We write about sex 💦
Tales from two Substack sex writers behind the scenes 🎬
Dear wonderful readers,
Today, we have the ultimate treat for you all! This week, two shameless sex writers on Substack sat down to share our personal experiences of what it's really like to publish the details of our intimate lives on the internet.
, the married sex writer behind , and , the single sex writer behind , chose to spill all the juicy deets. We covered everything from anal equality to the serendipity of dating apps and post-partum intimacy secrets to throwing societal expectations of weddings out the window. Plus, we dive into the importance and the power of women being woo-woo.We hope you'll love listening to this conversation as much as we loved having it! Be sure to check out our publications:
andEnjoy, and thank you for being here as we explore what it means to write shamelessly about sex,
Abigail & Tash
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Podcast Interview Transcript 📖
[00:00:11] Tash Doherty: So, welcome back to Misseducated. You have no idea how excited I am for our chat today. We're meeting with Abigail Mlinar, who is the writer of Happy Endings, which has been my favorite Substack since I discovered it maybe like two or three weeks ago now. But we both focus on such incredible sexuality topics. Abigail specifically writes a lot about her marriage and sexuality within marriage, which I think is a topic that is so neglected in our society. And yeah, there's many myths that we can bust along the way. So, Abigail, welcome to Misseducated. So excited to have you.
[00:00:45] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Thanks for having me. I'm super stoked to be here.
[00:00:48] Tash Doherty: Yay! I feel like this is a dream come true. I don't think I've crushed this hard on another writer in like a long time. But we both went behind the scenes and like read a couple of pieces from each other's Substack, so we can start just with our backgrounds and whatever else anyone wants to know. And then hopefully dive into some pretty juicy, sexy topics as both of us have been writing for like a while now. So yes, let's get into it.
[00:01:13] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yay. I know you have such a like, clear, beautiful like shameless is your brand, but just your voice is so like just real that I really fucking enjoy reading what you write.
Is it okay if I swear?
[00:01:29] Tash Doherty: Yes, it's completely fine. And I also really fucking enjoy reading what you write as well. And the first question that I actually wanted to start with for you is: could you tell us about the serendipity of the song "Tenderness"?
[00:01:42] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Oh my God. Of course, I can. This is my favorite story. I can tell this over and over again. It's just that I believe in magic, right? I don't believe in like magician's magic. I mean, I do in that it's a craft that they can hone. But I believe that there's magic in the universe, right? Yeah. And I try to follow it as bonkers as it can be at times because I feel like that's where you're meant to be, right?
So one day, I was on Tinder, which, nod to your Vogue piece about dating apps while traveling. Like that's literally me and my ethos and my whole life. So I saw that, and I'm like, fuck, of course, we're supposed to meet. Like we have so many similar thoughts in this life.
I was traveling constantly before I settled down, as happens in culture these days, right? Uh, I was traveling a lot, and my first modus operandi when I got to a new town was to pull up dating apps. And Tinder is my app of choice, or it was. I just feel like it's the dive bar of dating apps. It's so like random where you could happen into anybody, whereas you feel like on the other ones, they're a bit more curated, and you kind of know which type of person you're gonna get. I just love the randomness of Tinder. Yeah. Anyways, I opened it up. I was like wrapped in a towel naked, drying off after a shower from my leg travels, unpacking my suitcase in my new apartment. Well, I had a bedroom in somebody else's place, which is another whole story that's amazing. I'm humming a song that my dad introduced me to, and my dad is super important in my life. My mom died, and so it was just me and, my dad and my sister for a while. So he introduced me to the song. I'm humming it. It's so catchy. It's an earworm. It can't come outta my head. And I open up Tinder; the second third swipe is Joe, my future husband, who's in the other room. And his profile, it was just one photo and his favorite song, you know, the Spotify integration. "Tenderness" by the Parquet Courts, the same song I was humming.
I got total full-body chills. I was so freaked out and I swiped right without even thinking a second longer. And we matched. I sent a message immediately and was just like, "You won't believe this, so serendipitous. I was humming your favorite song while I stumbled upon your profile." And his response was just so perfect. It was like, "I love serendipity.
Let's get a beer today." And we met that afternoon just a couple hours later.
[00:04:06] Tash Doherty: Oh my God. That is such a cool story. And also, like, I love that you take advantage of the randomness of Tinder because a lot of times when people are mentioning the music that they like on the internet, it's so random, right? Like, it's like we all listen to a lot of different music on Spotify, whatever. But, like, the fact that that song match was so perfect is actually crazy lucky. Because yeah, again, there's so many people who are like Arcade Fire or like whatever. And I'm just like, I could not give a shit about their music choices. But yeah, that was like the beginning of your entire relationship, and then things blossomed quickly. I know this was only in 2019, so this was only like six years ago, basically. Yeah.
[00:04:41] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. I met him, and then we were pregnant and married within like a year, year and a half.
[00:04:48] Tash Doherty: Wow.
[00:04:48] Abigail Mlinar Burns: So quite, quite a fast turn of events and a complete pivot from my lifestyle beforehand. But I just like I say about magic, I think when you know, you know, and you just follow that.
[00:04:57] Tash Doherty: Yeah. That is so awesome, and it really gives me hope as well, I will say. So it's been really awesome to read a lot of your work in that sense. And so at this time, you were also, because you're the Head of Growth and Sales and everything also at Make Love Not Porn, which we love, working alongside Cindy Gallop, which is an amazing company. And now you guys live in New York, so that's the vibe with two kids.
[00:05:18] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah, two kids. My relationship with Cindy is slightly longer than the relationship with my husband because I started working out with Cindy a few months before Joe and I met. That was why I went to Europe was actually because I wanted to work in alternative adult content spaces to help change the big porn landscape a little bit by helping smaller creators be more dominant in that space and have more market share to then, like, hopefully, sway the supply of big porn. Anyways, came back to New York and the United States.
I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota, by way of Europe.
[00:05:52] Tash Doherty: By way of Europe and picking up a husband along the way. So, that's been really amazing. And I've got some quotes from some of my favorite pieces of yours that I was reading. One of the ones that really stuck out to me was the one where you talk about, let's see what this is called. Is it "The Mother Whore Complex is Hot, Actually." And this is like an interview back and forth with you and Joe. And my favorite part, because one of the other questions I wanted to ask you because I've had this problem with my readers as well, is that I mostly slept with a bunch of different people, random on and off, and they often see themselves, you know, in my writing. But here, at the end, you have this amazing back-and-forth conversation, including like tips for postpartum intimacy, like all this juicy stuff. And then at the end, you are just like, Hey honey, can I like share this on my Substack? And he was like, sure, as long as you include this image of "L'Estasi di Santa Teresa."
Which is, like, a kind of such a random thing. So, how has that conversation come up with you guys? And is he like a private person at all? Or are you just kind of like winging it as you are expanding Happy Endings like quite a lot?
[00:06:56] Abigail Mlinar Burns: It is kind of hilarious because we're both sex writers, right? And so I suppose you can connect with this.
When I first started writing, and a lot of my writing was sexy, and it was from my history because that's what I think a lot of artists pull from, right? Even if it's fiction, it's still pulling from your life. It got Joe, my husband, a little bit fidgety, thinking: oh, am I going to be attached to somebody who's sharing her sexual history on the internet in a public space? Like, what does that mean about me? And he had to work through that in some kind of way.
But the bizarre, ironic thing, which isn't ironic at all to me if you know him more intimately, and I wrote something about the weirdness of his sexual perspectives because he's open to being open in the future if I ever wanna sleep with women again. But he wouldn't be open to being open in the future if it's about other dicks, because he's very much like one dick. So anyways, it's just--
[00:07:26] Tash Doherty: He's a one-dick guy.
[00:07:27] Abigail Mlinar Burns: He's messing. He's not one note by any means. So when it comes to my sex writing about him and our relationships, he is like, oh yeah, sure, go ahead. He doesn't give a shit. He's my editor too, you know. He is the guy who reads everything before it goes out. So yeah, he signs off on everything.
That interview that you mentioned was the first time that I pulled him in directly because I just loved his point of view on this exact topic, and I thought the world we needed to hear it. Like, there aren't a lot of guy's guides for postpartum sex, and you know that guys are interested in it because they're asking Joe about it all the time. Like, what? What's your guys' sex life? Before I started this publication, of course, because now they can just find it there. But people, they're curious, and nobody's servicing those needs.
[00:08:34] Tash Doherty: Totally. And if anything, I think the stories that you guys do share are, like, so intimate and steamy that he comes off as, I mean, again, this is maybe more men having a lot of sex in the culture, but he does come off as kind of like a standup dude, haha, in the experience as well. And that's what I really liked about it because I've had people read my work. Then, like I, I wrote an article called like "I Pegged My Boyfriend," and that's actually been one of my best-read pieces over the years. And obviously, that guy reached out and was like really upset because it was like a very personal thing that he wanted to do. But again, he's my ex, and so I'm just like, well, I have full, full creative control, you know, and using that to my advantage over everything that I can say. But, like, the whole point about Happy Endings is that you guys are in a marriage, and it's a long-term relationship, and that has some consequences as well. Yeah.
[00:09:17] Abigail Mlinar Burns: For sure. I think that it's a little bit. I mean, you and I write about our sex lives and, as you describe it, being shameless. I think that you have to have a bit of openness and shamelessness in order to do this kind of work. But I think it's so needed. Like we've talked about offline, I didn't have a relationship to view at home because my mom died, so I didn't really know what a heterosexual, happy relationship looks like intimately. And I think that that was to my detriment for quite a while. And so I thought if I feel comfortable enough, which I do, and safe enough and Joe's okay with it, like why don't we just open this privacy curtain that so many, like heterosexual relationships fall behind that I think isn't serving culture? It isn't serving relationships, that's for sure.
[00:09:59] Tash Doherty: Totally. And you also talk about that when you say statistically married people have a lot more sex. And I can also attest to that as well, the fact that, like, the periods of my life when I've been single, I've had very little sex. It's despite the fact that I've been a sex writer for like three years. I've had like significantly less sex now than when I was in a long-term relationship. That's just like the nature of, you know, those things. Um mm-hmm. But actually, yeah, like the whole culture's narrative around like the pure wife and everything, and then like somehow living in a sexless relationship for 30 years. Like statistically, you are like, that's bullshit.
[00:10:31] Abigail Mlinar Burns: And those stories are juicy, right?
Like people wanna hear about the like sexy single person because they can offload their fantasies and make it satisfying to them, like, oh, I'm not satisfied with my sex life because only sexy single people can do that. You know, it's just like a way that we can live through stories, but also distance ourselves from our happiness. And I just think it's a bit bullshit and wanted to show a different way to be.
[00:10:54] Tash Doherty: Yeah, totally. And that's why I think I resonate, well, so hardcore, or I kind of even aspire to the stories that you share on your blog because I'm like, hell yeah, like if I'm gonna get married or if I'm gonna be in a long-term relationship, I'm gonna have a shit ton of sex, and it's gonna be amazing.
And do you think there's also, like, an exhibitionist aspect to it as well? Because in your relationship, I don't know if you've talked about that with Joe, but what, if anything, do you think his friends and stuff, reading about his sex life has like also changed his perspective or your perspective as well?
[00:11:21] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah, I know. It's a good question because some of his friends are subscribers. And I don't know if they did it just out of, like, the goodness of their heart to say like, oh, I'm gonna support her and never read it, or whatever it is. Or maybe they didn't know what they were getting into. Who knows. I don't check and see the star rating or whatever I've heard about is in the Substack setting because I'm just like, I don't wanna know all of those kinds of details that I think creators and people growing brands can obsess over. And I really want this to be, like, core to my original goal of like feeling more love for myself and my relationships, but also like sharing love with the world and not about the nitty gritty growth mechanics and stats and whatnot.
But anyways, I think the exhibitionism part is a real thing, yeah. I mean, I would've identified myself as an exhibitionist before being in a marriage. I think it's gotten so muddy now because being seen and having somebody catch me now has this connotation of, like, your kids walking in on you.
And I don't wanna make my kids get traumatized by that kind of witnessed thing. So now, like, the idea of being caught is less sexy, but doing it online, I think, is something that feels safe because it's non-visual. And all of my most censored, explicit stories are behind the paywall. So I know that Google can't crawl it necessarily and out me publicly in some kind of way. But yeah, it is a way to have that energy in a more safe and controlled way, for sure.
[00:12:46] Tash Doherty: Yeah. And I have also put my more spicy stories behind the paywall. But then I kind of unfortunately am getting into the nitty gritty of like growth tactics, and I'm like, you know, some aspects of my pieces are like the one about pegging my boyfriend, right?
That's something that challenges the stereotypes about masculinity in a lot of ways and, you know, helps people to feel like men can, you know, take something off the bum. Like, enjoy it. Like, there are a lot of different interesting aspects that I think we need to explore to challenge masculinity in the culture.
So, you know, I'm like, at the end of the day, it's a gray area, I would say, being a sex writer. Because I also write a lot about, like, female orgasms in a bunch of different settings. And I'm like, I enjoy butt stuff like, let's just put that out there. And I mention it. Like I sprinkle it in through, like, a bunch of different articles, and I'm like, okay. You know, like, maybe this is for the greater good. Like the world can just know that I like butt stuff, but it's more like I'm, hopefully, going be helping, like, my readers to be like, "Hey, this is something that I should be advocating for, or this is going to be pleasurable for me."
And the huge concept that this also relates to is, like, anal equality. Because that's why I think the pegging my boyfriend article is so important. Because, especially in heterosexual relationships, the female receiving anal sex is like this kind of prized thing, I would say. Especially a lot of girls feel pressured into doing that, and I'm like: why don't we just have anal equality? Like guys have buttholes too. Like then, they can also receive (people who've been traumatized aside). I don't think people should be having anal sex unless they're willing to do it both ways. So it's like, those are all concepts that I think are very important, but that means that I have to share so much personal information in order to get that point across. But I'm just hoping that it's worth it in the end, basically.
[00:14:21] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Oh, it is worth it in the end. A million percent. I mean, just thinking about, like, if you impacted one person to open their mind to anal play, you would make one person's life infinitely more pleasurable because it is so spectacular, isn't it?
Yeah, and honestly, all of those important tidbits about my sexuality are above the paywall as well. Like, everything that I write is pretty much sexually explicit and available for free, but just the nitty gritty, raw details of the sex that we actually had yesterday play-by-play.
That's my like once-a-month sexy post.
[00:14:54] Tash Doherty: Yeah. So is that what you do? You have that behind the paywall, then? So, that once-a-month sexy post for your paid subscribers, or how are you exploring that field right now?
[00:15:03] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. My thoughts right now, and I think it might evolve, but it's like once a week. Not super invasive to email inbox, but it's always an exhibition of love in whatever way. So sometimes it has been a very, maybe even twee, very much about, like, familial love and connection with children. Um, but then sometimes, about once a month, it'll be an actual sex story. My most recent one was about Joe giving me oral sex and in a moment of me feeling, like, a little bit in my head and tense about things. And he helped me, like, release through all of that in a very, like, playful and sexy way.
I have that one story, but then the other things that I share are sometimes essays. Um, as you've seen about couples having more sex than single people on average. And just the ways in which our relationship exists. So sometimes that is like a sexual analysis that isn't an actual sex story, and thus, that's available for anyone to see.
[00:15:56] Tash Doherty: It's crazy how many topics are so adjusted as well and so fascinating. And the other one that I liked, which we kind of already touched on, is, which one is it? "My Stranger Spouse." And I think this is interesting because what you really explore so well in your work is this difference between the myths and the kind of stereotypes that we have, but also, like exploring fantasies and going from the familiar to the not familiar, right? And that's what it's important to keep with the erotic. Honestly, there's a kind of danger breaking out of these molds of the day-to-day, which I think you need in order to have like a healthy sex life.
And so that's what I really loved about "My Stranger Spouse." And even just like these little details, like, you wrote, "I smile at my stranger spouse, I give him a cup of tea so he knows I'm thinking of him. I brush his shoulder with my fingertips as I pass." Like, I just love those details. And playing with the idea that you maybe don't even know this person that you've been dating for six years at all is so interesting.
[00:16:48] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah, thanks. I think there's such a wave in culture in the last two years of people kind of upholding the divorce novel and these divorce stories as important movement. And I absolutely agree that if you think you should get a divorce, you should absolutely fucking get a divorce. And so it's awesome that there's all these stories out there that are making that more normal and accessible for people who need it. But, um, for people who are happy in their relationship but go through momentary frustrations, because it's an inevitable feeling that we'll all experience, and you don't want your frustrations to devolve into resentment. And the other four horsemen of marriage, you should have some sort of tool in your tool belt.
And I feel like there aren't that many of those out there. And "My Stranger Spouse" felt also like something that, yeah, like, it happened to me by accident once, where I was on a subway and wasn't feeling very healthy, and I was physically unwell. And so emotionally, naturally, you'll get a bit unwell, and you feel like a little crabby. And then the subway shook, and my knee shook, and I felt like I might die for a second. And in that moment, I realized that, like, if I ever lost Joe, I would feel just devastated, you know? Like he is such a treasure. And when you can get in that clouded state of self-centering and feeling like, oh, woe is me, and you forget that you have this like other beautiful individual of the world in your space with you, that sometimes you misjudge or generalize. And so, like, just having this meditation. I call it, like, "a divorce mitigation meditation" to help me, like, re-clear my sense of who this person is and see him like a stranger would see him as, like, sexy and interesting.
[00:18:24] Tash Doherty: Yeah. That's I think so important. And I've also, like, come across this a lot with, like, my parents and my own family, which is like: all of your relationships are voluntary. You know what I mean?
So I love the detail about you getting him the cup of tea. Because, it's like, that's how you don't build resentment over time by taking this person for granted, right? Like, that's a huge and important step to making sure that things are, like, spicy and interesting; you can just walk away at any point in time, which is terrifying but also keeps things interesting.
[00:18:52] Abigail Mlinar Burns: I know, which I mean, brings me to some of the essays of yours that I found so thought provoking. Like about how you, um, didn't want marriage and how, like, amongst your family, you felt like the only person who is choosing, being single and judged for that. And then also the one about attending other people's marriages when that isn't your, like, life stage. Like, ugh! I so related and connected because I did identify as that person before I am now finding myself here. And the the feelings that you felt, I have felt before as well, and also can still see myself feeling because even though I'm married and in a marriage, I don't like think about myself as a person who is in a couple.
I mean, it's so hard to say because you are in a couple, right? And you are connected with somebody else, and that is my most important value. So much so that I'm fucking writing a substack about it. And yet, I'm still just an individual person, just like he is. And I think that's why we feel so healthy and happily in love because we acknowledge our individualnesses.
[00:19:50] Tash Doherty: Yeah, totally. And you really wrote about that as well on your wedding day about it not being the biggest day of your life ever, right? I think, again, what's interesting is we're kind of, like, both toying with two sides of the same coin. This is why I focus on being shamelessly sexy because shame takes so many forms for women.
Like, you can literally receive even also being a mother, I'm sure it's just like coming at you all the time. You can do anything in your life, and people will come at you with 10 different opinions about, like, what you should or shouldn't be doing. And the whole point is that I think, at least for both of us, I'll speak, well, I'll speak for myself, is just like saying what I actually think and feel. And now we're both so aware of how that actually challenges the societal norms.
Like even the one in the wedding piece, which was so funny is like, one of my friends told me for six years about how much she hated her partner. And then, like, they got married, and she expected me to be happy for her. And I was just like, why do you have to be happy for people? If people seem like actually unhappy, I'm like, support their marriage or don't. And just feeling entitled to your own opinions, I think was the goal with that piece that I was trying to get across.
[00:20:46] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Hell yeah. I know I've had friends that I've also counseled and suggested that they not be with them, and they've not taken my advice. And then you're still their friend, and you still love and support them, but you're witnessing something that's very tricky for you to, like, accept. Um, yeah, I totally understand that feeling.
But the weird thing is, is in my life, I've such a, like, motley crew of friends that definitely fit my old lifestyle, and so I haven't been to many weddings. I haven't been invited to many weddings. Most of my people just aren't marriage sorts. And so, me choosing to elope wasn't weird at all to me, and in fact, my family was and is still probably surprised that I ended up getting married and having kids. So I, I don't have the same experience of like, oh, fuck another wedding season. But I can empathize. It would be a drag if that was my life.
[00:21:34] Tash Doherty: Yeah. Well, honestly, I wrote that piece because people in my life were getting married, but I actually was grateful because a lot of them were slightly on the edge of my friendship group. I knew that people were getting married and that people were feeling this pressure, but I actually have not been invited to anyone this year, either. There we are.
Um, I will maybe go to one engagement party again, like, later in September. But I think it was mostly just also around a lot of Instagram content. And this is why I'm like, okay, I don't like to consume as much social media as I do, but it does give you a really interesting perspective as to what people are valuing and how it's all happening. And consuming wedding content on Instagram is one of my favorite things to do because I get to see these people in Maine, or Lake Como in Italy, or wherever they are. All of the money that they've spent, and yet I have not had to, like, leave the comfort of my couch, and I like to get to enjoy their table place settings and blah, blah, blah.
Even something like Say Yes to The Dress, I love that reality TV show. It's totally crap. But, like, the emotional feeling of finding a beautiful dress that like fits with these women's lifestyles is, like, I do enjoy kind of getting that window into their world. For a lot of ways, and I've also explored that a lot on my blog, is watching all of the older people in my life get divorced and have like really messy, terrible divorces, like destroying the marriage and the family and the kids and every, all the other fallout that happens with it. And ultimately, my parents, I mean, I dunno, they don't really read my blog, so maybe I can just share this, but they are still married, but I wouldn't say their marriage is necessarily like a happy one. You know, like, that's the kind of blueprint that I've been given. Maybe getting divorced in a later stage is important, and not having very much conflict in the family. Like, if conflict is your day-to-day existence, like, maybe you should just like separate for a while, you know? So that's a lot.
[00:23:16] Abigail Mlinar Burns: No, thinking about that day-to-day existence is something that was a big driver for me on this. Like, what is people's day-to-day existence and whatever it is, is going to be your life, right? And so, do you want a life of conflict? Do you want your day-to-day existence of making the biggest decisions of your life center around, like, the dresses that you buy, which, yes, I agree. I love watching reality wedding content. Like, I am a "Love Is Blind" fan. I am. But you know, there's a reason why I really disdain the idea that a wedding day is the
biggest day of your life. It's because you're putting value into the wrong things. Your value should be put into your day-to-day, right, and the ways in which you're demonstrating love and feeling love yourself, and not into eyeballing these future milestones that you want to accomplish because that makes you a good person or a valued person. What is your actual day-to-day? And are you happy? That's what I wanna think about.
[00:24:13] Tash Doherty: Yeah, exactly. I actually also encouraged you to write the piece about your mother because I was really curious. It is, like, a very important dynamic in your story as well. So, since you wrote that piece, or you were mulling over it for a while, like, how has your perspective changed? Or what have you learned?
[00:24:27] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Thank you for that push, too, because it's something I've been jotting notes on this idea for probably a decade.
You know, it's been that core part of myself that I've always acknowledged and said out loud, and when I felt safe and taken notes on, but never felt comfortable, confident enough to say out loud. Um, but that "I'm Glad to be Motherless" is ultimately the message because it shaped me into being who I am. It allowed me to feel confident navigating womanhood and relationships without a map. And thus, I didn't have any markers of what was right or wrong, and I could choose my own path. And it does feel messy and imperfect, and I think a lot of my stories and essays like, I like to not put too much "said" and a little bit more "unsaid." And that I think is the messy part about this essay is that it also is complicated because I come and have the same exact life as my mom, right? I'm around the same age as her when she died, and I look back and I see that I studied Marketing just like her. I have two kids just like her. I'm married with a similar age gap as she had with my dad. We have so much in common, and maybe I would've gotten to this point and made these decisions sooner than being so bizarrely navigated around. But the beauty of that weird navigation is my life.
And I love my life, and I love who I am. So, I am glad that I was motherless. Yeah. So a little bit bizarre. And I'm a little woo-woo. And I, I have all of these different, like, ways in which I feel like my mom is a part of my life. So, um. It's messy. And I did say, "Mom, I hope you weren't offended by that." And she gave me a nice sign to say that she wasn't so.
[00:26:08] Tash Doherty: Oh my God. Cool. I should start listening to more serendipity and stuff because, again, I also enjoyed this like spiritual woo-woo element. Because the world is so vast and so great and so far beyond what any single person can comprehend. And I find myself also as a single person, like, living in my masculine a lot. And actually, a lot of the time, the woo-woo-ness is kind of just that faith, taking a leap of faith, whether it's publishing something that's complex and difficult and challenging and hoping that it's gonna be okay. Or yeah, making life decisions that you don't know whether or not it's gonna turn out. And I think that's a much more fun way to live. And sometimes, if we're too busy paying the rent or getting the paycheck or whatever, it can be hard to connect with that emotional, spiritual element of life as well as the logical.
[00:26:50] Abigail Mlinar Burns: 1000%. Dude, I think that I mean everything happens as it ought is my belief. And ever since I've been married, it's allowed me to heal things about myself and my life that I wasn't prioritizing before because I was so in my masculine. And so, uh, one of the like messages, like kept getting over and over, like I jotted in my phone and I'd write it down after I got married after we had our first kid, was: I need to resolve my fear of death. Like, I need to resolve my fear of death. And that's what brought me down this, like, rabbit hole of finally saying, "Oh. I'm comfortable to say it out loud. I'm glad that I was motherless. I'm also not afraid of dying myself even though I'm now in my bonus years as compared to her." And those are things that I just wasn't able to resolve, and I think that were actually pushing me on my crazy adventurous life because it is exciting, and it does make you feel like you are living life. But sometimes those true, like, aliveness moments are the more mundane. And that's something that I wasn't able to learn, I think until I was settling more into my feminine state. Yeah. Which I'm still not fully embraced by any means.
[00:27:54] Tash Doherty: Yeah, exactly. And so when you talk about getting signs and stuff, what forms do those signs take? So, how can I be paying me better attention to what the universe is trying to tell me?
[00:28:04] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. Well, the rabbit hole I went down about resolving my fear of death was quite bizarre and incredible and amazing. I like bought all these, like, 20 books that had various levels of kitch and practicality. Some of them very religious, some of them very scientific. The conclusion that I came to is quite a spiritual one ultimately, even though mostly it was science influence. There's quite a lot of research out there. No there, there actually is more research than people give it credit. Like talking about sex, talking about death are things that are very taboo, and those sorts of things don't come up to the surface very much. But the signs that I've often got are just those serendipitous things that give you chills, right? Like the song playing in my head and in the phone, and you feel it in your body, the chills that: wow, something here is, like, meant to happen. Yeah. I sometimes get that sensation even when I, like, walk into a restaurant or a bar. You feel like you're where you're supposed to be, right? And I, I now believe that you can also say, in your head or out loud, like, "Mom, are you offended by me? If you're not like, show me a penny on the sidewalk, but not just on the sidewalk. I want it in the crack of the sidewalk, and I want it to be heads up." And she'll show me the shit that I wanna see, literally, a heads-up penny on the crack of the sidewalk. And, in fact, yesterday, it was a whole pile of 20 pennies. Most of them heads up. It totally blew my mind. I was like, "Okay, thank you."
And sometimes I've been kissed by butterflies. In my head, like, "Mom, if you're around, like, show me a butterfly." And then a butterfly will come and like kiss me on the cheek. It's quite remarkable, really.
[00:29:38] Tash Doherty: Wow. That is freaking cool. Yeah. I will say, like when I lived in London a lot, it was easier to do this because there was always, like, a green man when you are like crossing the street. It was always, like, when I was walking, and I would just flow, right? Like the flow of the green man like, there would always light it up as I was like coming towards the crosswalk. Little things like that were super crazy.
And I actually also just finished "The Artist's Way" again with some female friends. And, in that specific section, she had written, like, write some promises to yourself of like things that you wanted. So basically, I had made like four promises to myself, and one of them was to go to this specific restaurant in Polanco, which is delicious, like this steak-frites restaurant. The other one was to go to the hotel that I just went to in the forest. And so yesterday, when I was, like, in the forest about to open my journal, I read this promise that I had made to myself, like, "I will go back to this place in the forest." Yeah, it is powerful. It's fascinating.
[00:30:28] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Dude. I just got chills hearing your chill-inducing moments. So, circling that. And that's so bizarre, too, because I'm glad that you're talking about "The Artist's Way." It's something that I've been thinking about so much. I want to make "The Erotic's Way". It's like this idea that I've had lately where I think that people need to take more responsibility for their sexual lives and treat it like a practice, like an artistic practice, instead of just a passing responsive thing that they can just consume whatever it is and masturbate quickly and have it be done with. But, like, make it more of an ingrained part of your life and expand it like your artist's way.
[00:31:06] Tash Doherty: That's incredible. So you just need 12 weeks of different practices that people would do. And Julia Cameron herself is still alive, so maybe you can get her to write the forward as well.
[00:31:16] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. Damn. That's aspiration. I'm actually working on, like, an op-ed that kind of pitches this idea out. Oh, cool. So, hoping to finish that up. I feel like it's very timely because there was an op-ed yesterday in the New York Times that I feel like this is a good response to. It's not necessarily, like, affirming it, but just about porn's impact on people in the world.
Uh, speaking of, I went down the deep dive in one of your essays about the porn that you watch. Yeah. I found just fucking delightful to read, so. Like a breath of fresh air. Like who, who is writing that? Like, that is just so remarkable. And so you. And what a gift to the world to like share exactly what you watch and what you like about it.
[00:31:56] Tash Doherty: Right. I think it's really interesting. I guess I can share a couple of the categories if I remember them well. Number one, as I get closer to, like, childbearing age, the whole cream pie situation, it's just like getting hotter and hotter because it's also so forbidden, like, it makes sense.
[00:32:13] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. Totally. I relate.
[00:32:14] Tash Doherty: Haha. Yeah. It is kind of crazy because I just got another IUD put in in, like, December or whatever, or November. And so it's like very much like I cannot get pregnant right now. So I'm still, like, it could happen a lot. I let a lot of people come inside with me, which is fine. But yeah, it's not gonna lead to a baby anytime soon unless I actively take that out. But maybe that could also be part of the tease, or whatever in the future with my future partner is like. Maybe they could come to that experience with me of, like, getting my IUD taken out. And then going home and, like, consummating the situation. That could be really hot.
[00:32:44] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Hell yeah. That sounds like a nice thing to put into your dreams. Yeah, exactly.
[00:32:48] Tash Doherty: I'll fantasize about that. And then the other one is, yeah, like fat women. I think that's a very interesting one because, again, I always I grew up around so much fatphobia. And I just love watching fat women have sex and get railed. Like, it's amazing because I think it goes against the societal norms of what kind of women we consider attractive. And I don't think size actually really should matter. But it's great, I think that's important.
[00:33:10] Abigail Mlinar Burns: No, for sure. Because if you grew up around a culture of shame around size, and then being able to consume videos of exactly what you're afraid of and feel pleasure from it, that's like healing literally.
[00:33:25] Tash Doherty: It's healing something in me because then it can also be like, if I have a couple of months where I just feel like particularly chunky, all those things don't really matter in the eyes of your partner, I think. It's important to remember.
[00:33:37] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Totally, yeah. There's been so many people have written into us at Make Love Not Porn, talking about how, like, watching people with bodies and that are similar to theirs be loved and valued and appreciated and have like hot sex and great orgasms has made them feel worthy of the same thing. Which they should have felt all along, but thank God, they actually realized it before they missed their chance, you know?
[00:33:57] Tash Doherty: Yeah. That's super cool. Did you read the op-ed yesterday, by the way? I haven't actually read it. The one that says, like, there's nothing good that can come from porn, basically. So extreme.
[00:34:07] Abigail Mlinar Burns: It was a little bit extreme. I feel like there's a big shift in culture right now I've been noticing. Like, I'd been walking down Smith Street, which is a street near where I live here in Carroll Gardens, and there's a really trendy bookstore called Books Are Magic. And literally, in the window of this super progressive, super trendy bookstore is the book Pornography by Andrea Dworkin. And I couldn't believe my jaw dropped.
I'm like, five years ago, 10 years ago, they nobody would be putting that in the fucking window. And I hadn't heard yet that it was being republished. And maybe that is just because it came out that week, and they thought it worthy to note, but it was still like so contradictory to the frame of mind for progressive world that pornography could be something to be disliked.
And the fact that now there's all of this new chatter around it. I mean, I think that balance is good in the world, and I'm glad that people are able to share that message and counteract things that had been accepted before. But, um, it's a bit of a surprise because I don't think that having an anti-porn mindset is helpful for anybody, really. Um, I think that having balance is helpful. Having some sort of, like, more positive sex education that helps teach people that porn is entertainment, not education, would be helpful. There's a lot of things that we can do instead of just saying that porn is the problem.
[00:35:24] Tash Doherty: Well, I think that's hopefully why I really like writing, and why I enjoy your writing, is because it adds nuance to the conversation, right? These topics, like sexuality, are so messy. And because people, I think, feel uncomfortable even talking about them, they're just more likely to write everything off completely. And I think the other aspect of that, which you go into in the article, "I'm a Cocksucking Feminist," and about giving, like, sloppy blow jobs, it's important. Because by choosing to suck dick, as you say in your article, it's even hotter that you are like a liberal feminist who is choosing to do this out of your own volition, right? For your partner, which is amazing.
But I kind of agree with that. I think we've gone a little bit too much, like men hating in the other direction. And it's not actually healthy for us either, especially if you are attracted to men, right? Like there's a lot that we need to be able to do here to help people to just enjoy their sex lives.
And it's like: why is the liberal feminist agenda kind of getting in the way of that almost? It's a really interesting dynamic.
[00:36:17] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yeah. It just makes me think about the like societal trend toward the extremes, right? And I don't think that it is ultimately helping many people to say that you should hate men, which I don't necessarily think everybody is or anybody really is. But yeah, there's just been a lot of discourse around divorces, around celibacy, around all of these things that are ultimately distancing ourselves from each other. It is a good thing to do when you need it when it's done in the moderation that people need. But when that's like the dominant discussion point because it's clickbaity. Because it's something that drives attention. I think it is influencing people far more than we need, especially right now when the data is showing that teens are literally not spending time with each other. Young people are not spending time with each other. Like it's not helpful for society to be more separate. It is helpful for society to be appreciative of each other's differences, and to love each other, and to find ways to meet in the middle and give each other the things that we're able to. Of course, I'm never going to suggest that people should stay together if they shouldn't or suck a dick if you don't want to. But I choose to, and I think that it's been helpful for some people to see that; I like that.
[00:37:33] Tash Doherty: Yeah, exactly. No, I think it's important. And again, it kind of goes back to the shame thing where, like, if you are reading about porn being terrible. Well, that means that the millions of people who do watch porn like on a semi-regular basis are gonna feel shame about that. And that's exactly the opposite of where we're really trying to go as a society, I would say. And I think that's ultimately what I want to get at with the work and stuff that I'm doing, is just helping people to see that whatever it is, whatever your kinks are, a lot of times they are like based in your own upbringing and a reflection of that or a perversion of that. And, like, that is totally okay.
And it's, I have a lot of fun exploring these topics openly in public. I do like the shock factor, you know. Like, I do like a little clickbait when I publish my work because I'm like, I do wanna mess with people a little bit.
And also because my grandma, like, you know, a super liberal woman, probably would have never had children if she'd been given the option to do that. But even in her generation, like, you could not say what you wanted openly on the internet. And I think I basically just see my life as also taking advantage of the fact that, like, my female ancestors, for like thousands of years, couldn't say these things. And now, you know, as my friend says, they should have never taught women to read. Because now we're reading, now we're thinking, and now we're sharing our opinions and changing the course of history at the same time. So, yeah.
[00:38:44] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Fuck yeah. Changing the course of history and psychoanalyzing ourselves in the process. I, I saw that the piece about porn, you were like, psychoanalyzing your interests. And I'd also written once about psychoanalyzing my favorite sex positions because I do feel like all of these things say so much about us if we would just stop and take a second to think about it.
Like there was a two period in my life where I really liked having sex face down on my bed, and looking back in hindsight, I'm like, oh yeah, I didn't really like my partner very much. Then I should have paid attention to that, right? Now, my favorite sex position is like the most vanilla. I want to feel you all around me, you know, like, be in missionary, but just wrap myself around you kind of thing. Like it's, it just says so much about where you're at, how your heart's feeling.
[00:39:31] Tash Doherty: Yeah, totally. And there's like so much to unpack with that. And that's also why I'm hopefully gonna be developing some materials around sex journaling. Like I use my Substack as my sex journal, as kind of yours is as well, exploring and being open about things. But not everyone wants to publish their sex life on the internet, and that's completely fine. But there are a bunch of different tools which I am hoping to develop around that, which is just the exploration of our sexuality, specifically using my like fun data analyst lens on it being like:
Look at every single sexual experience that you've had. And think about it from, like, a fake scientific perspective. How many orgasms did you have? What positions did you use or whatever? And then using that as data to figure out, like, what you actually like in terms of your sexuality. And then keeping that little spicy journal for yourself, you know? That's the goal with that, I think.
[00:40:15] Abigail Mlinar Burns: I'm obsessed with this. I think this is such a valuable thing. I mean, as you and I learned from doing it and doing it in public, like analyzing these things has so much value for our lives. And if more people did it, I think that we would all be happier.
[00:40:26] Tash Doherty: Yeah. We'd be happier. We'd have more orgasms. And also, you do learn a lot about yourself, and you can think deeply about where all those interests and things kind of come from, as we talked about with the porn categories. And then I would have a friend where I sent that article around, or I was thinking about it, I wanted to talk to some friends about it, and, that's when you realize, I have a friend who's never had an orgasm before. I had a friend who has never watched porn before. Crazy, like mind-blowing things to me in my like mid-twenties or whenever this conversation was happening. People come with it from all different stages of the journey as well for sexuality.
[00:40:56] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Yep. It is really totally amazing to me how everybody has such a different experience because even being at Make Love Not Porn, we have people who are sharing sex videos every day, and we've seen sex videos for six and a half years; some of my colleagues have been there for 10 years, and we're still surprised by the types of thing that people share because like, you know, it's so corny now to say, but reality is stranger than fiction. It really is far more entertaining. The sex that people have in the real world is just far more sexy, entertaining, and hot, and that is why I like sharing our sex stories as well as watching real-world sex videos.
[00:41:40] Tash Doherty: Yeah, totally. Okay, what are you excited about in the next couple of months? And where can people find you?
[00:41:45] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Thanks. Um, in the next couple of months, gosh, I am, like, back to the thing I was ranting about earlier.
I'm such living in my day-to-day right now. I have such a hard time thinking about the future. My life is a little bit revolving around my little dudes and my work, and so I don't know. Continuing to grow and develop and share my stories on Happy Endings. I'm really also excited about some work that we're doing at Make Love Porn and growing our creator base and people can follow and subscribe to Happy Endings on Substack.
I'm also on Instagram at @abigailamilnarb because I do take my husband's last name, just in beautiful internet spaces and not in legal form.
[00:42:31] Tash Doherty: Amazing. Good for you. Well, thank you so much. I've literally enjoyed this conversation so much, and also very telling that we have a very little special guest here, which is one of your sons, who could join us for the last 10 minutes of the conversation, waking up from a nap. So yeah, I can't wait to read more stories and keep seeing you out there in the Substack universe. So thank you so much for coming on with Misseducated. Yay!
[00:42:51] Abigail Mlinar Burns: Ditto. Thank you so much for having me. [00:42:53] Tash Doherty: Okay, bye.
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Expected an amazing conversation did NOT expect the most epic tinder meet cute I’ve literally ever heard. Loved this!
If you ever want to add a polyam & kinky sex writer into the mix, I’d love to chat!