Unf*cking Gender and Sexuality, with Fiona Dawson

Unf*cking Gender and Sexuality, with Fiona Dawson

a lightly edited Girl Boner Radio transcript

[Intro music that makes you wanna dance]

Are you ready to arouse your life? To experience more connection, more pleasure, more realness – in and outside of the bedroom? I’m August McLaughlin and this is Girl Boner Radio…

August:

Fiona…

Fiona:

August… [laughs]

August:

You know what I was thinking about? Introducing you, I was like, this is my dear friend, Fiona. And we have had 1.2 conversations I think. 

Fiona:

I think so.

August:

And been together in person just today. 

Fiona:

But it feels like we’ve been friends forever. 

August: 

Yeah. Isn’t that wild? 

Fiona:

I love that. I’m very grateful. Very grateful to be here in person.

August: 

It’s so fun. Yeah, it’s been, I think—well, for sure two years since recording in-studio.

Fiona: 

Oh, wow! So hang on. So this is your first  recording in studio since COVID. That’s amazing. 

August:

Yeah. And it feels very right that it’s you. And yes, it does. Very special. 

August:

It is special. 

August:

I love my notes. One of them is “blow job learning curve.”

Fiona:

[laughs] 

August (narration):

We will get to that learning curve. That was a clip from my soundcheck with award-winning filmmaker Fiona Dawson. 

Following her Emmy®-nominated short New York Times op-doc ,“Transgender, at War and in Love,” she was honored by President Obama as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change. Her feature documentary, “TransMilitary,” premiered at SXSW 2018, winning the Audience Award.  

I first learned about Fiona’s work when I received a copy of her forthcoming book, Are Bisexuals Just Greedy?: And 20 other Rather Direct Questions asked of the LGBTQ+ Community.

Fiona and I had tried to record remotely, a few weeks before our studio chat — twice, actually— and it was like the tech gods wanted us to connect in person. After a few odd glitches, Fiona shared that she was coming to LA for the GLAAD Awards, so we took COVID tests and headed to a new studio space to record with my pre-pandemic engineer and always friend and colleague, Makenzie Mizell.

And within minutes, Fiona had me wondering if I’d connected with my psychic powers.

August:

I actually had a dream that we were in one of those hippie vans. Did I tell you this?

Fiona: 

No. 

August: 

After our first conversation. We were in this painted hippie van, and we were going to a senior’s home—which is one of my dreams, to go and interview people over 80 about their sexuality. It was just this big thing we were doing and our van was literally painted with those hippie flowers.

Fiona: 

So cool!

August: 

Yeah, it was very 70s/today.

Fiona:

Because did you know I bought a camper and I now live in a caravan?

August:

What? Did I just have a psychic moment?

Fiona: 

Isn’t that weird? I bought my camper caravan about four weeks ago.

August:

When did we talk? 

Fiona: 

I could’ve told you that I was buying one.

August:

Okay… I like my psychic moment better. 

Fiona:  

I like your psychic moment much better. [laughs]

August:

Okay. How do we sound Makenzie? 

Makenzie:

Everything’s good. 

August:

Okay, so should we just roll right in? Are you ready to roll?

Fiona:

I’m ready to roll. 

[encouraging, acoustic music]

What Fiona learned about sex early on

August: 

So I know that you had – how do I put this? A sex-positive upbringing, relatively speaking, for someone who was raised Catholic?

Fiona: 

[laughs] Exactly! I know it kind of feels like a conflict in some ways. But yes, I call myself a recovered Catholic. And so you growing up in that environment many people are very aware of where you’ve been giving messages as though sex should only be reserved for marriage. It’s very heteronormative perspective. And 

But my parents were both working in healthcare. So in England, you have the National Health Service. So it’s kind of like working for a charity really, because everyone gets healthcare free at point of access. And so they were very giving people. I’m talking in the past for my mother, because she died in 2006,  of pancreatic cancer, but very, really kind of helped form me to be the woman that I am today. And of course, my father is still alive. And I love him very much to ask to get to witness me with all my antics. 

But my mom, one of her jobs was director of healthcare for a large area in the UK in Lincolnshire. And she once her to spearhead sexual health services for really teens. And people under the age of 21. Because in England growing up, the age of consent was 16. And so she would provide initiated clinics for 16 year olds and like teenagers and younger kids to be able to access health care services and STD prevention and condoms and that kind of stuff. 

And I remember, one year she went to Amsterdam to learn about how sex workers got healthcare needs met. And so you know, when your parents go on a work trip, and they come home, and they always bring you a gift. And the gift my mom brought me when I was about 16, was a little condom in a red packet, and it had like a ladybug on it. And it was like a plastic ladybug. It was so cute. So I never used that condom, but it sat on display in my bedroom. 

And then our kitchen drawer, you know, commonly known as the junk drawer. When you didn’t know what to put where to put something just bung it in that drawer. And it was filled with condoms. And I asked my dad when I was writing this book about that drawer, and I said, did mum purposely leave condoms there? Or were they just they actually didn’t know where else to put them? And he’s like, no, she put them there. She wanted you to know that you could access them if you needed them. It’s really cool, even though yeah. But it was still a Catholic environment. 

August: 

Did your parents talk to you about sex as well? Were they Catholic? Did you go to church on Sundays? 

Fiona: 

Yep. Mum took us to church every Sunday. Dad, because he was a GP, he did not go to church as much as we did. [both laugh] He’ll go for like the High Holidays. But he told me that he had a problem with the Catholic Church, being against sex in general, and contraception, abortion. And yet he, as a doctor, knew that it was in the best interest of his patients to be able to give them access to those healthcare needs. 

And so that conflict for him was too much. And so he didn’t go to church. And we also like, I’m the oldest of three. I have a sister who’s the middle one, and then my brother, who’s the youngest. And we were so irritated that Dad didn’t have to go to church, but we did find it annoying, going to church. 

But yeah, so when I was around the age of nine, my brother would have been five. And my mom had given me a kid’s book with illustrations. It’s like a cartoon book, talking about how babies were made. And so I felt really special that I got to have this information and my brother and sister didn’t. 

And it really talked about how “the daddy puts his penis inside the mummy. And semens come out and they make a baby!” [laughs] That’s what I was taught. And I was also taught that it was a very special act. It was for when people were in love and so on and so forth. 

Anyway, one day mum comes home from work and finds me using this book to educate my brother and his friend on how babies were made. And you know, I thought I was being helpful, and the teacher. I remember my brother’s friend, Alex, was like, “Ew, my mommy and daddy don’t do that. That’s disgusting!” “Well, that’s how you were made!” I didn’t get into trouble for it. But because I was educating, you know?

August:

Right! It sounds like you didn’t have any mixed feelings about it. You thought that this was wonderful information.

Fiona:

Yeah, exactly. And then I finally left the Catholic Church when I was around 16, 17 because I lost my virginity about three months shy of my 16th birthday. So I was 15 still. And I was very much in love with my first proper boyfriend. His name is Bob. We were together for three years, from 15 to 18. 

And Bob and I decided that we were ready. And we wanted to make love. And so I went to see my doctor who happens to work with my dad. And I went to get the pill to make sure that we were safe and couldn’t get pregnant. Neither of us had had sex before, so we weren’t worried about STDs. And I went on the pill. And we waited until like, I’d been taking the pill for about a month to make sure it kicked in. And I decided to tell my parents that we’d made this decision. So I think I told them individually I told Mum first. And then one evening, I sat down on the sofa with my dad, and I said, “Daddy, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.” He’s like, “Yes.” I said, “Bob and I’ve decided to make love.” Can you imagine telling your father…

August:

That is so sweet. It wasn’t like “have sex.” “We’re going to make love.”

Fiona:

Right? So he’s like, took a deep breath. “Okay.” I said, “I’ve gone to see Anna”—his colleague—”I’ve got the pill, I’m on the pill, making sure that I can’t get pregnant,” and I say, “I just want you to know that it’s going to be okay.” And he said, “Well, that doesn’t mean that you can share the same bed when you’re sleeping over here.” Because he would stay the night sometimes, but always had to be in separate bedrooms. And I said, “No, no, it’s fine. You know, we were not expecting any of that.” I’m thinking to myself, we’re just gonna have to figure out how and when. And the conversation ended with dad saying “I’m proud of you.” And so that was really cool. 

August: 

That is amazing.

Fiona:  

So I’m very grateful and lucky that my parents, you know, had that attitude where, yeah.

August:

That it was natural. 

Fiona:  

Yeah, I think they would prefer that I didn’t, they would have preferred that I of course, remained a, quote unquote, good Catholic girl and waited till marriage and whatever. But they were open minded to realizing that that’s not necessarily going to be the case. And so I was never shamed for sex. And I think that they did a really great job. And I’m getting emotional, saying this because I’m so proud of my parents for doing this, of walking that line between not encouraging me to just go out recklessly. But at the same time, weren’t shaming me for sexual attraction. And I think that must be very difficult for parents.

August: 

And to not say, I would rather you wait.

Fiona:

Right. 

August:

You know, looking back, you can see that, oh, they probably had these mixed feelings. But I think, because most parents learned less than their children are exposed to sexually, it’s so easy to have shame, like more shame, than their kids have

Fiona:

Completely. 

August:

And they protected you.

Fiona:

Yeah. Because they never had that kind of environment, I know. My mom’s family was very strictly Catholic. Mum told me that my dad was the only person she ever had sex with. And she admitted that they had sex just before they got married. But it wasn’t, I think, until they were engaged. 

My dad’s not quite so open about his sex life. And I really don’t want to know. [laughs] I’m pretty confident dad did have sex with other people other than my mom, because he just like kept his mouth shut. Whereas mom was very proud of that. So they must have just discovered that through their work, and just being the type of people that they are.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

Sex debuts (listener’s & Fiona’s)

August (narration):

After interviewing Fiona, I asked listeners, through my email list, what they recall from any talks about sex early on…and what they recalled from their first consensual sexual experience.

Only two of the first 40 people who replied mentioned anything positive about those sex talks. That, paired with limited and confusing schoool sex we, are probably partly why their first times having sex ranged from mysterious and awkward to forgettable or not good at all.

Here are a few ways folks described their sex debut:

“Boring and I hardly felt anything lol”

“Awkward…on top of a pile of clothes in my basement.”

Someone else described “jackhammer fingering,” that sounded really painful 

Others used words like mediocre, strange, quick, anticlimactic, sweaty and significant.

There were a few positive memories, too:

One listener recalled, “The warmth from receiving oral, being in a vagina, coupled with the added bonus of giving a rim job…left me on an emotional high the next day!”

Another said that their partner helped prepare them well in advance, making for an “excellent experience.”

I loved hearing how the normalcy around sexuality Fiona had learned played out in her first time having sex.

August:

Do you remember anything that stands out from your first experience?

Fiona:

Yes! Well, I can remember, I can put myself back in time and I remember having sex, making love with Bob for the very first time. [laughs] I can, I can remember, like, lying on my back. It was…very practical, I guess. But it was very loving and very emotional. Like, we were very much in love. Like, he’s one of the best healthiest relationships I’ve ever had. You know, and I’m gonna be turning 45 this summer. And I was 15. So goodness me, 30 years ago. And he still remains just such a special relationship. I’m so grateful for that as well. Because it was like a foundation. And I remember lying on my back. I mean, do I get really into it here? 

August:

Yes. Charades.

Fiona:

Is there TMI?

August:

Here? No. 

Fiona:

Okay, good. I can remember feeling him inside of me. He’s on top of me. And we’re looking at each other’s eyes. And I remember thinking, ‘oh my god, I’m having sex. I’m having sex. I’m having sex. Oh my god, this is sex. Oh my gosh.’ And like, you know, I know I didn’t come because we would just like, you know, ‘put the penis inside the vagina.’

August:

You’re like, “I remember this from page six!” 

Fiona:

Right? Exactly. But I mean I mean, it was great like he came inside of me. And so I can remember feeling so adult, like I had really definitely crossed a line. And then we did have a really cool, healthy sex life. Like we’re both – like he did make me orgasm as well in different ways. So it was not a one-sided sexual relationship. And that’s because we were so emotionally close and intimate that we could talk about anything and share everything. Like, I thought I was going to marry Bob and have six children, and we were going to live on a ski slope in Switzerland. [laughs]

August:

I cannot picture you with any of that. That’s hilarious. It’s so funny, though, what we have for ourselves, and I look back and I go, thank goodness, I did not end up with that first picture in my mind forever. Oh, it would have been so miserable.

Fiona:

Exactly. 

August (narration):

Of course, first loves do last, and beautifully so, for some people. My parents, for example. They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and they are still dating each other.

For Fiona and Bob, the romance did not last—and not because the love ended.

Fiona:

I went to university, and we decided to go to separate places, because we want to force our relationship together because we’ve been together since we were so young. 

We thought, if we’re meant to be together, then we can withstand going to different universities. And of course, like within me being at college for three months, I’m like, I think I really want to try some other things, as well. So poor Bob. I broke up with him. 

August:

Aw. How did that go?

Fiona:

Awful, it was horrific. He was so sad. And I was so sad because part of me didn’t want to. But I also knew that I just had this instinctual calling inside of myself that I was meant to do lots of things in my life. And that staying in that relationship was kind of going to prevent me from exploring other people and experiences—and not just sex, but just like life in general. But he just recently got married, like this year, I think. So happy marriage to Bob and Diane! And yeah, I mean, everything’s worked out in the end, but our lives were in extremely different directions.

August:

So you had an exploratory time, would you say after that? 

Fiona:

Then I started like having lots of sex at college. [laughs] And in relationships to like, in the past, I’ve had a habit of wanting to create the relationship that my mind wants and staying with people way longer than I should, because I’m trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole – to that kind of pun. And then at college, like, you know, one night stands and that kind of stuff. 

But I would say that, looking back at the sexual experiences that I’ve had, in my late teens, early 20s, and then even in my 30s, oftentimes, I think it’s actually not been as good as my mind wants to think it is. Usually it’s quite a bit shitty, really. But you don’t say it, you just do it.

August:

Don’t you think that religion has a lot to do with that? Even when you’re exploring because I too, grew up in a very religious community with some very open minded religious people and some not at all open minded religious people. And even resisting those messages and being like, well, that can’t be true. Still, I remember I would literally be thinking when I would meet someone, is this my husband? 

Fiona: 

Yes. 

August:

And if it had sex, my rebellion was more like, if we were gonna have sex, he had to at least be a possible husband. 

Fiona:

Yeah. 

August:

That to me was like stepping outside without going to hell or something.

Fiona:

Yeah. I think I constantly was looking for a husband, wife, or nonbinary term partner. And very quickly have a habit of meeting someone, feeling the fireworks and sparks and then immediately thinking about what our life is gonna be like, in five years time, which is ridiculous. And I’m like, being much more mindful to not run down that trap any longer. 

We all have our journeys and experiences that we have to just learn from, and it’s taking me and I’m sure many other people listening to this, it’s sometimes taking us frickin’ ages to figure this stuff out. I’ve had to let go of the shame of not knowing what I’m doing in relationships when I’m now in my 40s still. And then also going back and having empathy for the person I was back then.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

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[encouraging, acoustic music]

Discovering her orientation

August (narration):

Fiona did end up finding a spouse early on—and the marriage was another one of those “she learned from it” experiences.

Fiona:

After college, went to Bangladesh, to volunteer and fell in love with a US Marine. It was one of the best times of my life. I was volunteering during the day, helping quote unquote, save the world, and then drinking Heineken and playing pool with the US Marines.

So I met Jason and fell in love. And of course, you don’t even think about it. Like you meet someone, they’re hot. So you go have sex with them, right? That’s just what I did. And then quickly, it’s like, but this has to be the relationship and, and especially again, because I was in Bangladesh, I wanted the story of me going to volunteer and meeting the love of my life and coming back with my prince charming and like setting it all up. And of course Jason, probably, well, he wasn’t the right person. We got divorced three years after getting married. 

August (narration):

And then, Fiona said, she came “flying out of the closet as a lesbian.”

Fiona: 

I had left my marriage because it wasn’t a healthy marriage. And I was working for an HIV AIDS organization in Houston. So I was already within the LGBTQ community. And for the last six months of my marriage, it was like something had triggered on inside of me. I hadn’t been smothering feelings before. But it gradually started to come to my awareness that I was attracted to women. 

And back then I was using very binary language and terms for gender and sex, so just want to put that out there that I know that gender’s on a on a spectrum. And so I realized that I was attracted to women left, my husband had met somebody. And we had such an intense, sexual emotional connection. That again, I was like, “Oh, she’s the one!” Going down the similar line of like, okay, now we have to live together, and let’s have babies and stuff. Thank goodness, we did not have babies. 

But we were together for nearly two years. And because I was working in the LGBTQ community already and volunteering, it was, like, easy for me to come out as gay. It kind of felt exciting and cool to have found a community and a place where I belonged. 

Telling my family, my parents, they were like, surprised and confused, because they were like, what, like, You’re gay now. You never showed any signs. You had posters of Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt on your wall as a kid, you know, what are you talking about? Like, no, I’m gay. And so like, okay, yeah, this guy. In fact, my mum’s one of my best friends, “Oh, Fiona will try anything once.” Like, well, I’ll try it once and then twice, if I’m not sure, thank you. And then my sister said, “Well, don’t you miss sex?” Like, what do you mean, this is the best sex in my life?

August: 

Because she thought you could only have sex –

Fiona:

I think it was the natural assumption like that you’re raised to think sex is penis-in-vagina. 

August:

Yeah. And so what else is there?

Fiona:

Yeah. And bless her. Joey, I’m sorry. I love you. I hope you don’t mind me telling that story. Because I know that you know better now, but I know better now, too, Joey. So it’s okay. 

August:

It’s not our fault when we don’t know these things.

Fiona:

No, no, no. But I was fine. I found it funny. Because I actually, for the first time, was really enjoying sex in a way that I hadn’t before. 

August (narration):

About seven years after coming out as gay, Fiona came out as bisexual. In 2013, she published a moving YouTube video where she said it was harder coming out as bi than coming out as gay. She was single and living in New York when it dawned on her that she wasn’t only attracted to women.

Fiona:

And I realized that the only reason I was turning down a date with a guy was because I labeled myself a lesbian. But if I was really honest with myself, I was actually still attracted to men, to guys.

August (narration):

It struck her that:

Fiona:

Oh, my gosh, there’s a B in LGBT. Why did I not think about that before? And so the YouTube video you’re referencing, I put it up there because I was really afraid of coming out as bisexual. Because back in my days when I’ve been a lesbian and working within the community, there was this biphobia that was just like a constant kind of wave in the background. 

You know, we really didn’t talk about bi people very much. I didn’t really know anyone other than one person who was bi and I in my mind was frustrated that my friend identified as bi, because I really wanted her to be gay. And like be all the way and I and there was this, this stigma that still exists that I acknowledge that I used to have as well, but I didn’t see it or feel it as a stigma. It was just like an accepted part of the community. 

And also I had been voted female Grand Marshal for the Houston Pride Parade in 2009. And I was afraid that people would think that I had been making it up and like, maybe I wouldn’t qualify as Grand Marshal anymore. 

August (narration):

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case; they acknowledge bi women as Grand Marshalls. Still, coming out as bi felt more challenging than her last orientation reveal…

Fiona:

…especially because I’d spent so many years defending myself as a gay person, because I’d previously been married to a cisgender, man. 

So it’s really sad, because the latest study from Gallup shows that 57% of the lesbian, gay and bi community actually identify as bisexual. 

And just this weekend, I was talking to another woman who most people assume is lesbian, but she’s actually bi, and she told me, it’s easier just to let people think you’re gay, because then you don’t have to explain or defend yourself.

August (narration):

The prevalence of biphobia is a huge reason that bi folks hold a higher risk of mental health challenges, by the way. A 2017 review of 52 studies showed that, compared to straight and gay folks, bi people have higher rates of depression and anxiety. And it’s easy to absorb negative myths about being bi, whether you’re bi or queer or not.

As gradually more people openly identify as bi, though, and with more awareness and advocacy like Fiona’s, that has begun to change. 

And Fiona is all here for it.

Fiona:

I’m excited that things are changing. And it’s so cool to see that, especially like the younger generations, you know, just in one year, Gen Z, has gone from one in six Gen Z being LGBTQ to now one in five. And it’s not that they’re suddenly becoming LGBTQ, they’re actually just turning 21, so it can be counted. 

And so we really are like, breaking the binary, or, as I like to say, we’re unfucking gender and sexuality, because it just needs to be unfucked, quite frankly, because it’s colonization that came in and put these rigid structures in. But every human being has a gender. Every human being is assigned to sex at birth. And every human being has a sexual orientation. 

And we are just somewhere on the spectrum or off the spectrum of those three different variables. They interlace and interact, but they’re also separate. So my analogy is thinking of human beings as like a beautiful mosaic, where we have more and less of different elements of these parts of us. And so one day, I can envision that we won’t be labeling the LGBTQ community as this bucket over here, and then everyone else is straight. Instead, it will be all human beings have this capacity or no capacity in some way or the other. And that will be wonderful.

[triumphant, acoustic music]

Bisexual versus pansexual

August (narration):

Fiona continues to identify as bisexual—although she feels that the term pansexual equally applies to her. 

Fiona:

I chose bisexual because of the B in LGBT and I want to be a visible advocate.

August (narration):

Bi and pan identities are similar, but not exactly the same. She explores this topic in “Are Bisexuals Just Greedy?,” in a chapter called “Which Label Is Better, Bisexual or Pansexual?”

Fiona: 

I feel like bisexual and pansexual are like non-identical twins in that from a dictionary definition perspective, ‘bi’ meaning to ‘pan’ meaning all. Now the two should not be confused with two genders because it’s not. The two things are the same as or different from. So as a bi person, I have the capacity to be romantically and/or sexually attracted to somebody of a similar gender or a different gender. Whereas ‘pan’ meaning all, pan people have the capacity to be sexually and romantically attracted to somebody of all genders or any gender. 

August (narration):

In her book, she uses a cherry analogy to explain this difference between bi and pan. It basically goes like this:

Fiona:  

So the most common cherry used in cherry pie are bing cherries. Okay, so let’s just imagine that bing cherries are genders. So straight people would only like bing cherry pie. Okay. They might like a lattice or a lidge. You know, there might be slight variation, but for the most part, it’s really only being cherry pie that they like. 

Bisexual people, they also like bing cherry pie. But they also have the capacity to be attracted to a different type of cherry varietals as well. There are 1000s of different types of cherries out there. And so they bi people might be bing cherry pie, and one of the cherry, or more than one of the cherry, or, or the cherries, or how could they possibly know how many cherries because there are so many cherries to choose from and like you don’t know, if you haven’t tried it. 

And then pan people might be cherry pie and all the other cherries. I mean, and I know again, that is a very binary, bare bones way of explaining things. 

And I know that there are going to be people listening to this that are not going to necessarily 100% agree with me.  And that’s fine. Because no human being is ever going to 100% agree with all the other human beings. But I think that we have to break things down into a binary, bare bones way in order to educate other people who know absolutely nothing. 

There are people out there who really know nothing. And they need to have this information. And they need to be given it in a non-judgmental, non-critical way. And so I feel like my work is really reaching out to those people that are not part of the LGBTQ community. But at the same time, I always want to make sure that the LGBTQ community, especially non-binary people, know that I am with you. I see you. I’m like holding your hand. I’m giving you my heart and my love. But I’m gonna go talk to those people that voted against your rights, because I want to help those people understand because those people also have LGBTQ kids as well. And we can’t leave them out. 

August: 

And it can be so intimidating, too, for somebody who all they know is penis-in-vagina. That’s all they know, right? And if we come at them with 700 different terms, and, you know, we all had to learn, and some of us were very fortunate to learn sooner. Some of us have been more inclined to study all of this. And a lot of times, there’s all this shame that we’ve piled up, and we don’t even know it’s there. So I love that you’re going into these communities. And also, your book is so accessible. I mean, it’s delicious. And I’m not saying that because of the cherries.

Fiona:

I love the word delicious, too. 

August:

It’s so inviting. Yeah. And the name itself says so much. Tell us how your dad inspired the title of your book.

Fiona:

Okay. So the title of my book is “Are Bisexuals Just Greedy?” And the subtitle is, “And 20 other Rather Direct Questions Asked at the LGBTQ+ Community.” 

The reason I titled the book this way, was because Dad and I, we sat on the sofa watching TV one night, I was probably in my teens. And he said, “You know, I can understand men being gay, and I can understand women being lesbians, but I think bisexuals are just greedy.” And of course, I didn’t really know what to think or take of this, because I still thought I was straight back then. But it always stuck with me. 

And then it became like a common thing. Going back to the bi phobia that I would witness or be a part of before I came out as bisexual myself, we were just thought of as just, you know, promiscuous people that just want to have all the sex with all the people. And that’s not necessarily true, because straight people sometimes want to have all the sex all the people too. It’s not your identity that determines your behavior. 

August:

Yeah. It’s so interesting, as you were sharing that about bisexuals being greedy, I thought – and this isn’t about your dad specifically, but in general – I feel like when people say that, they’re saying that you can just choose a particular population, which tells me that that person feels like they have to choose. So maybe they’re all like pan or, I mean, who knows? I feel like our own limitations sometimes can really shape what we believe and that’s how we fall into these like stereotypes. Like, we’re so afraid of that part of ourselves that – what if we are attracted to somebody else from this other group, you know, that it’s this insidious thing, even if rationally you think oh, that’s okay for other people.

Yeah. I mean, and it goes back to what you’re saying about the social construct. Everything is a social construct in this conversation, you know, not just gender, but also sexual orientation, and the expectations of what relationships should look like. Like that is all socially constructed. And you can also again go back to love, romance and sex, you can have variations or different levels, as it were, of those like those emotions or those feelings towards people of different genders. 

So you could be more sexually attracted to a male gender or more romantically attracted to a female gender or vice versa. And then of course, there’s different people. Straight people aren’t attracted to everybody who’s of the different gender right? And so yeah, with with being bi you don’t choose to be bisexual you don’t choose your partner, in the same way bi people can be monogamous in the same way people can be monogamous.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

Gender identity

August:  

It’s interesting. I was looking at definitions of gender over the years. And there are some really cringey ones, that today feel very cringy. There’s one from 1882 from an Oxford Dictionary that is it’s your kind, breed, or sex and it talks about like the breed of human you are because it was all about breeding. I mean, even marriage was about function, right? It was like, which genes would go with which genes? 

And now the World Health Organization talks about gender as “socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, identities,” and they talk about “girls, boys, women, men and gender diverse people.” And that’s a lot of growth we’ve had in a short time, and there’s still so much more that needs to happen. 

So I wanted to ask you about your own gender identity. What does being female or being a woman or having she/her pronouns mean to you?

Fiona:

Yeah. And it is still there. Just because it’s a social construct doesn’t mean it also doesn’t exist at a certain level inside of you, there is that inherent feeling of your gender. 

So I was asked this question about 10 years ago now, and I really regret what I said. Because the question was, yeah, how do you know your gender? And of course, I just assumed, oh, I’m a woman, like, I’ve always felt like I’m a woman. I haven’t really ever questioned it. Because I haven’t felt a need to question it. But I immediately went down the line of the physical part of my being, as opposed to the sense of self. 

So I, 10 years ago, said, “Well, I’m shaped like a woman.” You know, and I have a very classic, feminine, socially constructed body shape, where I’ve got a small waist and a huge ass, and boobs. And I dress very feminine. I express myself very feminine with lipstick, high heels, dresses, and all that kind of stuff. But it just just feels comfortable to me. And that’s really the bottom line is like, it just is something that is a sense of self, like feeling comfortable in your skin. 

And so when you actually break down gender into three things, it’s who you know yourself to be, how you express yourself to the world, and then how the world sees you. And of course that third part of how the world sees you, that’s like the socially constructed part of it, like the biggest part of it, because society is making this judgment of all of us, depending on how we’re expressing ourselves to the world. 

And so, I do have an inherent sense of being a woman and being female. But I think around the edges, there’s a part of that that rejects the social construct of that. 

August:

What parts of the social construct of femininity do you reject?

Fiona:

I’m sure that this is not uncommon, I’m not going to say anything groundbreaking unique in this. But I reject that there’s been the subconscious expectations of how I’m meant to behave and what I’m meant to do. 

One of my pet peeves has been, I used to fly a lot for work. And I’m only five foot one. And I used to carry-on luggage a lot. So I’m also reasonably strong. I’m a lot stronger than people would assume. And I can quite happily pick up my carry on case and put it in a locker above my head. And the number of times that a male-presenting person would ask if I would like help putting up my bag – which I know they’re just being polite – but sometimes they literally are taking the bag out of my hand, making the assumption that I can’t do it. I’m like get your frickin’ hands off my stuff. I actually enjoy putting this above my head because I wanted to grab as much exercise as I can right now. 

But they wouldn’t ask the male presenting person who might be a similar height to me if they want help. 

I was once like lining up to get into a car rental at an airport. There were two male presenting people in front of me. And then me and then another female presenting person showed up behind me. And we wait about five minutes for the shuttle. And of course, when you’re in line to get a rental car, you want to be as far in the front line as possible, because you want to get your car and go. But the male presenting people turned and looked at me and looked at me to get onto the bus first. And I go, “no, no you go,” because they’re in the head of the line. And so there was this pause where they were, like, really weirded out because I wouldn’t get on first, even though it wasn’t my turn. And so the female person behind me, just went ahead of all of us and got on the bus first. And it’s things like that really irritate me… Don’t treat me differently because I’m presenting myself in such a feminine way.

August:

Yeah, I’ve heard over the years, I’m sure you’ve heard comments like this from a male- presenting person, who will say “I can’t even open the door for a woman anymore.” And I’m like, “I will gladly open the door for you, if you’re struggling.” Like if you’re having a hard time or if I just want to be friendly, it doesn’t offend me if someone opens the door for me. But if they open the door for me and then just treat all the people who seem like guys like crap, that’s not okay with me. Open the door for all of us. Can’t we just treat each other like equal, valuable people?

Fiona:

Exactly. And there was a time when it would irritate me if anyone opened the door for me if they were male presenting. And now I’ve shifted a bit where? Yeah,  I do just fall in line with it now and it doesn’t irritate me so much. It is nice. But I want to be able to open the door for somebody as well. And yeah, I agree with you like all these. You get criticized for not like acting like a woman or being a woman?

August:  

Yes. Or not smiling.

Fiona:

Oh gosh.

August:

That’s one of the worst. 

[catcalling whistle]

How this work has impacted Fiona personally

August:

How has this work, because this has become so much more than your personal journey, nd it seems like you sensed that early on, that there was this something more and this purpose for you—and you’ve been doing this now for years and working in so many different communities and doing your activism and your TV work… How has this impacted your your sense of self, maybe your sense of gender, maybe your sense of sexuality?

Fiona: 

With a sense of gender, when you write something or teach or talk, you know, you learn so much yourself, don’t you? And it has got me thinking about my gender, because I’ve never questioned it. And I think that all cisgender people should question their own gender. Because we walk through the world with all of these assumptions and trans, nonbinary people that don’t match the labels that somebody else has given them are the ones that do the deeper work on it. And really, we should all be doing that work. 

So, I still go by she/her. I don’t feel like it’s right for me to add they/them to my pronouns, because I feel like I want to give the space and the stage in the room for nonbinary people who really need that more than I do. But if somebody were to use they/them to me, it would not hurt. Whereas for nonbinary people, it hurts when they’re misgendered. But at the same time, I do reject the social construct of the female gender that is puts upon me. And I have a fierce like, fight within me and I typically don’t like to say fight, but fire. I have a strong sense of fired-up-ness inside of me. [laughs]

August:

This is why we were instantly friends.

Fiona:

Right? [laughs] To say, Yeah, I may look like this, but inside I feel really fucking quee. think I wrote like I may present feminine but inside I’m a gender bending unicorn dressed up as a pirate wench. [laughs]

August:

I love that so much more. I mean, which sounds more fun to you? 

Fiona:

Oh yeah, let’s be a gender bender unicorn! So there’s that and then 

And then also like being bi, really I am monogamous. I have questioned poly – and of course, there’s many different ways to be poly. But I do think that inherently I am a one person person. And I haven’t yet found that one person. 

I’ll go through periods where I find that I’m dating sis men more than anyone else and I get bored with myself and again oh my god, why am I – another cis man, great. Can we not mix this up a bit. And so then there’s a part of me that thinks Oh, am I still bisexual? And like yes, Fianna, of course you’re bisexual. I know I’m bisexual. So I’d really love to meet somebody who’s not a cisgender man. Really? That’d be so much nicer. 

Fiona:

But okay, joking apart, most bi people are gonna end up with somebody who is a different gender, because statistically, that’s much more of the options that we have available to us. And I really want to stop people from saying, Oh my God, you’re bisexual, that means you’ve got like, double the opportunity. Actually, no, you don’t have double the opportunity. 

So let’s just break this down a second, right? I’m a cisgender woman that has the capacity to be attracted to people of any genders. Let’s just look at the – we’ll use binary language—I’m sorry, y’all—for males and females, right? So if I’m a woman, then on the males, then maybe it’s the straight man, but not every straight man might be an option. And some of the bi men might be an option. And then the gay men probably are not going to be an option. But that’s like a lot of straight guys. And then that’s like a lot of people and then no gays. 

Over here on the female side, you’ve got all the straight women, well, that’s a lot. That’s the largest pool. Well, they’re not going to be available to me because they’re not bi, they’re straight. And then you’ve got the bi women and the lesbians. 

And typically, lesbians don’t want to go anywhere near a bi person, but we can talk about that another time, if you like. And so the numbers – no, it’s not like double the opportunity. And there’s more people of a different gender, that could potentially be attracted to me. 

And so I think that’s one of the reasons why we have such bi-erasure. Because we’re not seen. People are just looking at as either single or straight. And they’re not seeing us, as bi. 

Like when you see two male-presenting people walking down the street holding hands and kissing, don’t make the assumption that they’re both gay. Because one or both of them might be bi or pan or another label that feels right for them. And until we are able to verbalize that, until we’re able to be seen more accurately in media representation, and film and TV, those are the things that need to change in order for us to kind of come out and raise our levels of consciousness and be more aware of all of this stuff. 

August:

So beautifully said. Thank you for that. 

This was not intentional as my last question, but I didn’t ask you about the blowjob learning curve, which was like the big highlight for me.

Blowjob learning curve

Fiona: 

[laughs] Okay. So the dedication of the book says “For Dad, please just skip the parts where I talk about blowjobs,” which I think is hilarious. And my dad wrote the afterword of the book and the afterward—sorry, dad is like the most boring part of the book, because he’s taken this like, very clinical, dry perspective. I mean, he is in his early 70s now, so you know, but anyway. Thank you, Dad. I’m extremely grateful that my dad has allowed me to be so vocal about these things. 

But there’s actually an educational point as to why that’s the dedication. So in the introduction, I talk about how when I first came to realize that I was a lesbian, that I excitedly told friends that I’ve never had to give a blowjob again, because I used to hate giving blowjobs. It’s so intimidating and you want to be sexy, and you’re trying to be like a porn star. But then you just felt like you’re failing, and you’re intimidated. 

Anyway, so I was like, “Yes! I’m a lesbian, I don’t have to give blowjobs again.” And then when I later we identified as bisexual, oh, shit, and we’re going to give blowjobs again? And then I was like, hang on a minute. Being a lesbian doesn’t mean that blow jobs are off the books, because hello! Some women are born with a penis, and would like to keep it and have a blow job. And there isn’t like a big aha moment for me of how our community can be so transphobic without realizing it. And people sometimes have the best intentions, and I think they’re being funny, but can we just remember that gender is between our ears, and a social construct? And sex is primarily visible between our legs and his chromosomes and hormones running through our body. They’re different. They’re kind of related, but they’re different. And so it’s very important to remember some lesbians would like to give and receive blow jobs.

August:

And did that help you enjoy them?

Fiona:

[laughs] Well, at the end of the introduction, PS Dad, shut your eyes. I don’t mind giving a blowjob to the person I love now. 

August (narration):

“Funny how things change.”

Fiona isn’t alone in her previous distaste — uh, no pun intended — of doing down on a penis. In a recent Canadian study only 28% of the 500 straight, female participants found giving a blow job pleasurable, and 17% didn’t enjoy them at all.

Some of that comes from another social construct: that women and vulva owners are designed to be “receivers,” and men and penis havers, the “givers.” Another possible contributor? Shame. I relate to that – 

August:

– because I used to also think that they were kind of yuck. And I think that was shame for me. 

Fiona:

Yeah. 

August:

Nobody has to love everything. You don’t have to be into any activity, right? I think that’s really important. And it’s also important to ask ourselves, and question, why we are averse to something. For me, embracing my own sexuality made me really unlock all of this pleasure potential from different acts that I never thought would be pleasurable. But it took me a lot of learning to get there.

Fiona:

Yeah, I think for me, it is the connection with somebody, you know, and I would say like, on the demisexual box, as it were a label. And I think that confidence comes when you have emotional intimacy with your sexual partner, and you’re able to communicate and talk about these things. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’m a lot more confident in my ability to ask. And I think that then that makes it easier for your ability to perform or behave, right? 

August:

Isn’t that so true?

Fiona:

So I can say, “Do you like this? Does this feel good? How do you like this?” Having a conversation during sex in that way to be able to know that, rather than having to guess like when I was younger, before coming out as a lesbian and thinking I was giving up blow jobs forever, I think it was just too afraid to ask what felt good. And, and assuming that oh, I should already know without thinking about it, which of course is ridiculous.

As I’m getting older, I give less shits about what I look like in bed or if I’m good enough—and like you say, ridding yourself of the shame or the inadequacy, and realizing no, I’m a badass. This sexual relationship is going to work if we’re a good match for each other. 

You’re not going to have the best sexual relationship with every other human being. And that’s okay. But when you do find somebody that you click with sexually, then it’s a lot more exciting and blow jobs are a lot more enjoyable.

August:

And cut! 

Fiona:

[laughs]

August:

I love that. [acoustic chord riff]

August (narration):

Learn more from Fiona Dawson by following her on Instagram,  Facebook and LInkedIn at the handles: @fionajdawson and @nowwithfiona. — She told me she loves making personal storytelling videos for companies to use internally to uplift and celebrate their employees. Learn more on her website, www.freelionproductions.com.

Get two bonus tips from Fiona, plus another quick story or two from our conversation, by joining my community at patreon.com/girlboner.

And, if you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, I would so appreciate a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or the iTunes Store — and if you’d share links with your friends.

The show is edited, produced, etcetera, by me, August McLaughlin.

Makenzie Mizell engineered my session with Fiona at the Period studio—thank you, Makenzie. And thank you for listening.

[outro music that makes you wanna dance!]