Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
Sexual Scripts
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What is a sexual script? Simply put, they are guidelines and shoulds that we have taken in, which shape and influence our expectations and behaviors about sex. Aoife Drury, a Dublin psychotherapist, joins me for a conversation about common sexual scripts and how they become woven into our sexuality.
We discuss where they come from, what they sound like in our thoughts and how to rewrite the narrative. As Aoife says, “Recognize that you have a pen, and you write the rest of your book as you see fit.”
www.cindyscharkey.com
Aoife Drury is an Accredited Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist and is currently carrying out a Doctorate in Psychotherapy. She is passionate about debunking mental health stigmas and creating a safe environment to talk about sexual health challenges.
www.drurytherapy.com
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This is Permission for Pleasure. And I'm your host, Cindy Sharkey. As a registered nurse and educator for over 30 years, I see the real need to break the silence surrounding sex, especially for women. This podcast is about opening the doors to healthy conversations about sex. What I've found is that when women have comprehensive education about sex, their self-confidence soars. And when that happens, women can truly express experience and enjoy their sexuality. They give themselves permission for pleasure. Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy, your host. Thank you for listening and being part of my community here at the podcast. I'm really glad you're here. Today I have a wonderful guest. It's Eva Drury. And she and I connected on Instagram and I asked her if she might join me across the pond for a conversation about sexual scripts. Welcome to the show, Eva.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Cindy. Thank you for having me. It's such a privilege to be able to talk to you and spend some time on a topic that's so important and so present in our everyday life.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. Let me tell you a little bit about AFA. She is an accredited psychosexual and relationship therapist with more than 14 years of experience working in mental health. She's currently carrying out a doctorate of psychotherapy at Dublin City University. I'm very curious to hear about her work. You know what I really appreciate about AFA is that you are really inclusive and caring in the way you approach all things sex and relationships. And that has really drawn me to your platform. And I'm excited for my listeners to hear more from you today. Oh, thank you. Let's get started with talking about what a sexual script is, why it's important for us to understand what a sexual script is, and how and then we'll work through how to investigate those scripts to move into a more healthy sexuality. So you wrote a couple articles for Image, and I love you how you describe sexual scripts. One of the things you said is they are quote, narratives that we hold around how sex should play out. Yes. Yes. Yes. Tell me more, tell me more about that from your perspective and work with clients.
SPEAKER_01I mean, when the words that you used in there is shoulds are just so encroaching into our way of being, but but in our sex lives too. So when I think about sexual scripts and that article that I wrote, I remember thinking there's so much more to say. Because and a little bit of nerd alert here, because I am doing my doctorate in psychotherapy, and part of doing your doctorate in psychotherapy is doing um and creating space for philosophy, which I have no idea about. One of the things that I've been studying and looking at and interested in is constructivism. So particularly around social constructivism and how society is constructed as a whole. So when we think about constructivism, it's it's those social norms, you know, it's those gender norms that we're kind of uh have these expectations as how we should live our lives. Um so it upholds these beliefs, which of course are different from culture to culture. So I think in this podcast we'll particularly talk about more of the Western ideals of society and sex. Um but but once society is constructed, sex is actually no different. It's that narrative, it's that story about what we and the way in which we should be upholding ourselves. And that to me really brings into the kind of sexual scripts, which although we're constructed by society, and we can maybe talk a little bit about what those may look like to us and what we've we've maybe seen or heard. They're really quite toxic and really quite corrosive to perhaps how we see ourselves in the world.
SPEAKER_00I I agree with that. I also think, Eva, that so often people don't even recognize um how they bring on and and take on these scripts, and also that they indeed are scripts, um, and possibly not um what holds true for them, you know, in their own persons. And you describe them in another way in your article about it. You said, if we think of our experience and definition of sex as a story, what would that story tell? I love that because I think it would it helps people uh really investigate the chapters or language in their story and then to decide what those look like and if they hold true for them now.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I think we have to look at the beginning of that story when we think of uh sexual scripts, because if we think about the society norms, we think about gender norms. So as much as they're constructed by society, they're also intrinsic to us, dependent on our um our own upbringings, our own experiences, and what we've made of those experiences, what and what we've then been told, the impact of maybe religion, you know, the impact on um cultural components, family systems. Um, but when we start this story, and I somebody may come to me with their their current chapter, their current chapter that they're in, and we go back to the beginning. So, what were your messages that you received? What were your childhood experiences? What was you know nudity like in your household? How is sex discussed in your household? Was it discussed? What about religion or what about um your sex education? So there's so much that can actually be unpacked when we talk about these sexual scripts.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm I think it's important for listeners to hear these different elements because then you can kind of peel back the the layers, right? The almost like an onion, these layers that just get layered on through your family upbringing, through, like you said, possibly your religion, your community, your again, your education or lack of education, your silence. You know, was there a lot of silence? And what did you receive that as?
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's a really interesting point. The silence, because silence is so telling. And it's not always about, you know, what is said, but what isn't said too, and how that impacts us and the way in which I often talk about how a child may talk to a parent or ask the question, and what you're met with can help construct that narrative. So if you're met with humiliation and degradation or dismissiveness, that may fall into shame. But equally, what if you're just ignored?
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I think of so many, especially so many young girls, and just the idea around menstruation and how often it isn't talked about in homes and you know, amongst young people, you know, male and female, it any of it is in it's like it's taboo when it's a normal bodily function. And then, like you're saying, with silence around that, and I'm just picking one one specific topic, but that silence communicates that it's not okay to talk about this in a normal way. And then I think a lot of children take that in as this is a not okay thing to talk about. This isn't just a normal occurrence of our bodies. But I do think, I do agree with you. I think that silence is often the go-to in a lot of homes because of the discomfort around the topics, and then the silence communicates sometimes even bigger than the, you know, bigger than the words.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the what isn't said and the filling in the blanks that a child has to make. Where does a child go when there is the unknown?
SPEAKER_00Because the other piece of this is also the media piece, and a lot of people going to pornography for their sex education. Pornography is a is a horrible sex education platform. Yeah. Right. And so, but if there's silence, this is what happens in homes, is that people do go to media, of course, or or pornography, or or reading books or friends, or you know, perhaps though a lot of sources that aren't the best source for their education.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And I had this um not on Twitter very often, but I had this little battle with the Irish Dublin um politician who was saying we need to ban pornography, and that's the only way to stop. It was talking about street harassment. And I was like, no, we need to educate, we need to create um education that's poor and liter literate, um, and and talking to kids about consent, but talking to kids about pleasure and enjoyment and vocalizing what's happening for them and creating a really safe open platform.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree. So we've talked a little bit about um how some of these things with our homes and our community, our education or lack of education, um, our religion, media, all of these things are factors in the scripts we receive or hear or take in. Whether we know it or not, sometimes I think we aren't aware of the root of some of these scripts, and that's why we don't tend to investigate them for ourselves. But let's talk about then some of the most common scripts we hear.
SPEAKER_01Virginity. That's the first one, because I think virginity is a social construct. Virginity is this idea that we lose something or we gain something. Um, it's this idea that um there's something um that changes in a person. And what the challenge that we have with virginity as as a sexual script is that it's gender binary. There's uh tends to be a narrative or a story around the woman or the child or the girl. Um it tends to be donating a powerlessness to women, um and um also it negates the experiences of childhood trauma, childhood sexual abuse, also totally omits a lesbian couple because of this idea that virginity, which is this is a sexual script, is sex is deemed as penetration. So what happens with lesbians then, you know, have they not lost their virginity? If we think of virginity as uh or sex as being penetrative. This isn't here about it through friendships, which friendships from such a young age or from TV shows or movies. That to me is probably the most prominent one because, you know, and we're just talking about the Western ideals. We're we're not even getting to other cultures that perhaps have a different um aspect of virginity where women's hyens are investigated. And so there's toxic aspects to these sexual scripts.
SPEAKER_00That's the first one off the top of your head. And I'm going to just insert uh one little piece here about the hymen because I wrote a little blog about that, and that tends to get visited so often. So it tells me that people uh have a lot of misinformation in education, uh, even anatomically. Uh and so, as a nurse, you know, I care about people having the correct information about their bodies, and the hymen is absolutely not an indicator or something to be investigated to determine virginity. So I'm just gonna insert that right there because it's uh it's an often visited blog, and it means that people still have a lot of questioning around that. So you mentioned penetration as the only kind of script for sex. I think that's one of the things I keep talking about because penetration is not the uh way to most pleasure for females. And so to have this script of have feeling like if I can't orgasm from penetration, then something's wrong with me. That script of this is what sex is, so you should be able to orgasm this way, you know, talking about heterosexual couples, and I just bump up against this time and time and time again. This script of um any other way is not sex, I have it in quotes, or isn't right, I have it in quotes, or something like that. I think it's such a detriment to female pleasure. And so it's a common theme on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I 100% agree with you, and you know, you've done some incredible work around um uh challenging that narrative, challenging those um these views that are harmful and remove the opportunity for somebody to have enjoyable sexual experiences. Because if we keep the idea of sex being um defined as, and I hear it constantly, penis in vagina, that's that's it's intercourse. And if that hasn't happened, then we haven't had sex. But when we know the statistic is over 80% of women can't um orgasm from penetration alone. Who's having enjoyable sexual experiences here? And I think the interesting thing about um uh sexual scripts is it maintains the gender inequality, it maintains the discrepancy between genders through sexual experiences.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and even to the point of orgasm being somehow the end of sex, like being being known in the script as the conclusion, not a female orgasm, but a male orgasm in a heterosexual couple, right? So if the man orgasmed, then sex is concluded.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And and just uh being mindful of of the gender inequality um is also the narrative for men, and I keep going back to this word narrative because I think it's important to know that we can change the script, which I'm sure we'll touch on, but um is men having to be ready for sex. And by ready, you need to have an erection, and that erection needs to be strong because it needs to be penetrable, because if it's not, you know, you're not able to have sex then because you're not able to have intercourse. And so, therefore, you know, there's of course a whole realm of toxic masculine sayings, quotes.
SPEAKER_00And really unhealthy for men and and for their partners. So let's talk about a few more of these for men, because I think that they have this, you know, traditional script of having a high sex drive. My community already knows I don't like the drive word, but uh just that they desire sex more so than necessarily being desired. Yeah. I think that's a really hard script for men.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. To me, it's about I have to be ready and I should be turned on, and um about the the kind of men are from Mars, women are from Venus, um, uh men want to have sex and women want to be loved, you know. And and so then what about you know, my need for affection as a man, my need for love, my need for compassion, and and of course the opposite for women, you know, the the challenging of that and that women with higher sex drive and and desire for sex and and and and the gender discrepancy or sexual discrepancy that I see all the time in my couples. And really it's just about, I mean, there's so many people who do wonderful work, yourself included, but it's really about trying to actually bring into the gray area and away from that polarization and that black and white thinking.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna circle back to the women who really desire sex uh and desire it possibly, you know, more frequently than a partner and feeling like that's not okay or not permissible. Here's this permission word again. But this I hear this theme every time I speak to a group of women, I will always have one or two who will come up to me and share. Like, I don't fit in with most of my friends. I I want to have sex more frequently, I enjoy it, I feel like I have a high sex drive, and they feel shame around that. That to me is is heartbreaking because they are so normal, and yet this sexual script that they have heard and taken in is that I can't be like that. This is not a normal way to be. We know, we know this is not true as educators, right? And yet it's really hard to change again that narrative around that.
SPEAKER_01It is, it really is, and I think I think it's it's about kind of challenging it in a way of bringing in compassion. I constantly say there is no normal, there is no normal when it comes to sex, as long as it is consensual and pain-free, that's all that matters. And so I when I whenever I see couples and and individuals with with similar presentations, it's sometimes just about reassuring. But the big thing is these sexual scripts are maintained, they're not just taught to us. We they're maintained and they're upheld to keep the binary, keep the gatekeepers. So it's difficult when you've learned these messages and then maybe you're hearing them as an adult too.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I'm thinking we mentioned a few things for men. One more I was thinking about. I just feel like there's a script for men around around being the initiator of sex, the the one who who initiates and and pushes. And and I think there's a script for men about having skill around sex. And you and I know sex is a skill you you learn. So if there's not education, I feel so sad for men who feel like I'm somehow supposed to know and have great skill with no education.
SPEAKER_01It's I think a lot to do with this idea that we're not really we're supposed to just inherently know. We're just supposed to inherently know how to have good sex. It means that maybe we stop talking about it because we're supposed to just know. So what happens in the bedroom is that nobody's talking about what they enjoy and saying, that works for me, that's not so good. Can we try something else? And that's where I think a lot of the difficulty lies.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree. The silence around it and not feeling comfortable to talk about it or not feeling like it's okay or needed to talk about it perpetuates the script and it's ongoing. If you really start thinking about the pleasure piece, if you feel like you have to be desired and there's not freedom to desire, it really limits your pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Well, the juxtaposition, I suppose, the paradoxical components of that, which is I thought of the Madonna and whore narrative. It's there, you know, it's it's there in and we we are mothers and we're nurturing and we're supposed to be, you know, well dressed. And um, but equally in the bedroom, we're supposed to be demons and erotic and you know, know what we're doing. And and so those are the shoulds. I should be nurturing and compassionate and caring towards my kids and making those dinners. And I know I'm going extreme here, but you know, making those dinners and be that housewife and keep that sexual side of myself locked up. And then the bedroom, those kids are gone, they're way out of our minds, you know. Um, dinner's the last thing I've been thinking about. I'm supposed to be present and engaging and sexy and sensual. And those things are really damaging because it's the shoulds.
SPEAKER_00Women, they have a script of being a pleaser. I mean, I'm raising my hand. I'm this is totally my ammo is a pleaser and a giver and a helper. And then it's really difficult to focus on your own pleasure instead of your partner when you see yourself as a. Giver and a pleaser, and you want to help, right? And it just has me really thinking about communicating over and over to people that you can still be someone who likes to give, and you can still be someone who receives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So I use this type of therapy called schematherapy, which is developed by a guy called Jeffrey Young, as a really good book called Reinventing Your Life by him, which I would recommend. Anyway, I won't go into the ins and outs of schematherapy, but some of them that come up are what calls self-sacrificing or subjugating. And I use it constantly with clients because what happens outside the bedroom tends to play out inside the bedroom, right? And then the kind of the ideas that we have about ourselves and how we should be in the world replicate themselves in the relationships and the sexual side of us. And one of the things around shoulds that I always talk to people about, apart from you know, they they kind of have a perfectionist element. And if you kind of read any Brene Brown, she talks really implicitly about the shoulds and how perfectionism is is um is so difficult to kind of live with, particularly if you want to be vulnerable. Um but the consequence of shoulds emotionally are anger and guilt, anger and or guilt. And so if we think about in the bedroom, if we're just internalizing how we feel and being that giver and giver and giver and not receiving, resentment has to build up, frustration has to build up, disappointment has to build up because we're human and we're it's inevitable.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting. I'm thinking of another piece to that puzzle, which is it's difficult to enjoy the sex you're having if there's not pleasure, an ability to to receive pleasure and experience pleasure. And so if you're if we are always focused on the giving, right, then it it is difficult to want to engage in that way, right? To initiate, you know, sex, to desire it. So all of these themes certainly go together.
SPEAKER_01They are so entwined. Our sexual scripts are so entwined with our gender norms, and our gender norms are entwined with our social norms, and our social norms are entwined with our um, you know, social um constructivism. So it all plays out. It all they're they're and they're all part of us. Um, but we can move away, you know, we can make changes and we can adapt, but we have to know what our sexual scripts are first.
SPEAKER_00So now let's talk about what we do next with this, which is what you're bringing us to here, which is important because we're not talking about all this and saying, too bad, so sad. I mean, this is just the way it is. I completely disagree with that. Number one, you're let's reiterate what you said, which is important, which is to recognize and name the scripts that we have woven in. You know, writing down or naming out loud the scripts you believe about sex, the shoulds, the shoulds that you think they're true, don't know if they're true, just just embrace them and you're conforming to that, or the things you already know that you have taken exception to, but then also you can rewrite your story, as you call it. You know, the first step in that is to recognize the scripts that you hold.
SPEAKER_01It's about looking at everything from the cultural components, so thinking about it like a blueprint of your life, this framework that may be there through the messages you received. So, what were the messages? Where did you learn about sex? Where did you learn about body image? How do you feel about your body growing up? What was the discourse coming through around um those narratives, those stories? How perhaps have those intertwined into your life now? And I completely agree. I get people to literally write down different fragments of their life, family experiences, childhood experiences, traumatic experiences. So break it down and then start looking at how are they maintained now? How do you uphold them now? Because there's an active choice in upholding them in terms of your own belief system and the own stories that you tell yourself and the thoughts that you have. And then we can change them, challenge them.
SPEAKER_00Change them, challenge them. And some ways to do that would be number one, education. Get education. I mean, literally listening to this podcast, you know, reading the books that people recommend from trusted sources. There's a lot of good education out now, much more than there used to be back in my day. So put yourself in front of truth and so that you can decide about some of these scripts and if you do want to rewrite them for yourself.
SPEAKER_01Um, I would approach it with the idea that you have the pen. So we have this story, we've gotten to this chapter in the story, and now you have the pen. So you make this choice. So you have that opportunity to write the next chapters. And that's how I why I reinforce the word narrative, because it's our own story, because it's our own experiences, our own lessons that we've learned. I mean, I know some of the research that's been done around sexual scripts, if you maintain the kind of social norms and people who conform are less likely to have pleasurable, happy sex lives. And so the importance is do you want to change your sex life for the better? I think we'll probably always all say yes. How can we continue to change and have a better, more pleasurable sex life? And part of that is you know, sticking your two fingers up to these societal messages. I think another thing, just thinking about the gender uh discrepancy um is actually start listening to trans and non-binary voices. Start listening to people who are going to stretch and challenge the viewpoint that you have if you were kind of set in this cisgendered heteronormative script, which our scripts are in Western society. I'd also be kind of encouraging us to also, particularly anybody who has children listening, is how are you going to make a difference to your child? What way are you going to start speaking to your child to facilitate them having a happier, more pleasurable sex life? And that doesn't mean that you need to be talking to them about sex. Maybe you need to be talking to them about gender roles, their body image, be talking to them about consent or to feel freer about communication. And so it doesn't have to be these big dramatic changes, but it's these small ones that perhaps are just going to maybe get you to rethink because our thoughts aren't facts, our feelings are facts, our thoughts aren't facts. So we can start changing them once we know that they're not always realistic, they're not always the truth.
SPEAKER_00Like this is another theme on this podcast of the real need to talk about sex. And if you're partnered to talk with your partner. So if you start investigating your scripts and have no discussion with your partner about things you maybe want to rewrite, they will not, they will not know, right? They're not going to be able to read your mind and understand the journey you're going on. And so I always want to encourage people who are partnered to you know initiate these kinds of conversations with your partner so that every you know you each know where you're at, and you can have a continuing dialogue about this, which is what's going to make a happier, more fulfilling sex life together. These conversations are need to really be ongoing, and they can be really life-changing as you start to talk more openly about these scripts and shoulds and and how you feel about them and what you what you think and don't think or what you want to change in your thinking.
SPEAKER_01I think that's absolutely vital that you communicate because your partner isn't a mind reader, and you're not a mind reader. So we wouldn't expect that from the other person. So really, I suppose it's about keeping it simple. It's about tackling it, but also just being open with it too.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree. And I do want to say, you as a psychotherapist, I mean, this is what therapists are trained to help you think through and investigate. If you feel like you're listening and it that feels really overwhelming to do on your own, or you have a lot of things that you know are difficult to wade through and you want help with that, I just really encourage you to reach out to a therapist that's trained that could ask you the good questions to get you thinking and help you work through some of these scripts that you may know about or may just come up as you learn to investigate them. That's such a good, positive, healthy step to take.
SPEAKER_01And what you find is when you realize that that it I don't have to suddenly change everything because change like that is so scary and overwhelming. Um, it's just softening it. And what tends to happen is when you talk to your partner, they so respond because you're creating a safe space, you're creating an opportunity to grow together. And that's what's so flourishing and nourishing, as you said. Love that.
SPEAKER_00On that note, let's wrap up. And I'm so thankful for you being with me today. Thank you for giving us your time and your wisdom.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Cindy. It's such a privilege, and I was absolutely delighted when you I was over the mood when you um invited me to be on. It's a real pleasure talking to you, and I know we could probably talk for hours about it too.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Tell people how they can find you, Afa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, um my website is www.drawytherapy.com. My Instagram is Drury Therapy. You know, loads of ways to contact, just as you were talking about um engaging with therapy. Get help if you need support. You're not alone. And it's so important to ensure that even though things may feel overwhelming, there are people who are trained and who are specialists to be able to support you through the difficult time and navigate it. And also, I would just say recognize that you have a pen, that your pen's yours and you own it and you write the rest of your book as you see fit.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. On this podcast, I'm encouraging the community to pause and notice what delights them day to day, what just brings them pleasure. I would love if you might share something that's that's delightful to you.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm very, very blessed to be living uh about two kilometers, and I know it's two kilometers because when we had lockdown here and we were only allowed to travel two kilometers for a very long time. Um, I have to see. It's just so nice to be able to walk down and uh depending on what kind of weather there is, either lapping waves or big roaring ones. So I'm very lucky and that brings me a lot of pleasure.
SPEAKER_00I hope I get to see that one day and meet and meet you personally. So, community, thank you for listening. I hope this conversation will nurture you as you investigate the scripts that you hold and that you'll peel back the layers. Take some time with this. Take your pen, as Afa says, and write the story that's healthy for you. Continue to give yourself permission for pleasure.
