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Description

Even with a seemingly sensual job, hairdresser Erin is absolutely not thinking about sex at the moment. Since having kids, she’s just trying her best to get dressed each day. And based on conversations with her clients, she’s definitely not alone.

“So before having children, I would say I had a much more active and a much more experimental sex life.” – Erin

As expected, Good Sex contains mature themes and may not be appropriate for all listeners.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Erin, Claire Jones

Erin  00:00

I’ve been a hairdresser longer than I’ve been a sexual human. I actually work in like a small private Salon Suite. So it’s just me and my guest, you will likely walk in to the scent of essential oils, appointments are typically an hour and a half to two hours long starts off with about 15 to 20 minutes of conversation, seeing where you are at in your life as a whole massage thing. You know, I massage your temples and the base of your neck and then we cut. I’ve been told that’s better than sex. Over the course of the last four years, I would say sex actually comes up more often than it used to. All I really have to do is say, hey, how are you? And then I get the emotional vomit. With new clients. If it comes up, it’s because I’ve made a joke. And they’re willing to go with it. Like, oh, yeah, cuz no married woman wants to have sex with her husband, am I right? Things like that. I’ll get their response from that. And then we’ll kind of dive deeper. The most recent conversation I had was a client of mine, and she was telling me about a new doctor that she saw, she stops me while I’m doing her hair. And she says, Erin, you have to try this functional medicine doctor. He told me that I have low testosterone, which, who […]. And in doing so he’s prescribed me a small dosage of testosterone. And now all of a sudden, I want to have sex with my husband. I was floored, I was shocked, I said sign me up because I have a two-year-old and a three-year-old and that just doesn’t exist at the moment. From there, we just kind of went on to continue to discuss other topics. You know, it’s a natural progression of conversation from having sex or not having sex with our husbands to what our toddlers are fucking up that day. Hi, I’m Erin, and you’re listening to GOOD SEX. I’ve been married for five years. And I have two children ages three and two. And it’s just me today because nobody else really wanted to talk about the sex they’re not having.

Claire Jones  02:16

But I’m Claire, the producer, and I am here for Erin today. Thank you so much for doing this with us, Erin. We appreciate it. Okay, so let’s start off with would you describe hair cutting as a sexual experience?

Erin 

I find hair cutting, hair dressing, hairstyling to be more of an emotional experience, as opposed to a physical change. Because so much of our identity is wrapped up in what people see. I think people are inclined to open up to me because I am touching them. There’s just something about breaking barriers. I don’t know. Have you ever had that emotional experience for you? And you know, you’re like totally fine. You’re 100% fine, and then all of a sudden your mom hugs you? And then you’re just like in complete utter tears. touching people can be so when you’re an empath exhausting. These days have been a lot more emotionally taxing on my clients. So I feel a lot more weight within each guest. I think that there is some sort of spiritual thing that happens when you’re being touched. And I feel like the brushing of the hair is probably where it starts because brushing it brings us back to this like nurture place where our mom is stroking our head. We there are people out there that work from home, do everything live alone, and the last person to actually touch them was their hairdresser.

Claire Jones  04:02

How would you describe your sex life?

Erin 

Right now? nonexistent. If you consider sex to be intercourse only, I definitely feel like my love languages are met outside of intercourse. But right now. My sex life does not exist for me.

Claire Jones 

Yeah. So what are your love languages?

Erin 

My love languages are acts of service and words of affirmation. I find that I like to be told that I’m doing a good job. That what I do has value and I like to be shown what I do drives you to show me that you love me. My husband will definitely ask me to have sex. And I will say yes sometimes if the moment is right, but most of the time I say let’s figure something else out.

Claire Jones 

So when you’re thinking about sex, what do you want it to look like?

Erin 

Oh, that’s a hard one. Because right now I don’t think about having sex. I think I’m in a place mentally, where I have so many things on my mind that I don’t think about it at all. And if I were to think about the perfect scenario, I think it would be on vacation, I think I would have the opportunity to slow my mind down so that I can actually enjoy the moment.

Claire Jones 

What kinds of things you consider pleasurable outside of sex?

Erin

Right now, what I consider pleasurable are the quiet moments, sharing space and company. Laughter outside of the children and the daily life of home, holding hands in public and being complimented on things that I do rather than how I look. Right now, in the absence of sex, I would consider that to be my greatest joy.

Claire Jones  06:27

How would you say your sex life is similar to your client’s sex life,

Erin 

All of my clients would prioritize rest and sleep over intercourse. I think if my clients were to have a choice, they would rather perform intercourse on a break, where you actually have to make it a purpose, right a weekend away. 24 hours a staycation something that gives you a break outside of everything inside of your home. And when I find similar to my clients experience that I’m experiencing is that we all have deep love and value for our partner. It’s just that sexual intercourse is not our main focus, or nor is it the way that we experienced the love for our partners.

Claire Jones

Okay, so when you look at yourself in the mirror, where do your eyes go first?

Erin 

That’s a great question. Because I look in the mirror all day long. And so typically, when I wake up in the morning, I find myself avoiding mirrors at home, I will usually go straight to brush my hair, brushing my teeth, throwing clothes on that likely came from the dirty hamper. And then I go straight into mom mode. And then when I get into work, I have mirrors surrounding me. And typically my eyes when I’m working are focused on the human in my chair. So mirrors for me, have kind of become something that are really easy to ignore, because they’re there all of the time.

Claire Jones  08:37

And when you look at your husband, where do your eyes go first?

Erin 

My first instinct is to look into his eyes. I think he expresses a lot of what he’s feeling in his eyes. And so I like to gauge where he’s at, by looking into his eyes and seeing how he’s feeling. I think we found a lot of intimacy, my husband and I in the shower. You know, I’m sure a lot of couples can relate to an intimate shower experience and so was especially when he first started barbering, that would be something that we would experience together a lot, we would shampoo each other’s hair, a lot of things come up, right? You’re cleansing yourself; you’re washing yourself, you’re completely naked. And maybe the lights aren’t on but you actually have to see, right you can’t be complete. pitch dark. Being in the shower is like not the most attractive thing. You’re like wet and dripping. And if you wear makeup, you have no makeup on or it’s coming off. And I you know now that I’m like talking about it. All of these things are coming up now, but I don’t know that doesn’t relate to my industry, right? I don’t know that that might be my kink. And because I can’t get it all day long at the Chair I come home to my husband and you know, yeah, I like washing hair. I like getting my hair washed. I mean, you’re taking me back years now at this point, I haven’t showered with my husband in a long time. Nowadays, it’s a two- and three-year-old.

Claire Jones  10:18

How do you feel like your profession impacted your sex life before kids?

Erin 

I actually think my profession encourages more freedom. I feel very lucky to be in a profession that does not judge you based on age, race, genders, socioeconomic status, sexual preferences, and I feel very lucky to be raised in an environment or brought up professionally in an environment where there is no judgement. So I believe before children, my career actually made it so that I could have a more active sex life. There was a lot more drinking, a lot more partying. And a lot of times when you lose your inhibitions that way, sexual activity happens naturally. So before having children, I would say I had a much more active and a much more experimental sex life.

Claire Jones 

What do you miss if anything about having sex regularly?

Erin 

The feeling of being sexy, there’s really no other way to put it. You know, when you know that you’re wanted and having sex. It does make you feel a little bit better about yourself. If anything, I miss the way I feel the next day. But you know, sleep and getting 12 hours of it, also makes me glow. So sometimes I wonder. Thank you for listening to GOOD SEX.

CREDITS

GOOD SEX is a Lemonada Media original. This show is produced by Claire Jones and Matthew Simonsson. Our supervising producer is Xorje Olivares, with Jackie Danziger as our story editor. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Music is by Dan Molad with additional music from APM music. Sound design is by Matthew Simonsson and Elle Rinaldi. If you like GOOD SEX, the show not, you know? Why don’t you rate and review us listen and follow for new episodes each week, wherever you’re listening right now. And if you want more GOOD SEX, subscribe to Lemonada Premium only on Apple podcasts.