76. Dr. Alexandra Solomon on Building Healthy Relationships as a Teen, Exploring Sexuality, Soulmates, and Sex Education

Oct 26

Today I am joined by Dr. Alexandra Solomon a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and speaker, specializing in families, marriage, and relationships. She is a professor at Northwestern University and the author of Loving Bravely and Taking Sexy Back. In this episode, we dive into society’s messaging towards boys and girls on sexuality and relationships, relationship red + green flags, being sexual vs. feeling sexualized, if soulmates are real, and so much more. This episode provides so much value and insight applicable to any interpersonal interactions—I know you’ll love It!

Follow Dr. Solomon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.alexandra.solomon

Dr. Solomon’s website (+ blog): https://dralexandrasolomon.com

This week’s DBT skill is the GIVE skill. Learn more here.

Dr. Solomon and I dive into the following topics…

+ the difference in messaging society directs towards boys and girls regarding sexuality and relationships

+ how self-compassion, body image, and acceptance is connected to sexuality

+ sex education and how unrepresentative it can be more many demographics, beliefs, etc

+ what makes a relationship “healthy” and what makes communication effective in interactions

+ how relationships and falling in love causes us to do work on ourselves

+ the importance of exploring boundaries, building trust, improving communication, and having relationships as a teenager

+ are soulmates real—Dr. Solomon’s perspective

+ how overburdening intimate relationships can be problematic for the relationship

+ being sexual vs. feeling sexualized

+ the impact of p*rnography on teenagers, relationships, and societal messaging

+ so much more!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Pure by Linda Kay Klein

+ John Oliver Sex Education Episode

+ Dr. Soloon’s books: Loving Bravely and Taking Sexy Back

+ Make Love Not Porn

+ Erika Lust

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

🍓This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what you eat. Use code XOSADIE at checkout for 20% off your first order!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

Want to create a podcast video just like this? Check out veed.io! It streamlines the process of adding audio, subtitles, photos, and more!

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: This week on she persisted.

Dr. Solomon: a lot of us have wounds from childhood or from earlier adolescents.

I haven't attended too, and it's sometimes not until we have fallen in love with somebody that we're like, oh shit. Yeah. I'm going to serious trust issues. I have actually a really hard time regulating my emotions.

I don't know how to ask for what I need in the bedroom with somebody who actually. Loves me and is like, I want to feel good with you. I want you to feel good with me. And so sometimes it is in falling in love that we get really confronted by.

Sadie: This week's DBT skill is the GIVE skill. This is a skill from the interpersonal effectiveness module, and when we're approaching interpersonal interactions, we can prioritize our goal in the interaction. We can prioritize the relationship and improving the quality of the relationship, or we can prioritize a self-respect. So give us this go. You use when you want to improve the relationship. So this acronym stands for beat gentle act, interested, validate, and use an easy manner. So diving in deep here being gentle means not attacking. You're not making threats, you're not judging and you're not sneering at the other person.

You're being very nice and respectful within the interaction. Acting interested, you are listening and you appear interested in the other person. So you're listening to their point of view. You're facing them. You're giving body language that shows that you're paying attention to what you're saying.

Another thing to add here is to be sensitive of the person's wish. If they want to have the discussion at a later time and being patient with that need validation, you are validating with words and actions. You are showing that you understand the other person's feelings and thoughts about the situation you are trying to see the world from the other person's point of view and say an act tank based on what you see from that view.

And lastly, use an easy manner. If this means sprinkling a net, a little bit of humor, smiling, easing the person through a situation, being light heart. And letting go of any attitudes you bring into the interaction. So that's the gift scale, amazing to improve your interaction, you can use it in any relationship dynamic, and even if you're just using one part of the scale, it is hugely effective.

Hello and welcome to she persisted.

My name is Sadie. I'm your host. If you are a new listener, I'm so glad you're here. Make sure you subscribe and leave review reviews. You don't miss out on any new episodes. We have an amazing interview today with Dr. Alexandra Solomon. We talk all about body acceptance, sexual health, sexuality, relationships, healthy, and non-healthy relationships. So many amazing topics that are relevant to any teenager who interacts with people. But before we dive into that,

This episode has had me thinking a lot ever since I sat down with Dr. Solomon, I think two weeks ago. Now I have been examining my own relationships in my life where I want to improve relationships. I'm where I'm feeling a lack of connection. And I feel like the signal just keeps popping up in every area of my life.

It was listening to an episode from Alexis Haynes podcast, recovering from reality. And she was saying that we grow in relationships. And so that quote kept sticking with me. And in this episode, Dr.

Solomon and I talked all about how relationships are, what you invest in them and what you put into them. And I've noticed, especially since I've been at college, I've kind of taken a backseat role to growing and improving my Relationships. Yes. I am socializing as I'm interacting with people, but I've been so focused on building a foundation that supports my mental health, which I love.

I'm so proud of myself for that college is truly my home and it is an environment and routine that energizes me and allows me to get everything done that I need to get done and feel good doing it. And I feel a lack of the amazing, deep, authentic relationships that I was able to build and sustain at home.

And at other points in my life, And so I've noticed that I've been kind of navigating my relationships through the mindset of like, oh, he'll just like pop up and appear, like build this magically form and this connection will happen. And that's not really the case. It's accumulating moments of vulnerability and authenticity and asking people to hang out or spend time together and continuing to build those connections through different interactions.

And I think that's something that's really important to remember. And when I think about that, I'm like, oh, that really sucks. Like a relationships just magically came into our lives. And there was immediately that super strong connection and foundation. That would be amazing, but that's not the case. And that's not to say that connections don't form authentic.

And naturally, but you're still putting energy and effort into that by being vulnerable and expressing interest and concern about the other person and spending time together and all of these different things. So this is an area that I'm currently really working on in my life to grow and improve my relationships and allow myself to grow more because I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but I've gotten into this head space where I'm extremely effective at navigating my life without the, without dealing with interactions from other people.

So like I could go through every single day and like be totally fine. Like my mental health is stable. My emotions are stable. I don't react in a big way to anything like I'm healthy. I'm happy. I'm content. But I'm like very stagnant at that point of growth. Like I'm not being pushed out of my comfort zone to be vulnerable and express what I'm feeling and understand my emotions and validate other people.

And so I have a two-fold question. If, if you guys relate to this one is, do you kind of constantly feel that urge or that need to continue to push yourself and grow and up level with your relationships in your life and being effective and being skillful. And the second is if you can relate to that feeling of being really effective internally, but it's at a deficit because you're not as connected within your relationships.

If that makes sense, like you're really good at navigating things internally in your little bubble, because that's comfortable and relationships push you outside of your comfort zone and force you to have conversations and interactions that are out of your control and it's so worth it.

It's so amazing to be connected and validated and understood and seen. And there's the discomfort that brings that amazing result. So all of this to say, this is an amazing episode and something that just has stuck with me, and I know it will stick with you as well, and I'll keep updating you on my growing relationship, project aspiration and how that goal is going.

But I think the message is in this episode are so profound and powerful and every single person can relate to it. So without further ado, this week's guest is Dr. Alexandra Solomon. She is a licensed clinical psychologist that specializes in families, marriage, and relationships. She is a professor at Northwestern university. She has two books published, loving, bravely, and taking sexy back.

She just launched a new podcast called re-imagining love you guys should definitely check that out. She's also super active on Instagram and social media.

So you can follow along with her at Dr. D R dot Alexandra dot Solomon and I of course will link her information in her show notes, as well as her website, which has an amazing blog that she references in this episode. So if you have any questions about anything relating to relationships or resources, it's probably on her blog.

So I'm definitely going to link that as an amazing resource for you guys to dive into, but without further ado, this episode is so amazing. I know you're going to love it. Let's dive in. So thank you so so much Dr. Solomon for joining me on she persisted today. I'm so excited to have you on this.

Dr. Solomon: I'm happy to be here with you, Sadie.

Thank you for inviting me.

Sadie: Of course. So I have so many questions to ask you today about adolescent sexuality. We're going to dive into relationships, how teenage and adolescent relationship and sexuality exploration impacts adulthood tips for parents. So many things, but I wanted to start super basic with the messaging that gets directed at teenagers for both girls and boys.

And what's the difference here? Because it's obviously something that's super profound and super relevant to all teenagers, even before we dive into relationships and sexuality. So just starting with, starting with messaging around relationships and sexuality, what happened.

Dr. Solomon: Oh, my gosh. Well, I think that you are, I mean, unfortunately we do have to kind of tease apart the intersection of gender and sex, which is so sad, but the research has found that nowhere, like in, in no other domain of life are gender role expectations as rigid and narrow as they are around the whole realm of dating and sexuality.

So there really is. We can't, unfortunately we don't live in a, what I would love to do is move our culture to a space where we're just talking about sexuality, right. About. Living in our bodies experiencing pleasure through our bodies, but unfortunately everything remains quite binary. And all of the folks who live outside of the binary are like, hello, you guys.

And there's a whole bunch of, you know, a whole bunch of ways that y'all are trapped within these binaries, that limit things limit your experience, limit your expression. But I think that you are right to start us off by saying that we socialize our boys and our girls quite differently around sex. And in, you know, equally problematic though, different ways.

Right? And that, I think that we teach the messages that we get. I mean, so much to say right here, but so many messages to girls are about their value being in how they are the degree to which they are desired by boys. Right. While at the same time that their bodies are dangerous and distracting.

When we think about school dress code rules that are either implicitly or explicitly around Covering up your shoulders and your legs. So as not to distract distract, boys has a very, you know, the message there is that your body's dangerous. Your body is also an object, right?

Sadie: You got a job to control so that others can experience calm and not just be distracted and all of that.

Dr. Solomon: That's right. That's right. So really wonderful book called pure by a friend of mine, Linda K. Klein who grew up in evangelical Christianity. And it's a beautiful book as part memoir part research. And she basically talks like breaks down all this stuff. Like the explicit teaching within Christianity, which are not just within Christianity.

But the explicit messages like your, like you literally woman, you are a stumbling block. You are a thing that men have to learn how to manage and navigate. So the least you could do is cover yourself up crazy, right? Because, well, because then it fits right into the messaging we give to boys, which is that your boys, your sexuality is so wild and so out of control and so aggressive.

And so reckless that the only thing we can do is save the world from. Which is a horrible message because what men, what we all crave around the whole realm of the erotic is so much more than like power and control by our authentic, our authentic, our authentic sexualities, I believe are incredibly loving and connected and present and mindful and caring, right?

So it's just as dangerous to teach boys that that urge you have, or that urge is totally dangerous rather than being like I heard you have is so natural and so normal. And here's some things you can do to ground yourself, to refocus yourself, to channel that energy into your art, into your music, into movement, right?

And that then when you do partner with somebody for a sexual experience that you partner in really, really attuned, careful, tender ways,

Do you agree it, like, does that land with sort of the, your, your experience of gender role socialization

Sadie: around sex and it's, it's so complex.

Like we talk about gender as a spectrum and it's even just when we boil it down to talking about males and females, there's a complete opposite sides of that spectrum as far as the messaging there. And it's so interesting how one is like you need to, you need to control uni. For females, it's like, you need to make yourself appear in a way that's digestible for other people.

And for males, it's almost the same. It's like, you need to tone this down. This needs to be acceptable. All of these kinds of things. And there's not that message of compassion. This is okay. We're here to support you during this transition. That's just missing on both sides, which is, which is crazy to think about.

And so that goes right into my next question, which is talking about self-compassion and the the connection between body acceptance and body image and females and, and sexuality as a whole, and kind of how that is intertwined. And what's your perspective there?

Dr. Solomon: Oh my God. Well, so I mean, so deeply entwined, right?

So deeply entwined in ways that are so really heartbreaking. Right. So if we've been given, you know, this idea of. You know, the way that oftentimes girls come into their bodies, like, I think there is a chapter of our lives of when we just lived in our bodies. Right. And we just like lived in these bodies and we were like fascinated by what they could do and what, where they could take us and what they could do.

And then there is for some people it's like a sharp turning point for some people it's an erosion, but then it becomes this awareness of like, oh, actually shit, everyone around me has opinions about my body and there's all these ways. And we start to like pick our bodies apart that these parts are too big and these parts are too small and these parts would look more like this and less like this.

Or we, you know, all too many of us survive a trauma where our own sovereignty over our bodies is robbed from us in a, in an instant. Right. And so in any of those experiences, in all of those experiences, we lose that sense of like, Inside out experience of our body and it becomes an outside in experience of our body and that completely compromises our ability to experience pleasure and presence and orgasm.

So when we look at the research, you know, there's a significant orgasm gap that stands out most. When a man and a woman are having sex together, right. Women who are making love with women tend to be really likely to have orgasms. And there's, there's not a lot of gap there. Men making love with men really similar high likelihood of orgasm, really like reliable orgasm.

But when a man and a woman are making love with each other, the chances of her having an orgasm, especially when the, the, like bulls-eye of like nothing's going to happen is a woman hooking up with a man in a hookup, right? Like a non-relational, which makes total sense because in order for her to experience and again, pleasure and orgasm aren't necessarily the same thing, but orgasm is certainly we can use it as one metric because then people feel safe and present.

And but the, that If she's in a hookup experience, she's, it's probably pretty unlikely that she feels safe, pretty unlikely that she feels able to give at all. Yeah. Yeah. And the, and the, and there's a question like, are you open for my feedback? Are you here with me? If I, if I tell you to please slow down, if I tell you I want more of this, like, will you be able to?

And so I think that I worry sometimes about the early, because so often girls and guys early sexual experiences are hookups, so they can kind of become then the template of like, well, I guess that's all sex is, you know, and it's like, not, not that radical. When in fact there's so much to be explored, but it has to be explored in a foundation of trust and mutuality and care, which certainly can happen in a hookup.

But all too often, there's a lot of drinking and kind of just like, not a lot of emotional safety. But tell me, tell me how that lands for you.

Sadie: I think that makes a ton of sense. So my next question was really kind of just looking to understand how sexuality develops in teens. What does that process look like?

What are the different markers that teens experience and, and what does that development that they go through? And I think that's really interesting to look at it through what that normal. Early sexual experiences and how that narrative is written for what teens think sexual experiences will look like for the rest of their life and how that can impact their beliefs about that.

But yeah. So development throughout teenage years of sexuality and relationships, what does that, what does that look like?

Dr. Solomon: Well, that is a huge question. That's a big one entire career breaking down, but some of the things, you know, Northern the Northern European countries give us a really cool counterpoint to Americans, sex, education, American sex education,

Sadie: amazing John Oliver episode about sex ed and the United States.

And it's just hilarious because he brings up all of these different clips of people that go into schools and how different, the different things you'll learn are. And like all the different metaphors that are used, whether it's like a piece of gum or a dirty sock. And it's just comical, like I'll link that in today's show notes, because if you want to laugh and all of a sudden it's like, wow, there's a big problem here.

That's the episode for you to watch

Dr. Solomon: if you want to laugh and also cry. Yes. Yes, exactly. I was giving a workshop to like maybe a hundred. Therapist. And we were talking about this very issue and I had them break into small groups and kind of tell each other the story of their sex education. And we came back together and one woman was sharing and she was, I mean, she was in her twenties.

So she was a young clinician in her twenties. And she was educated in the public school system right here in the north shore of Chicago, where we pride ourselves on being so progressive. It was a public in a, in a public school setting she had right. The teacher came in with two gift bags and one gift bag with like very lovely with the glitter and the tissue and the other gift bag.

Like she had like rolled it in the mud, like run over it with her car crinkled, the tissue paper. And she's like, you have the choice of which one of these you want to give to your spouse someday. Like what it's like, there's my tax dollars hard at work.

Sadie: No, it's, it's insane. And that it's just, again, laughing and crying at the same time.

You're like, what is going on? And this is so terrible. It's just the craziest craziest.

Dr. Solomon: Right. So what we did was I was like, okay, everybody, like, let's all like put our hands on our heart. And like, we just like sent some like collective love and healing to the 15 year old girl that she was when she sat there and was like, holy shit, these are my only two choices.

Like I just felt so being forced to send

Sadie: her, the teens were like, oh, this is so uncomfortable. This is so awkward. I don't want to be here. Like, Ugh, all around such a bad experience.

Dr. Solomon: That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's oftentimes, you know, I teach this marriage 1 0 1 class at Northwestern. And when we talk about sexuality, I, you know, students have said to me over and over again, like, this is the first time I've ever heard, like a grownup, even though college students are grownups as well, but I'm more grown up.

That's right. That's right. Which is so, so wonderful. I love, I mean, I always want to have part of my career being on a college campus because it just keeps me connected and engaged and fresh. So I love that like cross-generational conversation, but anyways, many of them will say like, I've not ever heard like a grownup person talk about sex, the way that you just talked about sex.

Like in my mind, I talk about sex as a talk about pregnancy. Or diseases or shame or risk. Right. So that's, so there's as much to be learned as I want your listeners to be reflecting on their sex education experiences and what was said, and then also what wasn't said. So I think there's a huge part of like how we heal ourselves, which is like giving ourselves the sex education we needed.

I had a student write a term paper, a queer student, write a term paper where he basically wrote the sex education. He wished he would have had, and like gave it then to his young self. Because if you are, yeah, if you're LGBTQ plus. If there is a single digit chance that your sex education showed any kind of representation of your sexuality.

And if your parents gave you like the talk, they likely gave you the talk on a kind of sex that you're probably not going to be interested in having, right. Like a huge

Sadie: emphasis on pregnancy prevention in birth control like that in itself is messaging towards the LGBTQ community. That just it's, it's not, it doesn't fit.

You're not seeing yourself represented. It's it's, it's very interesting to observe.

Dr. Solomon: That's right. And then, so then by default, by having that, not spoken within that silence is I'm the other, right? I'm the other, I'm not here, I'm not represented. So I must be different and different oftentimes in our minds and gets pair of ashamed.

So it's not just different it's deficient. So that, so then then healthy sexuality becomes like a reclamation. Something people have to fight for something people have to restore rather than like, what if we just gave people that at the beginning? Right. So there wasn't. Cause it does. I mean, you're, you know, part of your question was like, where does that go in adulthood?

Well, where it goes is that I spend the other part of my week working with couples who are struggling with significant sexual issues, because not because sexual issues are. Difficult, but because they become impossible to work on. If you have no language and if you have no habit, not had practiced talking about Saks or wondering together about Saks, or if the idea that different equals bad and wrong, then when my penis doesn't behave the way that I think it should, or, you know, I don't get aroused in the way I think I should, then it becomes like, oh my God, I'm broken or you're broken, or we're broken rather than like, okay, how are we going to handle.

Sadie: This week's episode is sponsored by teen counseling. Teen counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network. They offer support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, substance use, and more.

This is a great way to get professional support and insight on your relationships. Whether you're struggling with conflict, or you want to be more effective or advocate for your needs, whatever it is working with a professional or a therapist can be so helpful.

And it was a game changer for me to improve my relationship with my parents, with my friends, all of these things. So beneficial. So teen counseling offers, text talk and video counseling all from your home. So what you're going to do is you're going to go to teen counseling.com. She persisted.

You're going to fill out a super quick survey about what you want to focus on in therapy. They're going to send a consent link to your parents. And I tested the email. I sent it to myself. Basically, all it says is Sadie or whatever your name is, is interested in meeting with a clinician from teen counseling.

Please learn more here and give consent to treatment. So none of your information that you filled out in your survey about what you want to work on is just closed. Your parent just gives consent for you to work with a therapist. And from there, you're matched with a therapist that meets your needs and goals, and you start working via talk, text and video counseling.

This is perfect. If you need immediate support and don't want to have to navigate the overwhelming experience of going and meeting in person with a therapist for the first time. So I highly recommend, again, if you're looking for support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, substance use, and so much more head to teen counseling.com/ . Again, that's teen counseling.com slushy persisted to get started today. So kind of leading into that working with couples, that kind of thing, what makes a romantic relationship healthy? What are the things that you're looking for? And that, that make that an effective experience, relationship, all of those things.

Dr. Solomon: Yeah. I think there's a lot of things I'd be interested to hear what you, what would go on your list.

But one of them that I think, I don't know how you, how you build a healthy relationship without this. A big one is trust, right? So trust is basically like an energetic shortcut, right?

Trust is when you say something to me, Yeah, that tracks versus, well, she said that, but she has look on her face and maybe I should take a look at her phone and maybe I should ask my friend, her friends. And I don't really think that was true and something in my gut doesn't feel right. Which is just exhausting.

It just, you know, to be, there are things that are challenging about being in a intimate relationship. There's a lot of negotiation and navigation and stuff that at least if you have trust, if you at least have a sense that like your words match your actions, then that at least creates ease. Right. And, and when there's a breach of trust or when it's difficult to trust, it just makes it's really hard to feel like you have a good, healthy, strong relationship.

So trust is a big

Sadie: one. Completely agree with you with trust in communication. It's the foundation that you need and everything else just gets so much more difficult without that. The flip side of that coin, what are the red flags there that make a relationship feel or be unhealthy?

Dr. Solomon: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and say to your point about communication is a, is a good one because when somebody calls for couples therapy, what they tell me is they're having communication problems, but I don't really know what that means.

Right. Cause there's a lot in communication that's about, but basically I think what you're getting at is the idea that if I have a concern that I can bring it to you and you will say, okay, that makes sense that it's a concern. Let's figure out what we can do about it. You may not agree with my concern, but you will at least validate that if I have a concern it's worthy of your consideration and is worthy of us trying to figure out,

Sadie: Guess that that will be reciprocated, the, your partner will come to you.

If they have a concern, instead of just letting it lay dormant and then blow up and say,

Dr. Solomon: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because some, sometimes we don't know that our partner is upset either because we're kind of lost in our own world or they have a really good poker face. And right. There's the research has found that happy couples have what's called a low negativity threshold, meaning that they they'll bring up the pebble in the shoe rather than waiting until it's like a totally like festering wound and then being like, you know, like a 10 out of 10 in upset when that's really hard to deal with.

And then there's been so many things, like, I didn't know, you've been like building this up for two weeks. Yeah. And I'm only just yelling about it now.

Sadie: So interesting. So lack of communication there, the lack of trust, right. Are there other things, whether it's like dynamics, like communication patterns, behaviors that you, you hear you see near, like, oh, that's not good.

Dr. Solomon: Yeah. I really you know, I think. I don't talk a lot about like red flags living inside of a person. Like I know there's like a lot of, a lot of that, of like, oh, that I think it's more like the patterns. It also is. I also want people, I want your audience to really focus on, like, what are the red flags that happen inside of me?

Like, it might be things like I'm silencing myself. I'm saying yes. When I mean, no, I am lying. I am cheating. Right. I am escalating. I am threatening those kinds of like, those are the kinds of things that indicate within me that I don't feel safe or that I'm not valuing this person. Right. So there's, or like relational patterns become like red flag patterns.

And so certainly things like you know, patterns of dishonesty, like it's kind of goes back to the trust issue. I really, you know, I worry, I think a lot with college students about just not tolerating, like early signs of abuse. Those, I think, I think, you know, part of college relationships what, what I want for young people is to have early relationship experiences, where they have a sense of like kind of the arc, you know, how to start what it feels like, how to end.

I think, realistically, we probably aren't going to marry the first person we fall in love with. So we will have to learn how to end well, how to end gracefully, how to heal and how to open up again. So that whole arc is really is really important in a relationship that ends doesn't mean that it was bad.

It doesn't mean that it was a waste of time because there's always going to be learning that then you figure out, okay. So what does that tell me about what I need and want what some of my challenges might be? Sometimes we don't, you know, a lot of us have wounds from childhood or from earlier adolescents.

I haven't attended too, especially if we're high achieving ambitious, we're just like, okay, I'll just get going gaze and just keep on going. And it's sometimes not until we have fallen in love with somebody that we're like, oh shit. Yeah. I'm going to serious trust issues. I have actually a really hard time regulating my emotions.

Sadie: We grow so much in relationships. I think it's very easy to be able to effectively navigate your own emotions.

Like I feel like I've gotten that down to a science, but when you're interacting with other people, that's when you're outside of your comfort zone and you are really, really forced to, to leave that comfort of those belief systems and behaviors and patterns. And that's when you're, you're pushed out of your comfort zone, you're growing and you're, you're evolving and for good or for bad.

And then in your next relationship, that growth goes with you and you, you continue to grow and evolve until you, you meet a partner where you, you feel like your best version of yourself.

Dr. Solomon: Absolutely. And when you're at a point, I think, you know, I teach college seniors mostly. And so one of the things that's really challenging when they come to office hours.

One of the things that we commonly are talking about is like, I really, really liked this person. And I really like am thinking about, you know, coordinating my next move with this person or trying long distance. And what gets confusing is that, that there's a transition inside of the self. It's like, oh my God, I'm actually at a point in my life where that's not silly.

That's not foolish. Like I am old enough to make those kinds of choices for myself. And the research shows that the quality of our intimate partnerships is a big, big, big factor on the quality of our overall health and happiness. So it's not foolish to be like, I really like this person. And I want to try to coordinate a next chapter with them, not knowing whether or not we're going to last or not last, but there's a kind of.

Internal self-organization that has to happen where it's like, I'm not just a silly little teen, not the teens are silly. I'm not saying that, but oftentimes we will look back and say that my teen love story was silly or foolish, even though it wasn't, it was the absolute wrong terms, but that's

Sadie: okay.

Dr. Solomon: But it, it was the, it was the amount that you could experience at that time.

But that transition to more of like an adult to adult relationship is like, oh my God, I have to kind of like feel into the fact that I'm actually able to make these choices for myself and I'm not being silly. And sometimes it doesn't help because sometimes people's parents are saying you're too young or you shouldn't know your career should come first.

You know, it

Sadie: just doesn't help. Yeah.

This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what you eat. So if you're familiar as she persisted and my view on mental health, you know, I think it's so important to make sure you're taking care of your physical health, to not add emotional vulnerability to your mental health.

This means getting enough sleep, having good nutrition, getting outside and moving your body. All of these things are crucial. Sakara makes organic ready to eat meals that are made with powerful plant-based ingredients.

They're designed to boost your energy improved digestion and get your skin glowing. Their meals are delivered all around the U S eat at your door. They also have amazing wellness essentials like sleepy time tea, which is one of my all-time favorites for my night routine. My other favorite product of theirs is their breakfast. You don't have to actually order like breakfast, lunch, and dinner in your meal plan, you can just do certain meals. Their breakfast are so good. They have different granolas. They have waffles like you name it.

And it's so good. Plant-based protein packed and amazing way to start your day and fast too, because you don't have to cook and make a giant breakfast. They have so many other supplements, teas, powders, granola, you name it.

So if you want to get your hands on these amazing products, you can head to sakara.com and use code at checkout for 20% off your first order again, that's sakara.com and use code at checkout for 20% off

So when you look at healthy relationships and adulthood, what can you pinpoint that has gone right in teenage years and adolescence, whether it's this person effectively explored their boundaries, this person effectively understands their sexuality. What has gone in a good direction?

As far as that development.

Dr. Solomon: Ooh, it's so interesting.

Sadie: It's a, it's a kind of, kind of vague kind of abstract, but I'm sure there's a couple patterns where you're like, oh, maybe that is a theme, but yeah.

Dr. Solomon: Okay. So I guess what I would say is if there has been a really painful experience in adolescence, like a trauma within our relationship, like sexual violence or violence or abandonment or cheating, or like that, that the person has had the kind of care they need in the wake of that in order to integrate it, learn boundaries and those kinds of things in order to go on to the next step.

So I would never, ever, ever say that like a bad experience in adolescence just like screws you for the rest of your life. Right. That's not how trauma was. Trauma becomes. Problematic when it's not healed and honored, integrated. So that my worst case scenario is that somebody has a really painful relationship in adolescents that they just bury and then try to love again, because, because right.

The stuff that we bury comes back to haunt us in our, in our next relationship. Yeah. But what I would love, I mean, what I would, if I could like write somebody's story, I would love for them to have relationships in high school and the early years of college where they just feel like they get to yeah.

Be playful, be present, learn some kind of basic skills around mutual respect around like my needs, your needs, our needs kind of how to handle like time with friends and time with each other. Cause those things are still right. Like tonight I'm trying to figure out like, my husband doesn't want to go out.

I do want to go out. Like, how am I going to balance that? Right. So it doesn't, it doesn't go away. It just kind of transforms. So those are like the early lessons of like, how do I. Love you without losing me. How do I ask for what I need? How do I trust coming up against trust again? So those are kinds of, and then.

Like allow the story to come to a close, like to know that, okay, that relationship ended. They get a special place in my heart, but I'm not going to spend the rest of my life looking in the rear view mirror. I'm going to meet the next person on the next person's terms and not compare them to the last person and not believe, not believe that this love story is somehow worse than the other love story.

Like to just know there's lots and lots of ways of falling in love. I oftentimes say some of us fall in love, some of us like step in love, right. We just like very slowly

And there's not better. There's not better and worse ways, but that's that's one of the risks is that we will kind of like look back at our earlier stories and kind of compare our later stories, which isn't fair because we aren't who we used to be. And you know, our current partner, isn't our last.

Sadie: Random off topic. Do you believe that people have like one true soulmate or do you believe that people in our lives for like a reason, a season, a lifetime different purposes, what's your philosophy there?

Dr. Solomon: Yeah. I, when I wrote loving bravely which was my first book, I did a whole, so loving bravely is 20 lessons of self-discovery.

So it's 20 different lessons about understanding who you are and the kind of patterns and expectations that you bring into relationships. And I had to do a whole chapter on soulmates because, because that question comes up so much.

Sadie: Okay. And the messaging we receive, as you will find a soulmate, you have a soulmate, it's just part of growing up, like all the fairytales that you read and the stories it's just, it's so present in our messaging.

Dr. Solomon: That's right. That's right. Yep. I well I want to hear your take also, but I, I believe that we make soulmates that we, that, that, you know, through going through experiences together, I think we also have lots of men. My best friend has been my best friend since we were 10. She's my soulmate, for sure. I can't even like talk about her that like tears filling my eyes.

Like she, like, she is in my soul. Like our souls are, you know, like, so like her soul is so important to me. Like that's the, so there's, I think there's different, like quality, like different relationships that have that kind of soul depth quality. And I think an intimate partnership. So I don't know. I don't think there is one true partner.

I think there's probably are a handful of people with whom you could create a beautiful life. And with this person you'd have like amazing sacks, but like really painful. Like you wouldn't have the same like worldview stuff. And over here you have like completely fine sacks and you have so much alignment on these things, you know?

So there's, I think different, different things. And so I think that's why it's really important to be clear on what's most important to you. And so then you can cultivate that and assess, you know, how much somebody is meeting you there. But tell me what you think.

Sadie: I really liked what you said about creating a soulmate.

And I think it's totally true. Like you could walk by your quote unquote soulmate, but if you never talk to them or foster that relationship, like that's a dud, that's a write off, like that's not your, you wouldn't think that's your soulmate. So I think it's really like what you're putting into relationships, how you're investing in them, have you, how you've invested in yourself to bring the best version of yourself to that relationship.

And I also really agree with you there on friendships that there's so many people that will feed different parts of our souls and that we're deeply, deeply connected with for different reasons during different seasons of our lives. And so I think. The idea of a soulmate is a truly super deep connection.

And I think that's possible with multiple different people. But I think because it's so rare that we're so deeply connected with people, that's why people are like, oh, you have one soulmate or that's only one person out there, but I, I think it's just how much you're investing in yourself and the relationship and, and feeding that and letting it grow over.

Dr. Solomon: I think that's right. Yep. Yes. That idea. I think it's, yeah. There's something about a soulmate that it's like a desire to bypass the work. The word

Sadie: totally. It's like everyone wants, like add to cart.

Dr. Solomon: I will take one soulmate thing deliver next

Sadie: day. Expedite shipping. Thank you.

Dr. Solomon: There was a research study that was assessed college students on the degree to which they believed in soulmate, like the idea of soulmates and the higher, the more strongly you believed in the idea of a soulmate, the, the more, more likely were to break up with somebody. The more likely you were to have, and the more likely you were to be like unable to deal with conflict, which makes sense.

If you believe it's your soulmate, then I'd be like, oh my God, why are we disagreeing on this? Because you're supposed to be my soulmate.

Sadie: Soulmates versus compatibility. I think like your, your deep connection and long-term relationships come from that compatibility and belief systems and values and, and you, you think there's this one perfect package of a person that'll be like, check, check, check all these boxes.

But if you have that baseline compatibility on belief systems, you have similar goals and you put in the work and the time, like there is that idea of that deep soul connection that that can be built and fostered and maintained.

Dr. Solomon: Absolutely. But I think the other thing that the soulmate belief does is it kind of reflects the way that we kind of overburden intimate relationships.

Like we want that person to be our best friend and I love her and our partner and our co-parent and sometimes our business partner. So we put up a heap, a lot of expectations. People have argued that, especially in this day and age, we heap so many, like we have really put intimate partnership as like the center of the world where other cultures, other cultures, and other times have put other kinds of relationships at the center, right?

The parent child relationship is the center and everything else is accessory. Or in some parts of the world, the sibling relationship is central. And then the everything else is, you know, or the relationship among women like women and sisters and aunties, right. Is the most central thing. But because we have, we've held up intimate partnership as like the end all be all thing.

Yeah. We forget that actually we need a village. Like we need you know, my marriage is stronger because every single Thursday I meet with a group of women and we do like deep soul work together. And I bring a lot of stuff to them. Or I worked with them last night on an issue that I'm having in my relationship with our teen daughter, I did a deep soul work on that issue and that unburdens Todd, right?

He doesn't have to carry that with me. Like I am I'm, well-resourced in lots of places and that's good for our marriage. In fact,

Sadie: such a common mistake that you'd navigate in teenage years is your significant other becomes your only support system. You're like, okay, this is not, this doesn't work. You, you learn as you grow and their relationships teach you things like that.

So.

Dr. Solomon: That's right. That's right. Yup.

Sadie: So I want to touch on specifically in, in females though, again, we talked about gender being a spectrum, being sexual versus feeling sexualized. And I really loved how you talked about this and I kind of wanted to explore the difference there and how that impacts sexuality and, and relationships as well.

Dr. Solomon: Yeah. So you're talking about my second book, which is called taking sexy back, which is where it is a deep dive for a woman who is somebody who has been socialized in the femoral. To really understand all of the messages that she has been absorbing since she was little so that she can figure out the messages that work for her that take her more deeply into herself that take her, that, that, that amplify self-compassion that amplify pleasure and to figure out the messages that, that don't the messages that shrink her, the messages that take her out of connection with herself.

So that's a journey and you know, for a woman about her relationship with her sexuality, and that's one of the places we start is that our bodies are sexualized so early on, oftentimes our bodies are sexualized before we've even had a chance to understand what the hell our sexuality is about. Right.

So that we experience our bodies as something that is to be looked at, to be touched, to make somebody else feel good. And it does not set us up well to enter. Erotic experiences feeling like, okay, so this erotic experience is going to be about both of us feeling good and creating something together.

Right. Which is really, so that's the difference of feeling sexual is feeling connected to your own body, connected to what would feel good? What do I want to feel in this experience versus sexualized is like, how do I position myself so that my partner enjoys themselves?

Sadie: And I think that's such a significant distinction that we, we kind of intertwine the two and we forget that they're different.

And I think it's so important to highlight and illustrate that those are separate entities and different experiences that we have.

Dr. Solomon: Right. That's right. Yeah. And some, and sometimes it is sometimes they are. Sometimes a particular behavior or a particular position. It's like, what feels good about this is I know how good it's making you feel.

So there is something about like a feedback loop, right? Like not every single behave sometimes, sometimes what feels pleasurable is witnessing your pleasure. So I don't want to discount that, but oftentimes think especially for college age women, emerging adult women, it is about the idea that like I have to kind of continue to position myself or sound particularly particular sounds look a particular way, do particular things so that you feel good.

It's so much focused on a performance. With the, you know, the availability of 24, 7 free streaming porn. And the fact that, especially if you are partnering with a guy, you have a sense that probably this is what they've seen. This is what they view as normal. So it's all that kind of stuff is like right there in, you know, in the bedroom with a woman and it makes it really hard then to go from a place of like mindfulness, which is the best place to go, to have a good sexual experiences, like just being present and mindful to, how am I doing?

How are you doing? And that it's like a, it's like a, a back and

Sadie: forth. That was exactly my next question, which was pornography. Do you see a negative and positive? Isn't the right word, but on teenager specifically what are your thoughts

Dr. Solomon: there? Yeah, we're just, I mean, it's a radically, radically different world.

Like you all are on the leading edge. You're among the first, you know, first generation of people who have grown up. All of this free streaming, like really like, like that porn and hardcore porn are basically the same thing at this point. What is normal? I, if you looked at that's actually kind of an interesting sociological study, you look at porn from like the seventies and the eighties.

Like it just the, what was, what was the spectrum was so much more limited, like what was sort of, and I don't, you know, I never want to get into like yucking someone else's yum, but I think that for young people to be consuming a lot of heart, like to be watching hardcore for any of us, we watching hardcore porn, those messages get in.

And I think that there are, I know there are lots of people who love like more extreme kinds of sexuality, like mixing pleasure and pain. I think we have a ton I'm always trying to learn from the kink community. And I think there's like really. Cool important stuff to say about power and how you navigate like the intersection of pleasure and pain.

But that's not what we're seeing in heart. We're not watching in hardcore porn people really intentionally and mindfully doing power exchange and like titrating bits of pain with their pleasure. Right. We're watching things that for many, many of us would feel uncomfortable or unpleasurable or vulnerable and self Kobe, we will feel self self-conscious.

So I do think that it, I think it lands, I think it matters. I really want people to be thoughtful about what they consume. I love this website called make love, not porn which is like basically like the world's first social. Network was basically like Facebook for sex. Like when people are like real live couples and real life, individuals are sharing their sex ideal.

So you're watching like regular bodies, inclusive bodies, like real people, actual couples, like having sex together or having solo sex. It just is so much more, it's a funny thing to say. It's wholesome, but it's so wholesome in that you're seeing relationships. So I really want people to be mindful. I also love Erika lust is a feminist pornographer.

And so her, her films, and unfortunately, nearly all of the like quote unquote good stuff. The feminist off the inclusive stuff ends up being behind a paywall. But I think that it's, I think if people can afford to spend a bit, if they're going to be using erotica, I think it's worth spending a little bit of money to really consume images of that are relational that are.

Where we are, there's been care in creating it. Right. I think that's part of the problem is just also like the degradation of performers and people, you know? So then you're like you're consuming content where the people weren't being treated well, they weren't being treated fairly. They weren't paid well.

So it's just sort of like this weird energetic exchange then where you write. Got yourself off on something that was not lovingly created. You know, it just sort of they've struggled with a lot of it, but tell me what you think

Sadie: what's your no, I, I completely agree. And it like makes me immediately think of the fast fashion movement, where it's like being very intentional about the content you're consuming, where you're buying from all of these different things and it's, it's all connected.

And I think that that makes it a ton of sense. And I am always talking about being a critical consumer on social media and what's boosting your mood and making you feel good. And I think that's exactly true here being mindful of your experience and, and not feeling pressured or forced to consume certain content because it's what other people are doing.

And so again, mindfulness of your experience. And I'm being critical to make it the best possible experience for you that, that you can. But

Dr. Solomon: wait, one more thing. Sorry. One more thing about about porn I think is really important because you all had access to smartphones at a really, really early age.

It means that like the average age of seeing porn is like maybe 13, right? Like, like starting to see. Yeah. So what it means is that, and this is true for guys and girls. I think it's sometimes there's a little bit more true of guys that they oftentimes then. Watching porn as actually one of their first self-soothing strategies.

And so and so it can feel like it can feel like this very private, very secret thing that I used to, you know, like we're his story is like, this is what I did when my parents were fighting and I was really scared. I would go to this place and make my body feel good. And so there's like, there's something then.

And then later on when he's in a relationship and she's struggling with his use of porn and she's critical of him and she's judgmental of him, they can feel again, the narrative where I want only to be whispering in her ear. Like, listen, it doesn't mean that it's okay. And he, and he does need some different strategies.

Now that he's a man now that he's not living with parents who are fighting, but I also know. Her to have a ton of empathy and understanding of

Sadie: that new org. Yeah, totally. I think that makes a ton of ton of sense. For parents that are looking to be a supportive resource and offer a more effective education than what we initially talked about in the public school system.

What is your advice there? Is it resources? Is it having a certain conversation? What's your tips and tricks?

Dr. Solomon: There are some really wonderful sex educators who are very helpful to parents. One I can think of off the top of my head is sex positive families as one Naty and Thornhill. Jan, Dr. Jen Litner has an eCourse for parents about about sex and gender rights created in a really inclusive way.

So there are some really, there are really good resources out there, but parents need to do a bit of legwork on their own. And I think that you know, it's kind of, it's cool that like when people, when, when kids are little, I also, I have a I have a really big blog on my website and in my blog, I wrote an article a few years ago about resources for parents.

I'll link

Sadie: that in the short yeah.

Dr. Solomon: But basically, you know, from a very early age, we can be teaching our kids about bodily autonomy. We can be using the correct names for genitals. We can be asking like, you know, even with like our little babies, like I'm gonna take off your diaper now, like kind of telling them what, like the, sort of like the idea of consent that even that we can kind of, when, when we're interfacing with our bodies, like letting them know in really small, subtle ways that your body is yours.

Right. Rather than like go hug, you know, uncle Harold it's like, do you want to give uncle Harold a hug, a handshake, a high five, or a wave? Like just those little micro lessons that are about bodily, autonomy and consent, where we're giving kids a chance to check in with themselves. Like, what's a yes. And what's a no.

And who do I want to touch? And who do I want to have touch me? That those are, and they're not even about, so sex is, you know, sex education is bigger and broader than just like what you were saying before, like preventing pregnancy. It's also about like, just feeling your own. Sovereignty.

Sadie: Yeah. I love that.

And I think that's so, so important. Resources to leave listeners with, if they want to further understand relationships, healthy relationships, that relationship, sexuality, all of those things. What are you recommending?

Dr. Solomon: Well, so certainly we just mentioned the blog on my website. I'm active on an active on social media.

So at Dr. Alexandra dot Solomon on Instagram I have a whole e-course. I turned the marriage 1 0 1 class at Northwestern into an E sort of like marriage one-on-one for the grown and sexy. It's a big comprehensive, foundational sex and relationship course. You can find on my website on my blog, I have like a series of articles that are like, My top 10 favorite books about parenting my top 10 favorite books about relationships.

So there's some of those, but yeah, there's lots. I mean, it's, we are living and loving in a time where there's just a lot of resources available, which is really wonderful. And I like the point that you made a bit ago about being a mindful consumer of social media. And so if you're going to be on Instagram, rather than looking at things that make you feel crappy about yourself, it's really wonderful.

There are a lot of therapists who have robust Instagram feeds, where they're giving really good self-help and relationship content. Awesome.

Sadie: Well, thank you so, so much for sitting down with me. I know this conversation will be so helpful for so many teens and parents alike. Just understanding their, their relationships, their sexuality, all of that.

So thank you so, so much.

Dr. Solomon: Thank you so much for having me say to you, it was fun to talk with you. Talk with you

Sadie: in case you skipped to the end to recap this week's episode, Dr. Solomon and I talked about the difference in messaging between teenage girls and boys during adolescence, and the longterm impacts that this causes, we talk about the connection between body image and sexual health. We dive into sexuality and teens healthy versus unhealthy relationships.

What occurs in teenage years that leads to healthy relationships and adulthood, we discuss red flags and relationships. We talk about being sexual versus feeling sexualized. We talked about resources for parents who want to be a helpful resource for their teens, as they develop sexuality and understand their relationships And we talk about additional resources for teens about relationships, connections, sexuality, all of that.

If you enjoyed this week's episode, please please share with a friend or family member. It helps the podcast out so much. Make sure you're subscribed, left a review, follow on Instagram at she persisted podcast. I hope you love this interview as much as I did and I will see you next Monday.

© 2020 She Persisted LLC. This podcast is copyrighted subject matter owned by She Persisted LLC and She Persisted LLC reserves all rights in and to the podcast. Any use without She Persisted LLC’s express prior written consent is prohibited.