Session 41: Lets Talk About Sex ft. Dr. Donna Oriowo

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Which is something I've tried to do with journaling and meditation. I've had very mixed results, especially with the meditation. Your girl just really struggles to focus and, you know, turn off the brain or whatever. But this is my first time trying a supplement for my wellness. And Ritual really appealed to me with their vegan, GMO-free products. Stress Relief specifically is designed to optimize the release of ashwagandha, L-theanine, and saffron to help your body better manage stress. We've all got stress, but you don't have to just grin and bear it. Get Stress Relief from Ritual and save 25% on your first month at Ritual.com slash couch. That's Ritual.com slash couch for 25% off your first month. Hi, and welcome to Crystal's Couch, the show where I answer your questions for advice and talk to the most interesting people in the world. Today, I am honored to be joined by Dr. Donna Oriolo. She is a certified sex and relationship therapist, educator, author, and expert whose work centers, the mental and sexual health of Black women, okay? Dr. Donna has spent years exploring the intersection of self-esteem, sexuality, colorism, texturism, and how the messages that Black women receive about our bodies and our beauty and desirability can follow us into the most intimate parts of our lives. She is also the author of Cocoa Butter and Hair Grease, which challenges us to examine the stories we've internalized about our skin, our hair, and ultimately ourselves. So today, we are. We are getting into a great conversation about self-esteem, sex, desirability, pleasure, and a question that sounds simple, but it might be a little more complicated than we think. Do you actually like yourself? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh! Ah, Dr. Donna, welcome to Crystal's Couch. I like how that question sounded, just a touch shady at the start. Well, I mean, because, I mean, it really will challenge you to think, like, do I like myself? I think when we hear that on the surface, a lot of people say, yeah, I love myself. Yeah. But when we look at how that shows up in our actual everyday life, right. I'm looking like, where's the evidence? Exactly. Is it behind that? That behavior, is it behind that? Yes. Is it? Because I'm not seeing it. So we talk about, like I said, we talk about loving yourself, liking yourself, that sort of thing all the time. But what is behind liking yourself or loving yourself, and how does that manifest in a healthy way? Self-concept first. Okay. If you don't know yourself, you can't like yourself. Yes. It's impossible. It's impossible. Most of us, what we know is our performance. We know what other people expect from us. You know what mommy wants. You know what daddy wants. Oh, you came in. You know what that lover wants. You know what everybody around you is asking for. Yes. And so many of us, we got really great at being actresses, at being actors. We are thespians, baby. And as a result, we like our performance. We don't know ourselves enough to know to like ourselves. We just know our performance. Right. So what other people are responding to is the way that we behave when we're with them. I see. Which is not the same thing as being who you are when you're with them. Right. And when that performance is celebrated and praised. Oh, it is praised. We get more and more of that reinforcement of like, yeah, keep up this fake stuff. And I think that's so interesting, especially when you think about like child development and what's going on in our youth. When you start off, like you said, knowing yourself, your self-concept is number one. And so many of us don't even get there when we don't even, we're not even allowed to explore who we really are. Right. So when it gets snatched from us before we even get the chance to develop it, how do we get to this place later in life when we're looking around, you're like, my friendships are rocky. I go to work and piss everybody off. I can't keep a relationship. Like, how do we, where do we go now? Go back to the basics. Okay. You got to go back to the basics because like it's snatched from when we're young. I mean, how many parents praise their child for being a kid that doesn't require anything? Oh, come on now. I mean, consider what you're saying. You're saying it's okay for this kid not to know themselves enough to ask me for anything. They don't ask for nothing. They don't need nothing. They quiet. They do what I say. We want them to be little adults, which is a way of snatching their childhood, snatching that development, snatching the ability for them to learn who they are beyond the limits that you must. Because you're a parent, right? You have to, because so many people are obsessed with the baby being there. Many me. So you're looking at, you're looking for you in that child and you stop looking for the them in that child. You create a kid that's going to have so much diagonal anxiety that they will, that trying to find who they are will feel like an affront to you and the relationship that you have with them where they have to pretend to be you. Damn. How are you supposed to build a good, solid, self-esteem foundation from that? Right. That's why I wrote Drink Water, Mind Your Business. Okay. For this very reason, because I'm just like, well, it's kind of hard to untangle all that. Got you. So I wasn't ready for you to come in here and tell all this truth straight like that. You was like, well, y'all don't have the patience for these kids being kids. And so you try to snatch it out of them and beat them into submission. And it's true. We want them to behave like little adults instead of young people. New to this world who are exploring, figuring things out. And like you said, parents have to be able to draw that line because, of course, you do have to have boundaries. You have to have rules for your children, things like that to keep them safe and protected. But you also have to allow them the space to explore and figure out who they are outside of being your child. That part. And I know that's hard. But so for those of us who didn't get that or, you know, maybe we got bits and pieces of it, but we're still not really feeling very actualized in our adulthood. Do you find that it's common for people to, like, really be a rock star in one area or even multiple areas of their lives, and yet they still maybe have a low self-esteem or a low sense of self-worth? I see this all the time in my most educated, most accomplished friends. They believe in themselves the least. And it's like, well, how do we even get here? Y'all got PhDs, EDDs, SADIs. Y'all got PhDs. Y'all got eight master's degrees. You running everything over at the Pentagon and here and there. And it's like, but. But they got to do with anything. But at the end of the day, that self-worth is shattered. Yes. Because they know what they can do. They know how to perform. Right. And so we often think of self-esteem as being on a binary. You either got it or you ain't got it. And we think of the evidence of having it as being money, cars, and clothes. We think of it as being successful relationships, which mostly we judge by longevity. Right. Rather than the quality. Right. So we're looking at all of these accoutrements that the white supremacist delusion has told us. Right. Even the idea of the binary is from the white supremacist delusion. Yeah. Right. It's a function of white supremacy. Right. So to even be going on a binary, we already got it wrong. It's on a spectrum. Right. Absolutely. So you have your secure self-esteem, fragile self-esteem, damaged self-esteem, and then you have vacant. So self-esteem is vacant. I ain't got it. Damn. I ain't got it. I don't fake it. I don't. Right. Those people are destructive. They don't just destroy themselves. They destroy other people. Yes. Because if they don't feel like they have anything and nothing can change, then there's a sense of hopelessness. Yes. And a willingness to watch it all burn. Right. Damaged self-esteem. Those are, you ever seen that episode? It was a clip of Pop the Balloon, a beautiful dark-skinned woman. Okay. Popped her own balloon because she said, that dude not going to want me. Yes. Yes. When you pop your own balloon. Oh, damn. And I'm thinking about like, and I know somebody is probably thinking, oh, I've never popped my own balloon. You didn't apply for that job, though. You took yourself out the running. You never sent that email. You never asked for that thing. You don't ask nobody for nothing because you already think they're going to say no. Right? Stop reading me. We're supposed to be friends. No, this is so valid. Oh, yeah. The youth. Yeah, that's what they're doing. No, I'm from the 1900s, so I do this. Yes. But, yeah. So, that damaged self-esteem is, it's how can I, I shrink myself because I don't, I feel inside that I might have some, like, I feel me, but I don't think anyone else is going to feel me. And I would say that, like, in a world with colorism, texturism, racism, sexism, pick your ism. Those things are real. really in that you see it more in damaged self-esteem right fragile self-esteem is you live for the likes the accolades so those people are high achievers they can work at your pentagons they can be the president yeah well not this one i don't know about this one i don't think about this man but but like that fragile self-esteem is i have to perform and if i don't get you to tell me that I did a good job, then I got to do more until you tell me. So my entire life becomes about other people looking at me. So like you can have social media sensations, right? There's literal likes. Measurable outside of them apps though. Exactly. Yes. Because they don't have the ability to internally validate. They have to have that from external sources. You need somebody else to tell you. Got you. Okay. And then you have secure self-esteem where you know who you are, you like who you are, you found the people who also like and enjoy who you are. And it doesn't mean that you don't have moments of doubt. It doesn't mean that everything is always peachy keen and cute. Right. Right. And there will be moments where you're just like, oh, I really botched that. But mostly you are in a space where you're just like, no, I like who I am and I am who I am. Yes. No matter where I am. Right. Right. And I mean, most of us, we are not doing. And your perception of me cannot shake me. It cannot challenge what I know about myself. Exactly. Because we are often trading what we know with what someone else thinks. That person doesn't live in your body. Right. You don't know my life. And when I say people do this a lot, I mean, like, somebody's going to be upset. Parents will say things like, I know you better than you know yourself. Oh, we. Respectfully. And disrespectfully. Not taking it back. No, you don't. No, you don't, girl. No, you don't. You really don't. The person. There is no one that knows me better than I know me. Not one soul. Not one person. Now, there may be people who observe something that I have not yet registered about me. Yes. Like, my Mr. Boothang knows that. He's the one that told me, you know you don't like leftovers. I was just like, I don't like easy food. What do you mean? Of course I do. No, girl. He's just like, no, girl. You do not want to heat that up. You never eat it. What we ate yesterday. No, you do not. That's what. Look, and I provide vibes in my marriage. That's my contribution. Vibes. My husband makes sure that a girl is fed. Listen, and that's what matters. So, he does everything else. So, he comes home, he cooks every day because he's just like, you're not eating leftovers. I know you're not eating leftovers. You refuse to accept that you don't eat leftovers. You want to sit here and delude yourself about it when I know I'm just going to get in here and get to these pants because you're not going to eat that. What? Right. It's known. I see. At this point, it's known. I see. But that doesn't mean that he knows me better than I know me. It means that he knows a thing or that he observed a thing that I was not ready to admit for myself. Yes. Because leftovers growing up, that's what we had. Right. Ooh. Mama made rice on Sunday. And you eat that rice all week. You eat rice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You eating that rice all week, girl. You eat it until she makes new rice. Yes. So, jollof rice this week, white rice this week. I know that's right. Yes. Bright rice the next week. And we start over. And we start over on the next. Yes. So, it's like. Absolutely. So, I was just like, well, I had to force myself to like it because that's all there was going to be. Oh, yeah. Which is not the same thing as saying, I like it. Right. So, it was something that I learned, but it doesn't mean that he knows me better than I know myself. Right. Exactly. It just means he knows me. Yes. And this is something that therapists do, which is see us maybe from an angle where we have not been able to see ourselves. And that's really where a lot of healing can begin. I think a lot of us. Especially when you think about like internalized messages that people are carrying within themselves that they never even think to challenge. This episode of Crystal's Couch is brought to you by BetterHelp. If you go wake up tomorrow and automatically be better at one thing, what would that one thing be? Okay. Now, it can be something serious or something fun and silly. For me, I would be so good at basketball that the WNBA would draft me right now. You know? Never mind the fact that I'm 5'3 and I was born in the 1900s. They're like, wow, it's Jackie Young all over again. We need her on our team. Okay. We're deep in the WNBA season right now and I'm having so much fun at the games and watching with friends, things like that. So, that was just, you know, like a fun little thing that I would love to do if I could. But really, better is a feeling and that feeling is defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. What it really is, is progress. So, sign up and get 10% off today at BetterHelp.com slash Crystal. That's BetterHelp.com slash C-R-I-S-S-L-E. One of my favorite ways of coping with that stress is. Stopping a little something-something and doom-scrolling till I fall asleep. Sometimes it feels like self-care is just another task on our never-ending to-do list and, girl, I do not have the time for that. But this is why I'm starting my mornings with Rituals Stress Relief. Rituals is great because it helps me feel calmer and less stressed, which is something I've tried to do with journaling and meditation. I've had. Very mixed results, especially with the meditation. Get Stress Relief from Ritual and save 25% on your first month at Ritual.com. Ritual.com slash couch. Something that comes up a lot on this show and when I was a student therapist, you know, just talking to other black women, is issues around colorism, featurism, texturism, shapism, all these sorts of things where it's like there's been a lot of work done within the black community to like reclaim blackness as like beautiful and powerful and all this. And the natural hair movement has come a long way and all that. But we do still see like, like you said, oh girl on Pop the Balloon took herself out the running. And when you see that show, you see a lot of people, they do do that. Like, it's like, oh, I don't think you'd be attracted to me. It's wild to me, but I understand that that's the society that we live in. So how. Can we talk a little bit about like how early black girls start receiving messages about like, what about their features? What about their skin tone? What about their hair or their bodies isn't good enough? And what needs to be, you know, more desirable? And in what ways we're falling short? Like, how does that start? And then maybe how do we see that continue on as we grow older? I love this question. Little black girls understand the value of the right skin tone and hair texture before they're five. As in one, two, three, four, five. No. As in one hand. No. Just one. Before they're five. They barely read that five, sure. They don't need to, because even if you didn't teach it to them, most people don't teach it explicitly, but they, they're observing, their brains are a sponge. So they're not, people think that you can teach a child to do what you said. That's not what's happening. They're doing what you do. They're repeating. Yes. They're watching. They're watching how you treat others. If they notice that, oh, you treat light-skinned people better. Oh, I'm not that color. I must be bad. Oh yeah. They are watching TV. That also tells them about their role in their place. Their, their, and it's also being added into their gender, their gender identity. All of that stuff comes up in this, in this time, they may not have the language, but children are very sophisticated and understanding exactly what the heck you're doing, even when you think about it. You try to say that you're not doing what you say you're doing. Yes, indeed. They see it, they see it. They, they may not call it out or call it in because that's not their role. Their role is to do a performance that makes sure that they can continue to receive care from you, even if they are not what you desire. Yes. So if they see that you, you value your lighter skin children, and there's a lot of research outside, um, that talks about parents actually treat their children that they believe are attractive. They treat them. They treat them better. Yes, they do. They get more care, they get more love, they get more resources, um, than the children that they consider ugly. But you also have to think, what does, how did the parent learn what is considered attractive versus not attractive? The, so society still plays a role in that, in the very development of how we even come to understand ourselves. So who you are or what you know about yourself cannot be divorced from the world that you grow up in. Absolutely. The, uh. It's about who's around you and what they are seeing and saying. Right. If you grow up in a mostly black area, but you still, I, I'm from PG County, right? I was about to say PG County. my friend raising her black babies in an all-black community in PG County I love that for them so easy to do right like so like if you don't want to run into white people you don't really need to that's literally she said her daughter was like five or six when she saw a white person and was like what the hell is that I said wow like are they okay right right everybody's black postman doctor nurse everybody I live in a pretty much almost like all black we have like one white person in the neighborhood and I was just like a white I'm sorry I done distracted you but yes that is a little bit I love that I love that like what you grow up around what you see all of these things start giving you the messages about where you where you land in the the spectrum or the hierarchy rather of valuable people yes so white men tend to be firmly at the top of the of those with the most value we're dark-skinned black women you tend to be very firmly at the bottom right right so and and it's interesting because like you said most people don't teach this explicitly but even when parents are very mindful of like the outside messaging and they make sure to pour into their children especially their girls like your dark skin is beautiful your natural hair texture is beautiful your nose your lips everything about you is beautiful those outside messages you can't keep them in a vacuum and they're loud and they're pervasive and they're all over the place and they're seeing a completely different set of consequences yeah right like social learning theory talks about how we learn and part of the way that we're learning or that children are seeing is oh you treat this person better oh this person got a better grade even though we did basically the same thing this person got praised this person got the high five this person got this other thing so I know that now I need to achieve more this is where we get like you gotta work twice as hard to get half as far the standards are higher exactly so because you're black the standards are higher because you're dark-skinned the standards are going to be even more high if you're dark-skinned and fat it's higher dark-skinned fat and uh you got kinky hair more more afrocentric features more it's con it's not additive it's multiplied yes and often we just want to say oh is this plus this and like no it's more like this multiplied by this it's why it's not misogyny sucks for all women misogynoir sucks not just doubly but multiply for black women got you and all of these things are they are shaping how we come to know ourselves yes and thus how we come to esteem ourselves it's hard to esteem when you are fighting these other messages and you have yet to divorce yourself from it right so we have all of this at play right for all of us and then the darker you are the kinkier your hair etc etc tends to correlate with worse and worse treatment um not just by your family but by outside sources and health outcomes and right oh income longer prison sentences for dark-skinned people lower pay like dark-skinned black women do not get married as often as their lighter skin or white or asian or whatever counterpart right despite what people be out there saying they're not going to get married like i get it and i i like i love the message that you know black women get married too yes not dark-skinned black women they don't get married at the same rate at the same rate right and it's because their skin tone is considered to be less desirable or less attractive right yes and we tend to masculinize darker-skinned women as well so you have all of this going on and then we grown and how does that manifest in our relationships in sex in dating in intimacy what how do we see that uh you my girl you already know i feel like you already knew the answer so a secure self-esteem person is having is more likely to have the best sex ever oh yeah they are they know their bodies they learn their bodies they're teaching other their bodies they're like oh no no baby not like that like this yes touch it here but like this i'm like this i'm like this i'm like this i'm like this i'm like this i'm like this i'm like this about the sex that they desire fragile self-esteem they are performers they want you they want to feel good too but they don't think that that's their role and you know sexism also plays a role so it's more like you do what you want to my body and i will perform pleasure for you i won't have pleasure i'll perform pleasure right so all the uh or if you do get pleasure is secondary to what you are performing for this other person their needs now come on some people do get pleasure from compersion and i like a compersion we're not talking about that that's totally different if that's your thing yes thing for those who don't know compersion is a person who gets pleasure from other people's pleasure and a lot of us we do get some pleasure from and that makes sense and that's a beautiful thing yeah hearing somebody be turned on yes can be a turn on we're talking about people who sacrifice what they want in order to please them or are not even in touch with what they want exactly yes between fragile and damaged that's where you're more likely to have spectatoring okay so you're not in your body you're kind of looking down from the scene trying to figure out like oh is that sexy let me arch my back let me put my arm here let me do like this you are you are thinking about what the performance looks like which means you're disembodied right you're not in your body to experience the pleasure i would also say that there's there's a connection to our capacity for pleasure but i want to hit on that in a moment okay um damaged self-esteem it's more like i know what i like but i don't know if you like if you would like the same thing so they're less communicative but for a different reason gotcha it's not so that you feel great it's because they're unsure okay they can self-esteem um you know how people say like oh this person is promiscuous and i feel like we don't really be thinking about promiscuity the actual definition it means that you are undiscerning completely and i'm like most people are somewhat discerning right well you stink today i don't want to have sex with you like right we have some i think that a person with vacant self-esteem they are more likely to engage in sex that they don't want at all um because they want to feel something they're also just they're not going to they're not going to speak up for themselves they don't even think you care enough um they're more like like a sleeve or um there's some sort of a sex toy they're not a person anymore and they expect to be treated as such oh they're like i'm your vibrator your dildo you're whatever you need whatever you need me to be yeah i'll be that thing okay you do it to me don't do it with me oh yeah which is not the same thing yeah and i mean that's actually really sad to think about because you're sharing your body and you know people assign different values to that but it's when you are so completely divorced from what's happening and yourself and it's just like okay i mean it almost sounds like a sealy in the color purple when you're like he did his business on me yes yeah exactly that he did his business on me she didn't really expect more much from life i mean her life didn't really belong to her she knew what her performance was supposed to be she knew whether or not she did well in that performance according to the abuse that she received right but ultimately she i don't think that she started to see herself and even consider her own pleasure until shook yeah i mean if we're going by the book yeah if we're going by the book you know the movie the movie is a little but you know i feel like they tried to give us like a baby hint but it wasn't explicit no it was not it wasn't the musical did a better job but again but you know it was different so okay and i think you said that there was something about this also affects our capacity for yeah yes our capacity for pleasure for pleasure okay if you have um if you don't have like uh secure self-esteem your capacity for pleasure looks a little wonky right and when i say capacity for pleasure people start thinking about sex you're nasty that's not what i said that's what you heard i said capacity that's what i heard capacity for pleasure goes beyond sexual pleasure it's your ability to play to enjoy food to enjoy life to have that joie de vivre yeah right and it's hard to have that if you don't have a capacity for pleasure and it's hard to have a capacity for pleasure if you don't believe you deserve it because your self-esteem is some and it's hard to it's hard to know yourself because all of these things are sort of going on which means you don't even seek out pleasurable things right you don't expect food to be delicious you don't expect to have a good time with your friends you're the dumping bag you're the one that they talk about in front of their face behind their back yeah right like you're you're that you're that friend i look like these people aren't even your friends they don't even like you clearly but you stay yeah you stay because you don't really have a capacity for pleasure what you do is what you do have is a very beautiful capacity for pain and most of us if you lag if you woman yeah you tend to have oh exactly we've been we've been trained to tolerate yeah we've been trained to tolerate disrespect we've been trained to tolerate um people talking down on us or seeing us in a specific way we've been trained to perform for them so that they will elevate our value in their estimation while not evaluating for ourselves our own value so that we can hold onto that thing. So we become people who perform for the comfort of others, not saying that it doesn't offer some level of safety and security because it does. When black people perform in white spaces, it does give us some modicum of safety in the same way that when women perform in spaces where they share with men, it also gives some safety. But I also like to remind people that your code switching, your masking is not a guarantee of safety. I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. was wearing a suit. Oh, yes. The responsibility will not save you. It will not save you. It will not. No, absolutely not. Right? Like you could, I mean, you could be wearing a nun's garb and still somebody is going to try you. Right. So it's not about you in that way. Though we have been taught about how to make ourselves, our lives smaller to live with the anxiety of and the fear of what somebody could do to us in order to, so we perform for our safety, for these other little pieces of our humanity that we shouldn't have to do that for. And I'm not saying stop. I'm saying know that you're doing it so that you know when to put it down because all it does is raise your anxiety, creates a more distant future. And I think that's a really good thing. So when you feel like you can do something, like you feel like you know how to do something, but the increase in competence leads to an increase in confidence, which can in turn affect self-esteem. Yes. More orgasms also help your self-esteem. I mean, I was even asked about it. Endorphins and et cetera. Yeah, that helps. All of that. It can help you to raise the profile of your self-esteem. And when you raise the profile of your self-esteem, you give yourself a little bit more space to learn who you are as well. So you can reverse engineer this thing to learn who you are, to get the self-esteem, but you can also go in the opposite direction. Give yourself the pleasure so that you can build the self-esteem so that you can also learn who you are. Okay. I have so many more questions just based off of that. But I want to also ask really quickly. Before. Before we get too deeply into that. What role do you think religion plays on this as far as like, especially with black women, sex. You're trying to get me in trouble. I'm not. I'm trying to talk about it because this was a huge issue for me. I grew up in the Bible Belt. Very conservative, very religious family. Culturally Christian. Right. Culturally Christian is absolutely it. My whole life was the church. My dad was the choir master. I mean, we were in church four nights a week. Legit. It was Sunday, Monday. Wednesday, Thursday. We were all we just stayed at church. Anyway, we did for to bring in the new year. We used to have the 24 hour prayer. Absolutely. Oh, we spent the night at the church. Yes, we don't. We don't spend the night here. There's so many lock-ins. Yes. Yeah. We locked in. We locked in. This is where we are. And we're going to pray vigorously all night long. So there's so many things about that that I cherish and that I think were really good for me. But. The church is a messaging, especially towards women and girls about our bodies and sex and sexuality and how that should be expressed. I think it has a disproportionate impact on black women. And so I'm really wondering with all of your education, you know, I love school. So I want to know how you feel about the impact of religion on black women's sexuality. Well, the impact religion is not divorced from sexism. Right. It's not divorced from racism and those things are hidden in the message about a connection with a male white God who looks down and knows all things, who's omnipresent, omniscient, and just that, that dude, as it were. And we are still trying to perform for some white man ultimately is what it comes down to, like whether or not you are good enough to make it into. This white man's heaven. Yeah. And we I don't know that we spend a lot of time sitting in that or even thinking about that. And that's this is why I love Christian A. Smith. He talks about theology all the time. He's very dope. My girl, Brittany brought a Smith is the number one Christian sexologist. And my girl, Dr. Amanda Nicholson, who did her dissertation specifically on the. Church and sexuality. So all of these there's so much research, so much work out there that talks about like for some people, it actually helps bring them closer to their sexuality. Okay. For some people, it is there is so much church hurt. There's so much trauma that it is hard to connect with oneself. Yeah. And in many ways, what I have seen as a person who is culturally Christian, I get I am no longer religious. I am spiritual. I have had to I had to do my own work to sort of find that space because I'm just like, well, it doesn't these things don't make sense to me. Oh, yeah, right. I'm just like, you're saying that God is good, but have you looked around lately? I'm looking like God ain't snatched up one child and say, hey, let me let me let me pull you by your collar. Come sit down, right? I'm just like, come on now. So I started thinking about God as an actual parent. A parent guides you, gives to you. But. Gives you according to what they believe you can handle and also is one who cannot really control your behaviors. They can tell you that they don't like something like that's not OK. But ultimately, they can't control your behaviors. And it's something that Christian Smith said, which was like it's for him. It's about harm reduction, like to not do harm, that there should be consent and a desire not to harm other people. And what I have found is that the way that. Some people do Christianity is only harmful to other people because it's the only way that they feel like they can do feel good about themselves. So there is a vacancy of self-esteem there because they've been told all their life that they are a wretch. Oh, that they are nothing. And I don't deserve it. Exactly. And I'm just like, why would you repeatedly say that you don't deserve it if your God already said you do? Right. Like you say, hold on now, come come with me on that. I think the white man might have remixed something and told us some lies. A word because I'm just like, well, Old Testament, New Testament, right? You got Jesus died on the cross for your sins. If you believe that with your whole heart and all ten of your toes, why are you also ten toes down or you are a wretch? You're telling me that God died for nobody? God, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that those who believe within him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. I don't know my Bible Bible like that, but I remember that one. And if you tell me that you believe in John 3:16, come on, then I'm trying to figure out how you have also decided that God was wrong for sending his son to die for your sins and you still see yourself as less than he died. He evened the playing field. Yeah. What are you doing? But I'm benefiting from that. Exactly. Benefiting from you feeling that way about yourself. Yeah. If you follow the money trail, somebody is getting rich because they taught you how to not like yourself. Yes. Oh, a bunch of people. The beauty industry alone. Billion dollar industry. Billions and billions. The skin bleaching industry. Yes. Yes, worldwide. I'm like, please stop playing. Worldwide, yes. And the number one use is in places that people don't expect it to be. The number one use of skin bleaching creams is Nigeria. Really? Nigeria no curry last. No. Damn. I remember like I was there some years ago and you have to be careful about even the soap you buy. Oh, because it has like the bleaching agents in it? Yeah, some of the stuff will be in it. Oh, my God. I'm like, oh, well, I will bring mine from home. That sounds like the stories of people going to get Dominican blowouts uptown and finding out they put perm in the conditioner or something. And it's like, why my hair won't go back, baby, because them Dominicans permed your shit. Mm-hmm. Wow. OK, so yeah, that makes sense. And somebody is making billions off of us hating ourselves. Absolutely. And when you think about, I mean, I don't want to get too deep into it. of the very religious people are like girl you're trying it but somebody's making money off them religious beliefs as well baby and that's just that's minimum 10 god said and then go above and beyond so the building fund the roof fund we do not have to talk about these churches that are never they're never gonna get a roof never we never gonna be never getting a new door we never getting we never redoing the church jetting off in a jet a private jet he can't find commercial the lord is not on the the lord is not on southwest no come on now the lord flies private and i you should know that you're gonna get us i know so let me stop let me stop somebody is going to be telling me they're like she don't really go to church she don't know her bye-bye well i'm also culturally christian and it's not that i am you know a non-believer but i see too much that don't make sense and people don't really want to explore that so i'll just be like okay i think some greedy people got involved and decided that they could that this was the easiest way to make people feel less about themselves yeah and extract more from them as a result and and your reward is waiting on you in heaven yes you will never have it oh no no no life's gonna be so bad but god got you on the other side girl i'm like come on now i look like i would like something like some white that came up with real quick right like oh you'll get some on the other side right not right now not right now because that would come out of my pocket i got earthly rewards you'll get heavenly rewards you shall be rewarded in heaven yeah yeah sometimes quick acts of preparation make all the difference i've been doing this a lot lately and it really does help to set yourself up for success like i leave my sunglasses right by the door so i can just grab them on my way out i lay out the next day clothes before i go to bed at night and i've been meal prepping more 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of our skin tone or our body hair texture etc i ask the question to whom when it comes up and somebody's in and you know they're in the therapy chair with me and they're just like yeah i'm just not desirable i'm like well to whom are you not desirable who is it that you are desiring that you believe does not desire you back mostly that's a stumping question because they haven't thought about that they just they but they have this idea this feeling that they are this way and i have to remind them that feelings are not facts right right like your feelings are true for you but it doesn't mean that they're rooted in reality in any way shape or form so if you're not desirable to whom are you not desirable because if you're not counting yourself then i'm wondering what so you don't desire you either well in a lot of cases yes that's exactly right exactly we don't see ourselves as beautiful we don't see ourselves excuse me as worthy take beauty off the table and sometimes it's that there's pressure in beauty right even in the idea of beauty it's that it must be performed in a certain way and there's a beautiful book by dr allison hicks that goes more in depth into that i only touch upon it in drink water mind your business um their their book is called the problem with pretty um it's very cute it's paint cover um and in that book part of what she's talking about is like that the actual freedom that you're looking for is probably in being ugly yes indeed yes indeed when you just like you know what this and i might be mixing up her message with um what's her name olorunadi she did a video on um on like something about ugly or the like i can't remember exactly what it is i can almost see the cover and if i knew actresses i would be able to tell you who the actress was but i don't i don't know white actresses name sorry y'all um i mean if they watch this i don't know same way like i just learned the difference between tom hanks and no this is a different tom tom zendaya's husband no the one that stands on couches the tom cruise him and there's another white guy that looks just like christian bale do you know those are not the same person i don't know who the hell he is christian bale was batman but batman before oh god this other this other this other man who is oh he does kind of look like tom cruise okay i'm not mad at that i'm not racist well i mean we might be i do have bias toward black people i'm yes i'm not working on me no i like that about me actually actually that's my favorite thing about me but like it's this i don't even know what i'm saying girl and i don't even at this point we don't got it to work oh yes uh like the problem with pretty of pretty yes yes this idea of pretty um if we take beauty off the table then you take the the need to perform what beauty looks like off the table particularly in your body right like um it's i find that it is very rare and this is what i find what other people find it may be different it's very difficult to find a dark-skinned fat black woman who doesn't also have straightened hair oh yeah who is not also wearing like a you know a 32 inch but it's like girl what come on right what you want me to do it becomes a my because i'm dark skin and because i'm fat i have to do this thing to forgive these things right so there's a there's a performance even of beauty in that way like i will never be beautiful in that way but i can perform this part of beauty yeah right even in the natural hair movement that you were talking about i'm looking like the twist out has become king which is a way to alter your natural hair texture yes so that you can pretend at something that's not yours yes case in point i mean and i remember i've been i've been wearing my hair natural for most of my life but i remember in the early 2000s all the different things people would do to try to manipulate their texture i'm like y'all the point is that we just moisturize it and have whatever we have and now you walking around with people with extra greasy hair you spending days trying to stretch your hair out for what sister just let it be let it be yes let it be and there is freedom in that but also when you are already considered undesirable in so many ways it's very understandable that you you're reaching for that acceptance in whatever way because that acceptance can lead to money it can because it can lead to jobs it can lead to partnerships it can lead to you know temporary relationships or permanent relationships so we If if the first the first step to me is kind of let go of this very stringent white supremacist way of viewing beauty. Let it go. Yeah. Consider that for some people you are just ugly. Yeah. And sit in that. I've had somebody like people on the Internet on me and they have told me about myself. So many times. Right. Like how ugly I am and I'm a cockroach and blah, blah, blah. OK. And I don't have to be beautiful to you. Right. Right. Like I like me. You don't have to like me. As a matter of fact, you don't even know me well enough to tell me you don't like me. The only thing you can say is you don't like the way that I look because you have a specific idea of what beauty looks like. Right. That's OK. You get to have that idea that is usually steeped in white supremacy. So I know that you ain't done no work, which means that your idea of beauty is lost on me. So irrelevant to me. Right. I've done my work. You ain't done yours. That's fine. Right. So for me, it's like if you remove yourself from the shackles. of needing to be pretty in the way that someone else has defined it now. you can let's go with just appreciation what do you appreciate about yourself what is something that you notice about yourself now it could be mental spiritual emotional or physical but eventually you must do the physical part I usually say stand naked in front of a mirror mm-hmm look at your body yadda yadda yeah what's something you like one thing and if there's nothing that you can find that you like then what is something that you like the way it functions yeah oh my goodness go to a function and I'm saying this is someone who was chronically ill for very for years and years until they finally went ahead and took that uterus out amen right and now I'm like oh I am I'm now learning myself in health it's only been a yes oh wow right so before it was like well what can I find about this chronically ill person that I like well I like that despite that I'm tired my brain be working oh yeah right like this brain this brain brain yeah right like I learned to like my nose I just like my note I have a my nose is a discerning nose I'm like oh it smells disgusting in here I can smell that like she functions and she's cute okay right so you're finding just one thing yeah like if you like your nails like you got nice nail beds or you I don't know you like your pinky toe whatever anything just find a thing and love that thing that week that's you're gonna think about everything that you can do to enhance the beauty of this thing how can you enhance it so much that you're maybe if it's your pinky toe hot the next toe also feels like you got the next so get a little shine right find the thing that you like about yourself something that functions well enjoy its function you do stuff that is all about the praise in a sense of the functioning of that thing yes so that you can get into a space where you're just like oh I love my knees down bad I do have Megan is not me no I'm y'all right I don't I'm gonna work on it though I'm not I want to but I'm not enough I've been looking at people's abs on the internet be like you did that you did I'm gonna eat this doughnut yeah you have no sugar you don't eat no sugar no sugar you don't never have you a little juicy pop my life is carbs and your life is I love that discipline for you I don't love it for me not for me right like and even in that finding the things that you like and that you can take pleasure in because now you have you've planted the seed of pleasure in your life yes and it's related specifically to you yes and then I would say I want you to touch on yourself I know for somebody that's too much y'all need to touch on yourself touch on yourself yeah and if you feeling like okay I can't do that outside the shower start in the shower then yeah turn off the lights light a candle right just because you already know where everything is in the bathroom right and you also you got finite body you know where your body is when you're in the shower - so go through your routine without the lights because now the touch feels different right exactly be intentional about washing your body about feeling what feels good same thing when you go and put on that lotion I hope y'all putting lotion on include your butt I don't want to know I don't actually want to know I do not want to know somebody somebody I might if I can find it on Instagram I'm gonna send it okay I was just like you don't put lotion on your butt but goodness I feel like a squirrel sometimes same way so like just being able to find that thing build up that that practice of what gentle beautiful safe caring touch feels like because it's yours yeah right remember that you don't if nobody else desires you you can right well and then you can invite others but before you invite others to desire you desire your damn self yes before you invite others to share your body share it with you take yourself on dates do things that only you want to do don't be worried about whether or not somebody else might like something or don't like something do what you want to do and then you can begin to invite other people into the practice of let's go do this thing together yes but like taking it back to touching your body like also masturbate masturbation is the quickest way to learn what brings you pleasure yeah because a lot of us we we confuse neutrality with pleasure we think that because we're no longer in pain that now we have a presence of pleasure those are not the same right like you're no longer in pain you have not yet experienced pleasure you just you got to neutral baby well because you're not in pain no more so you like this this feels great and that was me yeah right like i spent years in pain i didn't i just thought that i was just like don't everybody had this pain apparently not this is everybody's periods in them to the hospital apparently not oh no never i mean everybody in my family has gone i mean my auntie had really bad like fibroids and stuff like that but my period is three days no cramps so oh you are you're i'm the chosen one i just like i think all i have three younger sisters all of us have been sent to the hospital behind our periods and i just thought okay i'm pretty sure this is not how it's supposed to go because i mean i had to take sex and anatomy classes so i'm like i know this is not how it's supposed to go but i'm like i'm not supposed to go because i'm like i'm not but whatever all that stuff they'd be doing on the commercials with the periods and they'd be jumping and playing i'm like who's doing that i have pain from my chest down to my ankles it's me i'm in the 10 packs commercial but see that's the sort of thing where one when you get relief from that you're like holy shit it feels like it's pleasure yes i've learned through over the last year especially that that's neutrality i have not found pleasure i found neutral i've got a new baseline and from this baseline i can build a better pleasure practice yes i've found a new baseline and from this baseline i can build a better pleasure practice yes i've found a new baseline i've found a new that another segue or not even a segue but a little side point i thought it sounded right because the one time i actually went to the hospital once because i walked from my room to the living room and i felt lightheaded and out of breath and i was like okay no something's wrong went straight to the er and i was extremely dehydrated but i had only been drinking distilled water oh and i didn't know that you got to have all them electrolytes and shit in there to keep your shit moving they was like girl everything is at like negative five god damn like how are you some real water right i said i haven't eaten in a couple of days i don't i can't but you know i had had covid so anyway anyway all this to say what you were talking about just now made me think of um how one of the things you learn as a therapist is like you plant the seed you start small with like with the if you can't find something to love about your body find something where you appreciate its function or its look or whatever that is how the foundation of your body is like and i think that's what i'm trying to say is that you don't have to be a therapist to be able to do it you don't have to be a therapist to be able to do it you don't have to be a therapist to be able to do it but they took 10 years to build that so it's like you we weren't there on the day one but because we were there on day 375 we think oh okay they just got here and look at how big they are and we don't we don't see any of the other work we don't know the the sleepless nights i mean i think about i mean the read right yeah and i'm just like been around been around and then you started this and i was just like oh you know i was the girlie out here and she was like and i'm just like i'm watching you constantly build and i'm just like exactly exactly that if you want to build a pleasure practice it starts small yeah start with appreciation start with even just noticing because so many of us we are we're so busy worried about other people with that fragile or damaged self-esteem telling us to be quiet or perform like we're a circus monkey right that we we stop seeing ourselves yeah you stop noticing yourself you stop even like you don't know when you're hungry yeah you don't know what you crave you don't you don't know what you like right you you have ignored yourself so thoroughly and i get it this country this world has taught you that the best way to move forward is actually to forget you yeah right you gotta hustle you gotta you gotta work your two and three jobs you gotta do all of this and that which requires you to divorce yourself from yourself in order for you to perform beyond the limits of your body yes but when you get back in that's where you actually win it's where you're able to take your life in hand and sculpt it into something that you desire for yourself and then Really consider whether or not that thing that you've been doing routinely is the thing that you even want to continue. How many people discovered that they don't need Target after we stopped shopping at Target? It was almost like we could get this stuff anywhere else, y'all. All of a sudden, people got money in the bank account. All of a sudden, you can go on trips. Yeah, when you're not spending $300 at every trip to Target, suddenly you's a rich bitch. Clock me. I would go in there high and just, yeah, another notebook. Why not? Another journal. Sure. Word. You just, oh, like I didn't know I needed that thing, but I saw that thing and now I need that thing. And you did not need that lamp. You did not need that, you know, photo album or whatever. I mean, our houses look, I mean, but you could also buy, when you're trying to buy happiness at $300, it feels great. It does. But when I talk about building a pleasure practice, a practice on purpose, doing the small things, a lot of that stuff is free. Like, you was going to eat three meals anyway. Why don't you try eating something you want to eat instead of suffering through your meal? Right. Why don't you drink something you want to drink instead of suffering through that drink? Right. Right? Like, yes, drink your water because you need to because the dehydrated body does not have good orgasms. Right. But also, like, go ahead and have that orange juice. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, you don't live at your mama's house. Open the apple juice, too. Oh, now you're shaking the table. I'm going to go buy two different cereals. And open them both. Open them both. B-O-A-F. That's when I felt like an adult. Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah. Like, when I opened two juices, I was like, oh, I'm grown. Oh, I think I am. I thought that the other day because I had a blood orange San Pellegrino and a coffee. I was like, not me with multiple bevs. Come on. Come on with the beverages. But, like, just finding the joy. Finding the joy again in life. Yes. Like, taste your food. Don't work through lunch. Actually eat your food. Actually take your break. And, yes, I'm talking to you, my husband. Husband of mine. Right? Like, take your break. Eat your food. Just eat your food. Enjoy. Enjoy the company of a friend. Enjoy a good conversation. Enjoy the beauty that is literally around you. Like, that couch over there is sexy as fuck. Yeah, it's pretty. Yes. I'm like, what color is that? She looks good. She looks real good. Right? Like, there's so many free joys for us to enjoy. But because they have trained us that real life is behind the paywall, that's all we seek. Right. We forget all the stuff that's actually free for us to enjoy. Like, I was enjoying the sponginess of my hair earlier. I was just like, oh. Because I was just like, oh, I didn't get up on time to do my hair properly and I didn't have all my implements. I was just like, meanwhile, she felt exactly how you would have made her to do. Meanwhile, I love my hair. And, you know, for all of the times people have criticized it or told me that it should have been straight or different or whatever else. I simply don't care. This is my head and my body. Exactly. And you don't have to perform for them. Yeah. And once you learn that you can do for you the things that you actually enjoy and you feel the rightness of that, you feel the alignment in that. Other things click into place. Other things that you. You've been doing that are not for you. Yes. They start to become very obvious. Right. And you start you start shaping these little pieces of your life and things start to feel better for you. But then you also stop being that type of person who only has judgment for others. Miserable people spend their time judging others and what they're doing. Yes. Because you're so unhappy that anyone anyone else's happiness is an affront to your own. Especially if you are performing in a way that says. Well, dark skinned girls are not supposed to have this type of thing or be this type of thing. So if I see one that is, I have to remind her of her place. Right. Because you are so in your place and you are so miserable in that place. Right. That you don't see a way out, but you think other people should be coming. Right. And so you see me not following the rules that you made up in your head, not doing what you think fat women or black women or dark skinned women or whatever other kind of women should be doing. And that pisses you off. Yes. Because how dare I not hate myself the way I'm supposed to. Exactly. And not even like in their head alone. Right. Because it's in their head and society. Right. Like you're watching all of this stuff play out like the way that people hate Samara. I'm looking like. Oh my God. Just saying put the clothes in the store. That's all I heard. Or being fat and saying I deserve clothes. Crazy. It's just so wild how they hate that girl, man. Because I'm like at the same time y'all be like. What? But we don't want to see all that. Well, they can't buy any clothes. Well, that's too damn bad. What do you want? Like you. Like I am Confucian. Yeah. Because really what you're saying is that this person shouldn't exist. Shouldn't exist. And that's your real problem. That's what desirability politics. Right. Right. That's what they really are. It's about who should exist. And when you think about self-esteem, it is mired in the idea of desirability politics. Right. Who deserves to have self-esteem. Yes. And who is not deserving. Who deserves to exist and who does not. Yes. And if you are a person. Who's on the does not deserve to exist. Your job becomes the performance for others to prove that you have enough value to exist. That doesn't help you to like yourself. It helps you to perform and divorce you from you so that they can be happy. And while I am happy, if you are a person that is happy because other people are happy. Don't make yourself miserable trying to make it happen. Dr. Donna, you came in here and preached about 12 times. What was it like to be a part of a group of people that was able to be a part of a group of people that was able to be a part of a group of people that was able to be a part of an organization? And all you got to do is get started. Word. Please tell the people, Dr. Donna Oriola, where they can find you and your work. You can stalk me gently on Instagram at Dr. Donna Oriola. I am also on TikTok. If you're a therapist, I have like classes coming out regularly. So hit up DonnaOriola.com. O-R-I-O-W-O. All right. Thank you again for spending your time with us here today on Crystal's Couch. This was so incredible. I learned so much and I am sure the people will feel the same way about you. You were just so, so fun to have you here on the show today. They learn, they don't learn. I got to be here with you. So I'm super excited. And this was great. It's building my pleasure capacity. All right, y'all. That is going to wrap up this week's episode of Crystal's Couch. Follow us online at Crystal's Couch. And we'll see you next week. We'll see you then. Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com. With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Visit Blinds.com to order your free samples today. Find Fall Your Way at Ross.com.