Kinks & Coffee ft. Erin Gee

I’m quite excited to be featuring my friend Erin Gee in the first post of the Kinks and Coffee blog series! As a quick refresher, I’ve created this series to showcase different women in the Ottawa community who have interesting and unique insights and experiences in areas of sexual and mental wellness. Erin and I have known each other for a few years through mutual friends, and as it turns out, we also have similar jobs. However, that’s where our similarities end, as Erin also has a number of side gigs, most notably as a co-founder of the Bad+Bitchy podcast, an intersectional feminist podcast that dissects politics and pop culture. Erin is very outspoken about anti-racism and works to draw attention to issues of inclusion and social justice.

Originally, I wanted to interview Erin about her perspective on the dynamics between race, sexuality and mental wellness. Once we got talking, our chat went in some wonderful and unexpected directions and she opened up about her past relationships and her sexual experimentation. We met on a rainy Tuesday afternoon and walked together to the Ministry of Coffee on Elgin Street for a warm bevvy. I recorded our chat using voice notes and later transcribed, summarized and condensed (with paraphrasing) for your reading pleasure below!

Natalia: So, I looked up your bio online earlier today and you are a multi-faceted woman! Can you tell me a bit about how you portray yourself online and whether that includes aspects of your mental and sexual identity?

Erin: I’m really straight forward with who I am and what I believe on social media. A big criticism that influencers face is that they are artificial and provide a veneer of what life looks. I definitely try my best to be a lot more open and honest, but I typically don’t go so far as to letting people know too much about my personal life or about sex stuff and feelings online. I think it’s because making it available for public consumption makes me uncomfortable, for a variety of reasons, including that I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business. I recently started chat therapy, and the web therapist told me that I over-analyze things and internalize my emotions — and I was like, “YUP that’s me!” Another reason is that I don’t want my mom to read those things about me (laughs).

Natalia: Interesting that you say that about your mom. Was sexual and/or mental wellness something that you discussed with your family growing up?

Erin: Mmmm, sexuality wasn’t really something we talked about. I never had “the talk” with my parents. When I became sexually active with my high school boyfriend at 16, I just sought out birth control myself. I guess I was quite independent in that way, because I didn’t even talk to any friends about having sex. I did research online about contraceptives, talked to my boyfriend about it and then went to see my doctor. When it comes to mental health issues, there wasn’t much discussion in my family about that either. Aside from my mom, my family doesn’t talk much about emotions much; hell we don’t even really emote them that often. My Dad, who is Chinese, had a more traditional Chinese upbringing, which didn’t include discussing emotions, which I think transferred to me, but I’m trying to discuss them more, though I do take a more detached and clinical approach to discussing how I feel.

Natalia: What was your upbringing like? I’m particularly interested in knowing what caused you to become interested in activism and if it’s connected to personal experiences.

Erin: So, I’m originally from Vancouver, B.C. My dad is Chinese and my mom is white. They met in high school and have been married forever. They’re still friends with all their high school friends who are, coincidentally, also mixed race couples. Because of this, I grew up with kids who were mixed just like me. As a precocious kid, adults got a kick out of my response to the age-old question “what are you?”, which was, “I’m regular.” I don’t really know what I meant by that, but I was raised around kids who looked exactly like me, so my guess is it was because I literally felt “regular” because that’s what I was used to. My elementary school was middle class but very ethnically diverse. As I got older, I became friends with girls who were Chinese immigrants from both mainland China and Hong Kong. Being third generation, I’m quite far removed from the cultural side, so having these immigrant friends allowed me to have more of a connection to my culture, since my upbringing was totally North American.

I honestly don’t know what caused me to want to have a voice about issues of racism, but I became increasingly aware of social injustices and my own privilege. Since I’m mixed, I do feel that I am able to operate in both white and racialized spaces, which affords me a bit more freedom and gives me a level of relatability and trust that not at all people may get. I do try and talk to my parents about racism and confront them about some of their actions and behaviours that are rooted in white supremacy. They don’t like that, but I hope it causes them to think more deeply.

Natalia: Okay, let’s switch things up and talk about sex! I don’t actually know much about your past relationships. Tell me about when you discovered your sexuality.

Erin: As I said, I had sex for the first time with my high school boyfriend who I dated for three years. I don’t remember the details of how that first time went, but I do remember it was at his house on his parents waterbed. Let me tell you — not a good idea (laughs). What I remember more vividly is how I felt days after. I was super emotional and upset because I was thinking about sex ALL THE TIME. I felt deep shame and kept wondering “Am I supposed to be thinking about it this much? Am I a slut?” This was in the 2000’s — sex positivity wasn’t really a thing yet and sex education at school did not include anything on female desire. My boyfriend and I were hanging out one day and I just started crying. He asked me what was wrong and I was like, “I just really want to have sex with you!!!” He helped me laugh it off and realize that there was nothing wrong with having it be so prevalent in my conscience. I think everyone goes through that period in their life. As adults, when we start dating someone, you’re building intimacy and you want to fuck them all the time. As teenagers, we were building intimacy too but didn’t have as much of an understanding of that. All we knew was that it felt good / didn’t suck.

Natalia: So, after that first boyfriend, what was your dating evolution like?

Erin: After high school, I went to college and was single for a bit. About halfway through college I started a new relationship with a white guy that ONLY dated asian girls. It was definitely a fetish. He was also really into hentai — a genre of Japanese anime porn. He would show me these anime porn videos and I didn’t really understand what was sexy about it. They were cartoons to me. He fancied himself to be somewhat of an artist so he tried to explain that he appreciated the art of it and how the sexualized characters were drawn. He had posters of them all over his walls. It was kinda weird to me, but only in retrospect do I find the fascination with Asian culture problematic.

After that relationship ended, I dated another guy right at the end of college, and I would describe that relationship as filled with passion but very toxic. We fought a lot but the sex was good. It was often rage-fueled and we experimented with S&M [Sadism and Masochism] stuff. Neither of us had really explored it before. I had done spanking but not much else with previous partners. We went to sex conventions and bought toys together. From that relationship, I discovered that I do enjoy S&M in moderation. A lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of S&M don’t really understand it. For someone as type A as I am, I definitely find it fun and oddly liberating. Still, that relationship was not a healthy one. After that ended, there was one other guy that I dated seriously before moving to Ottawa. He was another guy who fetishized Asian women. He has even said publicly that he has “yellow fever.” The sex was… fine.

Natalia: So, given that you dated two dudes that fetishized asian women, would you say that it’s a red flag for you now?

Erin: I didn’t particularly love that they had this overt preference when I was with those guys, but I definitely hate it now. If I were to go on a date with someone today and they stated they had a thing for asian women, it would be a total turn off. The fetishization of asian women is based on this stereotype that they are meek, easy to boss around, and will live up to their traditional gender roles. That last guy that I dated with this fetish always spoke to me in a condescending tone and even though he was a “liberal” reinforced traditional gender roles because of his insecurity with having his partner be more successful or making more money than him. Rarely do people recognize these issues when they are in relationships. His misogyny disguised as chivalry became more evident to me when we broke up.

Natalia: For sure, hindsight is 20/20. So what has your dating experience in Ottawa been like?

Erin: I’ve dated a few different people in Ottawa. There was this one guy I dated about a year after I moved here. We were hooking up but he didn’t want a relationship. Despite him saying that over and over, we were still able to cultivate a very intimate relationship…or so I thought. He was also very into S&M and honestly a bit of a sociopath in the sense that he was able to disassociate from things like intimate moments, which is why I am unable to tell if the intimacy I felt was genuine. At times, things would get a bit out of hand in terms of aggression. They would start off great and then cross the line for me. The trouble was that we never really established limits. Things would be said in passing like: “I want to tie you up.” I’d be like, “Ok, do it.” But he wouldn’t tie me in a fun way… he would tie my hands to the ceiling in a way where I truly couldn’t escape. There was one time he was hitting me with a spoon. I fully consented to it, but it got to the point where he broke it. I’m fine with being “degraded” but I think that in order to have a healthy S&M relationship, you definitely have to have conversations to set limits. Instead, I was just blindly trusting that he knew what he was doing, since I had had limited experience. Some parts of that relationship were good and some parts were not. I only realized this with distance from it because I was completely addicted to him.

Natalia: So how were you able to end that addiction to him and move on?

Erin: I actually had to start dating someone else more seriously and that’s what finally ended the cycle (even though that guy continued to text and tempt me). This relationship is my most recent and we were together about three years, most of that long-distance between here and the US. Long distance is obviously very hard and for that reason we decided to be less stringent about fidelity and opted to open up our relationship, which led to a lot of experimentation, including with more people.

Natalia: Okay, wow. This is super fascinating to me… I know nothing about group sex. Tell me everything!

Erin: Neither of us were strangers to group sex, in that we’d both had threesomes before. You can read more about that in Glamour. Let me tell you… I highly recommend group sex, though it’s probably not for everyone. For someone like me who is bisexual, sex with more than one partner really hits all the things I love about sex. With this partner, we started exploring that, which led to us learning about sex clubs and polyamory.

Natalia: Ok. I’ve got so many questions. First, tell me more about sex clubs. What are they like?

Erin: They’re private clubs that don’t have liquor licenses. So, if you want to drink you have to bring your own alcohol. They’re all different and basically, you walk around and flirt with people, have sex or watch sex in private areas or open rooms. Consent and sexual health are huge focuses. The entrance fees are quite expensive, and it’s usually couples in these places, though single women and men are also welcome. There are a lot of barriers, including cost, to avoid these spaces being overrun by single cis-men who may not be respectful of the space and community. It’s generally a super friendly and respectful community as a whole. No one is telling you to fuck off or that you’re a bitch like they might at a regular nightclub. These clubs are in a lot of major cities, and you can find them with a simple google. I’ve been in Montreal, New York and New Orleans. One thing I’ve noticed, and maybe because it’s of the cities I’ve been to clubs in, but these spaces are incredibly racially diverse. But I do also wonder a bit about the fetishization aspect of them both racially and of bisexual women.

Natalia: So, with all of these experiences, what have you learned about what gives you pleasure and what you want in your next relationship?

I’ve learned how to communicate what my needs and wants are. I’m not afraid to ask for what I want but I’m also not the kind of person who needs to orgasm every time to enjoy sex. As long as you are able to get me off some way, that’s fine. What a lot of people don’t understand is that women can orgasm from penetration and clitorally, and knowing which one is better for you is key to having a good sexual experience. Also, developing healthy communication and trust with your partner is definitely crucial.

I would say that ideally I’d like to be “monogamish.” I would want my partner to be open-minded, but not being able to explore group sex together is not going to be a make or break thing for me at this point. Would it be more than a nice-to-have? Absolutely. I think part of that is because I like having a range of experiences. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t want to have either a fully open or polyamorous relationship. I hate dating. I’m kind of an introvert and hate small talk with strangers. It’s not that I don’t necessarily want my partner dating other people. It’s more that I don’t want to have to seek other people out. Besides, I have a hard enough time finding even one person I want to date, imagine having to find more!

Natalia: Do you have advice for people who are curious about exploring group sex, wether it be seeking it out themselves or talking to their partner about it?

Erin: You have to think about why you want to do it. If you’re in a relationship and you’re doing it for the first time, you have to have a really serious conversation with your partner. If you’re doing it to please your partner, it’s probably not a good idea, like if you think they will leave you if you don’t do it. I think the best way to bring it up is from a sexy stand-point. You can say you’ve always been interested in watching you partner have sex with someone else or your partner watching you have sex with someone else, and this could be a fun thing to explore together, which is really how I really came around to it. But you definitely have to create boundaries and take ownership for when those boundaries are violated.

In bringing it up the first time, it’s probably best to pose it as a question. When you’re getting to know your partner, it’s common to talk about what you’ve tried sexually before. We’re at the age now where people are over asking how many people you’ve slept with. That’s a dumb question anyway because what are you learning aside from just feeding your own insecurities? You can ask: What have you liked in the past? What haven’t you done that you would want to do? If you agree that group sex is something you’d both like to try, the challenge then becomes finding participants.

Natalia: Alright girl, before we wrap this up, you have to tell me what you’ve been doing in pandemic to please yourself! How’s it been for you?

Erin: I’ve been watching a weird amount of porn hub. I was led there originally because it was brought to my attention a guy I went to high school with has a video with his wife — it’s Westworld-themed. Once I watched that, I was like “Hmmm, I might as well see what else is going on here” (laughs). That’s about it though, things haven’t been too exciting given the circumstances.

Natalia: So you do not recommend group sex during pandemic, right?

Erin: Haha! Yeah, not recommended for the time being.

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As a final note, I just want to send a massive thank you to Erin for being my first interview for this project, for being so frank and open and for trusting me with sharing her intimate stories. If you want to connect with Erin, you can visit her website (https://www.erin-gee.ca/) or follow her on Instagram (@erin.gee).