217: Sex, Tantra, Polyamory, Gender Bending, Love, and Relational Communications with Meleza Morris

“We can all be polyamorous.”
– Meleza Morris

Hey guys, welcome back to ONKEN RADIO (previously NION Radio), the podcast where we explore the body, mind, and soul of the creative entrepreneur. It’s my goal to help you take your creativity, business, and life to the next level. I’m so glad you’re joining me on this journey!

Today, I’ve got an extra special guest for you to discuss elements from our sexuality that can help us build our Identity Alchemy. It’s essential to establish trust with your partners, and finding an expert to help us navigate the awkwardness that can surround sexuality, sex, tantra, polyamory, gender-bending, and love with meaningful relational communication is not that easy. That’s why today’s guest is an intimacy coordinator expert.

I wanted to have her on the podcast because my own sexuality is currently something that I’ve been exploring. Here’s a taste of her wisdom:

“There is a deeper psychological plane that is required to understand before being able to integrate many of the BDSM kink world or the tantra world, the sacred sexuality world, or just sex in general. If we are not understanding of our agency, of our sovereignty, it’s very challenging to lead a life where we’re gonna find happiness, in the way that can actually break down all of the little sticky parts that have stuck to us because of our early childhood development, because of our little-t and our big-T traumas.”
– Meleza Morris

Wherever we are along our journey to unpack our deepest loves or avoid overstepping the line of safety, communication is the key. That’s why I wanted to talk to Meleza today, and she speaks about how it’s all about creating the space to explore these things. 

Let’s jump right in!

Who Is Meleza Morris?

Meleza Morris is a Certified Intimacy Coordinator for TV & Film, a devoted consultant in the Queer lifestyle community, and Sacred Sexuality Architect. Meleza is fluent in English and Spanish and can help others as a certified Health Coach, trauma-informed sex educator, facilitator, and kinkster. 

Meleza is committed to being a part of a movement that helps to create impactful solutions — a Sexual and Consensual Awakening. They desire to connect through creative and pioneering conversations, lay pathways to defeat adversity with folks representing large demographics, and continually build bridges around gender, erotic empowerment, body positivity, consent, and cosmic evolution. 

Meleza currently resides in Miami and travels for work frequently. They recently decided to ask clients to put the cash they wished to pay them inside something fun — one was a baby Yoda blanket — and although such a small shift, it creates excitement every time for her now because one of her love languages is gifts. Now, she gets more excited to see what people put the money into than she does to get paid!

Meleza’s sexual awakening started at a very young age. They were always very curious about sexuality, so their Barbies were having sex. Meleza felt attracted to boys and girls and remembers their dad catching them naked with others in the closet.

It was the first and only time their dad laid hands on them. Still, that experience shifted their whole life because that moment was when something curious and pleasurable became taboo, stigmatized, and something to be disciplined. Thus their journey started with constantly trying to decipher what’s okay and what’s not okay. 

It wasn’t until they were 24 that Meleza embraced what they now know as polyamory. It was the first time they had heard the term polyamory. Still, they realized that throughout their relationships in their teenage years, yes, they were wholly invested in their boyfriend and loved them dearly, but they still wanted to have sex with other people. 

“When I realized there is a community of people who believe it is possible to have ethical, conscious relationships with multiple people through conversations, agreements, contracts, negotiations, and boundaries, I just burst with joy. At 25, I came fully out of the closet as polyamorous and bisexual. Now I identify as omniamorous or polyamorous and pansexual over just bisexual.”
– Meleza Morris

I think it is a great place for us to jump in and hear what is polyamory and how Meleza uses it to express themself in the world.

What Is Polyamory?

The definition of polyamory takes the literal etymology from Greek and Latin, poly, meaning many, and amorous, meaning love — Meleza expands on this for us.

“It’s the capacity to love many in different ways. It’s that simple. That means that we can all be polyamorous, whether it’s sexually [or] emotionally, and then omniamorous means the greater universe. I am love as a part of the greater universe. The greater universe is a part of me as love. What ended up happening with the term ‘poly’ is it became this kind of fad of people [saying], ‘I’m poly.’ Then they use that as an excuse to cheat [or] be unfaithful or dishonest with their lovers or partners because they’re saying they’re polyamorous. I’m all about reclaiming the word ‘polyamorous.’ I think it’s a great word.”
– Meleza Morris

I love Meleza’s use of the word omniamorous and how she uses it to identify being in love with the universe and the universe being their partner too. I wonder what the universe’s love language would be? 

Meleza touched on changing their terminology from bisexual to pansexual and explained why they did that. 

“A lot of times, people think ‘bisexual’ means the binary, [and] I like both men and women in the binary sense. However, bisexual means being attracted to two sexualities. It doesn’t have to be assigned male or female at birth. It could be a trans person, a non-binary person, and that’s your bisexuality range. Pansexual means I have a desire and an openness to being sexually active [in] any sexual shape or form. I don’t have a specificity anymore that it’s assigned male or female at birth.”
– Meleza Morris

Meleza has defined the landscape they connect to and her boundaries within it. Gender-bending has been more mainstream; think about Prince embracing his feminine side and how mainstream RuPaul has become. Dressing or emulating the opposite sex has been around for hundreds of years, and Meleza includes that as part of the sexual and gender identity.

They have clearly defined boundaries; it has been a process to identify how to set healthy boundaries effectively. 

Learning How to Set Healthy Boundaries

When we’re amongst friends, it’s easy to mistake honest conversations about what we enjoy as an invitation to be the one to initiate sexual activity without being asked. Part of setting up boundaries is clearly understanding consent, which starts with identifying who you want to date.

“I have certain boundaries around who I date, for example, and because I’ve been poly for X amount of years, I’m very cautious around who I bring into my inner circle. If they haven’t been poly for X amount of time, there’s a learning curve that comes with that. I stepped into a space where I [said that] I do not want to be in a relationship with someone who’s never been poly or is on the fringe of poly or unsure because that’s only going to harm me in the long [term] because that person could just change their mind at any second.”
– Meleza Morris

There’s a difference between someone figuring out if being polyamorous is who they are or someone just happy to hide behind that so that you accept them. All relationships come with an element of risks like heartache or a broken heart. Being open to a relationship with someone newer to polyamory requires another level of commitment on their part. It is essential to work on personal development, growth work, and reading books about being polyamorous to demonstrate their commitment to the lifestyle. 

“Are you talking about poly[amory]? Are you interested? Are you doing your own thing without the expectation of me guiding you into it? I’m also an intimacy [coordinator] — I do this for a living, so I don’t necessarily want to be teaching my partner all of the time. That’s one way I can describe boundaries in my life. Another way is [that] I don’t like my belly button touched. That’s weird. I don’t like it.”
– Meleza Morris

For physical touch boundaries, Meleza suggests role-playing so that each can understand what is pleasurable and what is off-limits. Some people like tongues in their ears — others detest it. The best way to avoid crossing awkward boundaries is to discuss them beforehand. 

These discussions can be awkward on a good day, which is why working with a professional like an intimacy coordinator can help you get started and maintain progress.

Working With an Intimacy Coordinator

Exploring the edges of intimacy and pushing the boundaries of what makes us feel comfortable yet aroused isn’t easy. There is an important component to investigate when deciding between the many professionals like Meleza. 

“Not everyone that’s a sex worker has the training needed to actually guide someone through an experience that would require them processing some deep emotional trauma, but a lot of sex workers do — sexological bodyworkers, sexologists, there’s a lot of people who are here for everyone to serve, including myself.”
– Meleza Morris

I’m curious to know who Meleza’s clients are. Does she work mainly one-on-one or with couples? Meleza explains that it’s less about that and more about finding people who want to step out of their “box” and cannot receive certain levels of intimacy in their current relationship and need support in that process. 

“It ranges — there’s the intellectual side, there’s reprogramming and deprogramming, learning certain tools, and learning what boundaries, expectations, desires, fears, [and] needs are. What does that even mean? What does it mean for me? What does it mean in the way I like to receive, in the way I like to give. Then there’s emotional release techniques. We go through that because it’s really important to know how to move that energy in our bodies, especially in Western culture. Then there [are] some self practices — I give homework [too].”
– Meleza Morris

Meleza incorporates all of this into the bodywork, which helps you integrate everything so you can incorporate the kink and explore edges in the space of receiving and then giving and showing couples how to do it. They also facilitate groups on how to do it and have facilitated couple workshops. It’s been a challenging couple of years, with most events happening online, but Meleza is happy to do more in-person events again. 

“I’m starting to do group facilitation in festival settings as well, and eventually the desire is to have a retreat and bring groups of 20 or 30 people together to learn a lot of this content in a way that’s digestible and fun and easy to repeat.”
– Meleza Morris

It certainly sounds like if you’re open enough to push the boundaries of sexuality and even your identity, Meleza is an excellent resource to explore.

The Formula for Identity Alchemy

We have an opportunity to create our identity. Meleza gave us great wisdom about how to create boundaries and safely explore the things that make us who we are — like being polyamorous. I think she’s given us some elements of the formula for Identity Alchemy.

The world is adapting and evolving in front of our eyes, and being comfortable exploring our identities and sharing them has changed dramatically. Building awareness of who we are is part of being a creative entrepreneur, and expressing ourselves becomes an extension of knowing we are at every level.  

I have been on a journey to explore identity, and it’s why I love talking to others who are creating their Identity Alchemy. 

Alchemy is defined as the process of taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary, sometimes in a way that cannot be explained.

With that being said, I define Identity Alchemy as the process of deconstructing who you don’t want to be in order to realize who you want to become. 

Through it, you’ll be able to identify your shadows or the things you don’t want to be true about you and shed them slowly. I believe that the deconstruction process of life and your inner world is such a huge piece of understanding who you are so that you can curate who you want to become. In general, I noticed for myself that the more inner work that I do — the deeper shadow work that I do to understand myself — the better life becomes towards the path of wholeness.

If you loved this episode, make sure to connect with Meleza on her website or social media. You can find her on Instagram or Facebook to connect, see where she’ll be teaching, or see how she explores the world. 

And by the way, don’t forget to check out my website too. There, you can find a quick ten-question quiz designed and get some of my best free content to help you out on your creative journey.

Thank you so much for joining me today, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode — if you did, please screenshot it and post it on Instagram and tag Meleza, @eatmycake.love, and me, @nickonken. And if you’ve got time, leave me a review on Apple Podcasts — I’d love to hear your feedback.

I’ll catch you guys next time — now go live the creative lives you were meant for.

Nick Onken

You can Subscribe and Listen to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts. And please leave me a Rating and Review!

“Understanding the definitions and the differences between gender, biological sex, and sexual orientation is so huge.”
– Meleza Morris

Some things we learn in this podcast:

• Meleza Morris’ exploration of spirituality [7:12]
• Stepping into polyamory [10:49]
• Defining sexuality terms to know [12:17]
• The real definition of bisexual [14:11]
• Exploring gender transcendence [15:28]
• The pull of sacred sexuality [22:27]
• Perks to controlling ejaculation [27:15]
• The balance of giving and receiving [33:39]
• Sexuality as a tool to heal trauma [37:54]
• What consent looks like [44:47]
• How Meleza created her boundaries [52:04]
• Dealing with unwanted advances [55:39]
• What does an intimacy coach do [1:04:49]
• Polyamory and the Gene Keys [1:07:57]

Links Mentioned:

Connect with Meleza Morris on Instagram | LinkedIn | Eat My Cake | Meleza S Morris