TABOO TUESDAY: Let's Talk About Sex with Inventor of the Hashtag, Chris Messina

Emotionally Fit

Chris Messina has over a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, but he wasn’t thinking about that when he accepted a challenge from his partner to be more vocal about his sexual desires, and updated his profile to include a personal goal of giving her more orgasms. Cut to the following day when people were shocked to see that this tech leader credited with inventing the hashtag had posted something so personal in such a public way. But for Chris, this event was a turning point for him in speaking more freely about sex without fear or shame. In this Taboo Tuesday, Chris talks to Dr. Emily about his journey to accepting himself as a sexual being and navigating a world where many people are not comfortable talking about sex openly.

Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Monday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health, and surprising, funny, and shocking conversations on Taboo Tuesdays - because the things we’re most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Follow Chris Messina on Twitter

Listen to Chris’s podcast, Techmeme Ride Home

Learn more about Chris’s work at chrismessina.me

Thank you for listening! Follow Dr. Emily on Twitter, and don’t forget to follow, rate, review and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts! #EmotionallyFit

The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

JUMP STRAIGHT INTO:

(03:01) - Chris's journey to accepting himself as a sexual being - “My process has been one of maybe denying a lot of like my own sexuality and repressing my own sexual desire because I grew up without the ability to trust my sexuality as a man.”

(05:49) - Going public about his sex life - “For so much of my life, I thought sex was dangerous. Something I shouldn't want. Something that I should repress. Something that my gender tends to use as a blunt instrument or as a type of force against other people to get power from other people. That's not what I wanted to be.”

(11:40) - A new age in sex - “The fact that sex is not simply done anymore just for procreation allows us to actually get into the body and to experience things that are actually biologically driven motivators to get us to reproduce.”

(14:42) - Opening up about sex as a society - “I hope in the next 10 to 15 years, these kinds of conversations will lead the next generation to be able to check in with themselves, to be able to say, ‘Is this the right thing for me right now?’”

(17:17) - How more men can open up about sex - “The other thing that's really important is checking your own desire for a certain set of outcomes. If you can separate yourself from having any certain thing happen, I think that also is a really good way of cultivating safety.”

(22:39) - Chris’s taboo question answered - “I would probably spend a lot of time masturbating because I don't have a clitoris or a vagina, and I'm very curious how they work and what it feels like to have one. To have a part of your body that has 8,000 nerve endings just sounds really intense, but also really interesting.”