or be around it. So our relationship at that point kind of went left.

because I was ready to enjoy life and learn what it was to be an adult and they weren’t.

Trevor Hoppe (11:51)
Yeah, well, you you’re 18. I mean, who is ready to make those decisions at that age? But I just can’t even like that’s hard to even for me to fathom to have that kind of relationship like that in high school because it just was so different from my own experience. But is this your friends knew about this relationship? Or was this something you kept private?

Manuel (11:56)
Right.

No, I mean, we would go to Busch Gardens and hold hands all day. We would cuddle for hours. Everybody in band knew that we were together. He was the only one that wouldn’t be with the Color Guard girls on the bus. He would be with us band kids in the back of the bus because he wanted to sit next to me. Yeah, no, it was everybody knew everybody knew I’ve everybody knew. Yeah. I think actually let me not say that.

Trevor Hoppe (12:19)
my god.

very tender.

Manuel (12:39)
There might be a photo on the internet somewhere of us holding hands in Busch Gardens somewhere on the internet. Yeah.

Trevor Hoppe (12:44)
well, that’s sweet. That’s sweet.

And so it sounds like you had some of your first sexual experiences also in the context of this relationship.

Manuel (12:52)
Yeah, some of my very like, the first person that I topped in my life was that person.

Trevor Hoppe (13:01)
Yeah.

Manuel (13:02)
And then the first threesome that I’ve ever done was with that person.

Trevor Hoppe (13:06)
Okay, how did just curiosity how did that come about?

Manuel (13:07)
Yeah.

That came about later when we were, so I went to college in Tampa, Florida. Went to college out there, worked out there, like kind of pretty much started spending a lot more time over there versus Spring Hill, which is where I’m originally from, which is like 40 minutes away. All of my friends ended up kind of moving that direction. So like that’s where we would go hang out and meet people and whatever.

And at this point, I was a college kid and they had graduated and we went to a party and we were doing all this, you know, meeting people, hanging out. We may or may not have been on Mali and we just had like fun.

Trevor Hoppe (13:48)
Aha, amazing!

Manuel (13:49)
You know,

and so life was an adventure and we just kind of that whole situation just kind of came upon itself. You know what mean? Like we were all hanging out. Everybody was hanging out, having a good time. We went to a house party after that. The house party turned into everybody kind of going their own direction and certain people going to do certain things. Certain people went home. Certain people went to their apartments. You know, we’re all in dorms, so like everybody’s close. So.

It just kind of, we were in a room, the three of us, and we kind of just went for it.

Trevor Hoppe (14:21)
Sounds like it. Looking back on those early sexual experiences, how did you figure out what you were into?

Manuel (14:28)
I YouTubed a lot. I don’t remember if everybody remembers, but there was a video, a YouTuber, I forget his name, but he would do YouTube videos on like being queer. And I remember the first time ever seeing somebody douche because he douche on YouTube. Do you remember this video?

Trevor Hoppe (14:30)
Mmm.

I do not know, I wish I had had

this video, but that did not exist when I was that age.

Manuel (14:54)
So,

yeah, so basically it’s a YouTube video and he’s like has like a curtain like on the back half of his body and like, so you can’t really see his ass or anything, but like you can, you get the concept of what we’re doing here. And they show you a douche and how to douche and they talk about how to douche and things like that. And so when I first ever started like having gay sex, I really was like, I don’t know that that’s for me.

Trevor Hoppe (15:05)
Uh-huh.

Manuel (15:21)
All the prep time, all the stuff people were doing, some of my friends were not eating. I’m like, how are you not eating? I’m not going on a date to not eat. Like the whole point of on this date is for the free food. So like there’s no way. So from there was kind of when I was like, I don’t think this is for me. So.

Trevor Hoppe (15:33)
Ha ha!

Manuel (15:41)
my sexual journey really like evolved itself over the years. I actually have been atop a majority of my life, which is funny because I get a lot of different answers from a lot of different people. But a majority of my journey has been being atop. I feel like the only times I’ve ever actually not feel like it is the truth. The only times I ever bottom.

has been for people that I have been in a relationship with. People who I felt a lot more comfortable with. I always felt like if this is a hit it and quit it situation, you don’t get the ability to get that close to me.

Trevor Hoppe (16:21)
Yeah, so I think I’m sort of the same way about topping, which is funny because most people are that way about bottoming. just for me, it’s kind of like this is a special thing that is just not handed out. Bottoming on the other hand, maybe not as different. So you’ve been a top most of your life. You’re figuring out.

On YouTube, that is again, just like a generational difference because I just did not have access to that. So that’s really kind of amazing to have that kind of resource as well as your friends. sounds like we’re also a resource around sexuality. Yeah, that’s amazing. Are there things you think you

resources that you wish you had had at that age, I’m just looking, I’m like, man, it sounds like you had a lot of assets to kind of understand sex and sexuality.

Manuel (17:06)
Yeah, think, I think, yes, I think I wish there was, better places to talk about certain pieces of sex. Like, yes, we had these videos about like, douching and things like that. But at the end of the day, they weren’t really, they could give you a concept in your brain, but you have to kind of like really go out of your way to like

research more and get to learn more and and get a little deeper because they were so high level right like even back in the day we had rules on youtube you can only go so far you know what mean so i do feel like i do wish there was some more resources i also wished back then that we talked more just about sex in itself like sex education

I remember being in middle school in New York and this could be like moving from New York to going to Florida. The curriculum in general, like from grade to grade and your entire life, like you are genuinely taught less in Florida than you are in New York. And so it was shocking to me to kind of go from New York to Florida and really understand the fact that like

Trevor Hoppe (17:56)
Mm-hmm.

Manuel (18:16)
academically, you’re so far ahead, they didn’t even have certain classes to put me in. I didn’t do a gym class my junior or senior year because I already had all the credits that I needed to graduate high school, which I found crazy considering if I would have stayed in New York, I would have had to continue to do gym till I graduated high school. You know what mean? So there were certain pieces that I thought were really interesting and

part of that was kind of like this sex education, home economics, things like that. When I was in middle school, and I’m sorry to the middle school if you guys get in trouble for this, but we used to have like a shop class where you had to like do oil changes on the teacher’s cars and like build a bridge and all that kind of stuff. And like, I learned a lot about like,

building stuff, doing stuff around the house, those types of things that I don’t think kids are learning today. I learned a lot about cooking in school, which was crazy. I learned how to make pasta. We made Rice Krispie Treats. We made a bunch of different things. So those really day-to-day types of things, I think we should have. And part of that, think, is that sex education.

We shouldn’t sit people in front of this old movie where private parts tinkle and like that’s how we’re teaching sex, right? I think that’s why I find your podcast so interesting and like some of the stuff that you do. I you know, I’ve read your book stuff like that. We’ve talked about some of these things because I find it so interesting that now we have not that we’ve never had resources, but like now they’re so easy to obtain for queer people today to.

listen to a podcast and relate to other people’s stories or hear different pieces of life. You know, you can watch a bath house on the internet. You know, before we had to go on LimeWire and try to download something and hope that it wasn’t, you know, the president saying that he didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.

Trevor Hoppe (20:18)
Do you remember when Madonna put out she like leaked her album and then she was like screaming F you at that? Yeah, exactly. my gosh. Throwback to some the older listeners to the podcast. Yeah, totally. So do you remember differences in that sex ed like specifically links that you learned in New York that like just were absent in Florida because I’m sure there were many things. There you go. Everything it was just absent. Yeah.

Manuel (20:37)
Florida had no sex ed.

Yeah, everything

was different. Yeah, we had no sex ed in Florida, none whatsoever. What we did have in our school was a parenting class where they made you take a baby home. And I was like, we’re teaching these people how to care for a child, but we’re not teaching them about condoms.

Trevor Hoppe (20:54)
Uh-huh.

America is quite an amazing place. I can imagine that that was a jarring experience to head down to Florida. I see that with my students in North Carolina. We don’t have consistent sex out across the state and.

Manuel (21:01)
You know?

Trevor Hoppe (21:12)
their knowledge is pretty limited. Even with the resources you mentioned, you have to go find those resources. They don’t come to you. So if you don’t know how or where to look, you know, you’re in the dark. And so I think many Americans, even though all the information ever created is like here, right? Like we still are very ignorant about so many things, especially sex. So I’m glad you found that douching video on YouTube because

It’s just an example of one of those things that like they don’t certainly don’t teach you in school. We can’t even fathom a world where that might be true, but as a gay man, like that’s kind of important.

Manuel (21:48)
I’ll send it to you so you can

link the link down below. We’ll send you the the early 2000s douche prepping sex video.

Trevor Hoppe (21:51)
Okay, yeah, check the link down below. I live.

That’s amazing. So you’re in Florida, you’re having this relationship, you go off to college. What kinds of sexual experiences did you have? Do you remember sexual experiences where you felt like you learned valuable lessons about yourself or your sexuality or sex in general?

Manuel (22:14)
a lot of lessons. where would you like me to start in lessons I’ve learned from people?

Trevor Hoppe (22:19)
Ugh,

how many frogs did you have to kiss?

Manuel (22:22)
Right, so I would say in kind of just thinking about my early years of figuring out being queer, figuring out the things that I liked, wanting to try things and being fearful of some of those things, I grew up in a time frame where sex was still really talked about in a very negative way, especially in

like my household and like just the people that I kind of communicated with, you know, a lot of people always constantly, you know, really focused on like not having sex till you get married type of stuff, those types of things. And I never understood how somebody can get married without test driving the car. You know what I mean? I don’t know if anybody else can really think about it, but you know, for me, I knew that if I wanted to get into a relationship and really care for somebody that if that

part of me was not to the standards of what I wanted it to be, that I would not be fully invested, right? So knowing that I kind of already knew my entire life that sex was a part of my love language, it’s a part of my attention, it’s a part of getting to know me in a much deeper level. And so in that timeframe, I wanted to experiment and find things and get to know people that

maybe could take me to some of these places where I didn’t feel so alone, right? And so like, I don’t know about most people, but going to your first bath house is terrifying. The only person I’ve ever heard talk about that was RuPaul in RuPaul’s book.

RuPaul talks about the first time kind of going to this cruising spot and kind of getting there but never actually going in, right? And then like going there a couple of times and then finally like getting the energy and the want to actually like walk through the door. And I think being able to kind of meet other people and kind of go through that was what helped me kind of get to those.

points in life and meet people that would encourage me to maybe explore and see these things. And some of the things that I’ve learned from going to some of these places and being a college student at that time was that college kids, some of them are nasty. It doesn’t matter how gay you are, you’re not always clean. And I never understood that. And so, you know,

That was really where I would say I learned the most about myself, what I’m willing to put up with and not put up with. You know, for me, cleanliness is a huge thing and a huge turnoff. If, you know, I understand that gay sex, for instance, is not always the cleanest situation, but it doesn’t have to always smell terrible.

right so

Trevor Hoppe (25:13)
Yes, well, yeah,

that’s a very, yeah, that’s a base level kind of thing. Yeah.

Manuel (25:17)
Right? It’s like pretty bare minimum. So like those are things that I learned in that timeframe of life was like, you know, hygiene was huge for me. If you know somebody and people you could call me shallow in the comments. I don’t care. But like if there is a bad smell, I already know that that is going to be a huge turn off. Like I will not be able to even perform because I know that like in my head it’s already going to turn me off and it’s already going to kill the whole vibe.

So those are things that I learned the very hard way in these stages of like, you know, you’re in front of somebody and like, you just can’t get hard. Like that’s the craziest moment in your life where you’re like, am I broken?

Trevor Hoppe (25:59)
Yeah,

I mean, the human body will betray you sometimes, even if you want it to work, it might not always work. But again, you’ve breezed past something that I think you must now unpack, which is your first trip to the bathhouse. What was that like?

Manuel (26:14)
Yeah, so my first trip to the bath house was interesting. I went to a bath house in Clearwater, Florida. If anybody is listening from Clearwater, Florida, you probably know. But you walk in, it was interesting. I didn’t do anything with any other partners in that first kind of…

walk through and like getting to the bathhouse. I did go with one of my friends who after two seconds of walking in the door was gone. Left me completely alone and then when I found him later he was in a room with like five other dudes and I was like thanks for leaving me high and dry but get it girl like I’m not gonna yuck your yum get in that.

Trevor Hoppe (26:45)
huh. Yeah.

Great friend, yep.

Manuel (27:02)
So I spent just a lot of time like walking around and getting to understand what was going on, trying to map in my head, like how do you even communicate in these places? Like not a single person was speaking basically. You know, you have these different rooms where people are doing all kinds of different stuff. There is, you know, a large number of people that I was highly uninterested in.

so I thought, you know, just kind of taking it all in and understanding what it was and then remembering you’re in Clearwater, Florida. So that should tell you a little bit about like who’s there, right? but it was interesting. It was an adventure for sure.

Trevor Hoppe (27:36)
Yes.

Manuel (27:43)
And then I went to one other bathhouse in my life, which was in New York. I went with a couple of friends on a trip. We went to New York. We had a great time. We went to the bathhouse. And I indulged in a couple of different things in the bathhouse. I just never felt that that was my place. sexually.

What has always driven me is the like intimacy of sex. It’s more of the foreplay and the journey versus the end results. So my whole journey has always been that. It’s like really, I like the foreplay. like…

making out, I like touching each other, I like going from one room to another room, you know, throw you on a washing machine and turn it on. Like, I like to have sex for a long time. I like to enjoy the journey, experience it, be in the moment. And I felt like the bath house was fun. I went with my friends because they wanted to go, so I wasn’t like gonna be the Debbie Downer and not go. You know, you get a blowjob and you walk out of the bath house. Like, it’s really not…

I never thought that you’re not going to find the love of your life in the dark rooms of a bathhouse.

Trevor Hoppe (28:51)
Well, I don’t know about all that, but probably not, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Manuel (28:53)
Maybe

Trevor Hoppe (28:57)
Where did you feel like, when did you start feeling like you were having sex where you were like, is amazing, like this is what sex should be?

Manuel (29:05)
so when I got into my first what I would consider like real relationship, I was in a relationship for almost five years. We got engaged. so I would say it was a very serious relationship. this was the first relationship where I lived with the person, introduced them to my entire family. a lot of different pieces of my life kind of went into that.

Trevor Hoppe (29:18)
Yes.

Manuel (29:28)
and oddly enough, you know, I was pretty much a just regular person, just living life, kind of working, doing things in my relationship, kind of in this bubble. but our intimate moments were extremely intimate and we did, you know, we, met in Florida.

because I had moved back after Kentucky and stuff. We met in Florida. We ended up moving to Virginia together. So like we spent a lot of time and moved and stuff like that. But that was when I can say was like my initial person that I felt like this was what I wanted. This was like, you know, most of the crazy movie type.

You know, you get home from work, start making out at the door. By the time you get upstairs, you’re naked, you’re in the shower, you’re bathing. Like, all of that to me is part of that sex journey and part of that like arousal and getting people to that point. So, you know, that was the first person that I really feel like I had sex that I genuinely enjoyed consistently. As we kind of got to know each other more and experienced more.

Trevor Hoppe (30:36)
Mmm.

Manuel (30:40)
and that was the first person that I truly let myself go sexually for, where I bottomed, we would tie each other up, we would play with toys, like all of the things. I was here for anything that would extend the play time.

Trevor Hoppe (30:56)
Mm-hmm. I hear you talking about time a lot. What does that mean to you?

Manuel (31:01)
I feel like our lives are consistently on a thousand. I know that most of us today, anybody listening to this podcast can probably say, damn, it’s already the eighth of January or the, well, cut that. It’s already the, you know, it’s a, we’re already almost in February, right? And like so many people can always constantly just be pushing ahead. Like can’t believe we made it to 2025 already. So I think time is going so fast. And

Yes, I like to take time and spend it with my friends. And I like to take time to just enjoy life. I take time and sit at the beach, things like that. think that ability to cut those minutes out of your day, to enjoy it, and to just experience it and live in the moment, we don’t do enough of it. And there’s some of us that don’t do any of it. And weirdly enough,

I had an extremely close relationship with my grandmother, which most Hispanics, I would say, do. And my grandmother used to constantly tell me in my very early years of life, like, take a moment and like, smell the roses, look at the roses, pluck a rose, clean the rose, put it in a vase, right? Like, don’t only stop to smell the rose, but like,

Trevor Hoppe (32:09)
Uh-huh.

Manuel (32:18)
take one, enjoy it for the seven days it might be alive and like be in the moment for that and enjoy those pieces of life. And oddly enough, she traveled a lot. She would, you know, you would call her sometimes and she would be like, I’m not home. I’m in Canada or like on a cruise or something like that. And so I find time to be so invaluable to

just giving it away for like work and stuff like that. You’ve got to take it and enjoy it because before you know it, you’re going to be dead.

Trevor Hoppe (32:51)
Ha! Yeah.

Manuel (32:53)
And then what do do then? Right? Like you can’t take time with you. So like you can crunch as much stuff into time. But unfortunately for me, I really like to take the time to get to the nut because the nut is 10 seconds.

Trevor Hoppe (33:10)
Sure, yeah, I get that. mean, like, it’s a small part of the experience. I guess the sort of finale, the grand finale, but it’s not a grand finale if there’s not a show before it. So like, it kind of has to balance out. that’s kind of what I hear you saying. But I also feel like I hear you saying something about that sex may be one area of our lives where we break free from

the kind of regimented life that we live.

Manuel (33:38)
Yeah, I 100 % believe that. a lot of people, you know, I feel like a lot of people take sex, and maybe this is like in the straight world, just because like, everybody’s doing stuff and like, you’re just, you’re just taking sex as like a 10 second thing. Like, oh, let me, you know, I talked to like my straight friends and like all of them talk about sex being 10 minutes. And to me, I just can’t fathom that.

Trevor Hoppe (34:06)
Right.

Yeah.

Manuel (34:08)
You want

me to do all of this work for 10 minutes?

Trevor Hoppe (34:13)
Yeah, I have a friend who jokes like if the sex is not, it doesn’t take as long as it took me to clean out then like it was not worth it, which speaks to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Manuel (34:21)
You know what I mean? Like,

that’s crazy to me. To be able to think that you are willing to put so much effort for something that’s gonna last as long as a high, smoke a blunt and just enjoy that high. Like, it’s gonna last longer. You could do both, right? True.

Trevor Hoppe (34:37)
Well, you could do both, yeah.

That’s a very interesting perspective because I’ve heard other guests sort of like TT Baum was talking about sex as adult playtime. And I think that speaks to a similar element that it like, takes us out of the normal constraints of day to day life and time is one of those. So I just wanted to kind of draw that out because I think that’s an interesting perspective.

Manuel (35:01)
Like think about it, would you take your child or your dog to the dog park for five minutes?

Trevor Hoppe (35:09)
Right.

I don’t know.

Manuel (35:09)
You

wouldn’t, right? You’re going to take your kid to the park because you want your kid to run around in circles and be exhausted after. So why would you think that, you know, adult playtime, I love that terminology of like, this is our time to be able to explore each other and get to know what each other likes. And maybe if you’re in a relationship or not in a relationship, if you are having a sexual encounter,

Granted, there are people out here that only care about their own nut and not always other people’s nuts, which…

That’s a battle on the internet forever. But I think ultimately, if you’re having a sexual experience and you’re with someone else and you care about their journey in that moment and your own, maybe they like things you don’t. And so maybe you do some of that and some of what you like and you kind of go along through the game, right? Like I’m the type of person where

Trevor Hoppe (35:45)
Uh-huh.

Manuel (36:07)
If there’s something that I don’t necessarily like for myself, but you like it to be done to you, I would do that even if it’s not 100 % of a turn on for me in that moment. Because the trade off is that you’re going to do something that I like after. And we can continue to explore what we do and don’t like. And maybe there are things that you come to a point where you’re like, this is a hard no for me. But.

You won’t figure that out unless you try and experiment in these different pieces.

Trevor Hoppe (36:36)
Yeah, there’s yeses, there’s nos, but there’s also this stuff in the middle that’s like, I don’t know, maybe. And you kind of have to play with that and let other people, it’s a push and pull, certainly, a negotiation to figure out what that ideal situation looks like, what the maximum potential of two people coming together could be. What does the best sex look like for you?

Manuel (36:56)
Right.

Ooh, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I think there’s a couple of things that go into it.

Trevor Hoppe (37:01)
Yeah.

Manuel (37:05)
I like it to be, first of all, it needs to be long. If we’re not passing 30 minutes, this was a quickie and this is taking too fast and I’m probably ready for round two because we didn’t go long enough, right? So it’s gotta be long. It’s gotta be spontaneous. Don’t send me a calendar invite for two weeks from now.

Trevor Hoppe (37:09)
Yeah.

interesting.

You

Manuel (37:30)
Right? Like don’t pencil me in between your meetings. That’s not to me. That doesn’t give me a turn on of like, my God, you were thinking about me and you just, you know, wanted to fuck right now. Like, let’s just go. Like I want it to be spontaneous. I want it to be in the moment. Like we should be doing something and just have fun. but ultimately like long play is my, is my gig. Like,

Trevor Hoppe (37:57)
Mmm.

Manuel (37:57)
my biggest funnest things is like going out to dinner with a vibrator butt plug-in and I just control it while we’re having dinner and having a good time. Then you come back to the house, like you keep it going and it just lasts a long time of like that, that excitement of what’s going to happen next. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? Those types of things I feel like makes it.

more of a game and more fun and more interactive. And we’re not just like, you know, plowing each other and just moving on. We’re really getting to know each other a lot more. We’re getting to know what our limits are, right? You’re getting to learn what your your thresholds are for certain pieces of sex. And, you know, we all take different levels of pain. We all take different levels of restraints, right? You know, I’m a person that

I would, I love tying people up. You’re not tying me up though.

Trevor Hoppe (38:54)
Yeah, sure.

Manuel (38:56)
There’s no way. So like, I think we all learn those pieces of ourselves as we kind of go through this journey of figuring those little things out. But ultimately, best sex for me is something that takes time and has, is spontaneous, but has like reason and attention and a real story to it.

Trevor Hoppe (38:57)
Yeah.

Huh. Can you think of a time where…

like what if you were gonna and I’m sure there are many encounters right and so no diss to any other story in your Rolodex but like are there is there a time that comes up where you’re like that was it like man that was pinaccle Sex.

Manuel (39:31)
yes.

Trevor Hoppe (39:31)
Hahaha!

Manuel (39:33)
I would say, so let me set the tone. We are, I wanna say, yeah, it was like winter time. Yeah, winter time. So it’s cold out. So you can wear like clothes, like you can put on a jacket, you can put on a lot of stuff. So I would say sex that I remember the best is, you know,

lot of foreplay so went out to dinner a lot of foreplay we had the I forget what the thing is called but anyway it’s like a little plug that you put in you can control it on your phone and you go to dinner

Great conversation, normal conversation at the table, work, life, goals, things like that. you can play with the app. Turn it up, turn it down, things like that. Somebody’s ordering food, you turn it up. How do you interact with other people that have no idea what’s going on? So that type of fun to me is really interesting. And it really shows you a different side of people.

the sex encounter is much longer, right? You’re starting really from before you even leave the house and it goes through the dinner and getting back and kind of not even really making it into the house before you’re like kind of going at it and really getting started, going into the home, showering together, like that whole journey. And then propping them up on top of the washing machine and…

Trevor Hoppe (41:03)
Ha ha ha ha

Manuel (41:05)
turning that thing on is my favorite thing. And at that time, yes, at that time I lived in this small apartment. I had a washing machine that had to be from like the eighties or nineties that when you turn that thing on, it shook the whole house. I don’t know what the name was, but it would make a lot of noise and it would shake the whole house.

Trevor Hoppe (41:08)
Really?

You

is a speed queen probably. I know exactly the type.

Manuel (41:31)
And so, you know, that was like part of that adventure. And then it’s the, you know, kind of going from there, going to our room, finishing in there, and then spending that time after, not only like just there, like cuddling and talking and things like that, but like, you know, taking the time to, are you okay? Does anything hurt? Is it okay what we’ve done? Like things that you like, don’t like, things like that.

and kind of going over the encounter, what their favorite parts were, what my favorite parts were, and kind of talking about that journey together, especially right after it happened so that we’re able to clearly kind of rethink the evening and really understand like where the hard no’s are, you know what mean? Because that was always my biggest thing was if there is a hard no, really learning that and remembering that because, you know,

I want to be able to push my boundaries and push their boundaries and get to know all the things we do like and don’t like. But you also want to be considerate of what other people feel and what they like and don’t like. And really asking, most people may not even tell you if you don’t ask.

Trevor Hoppe (42:43)
So I’m just noticing that you’re using a lot of terms that are so close to ideas in the BDSM world, but are not. Like aftercare, for example, is a way that people in BDSM talk about that moment after where you check in and you kind of, it can be quite emotional to sort of go through the encounter and make sure that everyone’s okay and check on those limits. That would be another word that like, so I’m just curious, are you,

Is BDSM, like is that a framework that you feel, because you mentioned restraint as well. I’m just trying to piece it all together.

Manuel (43:18)
Yeah, I don’t consider myself a person in the BDSM space because there are a lot of things that I don’t personally like or would not do to myself or other people. But there are things that I do like, like, you know, I believe in tying people up. I think if you, you know, in a very safe and understanding way, you can use string and things like that for not only

tying someone up, but the textures, the way it feels on your body, the way that maybe you can tie somebody’s chest so that you feel like that pressure that maybe you can’t do with your hand or your arm, but you can rope in the chest part and then pull from the back. And it’ll compress almost like a full body hold type thing. So there’s pieces of it that I think are really interesting. And I think.

This is part of what I mean by, you know, don’t necessarily have to become, you know, a queen of a dungeon to enjoy certain pieces of BDSM or any other, you know, things that people enjoy. And I think being able to experiment in those spaces, everybody should have those opportunities and feel that it’s okay.

Because I do feel like a lot of these spaces are gate-capped. A lot of these spaces are not talked about. A lot of these spaces, you know, a lot of people just try to steer people away from. And I think unless you know for a fact that you’ve tried something and you don’t like it, it’s very hard to say that you don’t like it. You might be surprised, you know, at the end.

Trevor Hoppe (44:53)
Yes, well, hopefully you’re surprised in some way. It’s always good to be a little surprised with sex. I find that really interesting because those are principles that are more universal than they’re generally regarded as. So I just wanted to take a moment to check in on that because especially with the aftercare stuff, it’s fascinating to me that

We need a word for that, just the idea that you might talk to someone about the sex you just had. most of us don’t. We’re just terrified. What do you learn from your partners in those moments?

Manuel (45:25)
Ooh, you learn a lot. You learn, the main thing that you learn is how close you really are with that other sexual partner. You know, if it’s a one night stand, they’re probably not gonna say anything, right? So if you do have like a one night stand and you try to like check in and stuff, if they haven’t already grabbed their clothes and got out, you’re probably not going to get that far in that conversation.

Most of the people that I’ve had sex with in my life, I’ve been in relationships with, know, so in those relationships, I’ve always taken a lot more time at that because I also feel like that’s a time for us to connect. That’s a time for us to, you know, if everything is okay with sex and things like that, we can also talk about other things. We can also move into other conversations. We can, you know, kind of get that conversation out of the way.

And then you also learn like pieces of it that maybe people didn’t like or or or moments that maybe you were too aggressive or not aggressive enough or things like that where not everybody’s comfortable to like stop in the middle and be like, yeah, like be more aggressive or you know, whatever. Most people will use a safe word and you know, you’re being too aggressive, but some people are afraid to tell you to be more aggressive or to do something specific. And I think those are the moments where

you can kind of check that off your list and say, OK, this is something that they said that I didn’t do now, but maybe I’ll try the next time. And because I do like sex to be more spontaneous, you want to know those things ahead of time. Because if you do have another encounter, either quickly or later or whatever, you want to try to remember those things so that their experience is better every single time.

Trevor Hoppe (47:08)
Yeah, I think people are, especially after a very intense encounter, it can be a very vulnerable state. And so I think that’s why One Night Stands hit the road is because there’s a recognition of that vulnerability and a fear. I think people are scared of what they might say or do in that post-nut clarity moment or whatever, you know, that can be quite intense.

Manuel (47:30)
Yeah.

Trevor Hoppe (47:32)
So I appreciate that perspective because we haven’t talked about it so much on the show, but I think after care or whatever we want to call it is is so critical because

Manuel (47:43)
Yeah, I think it’s

more than just aftercare. think that’s the difference. think aftercare, especially in the BDSM world, is really used around the really understanding of are you hurt? Are things OK? Was something too hard? Things like that. Where I think we should really get to the point where if you’re having

multiple sessions with similar partners, right? Because if it’s a one night stand, mean, grab your shit and go. I mean, what else can I say? But if you’re really trying to continuously have sex with the same partner, wouldn’t you want it to get better? Wouldn’t you want it to improve? It’s not going to happen just out of the blue. It’s not just going to miraculously get better the next time if you don’t actually talk about it and express

how this could have been better.

Trevor Hoppe (48:32)
Amen. Communication. It’s like, it’s such a fundamental basic idea, but it’s so many of us don’t practice it, but, and we wonder why we don’t have great sex. amen. Communication is key. I always like to end with my favorite segments, Sorted Lives and Untold Tales. Slept for short. What’s the sluttiest thing you ever did?

Manuel (48:53)
Oof.

Okay. I said that I would, I would be very open on this podcast. So I’m to be very open to this podcast. Um, so sluttiest thing I’ve ever did. I was in college. went to a college party and we got way too drunk. Like it was bad. Like cops showed up everything. It was a mess. Like the worst.

party I ever went to in my life. But halfway through the party, there, so it’s like an apartment. It’s a dorm, but like it’s not a regular college dorm. There are apartments that are just on campus. So it’s a typical apartment. You walk in, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, blah, blah, blah. Balcony, beautiful.

So, walk into the back room and there is an entire orgy going on in this back room. And so, I joined in and just kind of got to start indulging into the different things. And that was the first time ever in my life that I tried to bottom like just whimsy because there was this guy in the room.

that I found very, very, very, very attractive back then. And I kind of didn’t want to say no. And I didn’t want to like miss my opportunity, I guess. And yeah, and he didn’t actually top me and my emotions were broken. So I topped the guy next to him and then I left.

Trevor Hoppe (50:28)
Aww.

Manuel (50:33)
So that is the sluttiest thing I ever did in a quick moment.

Trevor Hoppe (50:39)
Awwww, college parties. I mean, that sounds ruckus with the police coming, so I’m glad it was a… that you walked out of that party. Safe and sound.

Manuel (50:48)
Yeah,

I mean, they weren’t gonna take me. The cops weren’t gonna take me.

Trevor Hoppe (50:52)
Yay, take me. my God, that’s hilarious. Well, of course you have your podcast Girl Bye, which people can find online. Where can they find that? Where can they find you? How can people find more about you?

Manuel (51:03)
Yeah, so you can find the Girl, Bye podcast at Girl By M.O. on Instagram, TikTok, all the social platforms. You can also listen to the podcast on YouTube and Spotify. And yeah, season two is coming out next year. This is the official place I will announce season two coming out. So. Yeah, this year, 2025.

Trevor Hoppe (51:26)
But you mean this year, This year, I know.

It’s here.

Manuel (51:31)
I’m still

in 2024. I’m still in 2024.

Trevor Hoppe (51:34)
Tell me about it, I feel you.

Manuel (51:36)
Yeah, but everybody

should be on the lookout. Girl, Bye season two is really focused around education and, you know, getting more people to talk about their lives. I think we don’t spend enough time highlighting queer people. And, know, your podcast Girl, Bye podcast, you know, if you have anybody that you’re listening to that’s queer, we should continue to promote these things because only

us can educate each other and you know clearly the schools are not doing it and who knows if we even have a board of education next year.

Trevor Hoppe (52:13)
Oy vey. Yes. Amen to that. So thank you for doing the hard work of helping educate the world about queer people and lifting up those stories because I think that’s so valuable, especially over the next couple of years. So thank you, Manny. Thank you for your time and your insights. I really appreciate it.

Manuel (52:26)
Yes.

Absolutely, anytime. I had a blast and this is the best gay sex podcast on the internet

Trevor Hoppe (52:40)
That’s our show for today. Thank you so much for listening. Really please. And if you enjoy the show, take a second, give us a review on Apple, Spotify, whatever platform you use. Really, it means a lot and will help spread the message to other people. So thank you. And as always, remember, if you are not having your best gay sex or someone in your life is not having their best gay sex, I can help.

My services as a sex coach can help you or your friend identify and overcome those obstacles that are standing between you and your best sex life. Find out more on my website, thebestgaysex.net. Till next time.

S01E09 – “Bearing Witness” ft. Sister T’Aint A Virgin

S01E08 – “Slut Pride” ft. Charles Sanchez

OVERVIEW:

What if being a slut was something to celebrate? Join me, Dr. Trevor Hoppe, on this episode of The Best Gay Sex Podcast as I chat with Charles Sanchez, actor, writer, director, and Contributing Editor at TheBody.com, about reclaiming the word “slut” as a source of pride and liberation. From his musical web series Merce to navigating slutty adventures (and the occasional mishap, hello Mpox), Charles shares his journey of embracing sexual agency, dismantling shame, and finding joy in authentic connections. Whether you’re a self-proclaimed slut or just curious, this episode will have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about desire.

TRANSCRIPT:

Trevor Hoppe (00:09)
Hey, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Trevor Hoppe. Today’s episode is about slut pride. Pride? Come again? I know, I know. Most of us use the word slut as a weapon.

as a way to try to tar and feather someone else with the stigma of sex. We use the word slut to try to check someone whose sexuality we think is maybe a little too furry, especially women and gay men. And like tar, the label slut is sticky. It tends to follow you for life. But today’s guest thinks we’ve gotten it all wrong.

that it’s time to reclaim slut not as a source of shame but as a source of pride. Charles Sanchez has been working for over two decades as a writer, director, and actor to try to shake up American norms around sex and sexuality. His original web series titled MERS follows the life of a gay man living with HIV in New York City. And it features an original song called The More You Can Ho.

It really is amazing. Please check it out on YouTube. I’ll let Charles describe his work a little bit better than I can. Let’s listen in.

Trevor Hoppe (01:29)
Charles Sanchez, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast.

Charles Sanchez (01:32)
Thank you, thank you.

Trevor Hoppe (01:34)
It’s a pleasure to have you and hear you talk about your work, but before we get to today, tell me and people listening a little bit about kind of where you grew up and became a sexual being.

Charles Sanchez (01:46)
Okay, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. I am the youngest of four, very Catholic, very Mexican, very, my oldest brother and my sister are, are board again Christians. And so that was also a big, like, you know, Jesus, sinners in the hands of an angry God. That’s kind of what I feel like that that whole thing was. So that colored a lot of my

Trevor Hoppe (02:04)
Huh.

Right? Okay. Fire and brimstone.

Charles Sanchez (02:15)
of a lot of my sexual awakening. remember, wow, okay. I remember there were some boys in my neighborhood that we were all kind of discovering sex things at the same time, like looking at Playboy and things like that. Penthouse, which you can see into tomorrow’s future by looking at the pages of Penthouse.

Trevor Hoppe (02:33)
Mm -hmm.

Charles Sanchez (02:42)
And you know that didn’t really interest me except that everybody was naked in it So there was that and then I discovered the the pool jets on my penis That was exciting. That was that was probably around 13 or 14 So does that count as sex? And my first like

Trevor Hoppe (02:53)
Yes!

huh.

It’s definitely getting there.

Charles Sanchez (03:07)
first real encounter was probably not until I was about 18. I had some like petting things with boys and stuff and certainly had some petting things with girls. Squishy. Squishy. Girls are too squishy. That was part of it. They’re just squishy. But my first like real sexual encounter, was 18 and I remember I was so excited afterwards.

I didn’t eat for two days. was just excited. Yeah. 18.

Trevor Hoppe (03:39)
Wow.

What was it like?

Where did you meet this person?

Charles Sanchez (03:44)
I met this person at an adult bookstore. because there was they didn’t ever no one ever checked your ID at the adult bookstore. And looking back, I can’t believe they ever let me in. I looked like I was 16 until I was about 35.

Trevor Hoppe (04:06)
-huh.

Charles Sanchez (04:14)
so when I was 16 or, you know, must’ve looked 12, but they let me in anyways. and so that’s where I met this guy and like, we went back to his hotel room and, cause he was staying — he was, I was living in Phoenix — he was in from New York, ironically. And, so, so that was that. And we had like this little on again, off again thing, like whenever he was in the city.

Trevor Hoppe (04:33)
Mm

Charles Sanchez (04:41)
Or like when I finally moved to New York, he was the first person to take me to gay bars in New York City when I moved here when I was 19. So we had like a little something for a while, but.

Trevor Hoppe (04:48)
Wow.

That’s really tender. A kind of a like a gay mentor.

Charles Sanchez (04:56)
Yeah, yeah. The first night he took me out in New York City, we went to the Monster, which is like, there’s a piano bar on the top floor, then you go to the basement and there’s a disco. So it’s two bars in one. And we went to a couple different other places, then we ended at what I think was this sex club that was called J’s at the time. But I’d never been in anything like that before. And I remember looking over and thinking,

like, wow, that guy looks like he has a hand inside him. my God, that guy has a hand inside him. So yeah, that was one of my first New York experiences.

Trevor Hoppe (05:35)
That’s a brave initiation, you know, going straight to New York City sex club.

Charles Sanchez (05:36)
Right? Well, I didn’t know, brave schmabe.

I was just taking that. Like, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was like, okay.

Trevor Hoppe (05:45)
How did you figure out what to do with people?

Charles Sanchez (05:48)
I’m still trying to figure that out. Because I think it was a lot of this, you know? And people asking me to do certain things and stuff like that. I remember one of my first experiences with a man when I was still, was like 17, 18, around that same time.

Trevor Hoppe (05:52)
Ha

Huh?

Charles Sanchez (06:17)
because then I was like experimenting. I remember at one point going home with this guy and afterwards thinking, if that’s gay sex, I’m not gay. Because it was so just like nothing and boring and like it wasn’t hot at all. And when you’re 18, everything’s hot. So for it to not be was, I really was like, well, maybe I’m not gay. I was wrong.

Trevor Hoppe (06:25)
Wow.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, turns out, spoiler alert. What was so, was just boring? There wasn’t chemistry?

Charles Sanchez (06:47)
It was boring.

There wasn’t any chemistry. At least I didn’t feel any chemistry. I mean, it seemed like the other guy did. Because he wanted to see me more afterwards. And I was like, sure, I’ll call you. But it was it was just like there was nothing. There was no excitement. I mean, the excitement part for me was just like having sex was like, and it wasn’t

Trevor Hoppe (07:03)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (07:18)
I didn’t, I wasn’t fulfilled. didn’t feel like it was this great time. And I didn’t know what I was doing. so, yeah, I think that that’s why that time was just so disappointing. And opposite of the time with the other guy when I was so excited I couldn’t eat for two days.

Trevor Hoppe (07:39)
Yeah, the eating thing is fascinating. I’ve never heard that response. That must have been pretty good because that’s kind of…

Charles Sanchez (07:44)
Yeah, it was fun. And well, I think

part of it too was feeling that I was attractive. It was one of the first times I felt because, you know, the boys in high school, the boys that grew up, even if they were gay, they weren’t gonna show it in 1985, 86, you know, like they, so I had very little feeling that I was attractive in any way. And so I think that was part of that time with this guy’s name was Scott.

was so excited because I knew that he thought I was attractive. And I think that’s part of what got me excited.

Trevor Hoppe (08:20)
Yeah, no, it’s nice to be wanted for sure. That can feel amazing. When did you, so did you move to New York City after Arizona or how did that?

Charles Sanchez (08:22)
Hahaha

Yeah, I

grew up in Arizona and I moved to New York the first time when I was 19 to go to acting school. And then I’m, know I can’t believe my parents let me do that at 19, but they did. And then at around 30, I moved to Los Angeles for a few years. And then I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas for about seven years, eight years. And then I moved back to New York in 2007.

Trevor Hoppe (08:36)
Wow.

Yeah.

Okay, so you have bopped all over. When do you feel like you, what was the, where did your kind of, it sounds like maybe New York is where your sexual awakening happened, where you became a like sexual being.

Charles Sanchez (09:00)
I have.

Yeah, I feel like, you know, when I was growing up at home, I was so limited by family and by, you know, what I felt like. And I didn’t know what being gay was going to be like for, because it was all in my head as being this abomination and you know, know, burn in hell and all those kinds of things that I was taught and that I believed, you know, that I had not only was taught that, but I went, that matches my own self -hatred. So I might as well stick with that.

So yeah, wasn’t until I moved to New York that I really felt free enough away from my family and away from those limitations to experiment. But I didn’t really come out to my family until I was 30. So I was really still scared and that was a real, think judgment and abomination and those kinds of things really affected my sex life and my wellbeing until I was probably about 50.

Trevor Hoppe (09:55)
Mm

Charles Sanchez (10:09)
I finally started getting rid of shame around that.

Trevor Hoppe (10:10)
Wow.

That is a journey. what was the process like to relinquish that shame? How did you get through that?

Charles Sanchez (10:19)
It was a long journey from whatever coming out, starting to realize it myself in my late teens and late 20s, and then starting to come out to friends and then finally coming out to my family. But the shame was so ingrained. Before I knew what gay was, I was told it was an abomination. Before I even could realize that that was me. So I was…

it was so easy for me to just hate myself and feel like the sex that I enjoyed was demonic or was satanic or evil. And I think it just took all those years of therapy and self -love and getting rid of chemicals out of my life and things like that that I was using to cope before I went like, wow, there is no reason for me to be ashamed of my sex.

I was created this way. I was made this way. And people who think otherwise, that’s the abomination is if your church is teaching you how to not love certain people, then that’s not a good church.

Trevor Hoppe (11:30)
Amen to that preach. mean, that’s real. And I feel like for so many gay men, that shame is a fundamental like aspect of their sexuality. I know so many gay men who struggle with that. what would you tell a young queer person who’s living in that shame? Like how do you, how do you push beyond it?

Charles Sanchez (11:52)
I know. I I think that shame is built into sex in America across the board. You know, we were founded by these religious zealots, people who got kicked out of their own country because of their religion came here to start a country. So I think that shame and shame about sex is something that’s just American, that certainly they don’t have it in the same way in other countries in Europe. But when you realize that

Trevor Hoppe (11:59)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (12:19)
You know, everybody has a sex life, hopefully, right? Everybody has their own sex journey. And to judge yourself for it is just not helpful. know, embrace those parts of yourself because they’re fun. I think that’s the… You just have to go through the journey yourself, unfortunately. I think that everybody has to find it for themselves. But anytime you start feeling shame and it’s not fun,

Because you know, could be part of a fantasy, shame could be part of a thing, part of a kink. But when it’s not fun, that’s when you need to do some self -examination. Maybe find a therapist or at least talk to some friends to get you out of that mindset because there is no reason. If you’re having sex that is not hurting anybody else, then there’s no need for shame.

Trevor Hoppe (13:12)
Would shame fuel the sex you were having?

Charles Sanchez (13:15)
I certainly think that it informed how I felt about myself. And so then it did inform like hiding and secrecy. even from other gay friends, like I didn’t want to talk about the experiences I was having or the experiences that I wanted to have. That was something that I was like, ooh, I don’t know about these certain experiences that I’m interested in, but I don’t know how to even go about.

getting them, like how do I express to someone that I want to feel it feels like to be tied up or I want to experience these sort of taboo subjects. So it took me a long time to even get there myself to even feel like I could try certain things or express certain things.

Trevor Hoppe (14:04)
And I guess with the shame, I know many friends who’ve struggled with the shame, often the substances come with that. And I heard you mention chemicals. was that a link for you, the shame and substances?

Charles Sanchez (14:22)
I think so. couldn’t have told you that at the time. I didn’t have that much awareness. But I think they went hand in hand. I think it made a lot of things easier, especially alcohol. Because alcohol is so prevalent and it’s so part of American culture and part of gay culture. I used to have a joke about when you go to a regular bar and order gin and tonic, it’s gin.

and tonic. And when you go to a bar, it’s gin tonic. There you go. It’s like that they know that you need a little help.

Trevor Hoppe (14:58)
ha ha ha ha ha ha

It’s so true, gay bars are known for having strong pours and I hadn’t really connected that in my head, but you’re right, there could be something kind of secret messaging going on there. Do you think it’s like, when do you, I guess when I’m thinking about like people listening, like the not fun thing I think is such good advice and it’s sometimes like, how do you know?

Charles Sanchez (15:11)
What?

Trevor Hoppe (15:26)
It sounds so stupid, right? How do you know it’s not fun? You like know, obviously, but like, how do you know that it’s not just normal kind of sexual exploration, but it’s actually kind of self -destructive or harmful behavior?

Charles Sanchez (15:39)
Ooh, it’s rough. Because I think, you know, we’re not given any kind of sex education as gay men, or as anybody in the queer community. Even regular sex ed for cis straight people is very rare, you know? We still hope that our families are gonna tell us, and most of us just have to learn on the street. And gay men, not given any, all we have is like,

Trevor Hoppe (15:48)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (16:06)
and talking to friends. So I think it’s really, really rough to figure out what kind of sex do you like? What kind of sex do you find pleasurable? What are your boundaries? Where is it okay to extend those boundaries for yourself? So I think that’s why it’s taken me so long to get to a place where I can…

at least talk about the kind of sex that I like and the kinds of sex that I want, which are varied from day to day, which sometimes I want more cuddly, more romantic, more, and sometimes I want to be slapped around.

Trevor Hoppe (16:46)
Yeah. Amen. It varies indeed. And for me, I guess I think a lot about how I’ve learned to be a sexual person has been framed in part by having kind of by kissing a lot of frogs, by having some bad experiences. Have there been bad experiences that you think of that even if they were bad, kind of were instructive that helped you grow and have better sex in the future?

Charles Sanchez (16:49)
Hahaha

I certainly have had, you know, bad experiences. and it’s not about like what you, like, you know, the people will say, you know, the size, size queens, size matters and stuff like that. I’ve had incredible sex with guys who were not big at all, who actually, when I, when I figured it out, I was like, Ooh, this is going to be a disappointment. How do I get out of this? And then, my gosh, it ended up being like, this was really fun. You were really terrific.

Trevor Hoppe (17:41)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (17:41)
So it has nothing to do with those kinds of things. think even like, he’s too fat or he’s too whatever. For me, I’m attracted to a lot of different kinds of people. So those limitations, that has nothing to do with it. It’s all about what’s going on in your brain and what’s going on, what we like together and who we are as a couple, or as a, not even a couple, it might be three, it might be four.

but who we are in this situation.

I think the bad experiences mostly are times when I felt unsafe. so my advice is if there is ever a time when you feel unsafe, get out of there. And sometimes it’s hard. I’ve been in situations, especially when I was younger, and I didn’t, when you don’t know what’s appropriate or what’s normal, what you want even.

when I had to like fight somebody to get out the door. I’m like, no, this is yeah, yeah. And because it’s because, especially when you’re young and maybe if you’re vulnerable, if you’re using chemicals to loosen yourself up, then you’re not thinking clearly and you’re able to distinguish what this person’s saying, what I really want, or even gauge fear, gauge your own feelings. So those kinds of things I think did inform

Trevor Hoppe (18:47)
Really? Ugh, that’s all.

Charles Sanchez (19:13)
my safety, what I consider safe, who I consider that I’m gonna let this boundary down for this person in this situation because I feel safe or because we have set up a boundary that I feel comfortable with. And those do take a lot of trial and error. I mean, if there’s a book about it, I don’t have it. If there’s a how -to book, I probably should have gotten.

Trevor Hoppe (19:40)
do you identify as a top or a bottom? Is that a word, labels that you kind of, yeah.

Charles Sanchez (19:44)
Yeah, I’m a bottom, which

it’s so funny. I hear a lot of people say like, everybody’s a bottom and I have such, well, I never have a problem finding a top. So I don’t know what those other bottoms are doing or looking for, but yeah, that’s, it took me a while to acknowledge that and to feel that’s another thing that even in the gay community, we’re kind of shamed for being a bottom and most of us are bottoms, but

Trevor Hoppe (20:12)
huh. Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (20:14)
but

there is a shame level. I’m like, and tops are guilty of it, of shaming us. Well, without us, where would you be? You’d be, you know.

So it’s a weird thing that we do to ourselves.

Trevor Hoppe (20:22)
Yeah, up Schitt’s Creek without a paddle.

It is and it’s internalized too, right? We literally do it to ourselves like in our own brains and it’s really hard to kind of break through it. when you actually like as a social scientist, I’ve actually looked at top bottom like.

label identification and like there are just as many tops as bottoms like at least self -identified. But there is this mythology that’s kind of fueled by bottom stigma. It’s just like, bottoms, ee, you know, it’s like, come on. yeah, yeah. And like also we are, bottoms say this too, you know, it’s like, but we are like have some pride. Like, you know, it’s hard to.

Charles Sanchez (20:55)
Yeah, but you need us. You want us.

Trevor Hoppe (21:08)
to feel proud about that label, even though in the face of all this like, ugh, negative energy. So I feel that, that just owning that. And especially in those experiences where you’re confronted with another human being and saying, no, as a bottom, think, in my experience, I don’t know, what about you? Do you feel like that’s especially challenging or differently challenging as a bottom?

Charles Sanchez (21:33)
I don’t know. I have come to feel like my own power as a bottom. I’ve had a lot of different kinds of experiences. I was in a big relationship where I was as a sub with the master for about a year and a half. that informed a lot of where I realized my agency and when you’re in that kind of a situation where the power structure is set up,

Trevor Hoppe (21:58)
Mm

Charles Sanchez (22:03)
He’s the master, I’m the not. But I found like, where my power really was even in that dynamic, where it looked like, you know, he had the power, but I always had the power to say like, no, or stop, or I need a break, or any of those kinds of things for the most part. But you have to learn it. And you have to learn what you feel comfortable doing, saying. But yeah, I just don’t feel, I don’t feel the shame that I used to about being a bottom because

I’m not the only one. I’m not alone in my bottomness. like I said, I’ve not had a problem finding the sex that I want when I want it, you know? So.

Trevor Hoppe (22:33)
Yeah.

In the context of that Dom -Sub relationship, How do you, how do you create?

either by setting boundaries or through other means, like create the situation in which you can feel comfortable in that role where you can feel like you have that power.

Charles Sanchez (23:03)
Well, I had never been in that kind of relationship before, before I got into it. So I, looking back, I agreed to a lot of things that I had no idea what I was agreeing to. But I kept saying to myself through the process, even when I was like, not knowing what was happening, always going like, okay, here’s my choice. My choice is I can leave. Like that’s, he can ask me to do whatever. And…

Trevor Hoppe (23:15)
Mm.

Charles Sanchez (23:31)
And my choice is to go, okay, either I accommodate this situation and stay here, or I go, no, I’m out. And that was my big power move is realizing that that’s where I say no. If I say no, and then the situation’s over, right? But that’s where my power really was, is I can end this right now. And knowing that I think really helped me make…

more informed decisions about, what I was really willing to do and why. And with this person that I was feeling increasingly more comfortable with and more trust, I trusted him more and more. And of all the relationships I’ve been in in my life, he was the person who invited me into his life the most. And I had been in long -term relationships with boyfriends and more traditional kinds of things. But this man,

Trevor Hoppe (24:13)
Mm -hmm, yeah, the trust is key.

Charles Sanchez (24:29)
like really invited me into his life, his world. The advantages of this situation were that, well, he had a husband who I knew and who I got along with really well. like he said to me, I’m never gonna be your husband. I’m never gonna be your boyfriend. That’s not what this is. Okay, that’s the rule and I get that. But because of the sexual situation that we were all in, there were no lies. There was no cheating.

And that was so freeing to be like, wow, there’s zero reason to lie about anything in this relationship. Also, because he had a husband, we never had the rent stew or the light bill didn’t get paid or any of those kinds of couple things that you might go through. We didn’t have because he had a husband that he did that with. So there were so many things about the relationship that I felt really that I would have had no idea about except being in it.

that were like that, that were like, wow, we don’t lie. We don’t cheat. We don’t, because there’s none. It’s just, there isn’t any of that. And I found that really, really refreshing and great.

Trevor Hoppe (25:43)
Do you think that like, did their primary partner, do you think that ever caused friction with them? Having your your dom sub relationship alongside that?

Charles Sanchez (25:56)
No, think because they already had boundaries set up for themselves. their sex life had evolved to where they weren’t really having sex with each other that much, unless they had a boy in common that they both wanted to be with. So that was just, they’d been together for a long time and that was what they decided, that worked for them.

Trevor Hoppe (26:16)
huh.

Charles Sanchez (26:26)
The master, my master, he has more sex with more hot guys than anyone I’ve ever met. Like he is, he likes variety, he has a revolving door. So there were the guys who were always coming in and out and new guys always coming in. And there was like me and he had another boy that was a regular, you that was his other main regular. And then there ended up being like a third for a while. And then, and then when things changed and like right now I am outside of that relationship.

And it’s quite sad to me, but it’s just the way things happened. It was nobody’s fault. It was just the way of the world. I don’t think that there was any jealousy within his marriage with that because, and certainly his husband and I got along really well. I was there every weekend. I cooked for them. For that part of it, it was kind of…

run -of -the -mill. was kind of very regular in that it was groceries and cooking and watching movies and SNL on Saturday nights, you know. was quite, yeah.

Trevor Hoppe (27:36)
That’s cute.

So it was beyond the bedroom. This was a relationship that definitely extended. fascinating. What do you think you learned? having not been in a dom -sub relationship like that, what do you think you learned about yourself through that experience?

Charles Sanchez (27:53)
One of the things that was really valuable to me was I had never been or maybe I’d never felt valued as a sexual person in a relationship. I always felt like sex was a part of it or whatever, but I never felt sexy. And that’s more on me than on anybody I was with. That’s just my own feelings about myself. And so to be in this relationship where the primary reason I was there was because he thought I was hot.

Trevor Hoppe (28:12)
yeah.

Charles Sanchez (28:22)
reason that he wanted me to stay around was because he saw I was hot. Whenever I was there, I was in a thong only. That was my uniform when I was at their house. So that was really valuable to me, was to really feel like I am not just a sexual being, but I am a sexy being. I am desirable.

That was really, really valuable to me. I think everybody needs to, everybody should feel that in their relationship, that they are desired. So that was really important for me to realize is that I am, you know, even at my rapidly aging body, I’m still, no, I’m a sexy person. I’m attractive person. So that was probably the most

Trevor Hoppe (29:15)
Yes.

Charles Sanchez (29:19)
valuable thing I got out of it was realizing my own sexual potency.

and, and the things that I thought maybe that I would never have done. I’ll never do that. That’s just disgusting. I did. And then was able to go like, okay, well, that I don’t like that I don’t want to do again. but I experienced more things in the sexual catalog than I ever thought I would and enjoyed more than I ever thought I would. Like things like being denied or things like being having

three -somes or four -somes or group situations that maybe would have made me feel a little bit more uncomfortable in an environment where I knew like, okay, I know these people now. It’s one thing to be in a sex party situation where you’re just, everybody’s anonymous and so you can kind of be put on a character or something or be whoever you want to be. But when people know you, that’s a little bit different level of comfort and a different level of agency.

So that was just something else too, is to be like, wow, this is someone who I know likes me and I know who likes this.

Trevor Hoppe (30:31)
Amen. How do you find guys… Because I hear that message, you want to feel sexy. How do you find guys who make you feel sexy?

Charles Sanchez (30:38)
Mmm. I mean, there is no other way to, you know, it’s all kind of trial and error. mean, one of the things that happened to me kind of recently about that is, I think, like my own desirability, you know, it goes up and down. How you feel about yourself. I gained five pounds and now I’m just gay obese. And, you know, like…

Trevor Hoppe (31:05)
I know.

Charles Sanchez (31:05)
You gain five

pounds and it’s over. I’m never going to have sex again. And I had someone recently say to me, like I was saying like, I’m not really getting together with anybody right now because I just feel so bad. And he was like, well, you know, I want you to do whatever you need to do to feel sexy. I’m on board with you feeling sexy. But our connection is more than what you look like. And that was really valuable for me to hear because I so

can just be like, I have to have muscles, I have to have washboard abs or else I’m not viable. And that’s not true. And that’s something I’m learning still every day. That’s something I’m battling all the time being like, no, maybe if you do, maybe the least attractive thing about me is that I beat myself up so much. It has nothing to with what I look like.

Trevor Hoppe (31:55)
Ain’t that the f***ing rub, right? It’s like, that’s the

worst part about it is people, that’s the thing that turns people off sometimes. You’re like, gosh darn it. Like, you’re, it’s like, you’re damned if you do, damned if you do. It feels impossible, you know? And if you project too much confidence, then people of course think you’re, you know, cocky or arrogant. Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (32:11)
Right. Then you’re stuck out. Remember saying that was my favorite thing in

grade school. You’re so stuck out.

Trevor Hoppe (32:18)
Or a brat to use the term everyone’s using right now.

Charles Sanchez (32:20)
breath. Conceit ad. That was the other one we used to say when

we were in junior high. She still could say that.

Trevor Hoppe (32:26)
Yeah, exactly.

my god. I love it. Is there an experience that you could think of or multiple perhaps that jump out at you as like, this was the best sex, this is like the best sex of my life?

Charles Sanchez (32:41)
There are two that I think of. One was with the master early in our relationship. Because I was so inexperienced about sub, I didn’t know what to do. And so I was relying heavily on him telling me what to do. I would get so excited. I remember this a couple of times when I couldn’t speak. I was so concentrating on trying to do the right thing and trying to be pleasing.

and tried to listen to what he was telling me to do. And I remember him saying like, boy, you have to answer me. You have to use your words and me just being so turned on and everything that I couldn’t speak. So that, I can’t tell you what was happening. You know, I couldn’t tell you what he said to me. I just was, I just remember that feeling of being so overcome. And the second one I think you have is.

Trevor Hoppe (33:26)
Yeah.

Mm -mm.

Mm -hmm. Verklempt.

Charles Sanchez (33:37)
The best sex party I ever went to, I went to this sex party, it like two years ago. I haven’t actually, haven’t been to one since and here’s why. I went to this sex party and I was like the belle of the ball. I don’t know why, but yeah, I was like very, very popular that day. And I had a great time until two days later, Monkeypox. was the sex party that gave me Monkeypox. it was, Monkeypox was painful.

It was awful, it was embarrassing. mean, Monkey Punks was more, for me, I felt more embarrassed than Chlamydia or Gonorrhea. Like, what’s a little Chlamydia between trends? But Monkey Punks was, that was a time when I felt like a little bit of shame about how I got it and knowing that it was that. But you know, I’m easing up. I’m having sex party ideas popping into my head. So that might be.

coming up in the fall is my return. I try up the return. We’ll see.

Trevor Hoppe (34:40)
the bell of the ball returns. -huh. Down the steps

of the parasol, ready for the party. I love it. And I don’t want to dwell too much on MPox because, you know, it’s just one of those things, but I know a lot of people probably don’t know anyone who ever had it. Like, what was that experience like for you?

Charles Sanchez (34:47)
Alright.

It was awful. I wrote about it for the body .com. You can find it at the article. Partly too because of where it, because of the kind of sex I like, it was a lot, it was in my rectum. And so my, was having such pain and I had to get, I was on like two different kinds of painkillers because I was in such pain about it. At the same time, a friend of mine,

Trevor Hoppe (35:04)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (35:25)
whose a top was going through it. his junk was all messed up and mine was opposite. But it was helpful to have a friend who was going through it at the same time. And because it made me feel a little bit less shame -filled and less alone about it. And this was right when it was all happening. This was two years ago when the outbreak happened before they hadn’t even, I think they were…

doing limited vaccines and stuff like that because they didn’t have enough of it and all those kinds of things. But yeah, it affected me a lot and it was very painful. One of the most painful things that I’ve had like two hip replacements. I’ve had a lot of different surgeries and this was incredibly, incredibly painful.

Trevor Hoppe (36:16)
I’m so sorry that that happened. I’m glad you got through it. I had a good friend who had it at the same time as you and he was texting me updates regularly because I think he didn’t have anyone to talk to. So he really needed somebody to sound off who he could trust to not judge him. Cause the judgment was insane at the time. It was like, I mean, as someone who lived through the eighties, do you feel like did you, we’re seeing parallels with HIV?

Charles Sanchez (36:35)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. When I went to the emergency room, because my doctor said, go to the emergency room. And I went to the emergency room at Bellevue because he recommended, he goes, that’s where they first started finding cases of pox. Go there. The doctor came in in a hazmat suit. And I hadn’t seen that since, I mean, I had never experienced that before, but I had certainly seen it in movies and stuff when they talked about early in the AIDS crisis. And I had, I was shocked.

Trevor Hoppe (37:00)
yeah.

Charles Sanchez (37:12)
It made sense because they didn’t know what they didn’t know. was like COVID. But I just never experienced that before and it was shocking and it did feel like the shame, that also doubled up the shame. It’s like, wow, a doctor doesn’t even feel safe.

Trevor Hoppe (37:29)
Yeah, I can only imagine the, ooh, the feelings in the body as that is happening. That is wild. Well, I’m glad you’re on the other side of that. I hope you make your return to the ball. Just, definitely. If you had to, even the power, like the Thanos glove of sex, to just like snap your fingers and like fantasy becomes reality, like what would that fantasy look like for you?

Charles Sanchez (37:39)
I’ll let you know.

It’s, I don’t know, it’s kind of changed a lot. I, since the sort of dissolving of the relationship with the master, which I didn’t expect to have the feelings that I would, that I have still even about him. Cause that’s not something that you think about when you’re going into like this sex relationship that you can end up having feelings. And I have,

big feelings. So I think that when I realized that relationship was kind of over, it was like, wow, you know, one of the things I liked about it was knowing that I was liked. And that it was like for multiple reasons, you know, that it was, yeah, it was partly about what I looked like, partly about, you know, that I have, I’ve got guns, but.

I didn’t always, I’m the fat guy. So I’ve always been like, I’m the fat kid. So that’s why I’m like, no, look, look, I’m not anymore. But to be valued in several different ways was really eye -opening because I never had felt that in other relationships. So I think that being desired and feeling that you’re desired and also honored outside of, as a whole person.

Trevor Hoppe (38:54)
Me too.

Charles Sanchez (39:20)
That’s what I’m kind of looking for now. And it almost sounds romantic, which makes me wanna throw up. Because I don’t know if I believe in marriage for myself. I don’t know if that’s in my cards. I kind of don’t think so. But I look for relationships now, or I look for experiences now that where I feel that it’s more than just my sex.

So right now, one of the questions you add on the thing is like your sluttiest moment. I’m like, I have so many, I, the sluttiest thing you’ve ever done. But right now, and as someone who is a self -proclaimed slut and that like, I like to have sex with a lot of people, right now I’m not. I’m really, seeing two people, really only one. And it’s just sex, but I know that he…

knows me outside of our sex and that we have had other experiences and I feel like I’m a whole person. And so I’m not just this superficial thing, but I feel like he likes me in more ways than one.

Trevor Hoppe (40:31)
Do you think over time you’ve been able to reveal more of yourself in these sex relationships?

Charles Sanchez (40:38)
it depends on the person. Yeah, I do. and, and on what the person like, you know, some people you finished with sex and they’re out the door or they’re kicking you out the door, depending on where you are. But, and those, like I have realized too, like even those moments of those connections with people sexually where that’s all it is. I can really feel a measure of connection and.

I hate to use love, that’s a weird word, I think it’s so loaded, but a real connection and affection and caring, even in a situation that is fleeting and I’ll never see this person again. I’ve been able to find that and find it very valuable and this is how I’m connecting with humanity. And I think it’s as valid as anything else.

Trevor Hoppe (41:34)
Yes.

Charles Sanchez (41:35)
So, and with the people that I’m seeing right now that I do have a bigger, broader connection with, that know me in ways outside of just, you my ass, I think that I’ve gotten a much more richer experience from that because I can, don’t have to leave right away. We can have connections outside. I can run into them on the street and it’s not awkward.

Trevor Hoppe (42:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I feel like that’s that some of that just comes with age, like remembering myself and I was as younger and you think about what was best sex when you were 22 and it probably you would I don’t know if you probably answer that question differently than.

Charles Sanchez (42:19)
Partly just because of experience, not having had… And I was so insecure. I was incredibly insecure. And partly it’s our own… Sometimes as gay men, we’re mean to each other. I’m looking for anybody to have sex with but you. Right? No fat.

Trevor Hoppe (42:40)
Yeah, right? It feels that way sometimes.

Charles Sanchez (42:44)
No Femmes,

no, you know, like I’m looking for a swimmer, straight acting, swimmer’s build, you know. You know, we can’t all date Greg Louganis, know. Come on. And yeah, like, but and also I think like I’ve had washboard apps. I don’t right now. And it’s hard to go like, OK, but am I still am I still sexy even though I’ve got a little gut, you know?

Trevor Hoppe (42:50)
The swimmer build, I cannot with that. Like, what does that even mean?

Hahaha

Charles Sanchez (43:13)
It’s really, we’re so mean to each other, I think about it. And I try to, I down myself before someone else does, but then I’m beating myself up out of this weird way of trying to protect myself. So I don’t know that I like, good sex when you’re 22 is so fleeting, you know, cause you’re so horny all the damn time at 22. You know, the wind blows and you’re like, where can I find somebody? And so it’s kind of,

Trevor Hoppe (43:37)
Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (43:43)
It’s kind of nice to be able to make choices when you’re a little bit older and be like, you know what, I don’t need to have sex with this person because he’s there and offering it. And I can decide who I want to have sex with now. think that’s the experience I want. If I want a sex party experience or if I want a threesome experience or if I just want to connect with this one person.

Trevor Hoppe (44:08)
Choosiness is a virtue and it’s hard to practice sometimes when you’re horny.

Charles Sanchez (44:09)
Yeah.

Right, when you’re

horny and you don’t feel good about yourself, you know? So then you’re gonna make choices that maybe aren’t the best for you. Or for that person even, you know, really. But yeah, I’ve done that a lot too.

Trevor Hoppe (44:18)
Ugh, even worse, yeah. Yes.

Well, you already sort of gave a preview, but I always like to end with my favorite question, Sorted Lives and Untold Tales, which is short for S.L.U.T. What is the sluttiest thing you’ve ever done?

Charles Sanchez (44:43)
Ugh,

ugh, there’s a top 10 probably list. I mean, mean, somewhat, sex parties are certainly a slutty thing by definition when you’re, when there’s a place you’re going in and there’s clothes check. That’s a pretty slutty situation. But I think once I realized that I like to have sex and that was okay.

Trevor Hoppe (44:48)
Ha

Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (45:13)
Some people might think that that’s slutty just because I’m having agency about the sex that I want and the sex that I have and that it’s okay to want to have wanton sex. I think that’s probably the sluttiest thing I’ve ever done is realizing that it’s okay to be a slut. And I’m not a slut alone, right? Like you can’t be a slut by yourself.

By definition, you have to include other people. And I think that that’s probably the sluttiest thing I’ve done is that realizing that it’s okay to be a slut and to not feel shame about it. Like, no, guess what? Yeah, I’m wearing my shirt unbuttoned. Do you know why? Because I’m a gay man. And I’ve got a nice chest and I’m going to show it off while I got it.

Trevor Hoppe (45:44)
Amen, that’s so true.

Mm

Charles Sanchez (46:09)
So that’s probably the sluttiest thing. It’s not an action, but more of an attitude.

Trevor Hoppe (46:15)
I live. I live. That is fabulous.

Charles Sanchez (46:17)
Yes, I

slept there 4 a

Trevor Hoppe (46:21)
Aha! I slept there for a hour. Well, that is a fabulous place to wrap it up. Thank you, Charles. If people want to know more about, of course, if people want to know more about you and where can they find you on the internet?

Charles Sanchez (46:27)
Thank you for having me.

Well, I’m a contributing editor for the body .com. So I do a lot of content for them, including hosting a twice monthly Instagram live, where I talk to people from the LGBTQ and HIV communities from across the country and various different. So I’ve talked to Greg Louganis several times. I’ve talked to other kind of HIV celebrities like Mondo Guerra and Andre De Shields and Javier Muñoz. But I’ve also talked to people who are working.

Trevor Hoppe (46:55)
That’s awesome.

Charles Sanchez (47:03)
on the boots on the ground at Planned Parenthood in Colorado or or an HIV organizations across the country. I also write for POZ Magazine. So you can find me on the Instagrams and on the Facebooks. I am FabulousSanchez on Instagram. I’m also on X but I’m not really on X because I think it’s gross. Yeah, yeah, and I just like that dude is weird and

Trevor Hoppe (47:24)
Yeah. We’re all piecing out. Yeah.

Charles Sanchez (47:31)
So that’s where you can find me is on Facebook and on Instagram mostly. I’m on threads too, but I’m not really on threads. also I have a web series that’s still out there in the world called Merce. It’s a musical comedy about a guy living with HIV who isn’t sad, sick or dying. And we did two seasons of it. So that’s out there, M-E -R -C -E. You can find it on YouTube or on Vimeo or on our website, merceseries .com.

Trevor Hoppe (47:51)
Live for that.

Charles Sanchez (48:01)
there anything else? I think that’s about it. But yeah, you can find out more about me online and you can Google me and you’ll find out other crazy stuff.

Trevor Hoppe (48:07)
Okay.

huh. Fabulous. But thank you so much, Charles. I really appreciate it. And thanks for being a slut.

Charles Sanchez (48:16)
Thank you Trevor.

Trevor Hoppe (48:19)
That’s our show for today. Thank you so much for listening, as always. And remember, if you aren’t having the best sex of your life, I can help. My services as a sex coach can help you identify and overcome obstacles that are standing between you and your best sex life. Find out more on my website, thebestgaysex.net. Till next time.