Welcome back to A Slut’s Guide to Happiness where your body is perfectly imperfect and it’s safe to be as sexual, kinky, queer, or slutty as you want. 

I’m really grateful that we get to talk with Steph again today. Last time they joined us on the podcast, they shared their experiences with sex, kink and relationships as a person with autism, as an autistic person.

Today, Steph and I are going to be talking about a super sexy topic – and I do want to reclaim this as a super sexy topic. We’re going to be talking about soft cocks, including the medicalized language of erectile dysfunction, societal expectations of performative sex, and hot bodies that fuck in all kinds of ways. 

Steph is a kinky, queer, switchy which, a community healer, content creator, friend, and an Emotional Support Slut with Cliff Media. 

While there’s plenty of patriarchal ideas about how a female body is supposed to look, I am lucky that there are fewer assumptions about how our bodies as women, as female bodies, as people with vaginas, with cunts, are supposed to work during sex. If my cunt doesn’t get wet, if my clit doesn’t get hard, people are unlikely to notice and normative kind of straight fucking can still happen.

But if someone with a cock doesn’t get hard, regardless of their gender, whether that’s a cisgender man, a genderqueer person, a trans woman, people with cocks, there’s often judgment and some internalized narratives that go on and are associated with that. Cliff Media’s porn production is rooted in welcoming all enthusiastically consenting adults, regardless of how they look or how their body works.

When people are applying to work with us, sometimes people will send pictures and I let them know that the only pictures that we actually want in your application are pictures of your STI test results. Regardless of how your body looks, we want to know if you are a good-hearted person. There have been many times on set that people with dicks haven’t been able to get hard or lose their erection during the scene, because bodies work in all kinds of ways.

Initially, my response was to tell people it’s okay, no worries. That happens to everyone. And sometimes that would help a little bit, but I would notice that people would still step back in group scenes when their dick got soft, stop participating, and often express that they felt bad, like they let me down, and apologize to me later. And these assumptions that hard dicks are necessary for fucking and especially for performative sex are so ingrained in us.

I once had an applicant that gave me some really helpful alternative perspectives. Instead of telling people with dicks not to worry about whether they’re getting hard, instead emphasize the positive. Come in. I’d love to kiss you. I’d love for you to finger my cunt. Instead of saying, do not think about elephants, invite them into connection in other ways.

Today, folks, we are going to think about the elephant in the room for people with dicks in group sex and porn. We’re going to love those elephants. Let’s lean in and talk about soft cocks. 

Steph, thank you so much for joining us again and sharing stories about your body and your social activism. 

I know your thoughts and feelings about the ability to keep an erection have changed a lot over the years, so I want to go back to your marriage. 

You were married for 21 years, that’s a long time. Can you tell us about what feelings you were struggling with later in your marriage around your cock?

Steph: 

Oh my lord, it got to a point where sex became routine and sex became just absolutely non-desirable. And it was very hard – pun intended – to get an erection when you’re not interested in the person you’re in it with. Especially when we talked about angst before. If you feel any type of animosity towards someone you’re with, sexy time doesn’t happen.

I can’t remember the exact number, but I’ve heard 70 – 80% of erectile dysfunction is in your brain. The rest are medical conditions that we’ll talk about more about later.

I struggled with it because of the shame. If I can’t have an erection, I’m done. Why do I bother to try if I can’t get hard? We are expected to have a hard on at a moment’s notice. The question becomes, what are you, not turned on? 

The hard part for me was that I loved my wife. She turned me on, but the brain wasn’t working. She is a beautiful woman and she did turn me on. Just nothing worked. Learning how to get around that was a difficult and arduous task.

I imagine that there’s some self-reinforcing prophecy in that, as you struggle with an erection, then sex becomes associated with those fears or shame. It makes it even harder to feel attracted and aroused. Sex becomes filled with thoughts like, I’m not going to get hard anyway, so why do I bother? When you do try and it doesn’t happen it feels like, see? I shouldn’t have tried. 

It took a lot of therapy, a lot of work exposing myself to the sex-positive community, exposing myself to the sex worker community. One of my best friends that I met at a seminar class three years ago, we did surrogate partner therapy and learned how to navigate this. They said, you’re not having an erection, that’s okay, let’s work on that shame. Let’s talk about that shame. 

That was it was an amazing thing. I had depression and antidepressants and erections don’t mix. That’s true for all sexes, for people with vulvas and penises, they don’t always work. 

There’s a condition called post-SSRI sexual dysfunction. 

Vanessa: 

Can you explain SSRI? 

Steph: 

SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. It’s the psychiatric medication you take for depression. Once you start taking antidepressants, especially for those of us with penises, you might get an erection, but it goes away. 

That’s disappointing. It’s doubly frustrating for penis owners. You’re like, I’m here to play, this is great, and then you just lose it. 

This happens to me at shoots. At the beginning, I’m there, my penis is working great. Then toward the end of the shoot, it just doesn’t work. And that’s just how it is. 

Vanessa: 

It seems like as soon as you get into your head about it, it becomes even harder to participate in sex. I know that, for example, when you’re experiencing depression, isolating yourself can make the depression worse. Sexual connection is one form of connection for people that value it. It can help with depression. 

So this all becomes kind of an entangled process that feeds the shame and nervousness. The stories that are made about having a soft cock are one the keys that is creating the cycle. 

Steph: 

Absolutely. One of the reasons why I’m happy we’re talking about this is to bust this myth that you can’t have sex with a soft dick. That’s not true. 

Vanessa: 

I certainly see that in your interactions at some of the shoots. 

I want to ask you about the way this is discussed in the medical community. I imagine that as you’re experiencing this with your wife, you mentioned talking with therapists. 

I imagine that as you’re “going to fix it”, since you perceived this as a problem at the time, maybe you’re talking to a doctor, what did you experience in the way that professionals were communicating with you about this? 

Steph: 

That’s one thing that the psychological community does not take into effect when someone has depression. We’re treating the symptom. We want to fix the depression. We want to be able to mitigate the depression. So we start throwing medicine right. 

The problem with that is what isn’t spoken is the long-lasting side effects of being on antidepressants for a long period of time. I was on Zoloft and Wellbutrin. Of course my ADHD also kicked in. 

What was difficult, I didn’t understand, I was on these meds to help mitigate my depression, and they all had horrible side effects. 

So I would take Viagra. I was prescribed by a doctor. 

Vanessa: 

So it was written on your medical records that you had erectile dysfunction. 

Steph: 

Yeah, luckily for me, I have the privilege of being retired military. So I always have a medical team and a mental health team. I do my best to make sure that they work together. So I don’t have a lot of trouble getting these things. 

In 2019, it caused a stroke in the middle of sex. I had an orgasm and my partner was beneath me. It took a lot of figuring out what happened. It was the Viagra. It says that right there on the warning label, that it might cause a stroke. It’s rare, but it happens. 

I don’t want that to happen again. So that’s what started the journey to figuring out how I can work with this soft cock? Because strokes are scary. 

Vanessa: 

Yeah, I’m so glad you’re alive and survived it. I haven’t heard that experience before, but it feels very real. Not all medications work with all people’s bodies. 

Vanessa: 

I have heard some people are nervous going into porn shoots or even going into sex clubs or the swinger environments where it’s new, and there’s some shame even attached to taking Viagra. I have heard conversations where people say, almost everyone in the porn industry is taking Viagra before shoots, because not being able to get hard is a very common experience.

But then also there’s this dynamic that you’re describing that I think is important, and maybe a common experience, where Viagra or other kinds of erectile support are not an option for you, whether that’s because you have medical responses to it or because you don’t have access to it. Not everyone has access to health care or health insurance. 

For some people, perhaps they don’t want to have that conversation or engage in medicalized language around how your penis works. There’s lots of potential reasons why people have this experience of soft cocks, and are exploring sex with a soft cock. 

I personally love sucking cocks of all kinds, including soft cocks, especially if it’s still giving the cock owner pleasure. That is one of the many reasons why I was delighted to hear you talk about the organization Body Electric. I think you mentioned it started as a gay men’s organization in relation to this topic.

What do they have to say about soft cocks, or what in the medical world would be labeled erectile dysfunction? 

Steph: 

Yeah, Body Electric is a men’s organization that started focused around gay men. They mapped genitalia. We find erogenous zones. We want to find out what makes your penis work. That is so important to know how your genitals work. Body Electric is really good at penis-positivity, learning how to get through a lot of the mental blocks that are there. 

Another organization that I have worked with in the past is Soft Cock Week. We have professionals come in, psychologists, sex workers or partner therapists, and we talk about personal experiences, some of the myths. 

For example, one of the myths is you can’t have an orgasm with the soft cock. It may not be ejaculate, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not an incredible experience in the body. I will have these body shaking, shattering orgasms. 

You have to get through the taboo of how the male body works. There’s a lot of stigma that you have to get past. You can still experience pleasure, but you gotta get over shame. 

Vanessa: 

I think that this is one of the things that the mainstream porn industry can negatively contribute to sexual assumptions is that if there’s not a cumshot, then it hasn’t been a good sexual interaction. If there’s not a facial or a creampie or something somewhere where male cum is happening, then the partners haven’t done their job and pleasure hasn’t occurred.

One of the things that you’re describing is that that actually doesn’t have to happen. Even if you have a cock, you can still have enormous pleasure without the cock. One of the reasons I love lesbian porn is because there’s no cum right from a penis. They could still be squirting. There’s still people capturing the orgasms. That visual in most mainstream porn ends when there’s ejaculate coming out. It doesn’t have to be that way. 

Steph: 

Yeah, I’m really trying to get over that. At some shoots, I have walked in with a strap-on and I have fucked people with a strap on, and I think that’s what we need to see more of. I’ve turned it into an advantage. Do you want a small cock or bigger? I can get this one or that. Do you want an alien cock? Or a little one for your ass? 

Vanessa: 

I feel like there’s a lot of shame that gets attached to that. If you’re a person with a dick, especially if you’re male-identifying in the world, there’s an idea that you’re not good enough unless your cock is nine inches and hard. But you’re identifying that actually my body is however it is and I can use these tools, like dildos, that help to provide my partner with pleasure of different kinds. The strap-on becomes a facilitator, giving pleasure and lots of different ways. 

Steph: 

Absolutely. It works for me. I’m naturally a service top. So being able to say, do you need something smaller? Or you want to be a size queen today, we can break out the 10-inch tentacle and go to town. You have fantasies and role play. They come out more. Sometimes someone can express, I need that dragon attachment to have fun. 

Vanessa: 

It’s all about fun and play. I feel like this is one of the things where the ethos of queerness, even if you’re straight, even if you’re a guy who likes cis women, can be open to sex in all different ways. Sex outside just penis and vagina allows for a lot more freedom, regardless of how your body works, regardless of whether you have a soft cock or not.

I am really excited to hear more about this badass organization you’re part of, Soft Cock Week. When I was looking up, I saw that actually Soft Cock Week in 2024 is November 10th through 16, which happens to coincide with one of Cliff Media’s open to all shoots, meaning open to straight and queer people coming together in Portland. I’m thinking maybe we can do a soft cock scene. 

Steph: 

That’s fun. I like it.

Vanessa: 

Can you tell us about what Soft Cock Week is? What does this organization do and why does it matter?

Steph: 

I touched on a little bit earlier, therapists, surrogate partner therapists, sex workers, people that understand a lot of the psychological problem. We go out and we talk with people. We have seminars, we’ve got learning materials. We have a lot of testimonials of people that are able to have successful sex lives without having an erection.

That’s one of the reasons I love working with Cliff Media. It’s another vessel to help get the word out. I remember when we were first interacting in the beginning, this is what’s happening. I wasn’t familiar with your ethos yet. Now I feel very comfortable walking in, in whatever state I’m in, just having a wonderful time with wonderful people. 

Vanessa: 

I love that. It feels like part of it is when you realize, regardless of what it is, that you’re experiencing the world, when you realize that you’re not alone, all of a sudden it makes it so much easier.

You are able to think about releasing the shame, able to realize it’s not just a problem with me. I’m not bad for my partner, this is just a different way that bodies work in the world. 

Steph: 

Exactly. And this affects so many, penis owners. If you’ve get prostate cancer, guess what? A huge chunk of how your body worked before is gone. I’ve talked to men post-cancer. They were utterly destroyed, asking, how do I have sex if the parts don’t work anyway?

Okay, let’s get to work, let’s talk. Let’s talk about how the body works and how you work in particular to seek the pleasure that you need. 

Pleasure is important in humans, in human existence. We talk about depression. How do you get back to having sex when your parts don’t work? People think, I need sex to help me not be depressed, but I can’t have sex, so it becomes a vicious cycle that people have a hard time getting out of.  

I’m hoping I can be here and, with your help, to get this word out that it’s not the end of the world. You can still experience a lot of what is out there. 

Vanessa: 

I love that you also mentioned some of the different kinds of disabilities and medical experiences that influence the potential for soft cocks. For example, I know of a couple of people who are in wheelchairs, who are quadriplegic, and they have some different kind of sensitivity. I think the stereotype is that you’re not having sex anymore. But you can actually have amazing sex. 

I want to say that people are beautiful and sexy in all kinds of diverse ways, outside the singular story we hear about hard dicks penetrating vaginas. 

I’d like to go to some sex advice. I know you have lots of sex. No slut-shaming here whatsoever, just celebrating your beautiful, bold life as a slutty poly kinky sex worker. You also have a cock that sometimes gets hard and sometimes it doesn’t. 

For cock owners who want to have sex but can’t get hard, or for people who are attracted to a person with a soft cock, what else can you do besides hard dick in vagina action? What are some other ways you can play with your partner? 

Steph: 

I mentioned one of them. A strap-on is amazing. I know there’s a strap-on that I own that allows not only a dildo or vibrator, but if my cock does decide to work, I can pop that out and still use it. 

Another thing is playing with a flaccid penis can be just as pleasurable. It’s very sensual. The nerve endings are in different positions. 

Vanessa: 

You enjoy the experience. 

Steph: 

Oh my lord, I do. It is one of the most sensual things. There’s no rush to have an orgasm. You just sit there being pleasured by someone taking care and time. It feels amazing. 

And there are other things to focus on. You can focus on the scrotum, right below the balls. I’ve also had partners oil up their hands and gently massage, and it feels good. If you pay attention, you can say, that feels good, let’s go to that spot. 

Some people like their pee hold played with. Or underneath the penis head. You will discover if you go slow, no expectations, that’s the key. You’re not going to cum. Just sit there and enjoy the sensation of being in your body and the gift that someone is giving you of touch. 

Vanessa: 

So options include a lot of sensation play and that connection, still having sexual and potentially romantic interactions. I also think about, I was lesbian for eight years. It was a long time before I started interacting with straight sex. So I also thing about fingers. 

Steph: 

Absolutely, you’ve got toys, fingers, fists, tongues. Some people like toes. There’s al kinds of things. Some people play with fruits and vegetables. Be careful there, make sure you clean them. But the possibilities are endless for toys. 

Another thing I would recommend for penis owners is prostate play. It’s a gateway to amazing pleasure. I know I was one of the people who thought a finger up my butt was just no. 

I’ll share a quick personal story. I was at a campground in New Mexico. I was at the campground shower and all of sudden it just hit me. I’m going to put my finger in my butt while I’m in there. It was at a campground, it was the cool air of the evening. Sometimes it just hits you. And it’s okay to listen to those voices in your head. 

They’re saying, it’s okay to do this, there’s nobody around. Just be patient with yourself. 

Vanessa: 

I love hearing two things about that. One, that masturbation, playing with yourself, was one of the ways that you figured out new sources of pleasure. 

And two, I’ve been with guys who have said, “I don’t play that way, I don’t put things up my butt, I’m not gay” even though that’s totally irrelevant if you’re penetrating your own butt or a woman is doing that. It’s great to be gay, but you also don’t have to be gay in order to have a finger up your butt. 

Steph: 

Yeah, let’s dispel that myth. If you’re in a cis het relationship and you get something up your butt, that doesn’t make you gay. You’re not interacting with a person of the same gender. 

I was in the military for 20-plus years. That’s it, I’ve seen the toxic masculinity, where sometimes they don’t even wipe their butt because it might be gay. I feel like, dude come on, take a shower. It’s okay, touch your butt, explore your body. I have noticed that men are scared of exploring their bodies. There are people that don’t even catch their testicular cancer, prostate cancer, color cancer, because they are so frightened of their bodies. 

This is why I’m here to help dispel these myths. You, viewer, are an important person, if not to yourself at this time, you’re important to somebody. You have to know how your body works so you can keep and maintain it, and so you can experience pleasure. 

Vanessa: 

There’s so many erogenous zones. I know someone who gets most aroused by having their nipples played with. That is an important part of their sexuality. You can have deep, powerful interactions, you can get your partner off, feel pleasure, and have connections, even if you’re not doing the normative mainstream porn like nine inch Dick in a little wet pussy. 

Steph: 

I have witnessed a man play with his nipples and he came through his socks. It was one of the hottest things I ever seen in my life. 

Vanessa: 

There’s so much to explore. I want to close as we do with a love note to all the fabulous men, women and queer people out there who are feeling self-conscious, ashamed, shy or uncomfortable about having a cock that doesn’t always want to get hard.

Steph: 

I want to encourage you first to never have to apologize about that again because you are a beautiful human. I want to offer it to you to share as awesome as an experience from a person with sometimes a soft cock. 

Discovering myself was difficult because I’m autistic and have ADHD so I lose attention with myself really quickly. I get bored. But learning how to stick with it and exploring yourself to see how you work is important. It unlocks doors to new ways of pleasure and new ways of happiness.

The heteronormative trope, that I have a massive boner in order to be happy sexually, is simply not true. I want to make sure that it is understood that you’re perfect the way you are and you are not broken. 

Vanessa: 

Yes. For me, the two hottest things that I can imagine in a partner are confidence and happiness. If that person is asking for what they want, if they know how to explore pleasure, if they’re open to exploring pleasure, and they’re down for the joy, that’s the magic. 

So thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your experience and perspectives, Steph. And thank you all for listening today.

This has been another edition of A Slut’s Guide to Happiness with your host, Vanessa Cliff and our fabulous guest, Stephan Takaya.

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, as well as on cliffmediaproductions.com. 

If you’re over the age of 18, you can also check out our video content on our website, cliffmediaproductions.com. 

And most of all, I invite you to join us in the pleasure of being awkwardly human, naked and without pretense. 

Let’s get free.