Tuesday, Sep 6, 2022 • 25min
TABOO TUESDAY: Let's Talk About Sex with Inventor of the Hashtag, Chris Messina
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Chris Messina has over a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, but he wasn’t thinking about that when he accepted a challenge from his partner to be more vocal about his sexual desires, and updated his profile to include a personal goal of giving her more orgasms. Cut to the following day when people were shocked to see that this tech leader credited with inventing the hashtag had posted something so personal in such a public way. But for Chris, this event was a turning point for him in speaking more freely about sex without fear or shame. In this Taboo Tuesday, Chris talks to Dr. Emily about his journey to accepting himself as a sexual being and navigating a world where many people are not comfortable talking about sex openly.
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Chris Messina
Emily Anhalt
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Chris Messina
00:00
All these people were like flabbergasted because the version that they knew of me, suddenly broke, people thought I had been hacked, they thought that people, someone else had taken over my account. Some people were like, "Oh, another guy who wants to have sex. Look at that, That's so unusual".
Share
00:16
And so part of it was like, "No, you don't understand for so much of my life”. I thought sex was dangerous, something I shouldn't want, something that I should repress something that my gender tends to use as a blunt instrument or as a type of force against other people to get power from other people. That's not what I wanted to be.
Share
Emily Anhalt
00:36
Welcome to Taboo Tuesday, on the Emotionally Fit podcast. I'm dr Emily Anhalt and I've always loved talking about Taboo subjects, sex money, drugs, death because being a therapist has taught me that the feelings were most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal.
Share
00:54
So join me as we flex our feels by diving into things you might not say out loud, but you're definitely not the only one thinking.
Share
01:03
Quick disclaimer that nothing in this podcast should be taken as professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Because while I am a therapist, I'm not your therapist and I'm not my guest therapist. So this is intended only to spark interesting conversation.
Share
01:17
Thanks for tuning in.
Share
01:23
Hi everyone I'm here with
Chris Messina
today. Chris
is widely known for being the inventor of the hashtag
, which is pretty damn cool mark to make on our modern world, I'd say.Share
01:33
But if any of you out there have ever done something really notable, you probably know there's a lot more to a person than the most widely known accomplishment, and I think a lot of people just tag
Chris
as the inventor of the hashtag
and that's that, but he's so much more than that. He has designed products and experiences for Google
and Uber
, he's founded startups.Share
01:51
He's created movements, he's done to
TED X
talks and fostered really important and beautiful relationships all over the world and he's been all over the media. He's been quoted in all kinds of things like The New York Times
and Wall Street Journal
and he's also had done a lot of his own writing.Share
02:05
By the way, he's also just a really cool human being who I am so lucky to have been connected to on
Twitter
years ago and over those years we've fostered a really amazing relationship and we've spoken around the world together. So I'm so excited to be talking with him today.Share
02:19
Welcome
Chris
.Share
Chris Messina
02:20
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Share
Emily Anhalt
02:21
It's an honor to have you. And you know when we're trying to think about what you're taboo topic should be. We went all over the place because you are a person who's not afraid to have tough conversations and you've put a lot of taboo stuff out there, and it's been really important, and when we really landed on our topic essentially came to this idea of like, hey, I have a sex life, I have sex. I am a sexual being and I'm not afraid to talk about it.
Share
02:43
And it's a complicated thing in our time as we're coming to understand privilege and power dynamics and that sex is one way in which privilege and power dynamics are played out. And there's a lot of sensitivity and people going to the opposite extreme where they don't feel like they can even admit to themselves or others that they are a sexual being with needs and desires.
Share
03:00
So maybe you can share to whatever extent you're comfortable or willingly uncomfortable about your own journey, as accepting yourself as a sexual being and figuring out how to present yourself as such in a world where the messages are really mixed about what's kind of okay and not okay.
Share
Chris Messina
03:15
Yeah, and I think that's still a budding aspect of my personality. You know, in 2015, was interviewed by
CNN
to talk about non-monogamy
and polyamory
and I like to look at that moment of myself as a kind of character as I'm sure I look at myself now a couple years in the future in this moment and say, "Wow, what a young idiot or, you know, babe in the woods I was".Share
03:37
But part of it is trying to get to a place where your own relationship to sex is like a healthy one and one where you can feel secure in yourself, and then interact with other people from that place of security in order to help someone else feel safe in their own sexuality, and to work on something together.
Share
03:53
And again, that's not something I've always been able to do. It's relatively new, I would say in my life. But I guess what I will say my process has been one of maybe denying a lot of like my own sexuality and repressing my own sexual desire because I grew up without the ability to trust my sexuality as a man.
Share
04:12
Sexual assault is something that is in my family and something certainly that my mom experienced and something I've experienced and knowing that I didn't know how as a man to trust my own self when it came to my desires. They seemed to be from an evil place or something because I didn't understand them.
Share
04:29
And so what I think has happened in the last several years is that I've become more willing to be curious about it and I've had partners that I think I've been more open to allowing me space to explore whether that's aggression or whether that's just, you know, intimacy and then to I think talk about it afterwards.
Share
04:48
And then also to receive what someone might be interested in trying out or exploring. It's so important to create a safe container and I wasn't a safe container. And so that was a process that I had to do with myself to get true with myself. Like what is it that I'm desiring right now. What am I not saying? Why am I not saying those things?
Share
05:04
And if I say those things, who is really at risk? Is it because I might get turned down and if I get turned down, what does that lead to? Or if I say this thing, will that hurt the other person's experience or will they not trust me or you know, will they wonder or be skeptical about what's motivating this desire?
Share
05:22
So it's just made me sit with those things for I think a lot longer and then try to observe and read and listen and you know like
Esther Perel
I think has been transformational in learning about some of these things and learning about ways to talk about them and it's so great that there's so much that's out there now, that's nonjudgmental, that's non shaming, and has given me a way to develop that part, that inter-language, that ability to communicate in a way that I previously couldn't.Share
Emily Anhalt
05:47
So I feel like you so beautifully talk about things in the abstract and I'm curious if I could I challenge you to and take your time to think about this if you need to, what is a more kind of concrete example of what this has looked like for you. Maybe you can share a misstep or a lesson or something that you've come across that people might be able to understand your point.
Share
Chris Messina
06:07
Yeah, like there's this one experience that I had. I think I've gone out and maybe had some drinks or something and you know, I wasn't thinking that hard about it and my partner texted me and we were sort of going back and forth in this, this dialogue.
Share
06:20
She actually talks about sex quite quite publicly. She challenged me to change my
Twitter
bio to talk about giving her orgasms, specifically more organisms per day than I had previously or something. To like challenge myself to like rise to this new occasion.Share
Emily Anhalt
06:35
And wait, were you already giving her more orgasms than ever before? Or was she asking you to put this in your bio so that you would make that your goal?
Share
Chris Messina
06:43
I think yeah, I am forgetting the details. But what I will say is that the important thing was that I had never really talked about sex on my social media profiles in this way. Like, I don't like the interview, you know, with
CNN
and that was about like non-monogamy and like relationships.Share
07:01
But that that simply was about thinking differently about what monogamy is what it means, why that one way of doing things may not be the only way that people should construct their relationships. I hadn't actually ever talked about like the "O" word or "sex" before quite so publicly.
Share
07:17
And so, you know, changing my bio granted, like, I have 100,000 followers, and so if I change my bio, I don't actually think that like 100,000 people gonna see it, like it's so obscure right? There's so many people on social media now that I'm just kind of like whatever.
Share
Emily Anhalt
07:29
Funny how people notice the word "orgasm" more than other words, ah?
Share
Chris Messina
07:32
Well, so the funny thing about it, which I hadn't thought about was there's a service called Spoonbill or something, which I think is a type of duck... doesn't matter. But what it does is it actually tracks the bios of people that are following. And if it makes a change, you get an email notification that says, hey, this person change their bio. It's a great way to see people changing jobs and stuff like that, right?
Share
07:50
So of course when my bio changed changed to be about giving my partner the most orgasms, like she's ever had that caught some people's attention. So anyways, I changed my bio and this was like, I don't know, it was like midnight or something, one am in new york.
Share
08:04
So I went to bed and of course, like the next morning, all these people with so many more followers were like... flabbergasted, because the version that they knew of me that had clearly been spending years constructing in their minds suddenly broke. It was like, people thought I had been hacked they thought that people, someone else had taken over my account.
Share
08:22
They were like, what is going on? You know? And that gave me this really interesting moment, one to consider the perception that I created with myself and also the way in which I hadn't fully integrated this other part. And then to also realize that for all these people that are criticizing me for talking about orgasms with my partner who challenged me to put this in my bio, right?
Share
08:41
Like the problem was so many levels deep because some people are like, oh, look at this asshole who's like talking about, you know, wanting to like have sex, Oh, another guy who wants to have sex. Look at that, that's so unusual. But this was different. At least to me it seemed different.
Share
08:56
And so part of it was like, no, no, you understand like for so much of my life, I thought sex was dangerous, something I shouldn't want something that I should repress something that my gender tends to use as a blunt instrument or as a type of force against other people to get power from other people.
Share
09:11
That's not what I wanted to be. And so for me to put this out there in the world is for me to say actually I feel comfortable with this part of me and I'm not afraid of this part and I feel bad for you if you're a guy and you see this and you're intimidated by this or you think I'm an asshole or like whatever, you have no idea.
Share
09:25
So the lack of curiosity and the lack of response specifically from tech people around saying like that's amazing. Like why don't we all like get in concert and giving our partners amazing orgasms. Like, you know, for a month to me suggests where there is this gap and I mean literally is a gap but also like a gap in the conversation.
Share
Emily Anhalt
09:45
Well, what's so complicated too is, I feel like you represent tech in this really interesting way for so many people. Like you invented the
hashtag
, there's something so tech about that. I almost don't even know how to handle it.Share
09:57
And the idea of marrying tech and sex is really complicated because most of what we see in the media when you see tech and sex in the same sentence is an abuse of power or something going really wrong or someone being really thoughtless and insensitive and I can understand the dilemma of the modern man where it can seem unclear about how to integrate these things in a thoughtful and respectful way and knowing that they're going to be some people who are hurt and offended no matter what, because they haven't been treated with the respect that they should have been up till now.
Share
Chris Messina
10:28
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's even like why I continue to, I don't want to say like struggle but still find it a little bit peculiar and awkward. There are some parts of my life where being able to talk about sex is the same thing is like talking about like the breakfast cereal that you had or something like it's just not that remarkable and it's something that everyone does in other context.
Share
10:47
It's harder to have those conversations like people feel like, "Oh, I don't want to talk about this" are like, it's like it's a problem, it's fraught because sex is such a personal thing and it's so deeply about the individual and about all the stories and experiences that they've ever had.
Share
11:02
And it's a very personal thing because certainly evolutionarily like long term your ability to either, you know, have sex, cultivate sex, engage in sex has been part of your ability to like, you know, belong and to fit in. And sex has been used in so many different ways for better and worse in human culture that it's so hard to take anything for granted and to make any assumptions.
Share
11:23
And so every time you come into a conversation about sex, it's almost like you have to like warm up and like have an onboarding conversation to say where you at with this and how do you feel about it and to have the conversation frankly and you kind of have to constantly check-in.
Share
Emily Anhalt
11:37
But the other thing that's complicated about it is our society so scared of sex and asks people to deny such natural and universal feelings all the time. And my experience as a therapist has taught me that most acting out and most crime and most, you know, harmful things that people do come from some version of never having been allowed to think and feel and say things until they just come out in some crazy action.
Share
12:02
And so while starting to have these conversations feels really important. I also think having them younger and in safer places and helping people. I mean we live in this, you know, Judeo Christian society where you're supposed to not even want it until you're married and it's just not how it works. And so how do we start having these conversations in ways that make people feel safe to even look at these things in themselves?
Share
Chris Messina
12:25
Yeah, obviously these are huge questions, and a lot of it I think comes from studying history and how we get to be this way. Like, we are the first real generation that I don't want to say takes birth control for granted, but where birth control is sort of universally accessible, whether it's good about is its own conversation, but the fact that sex is not simply done anymore just for procreation allows us to actually get into the body and to experience things that, you know, are actually biologically driven motivators to get us to reproduce.
Share
12:57
You know, if the like the best feeling that you could have as a human was to like eat, we would just eat ourselves to death and then, you know, we sort of fade away. But instead our biology has like been created to give us the perception that we want to have sex because that's the way that our reward system is built up and it's so powerful and it has to be powerful because again, we would die off if it weren't so powerful.
Share
13:17
So you have to sort of acknowledge who and what we are as an organic creature and then take that and put that into the context of culture and civilization.
Share
13:26
And we find ourselves in this moment where we're becoming deeply electrified in a sense, like we're living in technology that allows us to get exactly what we want without any concern or care or respect for the tools in which we get those things. So something specifically about like voice assistants like
Alexa
or Siri
, you don't have to ask like consent or you know, send Siri birthday card or things like that.Share
13:48
We're losing some of those ways in which we can look each other in the eye and sort of gauge how the other person is doing. And then to ask, inquisitive, like... "how are you?" to show deep empathy and care. And I think that that's something that desperately needs to be reified in our education system.
Share
14:07
Because I think what you're saying in this conversation like about sex or having this conversation about sex, where there's like a warmup requires you to really care about someone's experience to be as curious about all the ways in which they got to the way that they are now as the outcome that you're trying to get to.
Share
Emily Anhalt
14:22
A conversation for play.
Share
Chris Messina
14:24
For sure, 100%.
Share
Emily Anhalt
14:25
Like expecting someone to be ready for something that's ultimately a very stimulate experience before they can wrap their mind and their body around. Being ready to have that experience is not ultimately going to be good for anyone.
Share
14:36
But I'm curious, you know, you have this huge reaction on
Twitter
from this bio change, you are out there having these conversations and what have you found has evolved as you started to put yourself out there in what ways do you feel more confident talking about yourself as a sexual being and person on deck, and in what ways do you feel like you still have to be a little bit careful?Share
Chris Messina
14:57
I think maybe part of the shift has been just feeling less like a person in tech, a lot of people are looking for tech to make all these changes to fix all the problems and I fundamentally don't think the tech is going to solve any of the problems. I think that the problems are actually with the people and with the individuals and granted that's a much harder thing to change.
Share
15:15
But maybe I have that vantage point or perspective because of my relationship to the
hashtag
, it's like if I went back to 2007 and was like, "Okay, you need to convince everyone in the world to change the way that they write their words in order to create this new environment where people could have conversations across the world spontaneously in a moment's notice, without ever pre coordinating and suddenly, you know, they're learning about things and experiences that they're having that are actually matched elsewhere".Share
15:43
I would've been like, "Yeah, right? Like that's never gonna happen". And then it did.
Share
15:46
And so if in a similar way through conversations like this or through modeling those conversations, which is exactly what I did with the
hashtag
, it was like, here's how I think this thing could work, let me show you and I'll just keep doing it over and over again and I will find little moments of leverage to show people how this can be beneficial with a little bit of change on their own parts.Share
16:05
In a similar way, I hope in the next 10 to 15 years these kinds of conversations will lead the next generation to be able to check in with themselves, to slow themselves down, to be able to build that into their products, to be able to say, you know, "Is this the right thing for me right now?".
Share
16:18
Like maybe one of the big problems that we're experiencing is that tech doesn't actually have a consent model for us, right? Like it does in a sense, it's like, you know, do you want to allow this app to use your location, right? But then you can't actually ask questions of it: what is your real intent? What are you really doing with this? Like you know if I'm gonna send you nudes who are gonna show it to, right?
Share
16:37
Like that's a big omission in our technology that we have with humans. And so unless we have that ability within each other and the conversations that we have with each other, we're not going to build it into our software.
Share
16:47
So that's where I guess I see this kind of going and what's changed for me. I think I used to maybe have more faith in the tech of being just like fix things that way. And now I don't believe that anymore.
Share
Emily Anhalt
16:57
You know what I love about conversations with you
Chris
is it's like we're on this magical A. D. H. D. journey together and I never know where we're gonna end up but I'm always down. It's always interesting. Never could have predicted it at the beginning.Share
17:09
Since we're coming slightly to the end of things, I'm curious if we can sort of tied up what would you suggest to people out there. Maybe we'll even focus it on men out there who are wanting to start being more open about themselves as sexual creatures and have these conversations while still acknowledging that that puts others in a tough and sometimes unsafe feeling position.
Share
Chris Messina
17:30
Yeah, and again I just wanna like check my own place in this. Like... I'm one person developing my own story discovering and finding things out and I don't have all or any of the answers.
Share
Emily Anhalt
17:41
Sure.
Share
Chris Messina
17:41
Like, it's evolving. And I say that because like I also noticed that there's a kind of aesthetic around like "
allyship
", that seems to be developing as well and I honestly think that the first part, if I were to have a conversation with myself 10 years ago, like the right kind of allyship to start working on is actually allyship
with yourself.Share
17:58
Like there's no way for me to help someone else feel safe in my presence if I don't feel safe within my own presence. And so a lot of that work has been like what is driving me to like want this experience right now or to want this from this other person and to be able to get really, really good about and really intuitive about that.
Share
18:14
And then also I think on the one hand it's that is recognizing okay, what's motivating me to want this right now? Is it that I want them to feel a certain way or want me to feel a certain way or do I want power or do I want to feel validated? What is it?
Share
18:25
And so the other thing that's really important to think about is checking your own desire for a certain set of outcomes if you can separate yourself from having any certain thing happen? I think that also is a really good way of cultivating safety within yourself because if you're not going to get disappointed if it's okay for the other person to like reject you in a conventional sense but you don't take it as rejection.
Share
18:47
You take it as like, "Oh look, it's like raining outside." Like am I angry at the sky because it got cloudy and I wanted it to be sunny. No it's just like the way it is. So in this moment you know you might be with a partner or something like that and they're not feeling it for whatever reason, you know something shitty happened at work, it has nothing to do with you.
Share
19:03
So if you allow them that space and their own self sovereignty and then to communicate with you then when they already then I imagine that they're gonna be a lot more ready and willing because they know that it's safe to say this isn't what I want right now. So I think that's the other thing that I would go back and talk to myself about.
Share
19:19
So one is about being an ally with yourself, checking in with yourself like understanding what's driving your motivations and then the other is to lose any attachment to outcomes, to allow the other person to say you know what I'm not really wanting it right now but like you know come back to me like tomorrow or something and we'll try again. And to be totally okay with that.
Share
Emily Anhalt
19:36
Yeah, I know that this is the most broken record thing I do, but I just find it really hard to imagine this being a journey that's possible to do on your own. And because I think it's unfair to ask people around us to do it for us, that is why I believe so strongly in therapy.
Share
19:53
Like find a person whose job it is to help you do this work on yourself because it's impossible to do in isolation because it's all about interpersonal dynamics anyway, so if I can push one idea around all of this, it's that this journey that you're trying to go on in the world has to start with the inner work.
Share
Chris Messina
20:09
Yeah and I will say like, I've done a lot of therapy, like I had a lot of help in that sense for me to be able to play out these ideas in a context where I had that ability to sort of investigate and to explore right? To go into therapy as though they are, you know, a trainer for your mind and your emotional health because you're going there for yourself.
Share
20:28
You're not going there to like, please them or to make them feel good, they're there to hold space for you to you know, throw out a bunch of idea dice in a sense and see what comes up and then to talk about it, to put it on the table and say, well why do you want that aggression or why are you looking to like I feel that way, And is there a way for you to explore those feelings in a way that's actually healthy for you and for your partner as opposed to being imposed on the other person...
Share
Emily Anhalt
20:50
Yeah.
Share
Chris Messina
20:50
... therapy is totally necessary for that.
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Emily Anhalt
20:52
For sure, and if you're doing a depth-oriented therapy, like psychodynamic psychoanalytic therapy, there's this added layer, which is this therapist-trained ability to say, "I don't think you understand the way you're coming across right now", or, "Did you intend to make me feel this particular way? Because that's what's happening right now".
Share
21:09
And it's this safe way to better understand the effect you're having on people around you versus expecting those who have their own needs kind of separate from you to bear that burden? I think there's something really relieving about having that space.
Share
Chris Messina
21:23
Yeah, I mean, it's it's something that I think a lot of people actually struggle to provide to each other, because it is very hard, it's very hard to not get caught up in your own reactions to what someone else might say to your own emotional responses and what is so great or what is great about a good therapist and there's plenty that aren't so good.
Share
21:40
Are those who can one hold you accountable to the things that you say, and then to act almost like your internal monologue?
Share
21:46
But with the sort of externalized perspective to say, like you said, did you realize that this is what you just said and you realize like if you were on the receiving end of this, that you would probably feel this other way? And let's walk through that.
Share
21:59
And without any shame or any judgment just to sort of pointed out to you. You know, here's a picture that I just took of you, what do you think of it? You know, and have that conversation as opposed to. "Oh, you're really an asshole right now.".
Share
22:09
You know, like that, that type of labeling I think is where so much of the conversation breaks down and so having that ability to just, you know, blow out to just the basics, the basic concepts, here's what's going on, let's talk about it. Super useful.
Share
Emily Anhalt
22:23
Well, I love that we started at sex and ended that therapy. That's my favorite kind of conversation we have. So the way I end every episode is I'm gonna hand you a list of really personal questions and I'd like you to read them over and pick whichever one you feel okay, answering, read it out loud and answer for everyone.
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Chris Messina
22:40
Okay.
Share
22:44
This I feel like this is very cliche to admit, but actually I've been thinking about this a lot. So I'm just gonna say it.
Share
22:49
"So if you could switch bodies with someone of the opposite gender for a week, what are some things you would do?"
Share
22:53
Well, I would probably spend a lot of time masturbating, because I don't have a clitoris or a vagina and I'm very curious how they work and what it feels like to have one.
Share
23:03
You know like to have a part of your body that has 8,000 nerve endings just sounds really intense but also like really interesting, like I can't twiddle my kneecap like enough, you know, to like get to that level of intensity. So...
Share
Emily Anhalt
23:16
Ah yes, it is a blessing and a curse, my friend.
Share
23:19
I realized too that I wrote this question in a really not sensitive way, which as I said, opposite and gender. We're actually not talking about gender. I'm talking about biological sex and opposite implies that there's only two, which I don't think it's fair either. So let me at least kind of back on that.
Share
Chris Messina
23:33
Thank you. I did notice that and I was like, "Well I guess I'll take the question as written". But yeah, you know, it's there's a Kickstarter that I noticed recently that's for bathroom signs and what I think is so smart about it is that it's just based on the features.
Share
23:48
So for example, they will have like a list, you know, like there's a toilet, there's a urinal, there's like a sink. And in a similar way you could ask that question, "If you could have any other body parts that you want to try for a week. What would that be?"
Share
Emily Anhalt
23:59
I like that? Well, this conversation has been wonderful as it always is when we chat. Thank you so much for coming down and I look forward to continuing it as we go on.
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Chris Messina
24:08
Awesome, thank you.
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Emily Anhalt
24:09
Thanks
Chris.
Share
24:12
Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit hosted by me, Dr Emily Anhalt. New Taboo Tuesday's drop every other week. How did today's Taboo subject land with you? Tweet your experience with the
hashtag
Emotionally Fit and follow me @dremilyanhalt.Share
24:31
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Chris Messina
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