 Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, featuring interviews that take us deeper into the people and happenings on the local scene. For more podcasts and a closer look at what's going on in the valley, visit us at valleyadvocate.com. Hi, this is Dave Eisenstetter. I am the editor of the advocate. Welcome to the Valley Advocate Podcast, which is a collaboration with Amherst Media. I'm here with arts and culture editor Gina Beavers. Yes, and we are here with Yana Tallon-Hicks, who is our sex columnist. I was going to say sex education columnist, but I can leave that out. Thanks to our sex columnist and relationship therapist. Yeah. Welcome. Thank you. So glad to have you here. So tell us how you got started. So it's a little bit of a long story. I'm a born and bred local, the Western Mass. So I actually went to Hampshire College. And when I started there, I intended to be a creative writing and photography major. But I ended up taking this class called Youth, Sexuality and Education. It's about the state of sex education in our country for young people, which as we know is really bad, which is a big motivator in my work. So I ended up twisting my major that way because we can make our own majors. So I just got really into the idea that sex education is awful and that there are ways for us to make it better. So I really got into that. So with the creative writing, you definitely wanted to be a writer. Yeah, I really did want to be a writer. I was writing since I was a little kid. I would publish books in notebooks. That's so cute. Oh my goodness. They're really cute. Were they one-offs or did you copy them and give us all your people? I had some chapter books that I wrote. My mom's favorite chapter book that I wrote was called The Chubb. And it was all about a tiny dog that was fat who also was magical. Oh my gosh. So that's going to come out next year under Penguin Press or something like that. You can have a whole new ball game in this thing and be a billionaire. So what happened after you left to Hampshire? So after I left to Hampshire, I ended up going to San Francisco. So I got a grant. I worked with Carol Queen at the Center for Sex and Culture. And then I also worked at Good Vibrations, which is a feminist sex toy store. They are famous for making the Hitachi Magic Wand famous, which as we know, was very important to me. And yeah, I ended up falling in love while I was there. So when I graduated, I moved back. And I ended up living there for a couple of years. And then I also wrote for a national lesbian magazine called Curve while I was there. So I was selling sex toys by night. I was writing by day. And naturally, those two things kind of went together. Perfect. And then when I moved back to Massachusetts, I just wrote in to the advocate. And I was like, I really want to write a sex column. Like, please let me do it. And they were just like, OK, sure, go ahead. So much easier than you thought. Yeah, it was so nice. And people are like, how did you get the column? And I'm like, well, I did this thing where I asked for what I wanted, which is very translatable to the work that I do. So it's kind of perfect that it ended up that way. And we're so glad to have it. Absolutely. I remember in the advocate a long time ago, there would always be some kind of sex column or something. Yeah, Ask Isadora was there before I came. And we used to read it out loud at my office. And just have such a good time. And I read yours. And I'm just like, she's so thoughtful. She's so thoughtful and so it's so intelligent about this stuff. I bet you get good feedback. Yeah, I do get a lot of good feedback, which is really great and really encouraging. I don't get a lot of harassment, which is very rare in this industry, especially for women who are sex educators and especially sex educators that are online at all. So many people in my online sex education communities, like we all like to stick together, just get brutally harassed, like death threats, like all kinds of stuff, like stalkers. I've only gotten one unsolicited dick pic on all of my social media, which is like wild. Statistically speaking, that is like rare. I'm like a diamond in the sex educator rough. Every so often, you'll get an angry face on our on our Facebook. Oh, something like that. But other than that, I think most people really love it. No, a couple of people have over the years of me doing the column, which has been, I think, seven now over the years, like people have sent in handwritten stuff here. Like I've gotten snail mail and some of the old editors that are no longer here would check in and be like, do you want to open the snail mail? Do you want to see your hate mail? And I was like, I mean, you have it. So I don't need to see it. Yeah, yeah, that is good. I'm can you talk a little bit about like the state of sex education and what you personally are doing to kind of turn that around? So I mean, right now it's kind of confusing because state by state, all of the sex education laws are different. But generally, I'm hired by private entities in schools. So I don't actually I can kind of skate under the radar as far as what is sort of being funded by the state or the government, which means I get to do all kinds of stuff. So usually that more so looks like I do a lot of consent education for the younger sets, younger being like teenagers, which is often absent. I do a lot of education that includes LGBTQ students, which often it doesn't in state funded sex education. We actually talk about like the pleasurable aspects of sex, you know, in a developmentally appropriate way. But that stuff is so often missing, right? It's all like at the beginning of a lot of my college workshops, I ask them what they've learned about sex in their high school sex education. And, you know, it's all like STIs, the cities and wanted pregnancy, all the risks, which are important to know about. But it's just a lot of like doom and gloom, right? And it's like in reality, kids are very smart. They all have Google. So it's like they're smarter than we were. They're smarter and more resource than we were at their age. And we like to pretend like they live in a box, right? But they know that adults are having sex because it feels good. Like adults aren't just having sex because they're like, oh, like STIs are cool. Like that's like not the driving force. There's like other stuff going on, right? So sex education is kind of geared toward don't do it because all these bad things will happen, but ignoring the fact that that kids are doing it. And there's all these studies. And I've posted a few of them on my website, because they're also great. But there's all these studies like in Norway and Sweden, where sex education is incorporating pleasure, positive stuff, different bodies, LGBTQ students and talking about sex and specifically consent early, early on in developmentally appropriate ways, but early on. And their rates of teenage pregnancy, STI transmission, non-consensual violent acts are all way lower than ours. Wow. So. Yeah. Not shocking. So, honestly, to me, just like popping the bubble that is pretending that these students don't know these things is really important. And I think that goes a long way in kind of like fighting back the stigma of sex and sexuality, because that stuff really sticks with people. Yeah. And if you can't talk about what feels good to you, then like you really are enforcing this idea that like sex should be like, you shouldn't talk about it. You should just like do it if it hurts, whatever. If like, STI has happened, like be ashamed. And that stuff isn't helping anybody, you know, so. That's all. Yeah. And I mean, just in your in your column, I mean, I feel like it's almost like every single one, you kind of go out of your way to be like, and this is like the pleasure, positive perspective on this. And, you know, I think that it's kind of you're constantly reminding people that like, yes, this does feel good. And yes, we are doing this for fun, and it's not supposed to be this negative thing. Sure. Sure. And sometimes it is. And that's OK. But there needs to be. I mean, it's not OK. But like there's two sides to the coin, right? And we need to talk about both. We can't just talk about what is scary because then we're reinforcing the idea that it's OK, that sex is scary. And that's just kind of like, well, for a lot of reasons. How do the kids take to it? Pretty good. Yeah. So one of the consent workshops that I do the most is called Consent and Cookies. It's really approachable. And like basically what we do, it's like this whole metaphor where we are frosting cookies for each other with decorations and things like that, this whole metaphor about like communicating to get the best possible cookie you could ever want. And we have some little plot twists that we throw in there. Like I always assign like one member of the partner, the cookie building partners, where I'm like, OK, so you are going to be like really pushy. You think that you know what's best for everybody and they really have a lot of fun with it. So like one of the kids will be like, you don't want red M&M. Do you want blue ones? Like I'm pretty sure you want blue ones. And then we talk about it, right? Well, so we're like, what was that like? Like, did you feel pressure? Like, what else could have happened? How could you have dealt with that? Like, what should have this person have done otherwise? And things like that. But it's like, again, they're not stupid. They know that we're talking about a metaphor here. And then we kind of talk about how this folds into the rest of their lives. How can you advocate for yourself? How can you ask questions? What does communication look like that is healthy? And there's sugar involved. So it's very motivating and it's really good. It's really good. I think a lot of the time, consent like traditional consent education really demonizes. Like it kind of sets it up like all female students are being protected and all male students are being demonized. And I think that what's happening as consent education in a traditional sense gets more and more popular, which is great. I have noticed that when I go into classrooms to teach like consent and cookies, oftentimes the younger male students are really resistant to it because they feel like they're there to be yelled at. And the women tend to be there in a way that's like, okay, like I don't have a lot of agency in this situation. So by doing this activity, I'm trying really hard to sort of even out the playing field in a little bit of a way where like consent is viewed as something that's mutually beneficial and it isn't just about shielding somebody or making sure somebody else is doing something bad. So if we can look at it, and with college students, we do this like, how does consent lead to better pleasure? And with the younger students, we talk about how does your communication lead you to get the best cookie that you want. What age is the cookie one? I mean, because it seems like it could be a number. Yeah, it's really flexible. So I usually start that workshop with like a slide show and we talk about components of consent and we kind of break it down. We talk about power dynamics and age and all that kind of stuff. But so that part is pretty flexible. So if I'm doing, I've done consent and cookies for college students, so we'll talk more explicitly about sex in that workshop. But for younger students, like I think I'm doing one this spring in Brattleboro and we might have students as young as 12, but usually that's a high school, high school age workshop, yeah, it's really fun. That sounds like, that sounds so beneficial. And the parents I suspect are. Yeah, I haven't gotten a lot of pushback from parents, which is interesting because I always expect that someone will have a problem with the tattooed weirdo coming in and talking to their kids about consent or sex or whatever, you know, but. Is that on your business card? Tattooed weirdo. Tattooed weirdo coming in to talk to your kids about sex. Yeah, that's what I do. That's who I am. That's who I am. That's awesome. What can we do to like change the entire nations that we have more tattooed weirdos teaching our kids about sex? Oh God, I don't know. I mean, honestly, so much of this is a pretty, like being a freelance independent contractor is really hard, right? Yes, absolutely. It's like a big hustle. And we talked about this a little bit. It's like people know that I'm a sex columnist and they think that I'm like Carrie Bradshaw. I'm just like floating around with my cosmos in my Dior shoes. Just like right in my column once a week and like that'll do it, right? But that's like not how it is. And then you get your big fat check from the advocate. Exactly, totally. And then the advocate's like $7.00 and $8.00 and $7.00 and $7.00 and $8.00 and $7.00. But it's a hustle. It's really hard. And so like it's great because the sex educator community on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all of those people were also connected. And we talk a lot about how people can support us just by supporting our work, right? So I have some people that are like die-hard supporters, right? They always hire me to teach workshops. They always buy my merch. They're always buying like I just printed a zine called explicit permission, which is all about desire and consent. And they bought like a big old bulk order of that. They're always the first people to buy tickets to my events. You know, people that really back the work. It's important because otherwise it doesn't happen. Absolutely is important. And the people that do have state funding are teaching and like that is valuable too in a lot of ways. We don't want no sex education, but they are limited in what they can do. And because we're freelancers, we have a lot more like flexibility. And it doesn't even have to be financial, you know, just like like our post or whatever. Have you ever tried to get state funding? I mean, like in California over here, I mean, is any state better to work with than any other? I don't actually really know the answer to that. I have not tried to get state funding. I would imagine that it's probably a huge pain in the ass. You'd rather just be Carrie Branchoing. I'd rather just be Carrie Branchoing. So if anyone has that button lying around that I can push. We'll see if we can find somewhere in the office, I'm sure. Somewhere in here. Yeah. And like when you're, like when you're writing the column, like what are the questions that really engage with you? Cause I'm always reading this column and I'm always like, oh man, this question is so great. Like, you know, do you get like a whole pile of questions and you choose like, oh, that's the best one? Yeah, it's actually really interesting. So it's kind of like a not super greatly kept secret that many sex columnists sort of make up their questions. Rumor has it. But I will tell you, we don't have to do that. The V-spot doesn't have to do that. Which is amazing. Like I get plenty of questions. And that's so good to know because I've wondered that. Yeah, you're like, who are these people? With almost any column, you know? It's kind of like, oh, I wonder if that's for real. Yeah, no, they're all real. They're all real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is really cool. That is cool. So I tend to just, I kind of pick them. I try to do them in order because people don't like to wait. But I try to just sort of pick the ones that I feel drawn to that day because I like to put my authentic energy into it. And I don't like to feel like I'm like, ugh, what is so hard. I do feel like it's harder. Well, that's not even true. I've gotten really very into answering the emotional relational questions. And I think I just, I graduated with my master's in marriage and family therapy this past May, like probably six months ago. Yeah, thanks. Congratulations to you. Thank you. So I feel like applying that sort of skill set to the column has been really fun. And I find that I feel like it's feeling like a little fresher to me to answer that stuff, which is great. But I also do really like the good old fashioned like sex toy puns. Any time I could like come up with a good metaphor, I'm like, ooh, yeah, I'm gonna work this metaphor until I'm dead. Yeah, yeah. So anything else you'd like to ask Miss Yana? Yeah, I'm good. Do you have anything to plug? Anything coming up? Oh, your website, number one. Oh yeah, okay, so I have a website. It's YanaTalonHicks.com and it literally has everything that I ever do, ever on it. So that's where you can find my therapy work. That's where you can find, I'm doing coaching sessions online now that are themed that are really fun. So I post all those there. All the columns are there. I have resources on there. There's a photo gallery. I'm on Instagram at the underscore V spot, V like vagina. And that's where you can find pictures of me and my dog, Brewster, who I know you all love. Brewster really powers the bills in our household. Yes, so, well every dog should, right? Yes, pretty much. He's gotta earn his keep, you know? Of course, yeah. Those two scoops of web food every day are really costing me. Yeah, and on like the second and last page of every advocate. Every advocate, and online. And online. And online. That's where you can find me. Well, thanks so much for coming in. Thanks for having me. So much fun. Yes. Bye. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to visit us at valleyadvocate.com.