Stop taking.

What happens when giving becomes a hidden contract? When dinner comes with an expectation, affection becomes leverage, sex becomes currency, or generosity carries an invisible invoice?

In Episode 33, Flora Petri explores sex, money, power, desire and the covert exchanges underneath our relationships. From touch that wants something from us to the unspoken agreements we create in love, dating, sex and work: Where does giving become taking? What do we secretly believe other people owe us? And what becomes possible when we stop hiding the invoice, get clear about what we actually want, and learn to relate instead?

What happens when sexuality becomes frictionless? When desire is met with a click, novelty is infinite, and nobody asks you to stay after you come?

Porn doesn't exist in isolation. It lives inside a culture increasingly accustomed to immediacy: faster, harder, more, next. And while sex has perhaps never been more visible, our actual sexuality often remains profoundly secret.

In Episode 32, I explore porn not through the tired lens of good or bad, but as a doorway into secrecy, shame, desire, instant gratification and erotic patience. What are we learning about sex when porn becomes one of our teachers? What happens to our capacity to want without immediately getting? And can we consume sexuality without becoming more capable of relating sexually?

Perhaps porn isn't the problem. Perhaps it's a particularly intimate mirror.

Don’t stop watching. Start watching yourself.

Where does aggression go when it has nowhere to go? We weaponize it, against others or ourselves, harming ourselves, or the ones around us. The fist goes through the wall. Or into a face. The other extreme is suppressing it, swallowing it, internalizing it and letting it fester in our bones. Neither teaches us how to actually be with anger. There are some fine and important distinguishes to be made here: anger does not equal violance. Aggression does not equal abuse. Intensity does not equal danger. You see, it truly is a question of the external expression of internal experience. A strong No can show up as anger. It means enough. Back away. A boundary was crossed. I need protection. I need space. I am fucking here.

And, crazy thing, anger and Eros are both life force. They both fiercely protect our aliveness, or life. They are different expressions of the same fire. Sexual energy says: I want. Fuck. Anger says: I don't want. Fuck off.

When are you ever you? At some point the mask might drop, or even worse, you gotta keep it on anyway. You gotta keep it on in your home, with your kids, with your partners, and then the work environment.

What do I want that threatens who I think I am? You might have spent your entire life policing your desires. Not wanting, not being allowed to want. And again, what you find might scare you.

The shadow doesn’t disappear because we are good. It simply gets pushed away to fester in the darkness. What becomes possible when we stop trying to become better people and start admitting that we’re not only good?

Who did you become to be loved? We learn to want less, need less, say less and ask for nothing. But what if intimacy begins when we stop making ourselves smaller and finally dare to say: I WANT.