Intimacy, PCOS and taking back your sexuality w/ special guest Catherine Drysdale

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains topics that may be triggering including sexual assault

Welcome back to the Period Chats Podcast!

Today we’re talking about all things relationships, sex, and being a cyclical person.

Our guest is my friend Catherine Drysdale, a sex and relationship coach who teaches about pleasure, intimacy, communication, and enhancing love.

Catherine explains her journey with PCOS, pain, being mis-diagnosed for years, taking progesterone-based birth control, having IUD struggles, and finally getting her hormones tested (her progesterone and testosterone were high). She’s been off birth control for 8 years and managing her symptoms successfully through diet, proper exercise for her body, and seed cycling.

We also talk about sex education reform, and how people’s views on sex are shaped by their early education. Many states don’t even require sex ed to be medically accurate, and a lot of education curriculum and videos are basically abstinence-based scare tactics. It’s so inspiring to hear how Catherine is working to change this, and her passion for implementing more emotionally intelligent and well-rounded education for kids.

We also talk about the journey of learning to be more present during sexual experiences, creating good communication with our partners, and taking the time to heal from the past.

She explains the spectrum of “consensual” and what it takes to cultivate fully consensual relationships. And, she shares where to begin to heal if you’ve had experiences that were not fully consensual.

Catherine shares about the sexual assault she experienced in her college years, how it felt to be invalidated while taking the right steps to report the crime (even with physical proof, and arrest and detainment of her abusers, her school denied the fact that it was rape), and what has helped her heal from the trauma and depression that resulted after this injustice.

I’m so inspired and amazed as I look at Catherine’s journey and how even the shitty experiences we have to work through can become part of how we help the world, use our voices, and let others know that what they feel is real and right.

Read the Vice article:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34gj5/sexual-tension-relationships-desire-mutual

Follow Catherine on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcatherinedrysdale