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.

OVERVIEW:

What’s the opposite of jealousy? Enter compersion—a radical concept that could transform the way we experience love, sex, and intimacy. In this episode, Dr. Trevor Hoppe sits down with TT Baum, a sacred intimate with over 20 years of experience in sex work, sex education, and tantric practice. Together, they dive into the art of connected sex, the healing power of touch, and how compersion can bring more joy into our relationships. Along the way, TT shares stories of sexual exploration, the importance of vulnerability, and what it really means to have FUN in bed.

TRANSCRIPT:

Trevor Hoppe (00:09)
Hey, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Trevor Hoppe. Today’s episode is about compersion. Compersion? Never heard of it? You would not be alone. Little bit of a GRE or SAT level kind of word there, but I’ll explain it using my husband’s trick, which I think helps for clarity’s sake. What’s the opposite of up?

down, right? Yeah, exactly. Now imagine the opposite of let’s say good.

Bad. Yea, exactly. Two for two. Now what’s the opposite of jealousy? Uh… jealousy? What do you mean? Like, kind of the math lady look in your head, like, “Uh… opposite of jealousy? I don’t know.” Do we have a word for that? It turns out we do and it is compersion. I’ll explain it this way. Imagine

the love of your life is telling you a story that last night, guess what? They had the best sex of their life. my God. They did this position, that position. It was so hot and they were so hot. We live in a society where our knee jerk reaction or impulse might be to feel some kind of way about that, right? A little bit of negativity, maybe a little possessiveness. Why wasn’t it me that you were experiencing that with, right? That’s jealousy, that dark impulse. Compersion is the opposite of that.

Imagine feeling joy, positivity, love for that person when they tell you that story instead of feeling possessive, you feel like, my God, that’s great. Good for you. I’m really happy for you. I love that journey for you. That’s compersion And today’s guest wants to live in a world with a lot more of that and a lot less jealousy. And TT Baum comes to that perspective from over two decades of experience, not just as a sex educator,

not just as a practitioner, but a kind of fusion hybrid role of both that he calls being a sacred intimate. Yes, it’s a little bit of sex work. Sometimes it’s a little bit of massage. Sometimes it’s a little bit of therapy, kind of all rolled into one. And I will let Titi explain it, because he will surely do a better job than me. So let’s listen in.

Trevor Hoppe (02:27)
T .T. Baum, welcome to the Best Gay Sex Podcast.

TT (02:31)
Thank you. Happy to be here, Trevor.

Trevor Hoppe (02:33)
I am so excited to have you on. I have so many questions and so many directions because your work is so rich and fabulous and interesting to me. But before we get to the current state of affairs in your work and your life, I like to sort of take a trip down memory lane and kind of connect readers to your upbringing. So for folks who don’t know, kind of tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what was that like as a young queer person?

TT (02:50)
Mm -hmm.

so I was born and raised like half time in the Northwestern quadrant of Pennsylvania and the Allegheny mountains. what my, some of my family who escaped affectionately referred to as little Appalachia. and, then when I was eight or nine, we moved to, Northeastern Ohio. So that whole kind of like.

like Allegheny Mountains, Great Lakes region is where I grew up and mostly small towns. The town that we ended up landing in as a kid had 10 ,000 people, I think had a population of 10 ,000, which isn’t huge. It’s much bigger than where my parents came from, but it’s definitely by no means of what I’m familiar with now. Was it was it any kind of big city? The closest big city to where I grew up was Cleveland, Ohio.

Trevor Hoppe (03:42)
Wow. Yeah.

TT (03:57)
And keep in mind it was so it was rural it was You know mountain folks it was the 80s 70s and 80s and I was also raised Catholic so the combination of all of that kind of small -town mentality and

Trevor Hoppe (03:57)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

TT (04:20)
the weird schizophrenic bipolar nature of what it means to grow up Catholic or be raised Catholic really messed me up a lot as a kid. I thought I had a I thought I had a vocation. I thought I was going to be a priest until I was 13. Even

Trevor Hoppe (04:35)
my gosh, wow.

TT (04:37)
Even after I knew what was going on, I really thought, okay, I’m gonna be a priest and that’s gonna take care of it. Because those were the tracks, right? If you weren’t gonna get married and have kids, which I didn’t think I was going to do, then you were gonna become a priest or a nun. Yeah, those are your options, get over it. In hindsight, I probably should have done that because I would have gotten a great education for free and then I could have just quit like a lot of my friends did.

Trevor Hoppe (04:52)
There are two options, I like it.

Hahaha.

Ha ha ha.

TT (05:06)
But being a queer kid in that time

and in that region was really confusing, particularly as somebody who was also really embodied. Like if I look back, like I really enjoyed my body from a very young age. I liked to explore it, I liked to use it, I liked to feel the pleasure of it. I was in this, I was also in a family that for,

for where they grew up and how they were raised, wanted very badly to be very progressive. So there was a lot of freedom in our household to ask questions and to try to have dialogue about things. And as hard as they tried, there were still elements and components of shaming and phobias that came out about.

what different things meant to different people in the household. So I remember asking my first question about sex to my mom when I was five. And she was really good about encapsulating what happens with your body into a context that a five -year -old would understand.

Trevor Hoppe (06:12)
Five.

Wow, that’s impressive.

TT (06:28)
So

yeah, I was very precocious.

Trevor Hoppe (06:31)
And you were asking this, I assume, just generically, not as like a queer person asking about sex, I assume.

TT (06:40)
no, yeah, just generically curiosity of a kid. I mean, one of the, one of the, so the specific story, we were in a small house. We had one bathroom. everybody shared the bathroom and, I went into the bathroom to get ready for school one morning and I saw a pair of underwear draped over the side of the bathtub.

Trevor Hoppe (06:51)
Mmm. Mm -hmm.

TT (07:03)
with blood on it. And I didn’t know what was going on and I was freaked out because I thought somebody had gotten hurt. And I remember asking my mom, why is there blood on that underwear? And she explained to me about menstruation. She explained to me about what happens if people, I knew what intercourse was by that time. She explained to me what happened if people, you know, touched.

Trevor Hoppe (07:05)
Got it.

Yeah.

TT (07:29)
each other while one of them was menstruating. It was just like really, it was very straightforward and very, very matter of fact. But I think because of the environment that I was raised in, in that particular, you know, in that microcosm of a household in our, in our family unit, there was a lot of permission to, to kind of explore and ask questions and be curious up to a point.

Trevor Hoppe (07:32)
Wow, that’s pretty advanced.

Mm -hmm.

TT (07:57)
And then,

you know, if we started, if we started going down the road of queer, or if we started going down the road of like, admitting that I was attracted to other boys or that I liked men or masculinity or, or the spectrum of different things, of what I was attracted to. I remember also like being really fascinated by the idea of gender fluidity when I was a little kid and.

Trevor Hoppe (08:22)
-hmm.

TT (08:23)
oftentimes would role play as a girl. And it made it drove my father insane. So as permissive as they were on one side and as curious as we are allowed to be about some things, when it came to gender expression and gender roles, those things were really rigid. Like this is what boys do, this is what girls do. And I think to this day, my dad is still a little bit like,

Trevor Hoppe (08:27)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm.

TT (08:52)
I don’t know what I did wrong. You know, like he still blames himself for not making me man enough somehow.

Trevor Hoppe (09:00)
Mm -hmm. And what was that process like when you finally went down that road and just weren’t just curious anymore, but actually describing yourself as queer with your family? How did that go?

TT (09:12)
I mean, that was many years later. I didn’t actually come out to them until I was 22. And by that time I had left home. I had been living in Europe for several years. I had explored the gamut of what a young, you know, again, like it was Reagan era eighties, like craziness. So,

Trevor Hoppe (09:19)
Mm -hmm.

TT (09:40)
the, the in hindsight, it was like a really conservative time to just be a young person in general. So as much as we were exploring and as much as things were like artistically, like androgynous and creative and weird. And, you know, I think of the Brit pop and the new new wave era and like the post -punk era. And, you know, we got Boy George and we got

Trevor Hoppe (10:02)
Mm -hmm. David Bowie’s of it all.

TT (10:06)
the very, very beginnings of RuPaul and we got the, you know, we got, we started seeing, we started the visibility train that we see now. So I felt, I felt safe coming out to some people. I didn’t feel safe coming out to my family and I had moved back home and then I finally got a job on the East coast and moved out as an adult and found myself in a relationship because, you know, in the early nineties, you either,

Trevor Hoppe (10:23)
Mm -hmm.

TT (10:34)
fucked yourself to death or you got into a monogamous relationship. Those were the two avenues that were kind of politicized to all of us. So I found myself in a relationship and after I was in that relationship for about six or nine months, I came out to my parents in this really clunky way. And at first they were really, really supportive about it and they were really cool about it.

And then I started talking about it. And then it was again, kind of like this clamp down that I had experienced when I was a kid. And I talked about sexuality and gender and queerness. And they were like, we get it. Don’t talk about it. We get it. It’s bugging us. Don’t talk about it.

Trevor Hoppe (11:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, for the time, I guess, not the worst reaction possible. You know, I think back to those days.

TT (11:22)
Mm -mm -mm. No, I wasn’t disowned.

I wasn’t shunned. I I wasn’t ever not welcomed back in the house. But there were different microaggressions that happened. Two of my aunts who were born -again Christians who had left whatever church, one of them was raised in a,

Trevor Hoppe (11:29)
The bar was pretty low.

TT (11:50)
fundamentalist Christian church left that and then went into another fundamentalist Christian church. And she wouldn’t, when she found out that I was gay, she wouldn’t let me like be around my cousins anymore. Cause they were younger than me and somehow I was going to influence them. And I remember the first time I came home with my partner and it was probably about a year after I came out to my parents, they wanted us to sleep in separate rooms.

Trevor Hoppe (12:20)
wow.

TT (12:22)
And I was like, we live together. What do you think the sleeping arrangement is in my house? So like just stuff like that. It was not, we don’t love you anymore. Get out of our house. We can’t stand the sight of you. But if you are going to be this way, do it in a way that makes it feel good to us.

Trevor Hoppe (12:24)
Yeah.

So you’re coming out in your early 20s, it sounds like. When did you start sexually exploring before that? I assume before that, but maybe not.

TT (12:52)
Mm -hmm.

my God, when I was

like 11, I had my first orgasm when I was 11. So like all through late elementary school, junior high, high school, I was notorious for, this is gonna sound creepy in 2024, but I was notorious for setting up challenge games with mine and my brother’s friends as young teenage boys.

Trevor Hoppe (12:58)
Mmm.

TT (13:23)
where the payoff was always like, if you lost, you had to do some sexual act or you had to strip down naked or you lost a piece of clothing. And I was always an instigator in that way. But I mean, I think back of it and I give myself a little bit of a break because if I look back at the context of where I was and how my…

I was never one of those kids who was confident enough in myself or just so much myself that I was just queer, queer, queer, queer, queer from the get go. There were two other guys in my, two other folks, I’m just gonna say people now, because I don’t know how they identify these days, who were in my junior high and high school, who were gay as the day is long. They wore makeup, they dressed,

Trevor Hoppe (14:12)
Really?

Wow.

TT (14:15)
in

the most genderqueer way that I can remember. They were very, like one of them was super, super effeminate and they just, they couldn’t be any other way. So that’s just, they were just like, listen, love me or hate me. This is who I am. And I was so confused by them and I wanted to be them so badly and I couldn’t. Yet at the same time, I was expressing my own queerness in these sideways,

Trevor Hoppe (14:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hehehe.

TT (14:45)
non indirect ways that made it apparent that I wasn’t like the other boys, you know. So, you know, getting back to those, those challenge games and finding outlets for my sexuality. It, I wouldn’t say they were the most consensual all the time, but as kids exploring, you know, that’s.

That’s what happened. And we also, you know, there was also like masturbation all the time and access to pornography. And, you know, we did, this is pretty, we’re talking pre -internet, pre -cell phone, pre, you know, we couldn’t just dial, we couldn’t just log on and have everything at our fingertips. So for me, it was like,

finding whenever I would look onto something where I could see male sexuality portrayed, my dad, you know, every, I think everybody’s dad had some kind of porn magazines at some point. My dad really liked, my dad really liked Hustler Magazine and I loved Hustler Magazine because it always had at least one photo spread with a guy in it.

Trevor Hoppe (15:51)
huh, yeah, sure.

Ha ha ha.

-huh, totally, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

TT (16:05)
And then I

could be like, my God, there’s an erection. I can kind of fantasize. Once I got over a learning disability that impeded my reading skills for probably five or six years, I became this voracious reader and I would read the penthouse forums and all the salacious,

Readers, you know, readers submitted, who knows if they really were, readers submitted experience essays that were like pre -blog in those magazines, you know.

Trevor Hoppe (16:38)
Sure.

So you were raised on like straight nasty culture basically, like porn. For lack of a better term.

TT (16:50)
straight nasty culture. Yeah, exactly. You know, I’m always like, I want to, in fact, just

today, right. In fact, just today, I was thinking, you know, my parents didn’t have that many friends, but the friends that they did, like they were always hooting and hollering, whooping it up with each other. And they would go over and have like movie nights with their friends. And I was just like,

Trevor Hoppe (17:06)
Mm.

TT (17:10)
Were you all swingers? Like, I don’t, and like, you just didn’t tell us about it? Like, we just didn’t know? Like, so there was definitely some shenanigans going on. Yeah, for sure.

Trevor Hoppe (17:21)
Sexual energy. Yeah, well, both of those things for sure.

That’s fascinating. When did you first finally get to like have sexual experiences with another man?

TT (17:32)
the first time I ever had sex with a guy, and it wasn’t even really sex, it was just kind of like.

bumping around. He was much more experienced than I was. He was this French boy who I met on vacation with my foster family in Europe. And he and my foster brother got kind of we were at this like weird resort place and they kind of got paired up in this tennis.

thing because they both played tennis and Pascal, I’ll never forget his name. My God, I just loved him to death. Pascal tolerated my brother and as soon as he saw me at the pool, like made a beeline over and like sat down and just like his English was terrible. My French was terrible. And we somehow just like flirted our way into, you know, sneaking out of our hotel rooms late at night and going on walks on the beach.

beach

and holding hands and kissing. And it was like, it was so ecstatically wonderful. It was so wonderful and innocent and crazy. And I still wouldn’t come out even after that. I was just like, I don’t know. I’m so conflicted. You know, I had had such a guilt trip done on me about like who I who I was allowed to be in.

Trevor Hoppe (18:41)
That’s kind of like a movie.

TT (19:02)
but I think I was maybe like 18 or 19 when that happened.

Trevor Hoppe (19:03)
Yeah.

it’s kind of a beautiful experience. And you were living in Europe at the time, or was that just a vacation?

TT (19:10)
Mm -hmm.

I was living in Europe at the time. I lived in Europe from the time I was 18 until I was 21.

Trevor Hoppe (19:20)
I see, okay. So you have that sort of fling, it sounds like, kind of, did that last for just a sh, like.

TT (19:26)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

And that definitely it like it cracked something open. It lasted for like the week that we were on vacation. And then we would like we we would like telephone each other very briefly because it was super expensive to call people in Europe at the time. We would telephone each other and just check in. And then write. I was a he was a like my long distance romantic pen pal for a long, long time.

well into my mid -20s.

Trevor Hoppe (19:58)
That’s very sweet.

TT (20:00)
that kind of like that kind of like in hindsight, as I look back on how all of that, how my sexuality evolved and how my how my sapio sexuality kind of got tied up in all of that, I understand a lot more about who I was to the people who I had sex with after that and what made the sex with me different and why it led me to becoming.

Trevor Hoppe (20:11)
huh.

TT (20:27)
sex worker.

Trevor Hoppe (20:29)
There was a lot in that, so let’s break it down. Because the sapiosexual thing, I think some people don’t know that term. So my understanding is just that you’re attracted to people based on their intelligence or the way they think or something about their kind of brain power.

TT (20:32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I’m attracted to people’s,

I mean, for me it’s kind of a double thing. So I’m really, I’m a sucker for a pretty face. And for me, when I say sapiosexual, for me it’s about like the full package of a person. So I need you to be intelligent. I fall in love with your intelligence. I fall, and that’s the thing, like I fall in love. I get attracted to, I get.

Trevor Hoppe (20:53)
Mm -hmm.

TT (21:14)
I get, I allow myself to go to these places emotionally that most people are just like, I’m just gonna, particularly as masculine, I’ve sent our queer men, queer folks, you know, there’s a lot of hookups and it’s very emotionally vapid. It’s, or even, you know, I would say it’s like an emotional desert sometimes where it’s just very anonymous, super, super physical.

get my needs met and be done. And find pleasure in that, of course, but I find the most pleasure and the most gratification when I get to engage with somebody and figure out what makes them tick.

Trevor Hoppe (21:54)
Yeah. How do you think you got there? Like, cause that’s, that’s a journey, I think, particularly for men that is difficult because there’s so much discourse around our men’s sexuality as being so physical and emotionless, as you kind of say. And so what was the journey like to get to that place of recognizing the kind of full breadth of your own sexual desire?

TT (22:05)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

It was tough. I have I have said in the past to people that I found myself being really confused because what I thought was hooking up other people who I hooked up with interpreted as a deeper emotional connection. So for me it was you know it’s it’s kind of like I really think it is just part of the nature of who I am and how I connect with people and how I am sexual with people.

Trevor Hoppe (22:32)
Right.

TT (22:43)
that makes me, like there was no discovery, it’s just how I am. The discovery and self -realization that that was different or other than the way that most other men and masculine identified people engaged in sex with each other took a long time to kind of pull apart.

in my early 20s and even when I was in that relationship that I was talking about late teens, early 20s, and even into my early 30s, I think I would have people just fall madly in love with me and I had no idea what I did. I was like, we just fucked. We just had great sex. Like how great it like that’s all it was for me.

Trevor Hoppe (23:24)
Ha ha.

Well, so I guess I’m wondering, because I kind of know what you mean, right? That there’s this emotional connection that you feel, but it’s not love. It’s something, or it is love? I don’t know. How would you characterize it?

TT (23:36)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I think having now been doing sexual healing work and sex coaching and intimacy work with people for almost 20 years, I would say it is love. It is a form of love. You know how the Greeks have different words for different kinds of love? It is in the spectrum of love. And I…

It kind of makes me really good at what I do because I can fall in love with you for a couple of hours and really invite you to open up emotionally and be vulnerable with me. And now that I know that is a…

skill that I have or that I was born with or raised with or conditioned to be with, It’s what’s made me really good at what I do. But as a young person, having society be like, this is how men have sex, and then really inviting people, because I talk, I joke around.

I’m curious, I’m playful when I have sex and even when I was younger, that’s the way that I always engaged. It was never like a quick hand job in the dark, like with some random stranger. Like I always wanted to know who you were.

Trevor Hoppe (25:04)
So you never went through a period of like having that, those kind of anonymous connections and you always sort of found your way through these more deeper connections or I’m just curious like.

TT (25:17)
Yeah, which made it, even though I love being promiscuous and I’m a total big old slut, it makes it challenging because I like to engage with folks before I have sex with them. That’s part of the process for me. That turns me on almost more than getting naked and getting to it. That’s the easy part in my sphere.

Trevor Hoppe (25:30)
Mmm.

TT (25:41)
Like the part that really turns me on is talking about it and sexting, I fucking love sexting. When I was introduced to the internet in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, I loved chat rooms. I loved them. Like IRC chat rooms, get me on one, I’m going. And you could live out.

Trevor Hoppe (25:51)
Haha, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

my god, I used to love IRC. my god.

Yes.

TT (26:10)
You could live out all

these fantasies and you could get really, you know, people because there’s a facade there, people would be more vulnerable in those chat rooms. And it was really interesting to me to it really turned me on to like talk about sex in the context of who you are as a person in this chat room.

Trevor Hoppe (26:21)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I mean, it was like the days of actual like chat sex, like, which I don’t feel like is practiced very much anymore, but there was a time where you would use the little asterisk to denote, you know, actions or whatever, separate from work. You know, there was a whole kind of protocol. And I loved that.

TT (26:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean it

was pre video. It was we we couldn’t do this what we’re doing right now. So you know there was pre video conferencing. It was pre. I remember there was one IRC room where this where this person I had met had rigged up this tiny little pixelated video feed. And if you were lucky if you could get a webcam you could do this tiny pixelated video feed and I remember the very first time I ever did like.

Trevor Hoppe (26:51)
Yep.

TT (27:14)
like video chat sex with another person was like 1998 or 99 and it was wild. I was like, what is happening? It’s like I’m living a porn living, living a porn video right now.

Trevor Hoppe (27:21)
Mm -hmm.

Did the internet change your sexuality in any way?

TT (27:33)
it just expanded it. Like stuff that I was always curious about, I just could go, you know, we’re talking like pre algorithm feeding you what your habits are. We’re talking pre like I missed the days of doing a being on a search engine and just going down this weird wormhole where the where there were no there were no bots telling you like feeding you what the algorithm thought that you wanted.

It was all associative. You’d click on a link and then you’d click on another link and you’d click on another link. And before you knew it, you were. Miles out into the stratosphere or deep, yeah, you’d get into some like weird dark shit and be like, back up, back up, erase, erase, erase.

Trevor Hoppe (28:09)
deep.

TT (28:20)
But the but going back to your question about like anonymous hookups, I didn’t really explore that until.

until after I had like my first major sexual awakening in my early 30s.

And I think because, you know, growing up with AIDS kind of hanging over everything. There was a lot of fear, there was a lot of shame, just I mean, you know, you’ve written books about this stuff. There was a lot of fear, there was a lot of shame, there was a lot of vilification of promiscuity and hooking up. Cruising culture had all but died and all of the people who I would have ever.

Trevor Hoppe (28:51)
Hehehe

TT (29:04)
learned anything about cruising culture from had died during that period of time. Like all our time was spent being kind of like respectable queer people. And then when you weren’t being a respectable queer person, you were you were out in the streets being an activist.

Trevor Hoppe (29:27)
Mm -hmm.

TT (29:27)
for the rights of the people who were still dying because AZT wasn’t working and the drug cocktails in the early years weren’t working and people were still dropping dead all the time. So it was kind of like, it was a weird time to be a young queer person in your like,

like when I had that first orgasm that I was talking about in 11, like I understood what I was attracted to back then, even at that early age. Like I understood that masculinity and men and maleness were the things that were tripping my trigger. And it was the same year.

that the headlines about gay cancer were splashed everywhere. And I kind of figured it out at that early age that if I chose to walk down this road that I was, you know, if I had sex with anybody else, I could die. So that kind of lived with me through the late 90s, through that period that you were talking about when you first came out. And…

Trevor Hoppe (30:19)
Mm.

TT (30:29)
Then I hit 30 and it was like, I had a second adolescence. I got out of that relationship. I quit my job, I reinvented myself and started to explore things that I felt I was curious about and I wanted to, I just wanted to have experiences. And some of those experiences were terrible.

Luckily, I met my current partner, my husband of almost 24 years now during that time. And one of the first things I said to him was, listen, I’m just discovering who I am as a person and sexually and as an artist. And I I need you to respect that. Or this isn’t going to work. And he was totally on board. So we’ve had an open we’ve had an open relationship.

Trevor Hoppe (31:17)
Wow.

TT (31:22)
with evolving agreements from day one.

Trevor Hoppe (31:26)
And how long have you all been together now?

TT (31:28)
It’ll be 24 years in August.

Trevor Hoppe (31:31)
Wow, that’s amazing. Congratulations. That is a feat, especially in the gay world. I’m at about 11 years now. And so I can appreciate what 24 years takes. So that’s amazing. But you mentioned earlier some kind of terrible experiences along the way. And I always like to take a pit stop to talk about that because I think unfortunately you have to have some of those to get to the good stuff. What was?

TT (31:46)
Mm -hmm.

Trevor Hoppe (31:59)
What does terrible sex look like for you?

TT (32:01)
Terrible sex for me looks like being with somebody who…

is not interested in who I am, or even that I’m another human being in the room, but is solely in it for themselves. Like there’s no feeling of reciprocation. And I have a really vivid memory of kind of like, after I got out of my first relationship in 2000.

I went through this really, really slutty period and I hooked up with a bunch of people. I was dating six different guys at the same time and, and hooking up with folks in between and, you know, doing all the, doing all the crazy shit, like staying up way too late. What a friend of mine said recently, nothing good ever happens after 2am, or 3am or something like that. But, you know, I’d be like driving across town.

at at three and four three and four o ‘clock in the morning and hooking up with tweakers and just it was it was just bad it was just it was it was empty sex it left me feeling empty i don’t know if they even would remember it the next day

I remember just feeling really horny and really wanting to explore this part of myself that I didn’t get a chance to as a younger person and finding finding myself in situations that either just felt bad. Like I could have been anybody. With a hole. And a pulse and a temperature and it wouldn’t have mattered. You know.

to this other person. And that’s just really, that’s gross sex to me. Like I remember hooking up with this one guy and he, I walked in and I was kind of unsure and he didn’t look like, you know, again, we had like early day internet, like gay .com or manhunt or something like that, right? And the pictures that he had in his profile, I was like, those are a little old.

Trevor Hoppe (34:02)
Yes, I remember it well.

TT (34:11)
But I was, I was, you know, horny and it was late and I, and I wanted it to happen. And I remember just leaving feeling like really gross and kind of violated. And he just kept in this really creepy voice going, you’re a lot of fun. You’re a lot of fun. And I, and the whole time I just, I didn’t know how to get out of the situation and I didn’t feel 100 % safe. And every time he said, you’re a lot of fun. The only thing I could think of was you’re not.

Trevor Hoppe (34:25)
Hmm.

TT (34:41)
I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible, so I’m going to get you off and I’m going to leave.

Trevor Hoppe (34:48)
It sounds like part of that experience was about learning to say no. Is that fair?

TT (34:56)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Trevor Hoppe (34:59)
Why is that so hard? I mean, it seems so right. Yeah, I mean, just I think that’s a skill we have to learn, right? And I guess if you were thinking about how to tell people, because I think many people I talked to go through this kind of moment of struggling to get out of situations that they’re not excited about anymore. What tips could you give people who are struggling with that?

TT (35:01)
Why are we saying no so hard?

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

First and foremost, you have permission to say no at any time. You have permission to change your mind and you have permission to say no. And I’m a little, you know, I’m a lot older now and much more jaded and cynical about the world. So I’m, you know, so I’m like, I look back on those moments, like that one I just described, and I think.

Trevor Hoppe (35:39)
Yeah, I know the feeling.

TT (35:49)
If somebody had told me how good looking I was and how worthy I was of love and how much I was bringing to the situation and that power that was inherently just there, just being there, right? There was power in there. There was power for me to feel empowered. There was power for me to find my voice.

There was power for me to say yes or no and agree or consent to whatever was going on. And we were kind of, you know, I think back to that period of time, like we were at this cusp point of transitioning into another period where we find ourselves now where consent is a big deal. And people were learning to find their voices. So if you’re struggling to find your voice right now,

Trevor Hoppe (36:32)
Mm -hmm.

TT (36:38)
The only thing I can say is, is no is a complete sentence and you don’t owe anybody anything ever. You don’t owe anybody anything.

Trevor Hoppe (36:45)
Amen.

No, that’s really helpful, I think.

TT (36:49)
Just because you

got it to a certain point and you find yourself in a situation that feels vulnerable does not mean that you owe that other person who is, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger, you don’t owe them anything. You don’t owe them your time, you don’t owe them your attention, you certainly don’t owe them your body.

Trevor Hoppe (37:12)
Amen. Do you think, I heard you mention earlier the way you phrased, anyone with a hole. Were top bottom by dynamics playing into that at all for you, do you think?

TT (37:23)
I was really versatile at the time, so…

And, you know, being the, you know, going back to that notion of sapio sexuality and the way that I engaged with other people, being a little bit more emotionally connected, I think that that tied into it too. Not that I considered myself submissive, but I really wanted my partners to have a good time. What I understand now about the way that I move through the world and form friendships and relationships is I’m super, super compersive

Trevor Hoppe (37:45)
Mm -hmm.

TT (37:54)
I love, one of the things that turns me on the most is watching somebody else be happy and succeed and have pleasure and have all the good things. I didn’t know what that term meant during that period of time. And I also didn’t realize how important it was to my own sexual expression. So for me, that manifested more often than not in not being able to say no to somebody because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

Trevor Hoppe (38:22)
That’s real. Comperson, I mean, so as I understand it again, it’s just like taking, being happy for other people experiencing pleasure, basically. It’s how I kind of think about it. Is that how you think about it?

TT (38:33)
Mm

yeah, it’s a term that’s mostly used in polyamory circles, meaning that I derive the greatest pleasure from my partner’s pleasure, or I derive the greatest joy from my partner’s joy. But I take that further out into the world.

where if you are having success as my friend, I wanna do everything in my power to lift you up and make it even more successful because that just like, it turns me on to no end. It makes me so happy to see other people experiencing joy.

Trevor Hoppe (39:12)
Yeah, it’s interesting because I think sometimes people mistake that, as you said, for submissiveness, but they’re different. And I guess I don’t think we have a good vocabulary to talk about that. I guess I’ve kind of realized that myself in my own life, the distinction between these things, because I also feel compersion is very close to my heart. And…

TT (39:21)
Mm -hmm.

Trevor Hoppe (39:35)
Does that, I guess I’m still trying to just get, you said you were very versatile at the time. I’m wondering how those top bottom categories, how you’ve navigated them, especially in relationship, this compersion thing, because I’m just fascinated by the relationship, if there is one or if you see one between those binaries that we’re kind of stuck in sometimes.

and these notions of pleasure and pleasing your partner.

TT (40:04)
Yeah, I definitely think about it. And I’ve definitely thought about it in terms of top bottom and expanding those ideas of top bottom to mean more dominant or alpha and more submissive or beta because they kind of get couched in there.

Trevor Hoppe (40:28)
Mm -hmm.

TT (40:28)
And

I’ve known some very dominant bottoms and I’ve known some very, very, very subby tops in my time. But for me, I have identified mostly as a dominant top leaning person for the last 20 plus years. So.

Shifting from versatile. I was just like, wait I like this much more because I get to be in control of the narrative and when I’m in control of the narrative You know, like I’ve I’ve worked as a dominant I have been dominant in personal relationships and When I am in that role, that’s when I get to express the most compersion because your pleasure is all at my fingertips

Trevor Hoppe (41:09)
Mm -hmm.

The scripts around like being a dom top are so inverse of that. They are they’re basically like your pleasure doesn’t matter at all right like if you read erotic stories, they are often couched in that way and Yeah, I think this is so real for so many men who identify in that top category that they are just as invested in compersion as You know allegedly bottoms are supposed to be

TT (41:23)
Right.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, many of the submissives who I have played with or been in relationship with or worked with professionally have commented on the fact that when they first meet me, they find me to be very soft and they don’t know if I can go there with them. And I actually think that it’s my ability to be vulnerable and to be soft and to be emotionally present that makes me a good top and it makes me a good dominant. If you’re.

If you don’t care about the other person’s pleasure or their happiness or their joy, you’re just an asshole. You’re not a top, you’re an asshole.

Trevor Hoppe (42:17)
Ha ha.

You heard it here first. I think that’s succinct and to the point. I appreciate that.

because I think people…

get caught up in the fantasy and they can’t distinguish fantasy from reality. And I think that’s where people really get stuck, especially, I think bottoms sometimes, but also tops because we just get sort of stuck in this box and can’t really see the forest from the trees or something.

TT (42:34)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Well, I think that we get stuck in in what we are socialized to believe is a

masculine of center or, or, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re socialized into gender roles all day, every day from the time we’re spit out onto the planet. So, so particularly in a, a, in a culture that is so obsessed with, you know, in this day and age in the United States, gender roles are really becoming very, very, very rigid, for a, for a

broad spectrum of people, whether they know it or not. So the idea of playing with those gender roles and being softly, nurturingly, you know, paternally masculine and vulnerably masculine feels very foreign to a lot of guys who are obsessed with being men. You know, people with penises who are obsessed with being men.

Trevor Hoppe (43:38)
Mm -hmm.

TT (43:39)
The

misogyny is the internalized misogyny is rampant in those spaces

Trevor Hoppe (43:45)
So you went through this period of hookups, having this unfulfilling sex. Was there like a breakthrough moment or something where you were like, shake yourself out of this pattern?

TT (43:57)
Yeah, it’s funny because my partner never had any. He’s he’s one of those guys. He just you know, he loves cruising and he loves anonymous hookups. And it was never the thing for me. And it actually took him being really patient. He’s a little bit older than I am being really patient and understanding that not everybody is built the same way.

And letting me just explore on my own and be okay with me, you know, he’ll joke sometimes that I’ll come home and I’ll be all infatuated with somebody and I’ll talk about them ad nauseum and how cute they are and how sexy they are and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I’ll catch myself and I’ll apologize and he’s like, babe.

Trevor Hoppe (44:38)
Mm.

TT (44:49)
This isn’t my first time at the rodeo. This isn’t the first time you had a crush on somebody. This isn’t the first. We’ve we’ve been doing this for 24 years. Like, I get it. Like, you’re allowed to have all of your feelings. You’re allowed to you’re allowed to let yourself get swept away. I mean, I have I had a secondary relationship in the midst of this 24 year period, that was deep and meaningful. And I love that person to death and not literally.

Trevor Hoppe (44:51)
we’ve been doing this for 24 years.

TT (45:17)
And it really helped me also, like, I, you know, continue to find, continue to grow and evolve as a sexual being. But my current partner, when I was 33, 34, pushed me to have my first experience in the Body Electric School, doing a, doing a, their intro weekend called Celebrating the Body Erotic.

And there, all this stuff that I’ve been talking about, like the emotional connection, like trying to get to know people, being vulnerable, letting all of your emotions be available to you in the middle of some really hot, sexy, juicy, orgasmic experiences. Like all of that was, they create this container where all of that stuff is allowed. And for a lot of people, it’s too much.

Trevor Hoppe (46:08)
Mm -hmm.

TT (46:08)
And

for me, I was like, I found my people. I’m right at home. my God. What this is. This is the best thing ever. I want to do this. You know, I was I was I was working full time as an artist at the time, and I thought I was never, ever going to do anything else with the rest of my life. And then I found.

Trevor Hoppe (46:17)
Mm -hmm.

TT (46:30)
this like intentional connected sexuality and it became my mission to like bring it to the rest of the world.

Trevor Hoppe (46:39)
And tell folks, because I don’t think some people are familiar with body electric, what is body electric and where did it sort of originate?

TT (46:47)
Yeah, so Buddy Electric is a school that was founded by a man named Joseph Kramer in the late 80s in Northern California. And at that time, because of AIDS and people like, mostly because of AIDS, people weren’t touching each other, people weren’t, people were either having sex and dying, or they weren’t having sex at all.

And he saw this schism happening. Like if we can’t engage with each other sexually and also allow our emotion, our full humanity to be present, we’re not going to make it as a culture. So he started really doing a lot of research and then teaching classes and eventually formed the Body Electric school, which gives people a safe space to kind of play and explore sexually as adults.

Trevor Hoppe (47:25)
Mm.

TT (47:41)
And really experience the full potential of their orgasms and you know explore their pleasure and be curious and and and playful and experimental But it’s all like in this safe container. It’s a very guided experience. Like all their programming is very guided. So you never feel like you’re You know, if you start freaking out there’s always going to be somebody there to to

process that with you. And they have a bunch of different, they’ve gone through a bunch of different iterations. They just at the beginning of the pan, just before the beginning of the pandemic hit, they had a whole restructuring of the school and brought in a very queer, very BIPOC advisory board so that they could look at some of their programming and rework it.

so that it felt more inclusive to a much broader spectrum of queerness. Because originally it was men. It was men who were born with penises and testicles. That’s who was allowed and invited and welcomed.

Trevor Hoppe (48:50)
What do you think Body Electric taught you?

TT (48:52)
Body Electric taught me it was okay to have sex the way that I like to have sex. what it really taught me was it’s okay to give somebody else pleasure and not expect anything in return.

Trevor Hoppe (49:04)
Mmm.

Why do you think you, why did you need to, you didn’t know that before, I guess? What was the challenge there for you?

TT (49:12)
I think what it taught me, I think the challenge was to feel good about it.

it kind of gave me like a like context and language to talk about things that I knew about myself for years and didn’t I never felt seen I never felt understood I never felt heard and it gave me a place to express that and ask questions about it and explore it and unpack it and and then

Trevor Hoppe (49:31)
-hmm.

TT (49:39)
individuate it for myself. So it was really part of, you know, I always think that my sexual awakening that has had this very long arc has also been deeply tied to my spiritual awakening and my self -realization. And it was like somebody handed me this secret that was like, sex is integral.

Trevor Hoppe (49:59)
-hmm.

TT (50:02)
to all of the things that they tell us are important in the world, and then they tell us not to have sex. But we’re telling you, you have to have sex, and you have to enjoy it, and you have to find pleasure in order to be successful and to live a full, rich life.

Trevor Hoppe (50:09)
Alright.

And just this…

TT (50:23)
And

once I had that, once I had that, I was like off to the races.

Trevor Hoppe (50:27)
Does Body Electric connect to this identity of sacred intimate for you?

TT (50:32)
Yes, that’s where I first heard the term sacred intimate. That was where I first understood that there is a healing power that can be explored in really good deep connected erotic expression.

It kind of gave it like this weightiness and this import that I didn’t understand before that sex has, sex is a powerful thing that we deny ourselves all the time because the larger society says, no, you don’t talk about it. there’s always some shame attached to it.

Trevor Hoppe (51:01)
Mm -hmm.

TT (51:15)
We don’t talk about it, we don’t educate about it, we deny that it even exists. But, you know, we want everybody to have babies and procreate.

Trevor Hoppe (51:22)
Right.

TT (51:24)
yeah, but Body Electric really was like, not only are we going to tell you that the secret is having really good sex and being okay with that, but then there’s this thing, there’s this term that we as professionals can bring to the world to help other people explore that area as a sacred intimate.

When I first started professionally providing service as a sacred intimate.

I…

wasn’t necessarily cool with being a sex worker and it took me several years to like get over that internalized phobia as well. But you know like I’ve been in this industry for almost 20 years.

For me, it’s like any, I see people who label themselves as escorts or boyfriends or girlfriends for hire or rent boys I see them providing a service that is necessary and rich and really vital to other human beings.

And anybody who does that could label themselves a sacred intimate in my book. The thing is like I bring in the difference is like I intentionally cultivate the emotional connection, the the invitation for vulnerability, the invitation for.

for the people who I work with to really make it all about themselves and explore with me as kind of like, I see sacred intimates as like your guide through the amusement park of sex and emotions and love and relationships and intimacy.

Trevor Hoppe (53:14)
And adding in one more layer to it, I know you talk a lot about teaching tantra or tantric sex kind of practices or techniques. How does that overlap and relate with this kind of ideology, the body electric, sacred intimate, this kind of framework for you?

TT (53:23)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, so Buddy Electric has a big Daoist erotic influence. So there’s this sect of Daoist philosophy that talks about the potency of your lower chakra energy, which is where your sexual energy lives and how to kind of harness that and play with it and control it. And then over the years,

Trevor Hoppe (53:49)
Mm -hmm.

TT (53:56)
some tantra has kind of trickled into that through different avenues. So Body Electric actually has like an introduction, introductory tantra course that they teach. But as I have taken to studying tantra more in depth, what I realize is that, again, it’s like, it’s this very holistic approach to being.

a human being inviting sexual like recognizing like our sexuality and our pleasure are inherent to who we are not only that but they’re important and they’re a vital key to like your spiritual awakening. So if you practice these techniques we’re not going to guarantee that everything is going to that you’re going to going to wake up one day and be be the Buddha or enlightened or whatever but

you will know yourself a lot better and be able to function much better in the world. If you embrace some of these practices, you’ll be a better lover. You’ll be able to connect with people emotionally much faster and much easier. You’ll you’ll be able to discern. Subtle ways that your body is telling you yes and no in different situations and all of that. While it really helps you be a good lover and it really helps you be.

proficient and amazing sexually and has the potential to do that. It just makes you a better human being.

Trevor Hoppe (55:26)
Mmm.

TT (55:27)
So, yeah, you know, like I could get hung up on like all the intricacies of like breath work and, and orgasm exploration. And, you know, I do a body mapping class where we, we, we, you know, work ourselves up into different states of arousal and then find, and then kind of like map where that lives in our body. And,

and discover, you know, I really actually do like having my nipples played with, or I’m really curious about the way that scent plays a role in my sexual expression, or, you know, you can get very esoteric about it and can get really weird and kind of freaky, because our bodies are magical and wonderful and crazy, crazy places full of sensation and, and neural stimulation.

But just like the basic 101 of it is really about connecting so deeply with yourself that you.

you kind of like drop the…

you break out of the box or break out of the shell that we build around ourselves about what sex is supposed to be in, the roles that we’re supposed to play in sex and who the people, who you’re supposed to be and who I’m supposed to be. And you just get to be a human being playing with your human body and enjoying your human pleasure and invite the person who’s with you to do the same thing.

Trevor Hoppe (56:50)
If you were going to give a young person a tip or two for breaking out of that shell, obviously there’s a lot of work that can go into it over the life course of training, but just, is there something, I don’t know, probably not an easy fix, but something you can try to break out in that way.

TT (57:07)
Be curious about the things that give you pleasure.

Allow yourself, give yourself permission to be curious about the things that give you pleasure. Whether or not somebody is saying, you shouldn’t be doing that for whatever arbitrary reason. As long, you know, the caveat being as long as you’re not hurting somebody else in the process, if this thing is giving you pleasure, explore it. Find out the intricacies of it. Find out the why of it.

move towards that attraction and see if it’s real. And then if it is, build on it.

I’ve said in the past that sex is like adult play time. And if we don’t give ourselves enough time to play, if you ever watch children play, they’re constantly experimenting, they’re failing, they’re hurting themselves, they’re picking things back up, they’re having fun, they’re experiencing.

Trevor Hoppe (57:52)
Mm -hmm.

TT (58:08)
the full depth and breadth of a human experience just exploring what it means to be a physical creature in the world. And as adults, we get boxed into these notions that we’re not allowed to do that anymore. And I think we should be doing it regularly all the time, as much as possible.

Trevor Hoppe (58:30)
thinking back on the experiences that you’ve had, what does the best sex look like for you?

TT (58:37)
man.

The best sex for me is really slow. It is…

connected enough so that we’re paying attention to each other, but we’re not like neither neither person or nobody in the in the group of people who are being sexual with one another feels obligated to perform in any way.

and you get to be really real and goofy. Like, I can’t tell you how often I’ve freaked people out because I laugh during sex and I’m chatty during sex. And I, you know, it’s fun. It feels good. I’ve had people stop in the middle of like whatever we’re doing thinking that I’m laughing at them. And I’m like, no, I’m just having a good time. You should try laughing too. It’s really great.

Trevor Hoppe (59:29)
Laughter is a funny thing to experience in the bedroom, but once you kind of get used to it, yeah, now I often do the same and definitely it catches people off guard and you have to kind of be like, it’s okay. Like I’m okay, I’m just, you know, there are these moments that are kind of, I don’t know, silly or goofy as you said, definitely. I love that.

TT (59:35)
It is.

And

there are things that are there are things that are silly and funny about sex like like sex is not porn. It’s not clean. It’s not like if you look at people who are really into each other having sex, it’s very rarely what you see in porn movies or in sex scenes and television and movies. It looks weird. There are body parts all over the place. Angles, there are wrinkles and rolls and.

Trevor Hoppe (1:00:15)
Mm -hmm.

TT (1:00:23)
You know, people are making funny noises and bodies are doing what bodies do and it’s it’s funny. And then it also feels good on top of that. So, of course, like if a laugh escapes from time to time, like God forbid, let it happen.

Trevor Hoppe (1:00:30)
Ha ha.

Absolutely, I am all for having fun. So I think that’s a great message. And I just wanna…

TT (1:00:48)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, so

the best sex yeah

short answer is best sex should be fun, in my opinion. The best sex should be fun.

Trevor Hoppe (1:00:54)
Yeah, amen to that.

Capital F -U -N. What strategies have you found in your life for finding that best sex?

TT (1:01:06)
Yeah, you know, it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of our time together. I also like working also working with sexuality professionally, hooking up casually and being casual about sex got really tricky for me for a long time and it got really blurry. Using my erotic energy in service to other people has been.

a fraught path, let’s just say, and difficult to navigate sometimes. So for me, what makes that possible is, is, you know, kind of what I was talking about before, like getting to know people a little bit before I jump in. I’m not going to say that I haven’t ever had the the smack of

love chemistry happen where you’re both where you you know we i think that if we’re lucky we’ve all had this happen where we meet somebody there’s instant chemistry and you know because the pheromones are there the the the willingness is there from both parties the consent is there and you just like rip each other’s clothes off and go crazy and it’s amazing that’s rare but it happens

But for me, like cultivating really good sex takes a little bit of work. And it’s not always as spontaneous as we want it to be. And it’s okay to negotiate. And you can make the negotiation leading up to your best sex really sexy.

Trevor Hoppe (1:02:45)
Hmm.

TT (1:02:46)
talking, like really getting descriptive about what you’re into and talking about like why you’re into it and what, you know, like I wanna know, I’m curious like what other experiences have you had? I really get off on listening to my partners and people who I care about talk about other dalliances and liaisons and paramours. So yeah, taking the time to at least like…

get to know a little bit about what’s gonna, you know, who this other person is, makes it for a much richer experience in my opinion.

Trevor Hoppe (1:03:14)
And how would you, if you’re,

I just want to sort of think about the listener and, and, you know, if you are a gay man on the apps on Grindr, that’s a tough place sometimes to try to get to know people. How would you advise people like in that kind of context, is there a way to pursue that, to try to get to know people on that deeper level?

TT (1:03:24)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I mean, again, I’m going to be really jaded here for part of it. But like, I have no time for somebody who “sup’s” me or or. W .Y .D.’s me, and that’s like the extent of their that’s the extent of their like, if I’m trying to engage somebody, I would say try to engage somebody in a little bit of banter in the text back and forth.

Trevor Hoppe (1:03:54)
huh.

-huh.

TT (1:04:07)
And if you’re comfortable sharing photos and that’s your thing, like do that, like A, know your boundaries and stick to them. B, like if you really want to get to know somebody, engage them in conversation. And for me, if I’m getting like one word answers or one line answers or, you know, the, for the opening is, Hey, what’s up? And a dick pic, but your the rest of your profile is blank. I, that’s not going to be a good interaction for me.

Trevor Hoppe (1:04:36)
Mm -hmm.

TT (1:04:36)
You

know, knowing yourself when you’re approaching those apps is really important and kind of sticking to that. Like, don’t settle. It’s an app. There are hundreds of people on it. One of them is going to be the guy who rocks your world. You know that. Maybe not on Grindr anymore. Grindr kind of sucks these days, but…

Trevor Hoppe (1:04:46)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

No,

yeah, I just use it as the reference because I think it’s the one.

TT (1:05:00)
But even

like Sniffy’s, which is the, yeah. But Sniffy’s, which has become the ultimate cruising app, right? Which is such an oxymoron, in my opinion. But it’s the ultimate anonymous sex app. Even there, you can find ways to engage with people.

and figure out like, eh, eh, eh, eh. If that trips your trigger, if going to a cruising spot and hanging out and waiting for whatever to come along is your thing, do that. I think the idea of best sexual experience is kind of arbitrary.

Trevor Hoppe (1:05:43)
Of course course.

TT (1:05:44)
and it really depends on who you are. So, you know, if your best sexual experience is going and sucking a bunch of dicks in the rest stop parking lot, be my, go for it, honey, and celebrate it.

Trevor Hoppe (1:05:59)
A plus.

100%. I always like to end with this because I think breaking down the shame of talking about sex is vital. What’s the sluttiest thing you’ve ever done?

TT (1:06:13)
Mm -hmm.

my god.

There’s so many things. I’m like the sluttiest I’ve ever done. Folsom Street, my last Folsom Street fair I ever went to.

Trevor Hoppe (1:06:17)
Hahaha!

TT (1:06:28)
Was it Folsom or Dore I can’t remember. Dore Alley. Last Dore Alley I went to. I was in it to win it. I was feeling good about myself. I was it was 2019 I was having a really good year Went there with my partner, we were kind of seeing somebody at the time they went off to have the rest of their they got, you know, they were both introverts and they went off to be.

to decompress after the overwhelming crowds of those street fairs in San Francisco. And I stayed out and I hooked up with a couple of other sex worker friends of mine and we just went bar hopping. And I found myself, I just, I bar hopped until my dick wouldn’t get hard anymore and I knew after that, it was time to go home.

Trevor Hoppe (1:07:20)
haha

TT (1:07:22)
So, you know, like I was in the Eagle eating somebody’s ass in front of a bunch of people at three o ‘clock in the afternoon. And then we went to this other bar and we did a bunch of stuff there. And then, you know, I was in the smoking area at the, my God, what is that bar on in SOMA? There’s a bar with a notorious smoking area where everybody just has sex in the back.

Trevor Hoppe (1:07:49)
yeah, exchange something, exchange power exchange. No, anyways, it doesn’t matter.

TT (1:07:54)
Power exchange? No, it begins with a P. I’m gonna, now I’m gonna have to go look it up. But so I was in the back area there and just like, you know, everybody’s stuff was in everybody’s hands and you were just going full tilt boogie. And I was just like, you know, the whole time in the back of my mind, I’m like, I gotta go get tested on Monday and make sure I don’t bring anything home. But literally like I was standing there.

And I had been out all afternoon and been having all these amazing experiences. And this friend of mine was trying to organize a gangbang for another friend of ours, because it was their birthday. And they were like, come on, let’s go. I got all the guys in the hotel rooms ready. And I just looked down and I had just like.

Trevor Hoppe (1:08:33)
Well,

TT (1:08:40)
I was saturated and I was like, and my dick’s not getting hard anymore and I don’t feel the least bit turned on. I am just so full of a really intensely slutty, like San Francisco sexy street fair experience. Like people don’t get it, what those street fairs can be like. So that was a really, really.

Trevor Hoppe (1:09:04)
I love it. I think that’s fabulous. Thank you

for sharing that. And if…

TT (1:09:09)
crazy, slutty experience, probably

my last slutty experience for a while.

Trevor Hoppe (1:09:15)
And if people want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where can they find you?

TT (1:09:19)
they can so true confession, true, true stories. I’m on a little bit of a sabbatical right now. I’m still open for consultations and I’m trying to figure out what my next steps are. I’m not seeing clients in person at the moment, but I’m definitely available for like online consultation and doing things like this. but, my website is, www .integral -eros .com.

or just Google TT Baum and I will come up on all the social media apps and you can get in touch with me and ask me questions and Yeah, we can make the world a better sexier more open place

Trevor Hoppe (1:09:58)
Fabulous. Well.

Thank you, TT for joining me. I think you are definitely having some of the best gay sex, so I’m always eager to learn from other people that I admire, so thank you.

Trevor Hoppe (1:10:12)
That’s our show for today. Thank you so much as always for listening. I am truly grateful. And remember, if you are not having the best gay sex of your life, I can help. My services as a sex coach can help you identify and overcome the obstacles that are standing between you and your best sex life. Find out more on my website, thebestgaysex.net. Happy holidays. Till next time.