Ahead of the February 11 Residence 11 Desire Summit on Sex and Relationships (get tickets here!), we’re conducting a series of livestream interviews with Summit speakers. You can watch them live or after the fact on our YouTube channel, Facebook page or Twitter account, and ask questions for our interviewees.
Watch our interview below with Residence 11 Editor-in-Chief Rachel Kramer Bussel and sex educator and author Erin Tillman where the explore her background in sexual education and how she found herself in her current profession, her hypothesis on late bloomers, and how the #Metoo movement helped her pivot her career into focusing on consent. Erin will be one of the many talented guest speakers at the Residence 11 Summit in 2023. She will be speaking about Managing Jealousy in Polyamorous Relationships with Kevin Patterson. Watch the full interview below.
Erin Tillman is a certified intimacy coordinator, certified sex educator, inclusive dating and consent empowerment coach, author and speaker. Erin is the Executive Director of sexuality nonprofit Sex-Positive Los Angeles and is the author of The Consent Guidebook, which was selected by AASECT (The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) to receive their 2021 General Audience Book Award. Erin Tillman is dedicated to empowering singles to have fulfilling dating and relationship lives.
On the inspiration behind her book, The Consent Guidebook:
“I was definitely heavily, heavily emphasizing the fact that I feel like going back to sex ed in school, a lot of people don’t even know the basics. We make an assumption in society, again, I guess, maybe based on what we consider to be a good person or decent behavior or golden rule or whatever thing. And we just assume that everyone has a meeting of the minds in terms of ‘don’t cross a boundary’ or ‘don’t hurt somebody’. There’s no consensus really, there’s no blueprint or rulebook for any of this, which is why there is so much nuance in my estimation, it’s not math.
It’s definitely it’s a crash course in boundaries, a guide for everybody. There’s no specific boundaries for kink. Because I’ve had some people say, ‘Why isn’t there a kink in here?’ Well, because I wanted it to be something that was more mainstream. And also kink boundaries are a whole pack. That’s its own book, right?”
On advice for people in various stages of polyamory:
“Just normalizing the idea that you’re a human being, so feelings are going to come up. Especially if you’re dealing with multiple humans, I mean, just like if you have multiple friends, multiple colleagues, like there’s just a lot of things that are going to come up with different people at different times.
Jealousy is just part of the process a lot of times, and it means that, okay, let’s just have the conversation with say, like, if I go out, if I have a primary, I go out with someone new. And my primary partner says, you know, I felt a little weird about the fact that you went out with that person, and maybe specifically went and did that activity, or you slept over at their house afterward, or whatever it’s like, okay, well, how would it make you feel better? Would there be less feelings or would there be less feelings around if I didn’t sleep over or if I didn’t do that activity that I know you love to?”
Watch the whole interview above and be sure to subscribe to our channels to catch all our interviews!
About the Desire Summit: The Residence 11 Desire Summit, sponsored by sex toy companies FUN FACTORY and Blush, intimate audio platform BLOOM, romance novel publisher Avon Books, and yoga teacher training company Ganja Yoga, will feature extensive educational sessions with over 20 diverse authors and subject matter experts across psychology, physical intimacy, technology innovation, sexual health, music and narrative storytelling. Speakers include writer Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, author of The Sex Lives of African Women, polyamory expert Kevin Patterson, author of Love’s Not Color Blind, sex educator and dating expert Erin Tillman, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling romance author and TikTok favorite Sierra Simone (Priest, American Queen), Mia Hopkins (author of Tanked, one of The New York Times’ best 2022 romances, romance novelist Suzanne Park (The Do Over, The Christmas Clash), and Taylor Hahn, author of swinging novel The Lifestyle, among others. Keynote speakers will be intimacy coach Zoë Kors, author of Radical Intimacy: Cultivate the Deeply Connected Relationships You Desire and Deserve, speaking on 6 Questions That Will Get You Instantly Connected to Anyone, and sex educator Dirty Lola, who appeared as a sexpert on Netflix’s The Principles of Pleasure, speaking on The State of Modern Dating. Get tickets here for the Desire Summit.