SPFPP 218: Belonging Series - An Outcast Longing to Belong

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this “Belonging Series” ironically and not intentionally published throughout the course of Black History month. I’m typing out this description pre-recording while I have some ideas on my mind I want to be sure gets into this episode or at least on this description.

First, I thank everyone who listened to me rant about my triangle. These intersecting identities have heavily weighed on me for probably longer than I am even aware. The expectations as a Black person, as a Masculine presenting person, and as a person who’s arguably a Heterosexual-Queer person. These identities all challenge each other in the ways discussed throughout this podcast series of episodes, but more importantly, they challenge ME. They challenged me to discover what Queerness is aside from me thinking I have to have sex with men in order to be considered queer. I discovered what Masculinity is aside from being logical, “manly” and the leader. I discovered what Blackness is beyond what media lumps in characteristics of people with my skin color.

Through this discovery, I found ME. I, at my core after obsessing over these intersecting identities discovered that rather than going outside in to discover who I am, it made more sense to go outside in to discover who I am NOT. While those labels fit aspects of my expression, they also come with expectations. These expectations are not of my own design. They were assigned to me by systems of systems that genuinely do not serve me in any way beyond being able to find community and a sense of belonging.

I find that my community, my people who reflect back and validate my being, my identity, are all outcasts. I’ve used these labels to seek out where I belong, thus the name for the series makes a little more sense now right? Even in exploring this dialogue on my Facebook, I received some “You act white” energy on a Facebook post that I decided to entertain with curiosity. Ultimately this person came at me for not liking spicy food so the argument was null and void.

I put “Queer Friendly” in my dating profiles because labels and expectations as a Heterosexual Black man comes with this sort of traditional sense of what that means for how I navigate relationships. When I was challenged on what that meant, I realized a few things about that statement in relation to my identity expression. Why do I have to go out of my way to seem more safe/less dangerous as best I can when I only have the life cycle of a thumb swipe to catch interest. Demonstrating there’s queer awareness at the very least while I have to check the box for straight, my skin says I’m Black, there’s no way I’ve found to be like “Hey, yeah I’m straight, AND I challenge social norms in my relationship styles, politics and activism”.

As for manliness, I mean, I pretty much put my life on display here on this podcast and demonstrate emotional intelligence, vulnerability, and exercise a secure masculinity that embodies my feminine aspects all in one.

Working outside in from these identifiers has led me to realize that learning process is in fact an unlearning process. I’m unlearning systemic labeling that oppresses my being into a category to be sold to, monetized, stereotyped, interacted with in a particular way. I’m unchoosing that for myself and the deeper I get into the gunk and build up of expectations from this labeling, I come closer to my core. The sphere in the middle of the graphic where I see my own beliefs, experiences, behavior patterns, privilege, trauma, and healing. I am not these labels. I am the electrical current that connects the body, mind, and spirit as a vehicle of experiencing and expressing itself. Systemically, the interpretation of my expression has been molded to fit stereotypes that don’t align with my core.

As I heal, as I share, as I express, I become aligned with what I choose. I choose healing. My people, choose healing. My communities, chose healing. That’s why I’m drawn to the outcasts. The folks who have herpes and have lost their sense of belonging due to such strong identification with their sexuality, because that’s me. I found a sense of belonging with the Queers who live in fluidity, not identifying as homosexual or bisexual where there’s a clear binary. I found a sense of belonging with my anime watching, Yoga practicing, not spicy food eating Blacks. I found a sense of belonging with my men who also demonstrate emotional intelligence and unconditional kindness toward people regardless if they did or didn’t want to have sex with them or if they could offer anything to one another. And most important, people who’ve gone through shit. A herpes diagnosis is a placeholder for having to face a trauma and then choosing to or being forced into having to choose to heal.

These my people. I’m my people. I belong where I don’t belong. My avatar is a masculine presenting Black body in proximity to queerness. As I express my being from my core in this game called life, I find belonging with my fellow outcasts.

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Transcription

Something Positive for Positive People Episode 218: Belonging Series - An Outcast Longing to Belong 

February 25, 2022 

Courtney: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. 

I just got really, really nervous about my mic. It has this blue light that turns on whenever it's working and active, and that light did not come on. So, whew! I'm glad we got that light right now, because this is a really nice mic. I'ma be honest, I think the podcasts sound better whenever I speak directly into my phone, but I paid for this mic, so I'm using it. I'm gonna ride it til the wheels fall off [chuckles]. 

Notice this isn't your usual introduction. And at this point you'll probably hear another eight weeks worth of podcasts before you hear any implemented shifts that are coming as the result of me not introducing this podcast episode in the way that I have in the past, and here's why: Yesterday is actually when I recorded what was supposed to have been this podcast episode that you're hearing. It was me just wrapping up the conclusion of the "Belongings" series. And as I was speaking, I was able to process something that I didn't realize was really impacting Something Positive for Positive People. Like, I consider myself to be a very reflective and introspective person. As you have heard over the--at least the last three podcasts episodes--on intersectionality between being Black, being someone who is very aligned with Queer spaces and people, and then also being straight and masculine, or man-ly, heterosexual, all of these things. And as I was doing that, I spoke to how as time goes on, we have an established identity. Like, we're all figuring out who we are. But we can really only figure out who we are in relation to who others think we are. And over time--if you'll look at the diagram that is present in the previous episode, you'll see that it's a triangle with spheres at the edges of the triangles and then a sphere in the center of the triangle. And at the edges of those triangles, those are society's labels and expectations that are put onto us around our sphere, and our sphere is where that question mark is. And that question mark is, "What is that? Who are we?" That's who we are at our core, at our center, who we are as people who just exist as beings who have a collective of experiences, beliefs, who have desires, who want to explore and express. You know, that element of who we are can often become calcified in the expectations of other people. And that's what those three identities were. I put limitations on me by my Blackness, by my manliness, by my Queerness. And there are assumptions made about me. And I spoke to this in the episode, but I don't want to give this any more energy that it deserves, but there was a Black woman who commented on a Facebook post that I made about, you know, for people to just stop saying, "You act White." And she was one of those people who says, "You act White." And simply put, you know, just because I can't handle spicy food, I do Yoga and I watch cartoons, and those were her arguments. And I mean I can argue that a lot of other shit that I do is considered "White people shit", but those were the things that she locked in on. And I hate that those expectations really make me feel like I don't belong in certain spaces. So my proximity to Queerness, while I'm straight, makes me feel like I don't belong in Queer spaces. And being someone who considers myself to be a Queer ally or Queer friendly, it doesn't feel a hundred percent aligning to be in straight spaces. And then being someone who's Black who enjoys, like, being a vulnerable man and being someone who's in tune with my emotional intelligence and emotional awareness, as well as doing "White people shit", doesn't fit in with Blackness. So there's these three areas where I--essentially just don't feel like I have a place of belonging. And add to that that I have herpes...and for someone who is open about my herpes status as a man, as someone who is Black, and as someone who--I guess, like, in Queer spaces is probably where it seems the most accepting to be someone who's living with a positive herpes status, like even there the spaces that are for people with herpes, even also don't feel like I belong in there. And I've spent the last month, since coming up with this diagram and exploring these intersections of my identity, and I just realized that I've been trying to create a new identity for myself, another label that I can project onto other people that comes with expectations that include all of these aspects of my being, according to how other people say I show up or how I present myself. And I don't think that that is something that I should have been focused on. My focus should have been really shaving away and challenging those external expectations that society has put on me, like that lady to tell me that I act White. Or for someone to tell me, or to challenge--for someone to have challenged my straightness. For someone to have challenged the fact that, like, I may look like a man who's supposed to behave like a man in a traditional sense. And there's just so much there between me having to, you know, portray myself as more non threatening. For me to have to fake smile or start, kind of, singing or dancing if I'm crossing paths with someone. 

Like I'll use this example. I remember there was a girl at the gym that I go to and I wear the same mask--there's not a whole lot of people who look like "us" at the gym. We've crossed paths a few times, and she's like, picked up one of the pieces of equipment next to me and we've got masks on, yeah, but she was like, "I'm taking this", like I knew she was saying "I'm taking this" and I just kind of gave her a thumbs up. But we cross paths pretty regularly. And one day I was leaving from a partner's house and catching the bus to go to the gym and she was on the same bus. And we had to switch buses, so it kind of looked like I was following her or something. So, when we got to a crosswalk I tried to just say hi, and be like, "Hey, I'm Courtney" and introduce myself so it didn't just seem creepy, like I was following her. And I recognized what it was that I was doing there and it was like, me wanting to overcompensate and make this person feel safe walking in the same direction at the expense of potentially looking creepy. And it's embarrassing because we hit a crosswalk and I tried to talk to her and just introduce myself and she was watching a video so I didn't, like, jump in front of her and be like, "Hey! I'm Courtney! We're going to the same place!" So when that crosswalk changed to--we could walk past it...y'all. I don't walk super slow. I'm tall, I've got pretty long legs, and I take big strides. I cannot tell you--she was probably three blocks away from me before I cleared one block, that's how fast she was walking. And, you know, that's kind of something that goes into this whole, like, emotional intelligence piece. Like, I'm aware enough that women, especially women who are considered attractive by other people and get a lot of unwanted attention, these are people who feel threatened by the presence of someone. And she was also White, so me being Black I felt like I had to come off as non threatening by introducing myself. And I recognize that now. At the time it was just like, "Ohhh, I don't--oh, like, this is a girl at the gym, I should say something. Like, I should be like 'hi'. We've walked past each other all the time and, you know, it would just be cool to make friends. Because that's a priority of mine. I've gotten off dating sites and I'm making an effort to make friends in person, in real life. And today I actually made a friend in the hot tub. It was a Black dude who also teaches Yoga, who also lived in Texas, who also moved here last year. So, it was cool to see how this is like, you know, coming together as I talk it into existence. 

But, going back to the whole point of me sharing the conflicts of my intersecting, perceived identities is that I'm also projecting that into Something Positive for Positive People. Here's how: I have allowed for other people to, sort of, conform the outer edges of its triangle to being mental health focused, herpes focused, and then sexual health communication focus. Now, while these are things that people can, you know, can take away from Something Positive for Positive People, these are not the core of what Something Positive for Positive People is. How it started is how, when you begin to deconstruct those labels and you break down what the external expectations have come to be of Something Positive for Positive People, you get that it is a suicide prevention resource. 

Y'all, I have been feeling extreme symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue. As a result of my own doing. Here's why: Because when I took that hiatus, I recorded podcast episodes. I went hard recording last year and I released everything that I had through November, I believe, in the month of June. So all of June, July, August, September, October, and then November was when I started recording again. So, there was five to six months where I wasn't recording podcasts. I was only applying for grants, I was only trying to get speaking engagements, to be able to get out there and be able to find Something Positive for Positive People so we could start paying for people to get therapy again. Something that I haven't shared in relation to--yes, Something Positive for Positive People got 40-ish people in therapy--is that these were people that I had to, like, hunt for. Like I had to go hunt these people down. So it's not like people are beating down the door so Something Positive for Positive People in order to get us therapy. I happened to have had more money than I knew what to do with with my unemployment, so I negotiated a decent rate between a few therapists that I worked with and I was able to get 40 people into therapy. They all said it was helpful, they talked about how useful it was, but that wasn't what they--that wasn't what the most useful thing was to them. You know what it was? It was the podcast. And I'm convinced at this point now that most people who have herpes, they're OK. I won't hear from them. These are people who probably are in their relationships, maybe they get oral herpes outbreaks, maybe their partner's OK with it, maybe they don't have any issues with dating. But I'm not here for them. I'm here for the people who are at the most extreme end: suicidal. And on the least extreme end, just looking for information to disclose your status to partners and be able to comfortably speak to family and their support systems about what it is that they're going through as they navigate stigma. And I have allowed for myself to burn myself out because I haven't been really focused on and doing what I want to do. And what I want to do is host a podcast. If people are coming to me and saying that this podcast has been more useful than anything else that they've found and that the--it's been something to help them even with disclosing to their therapists. A lot of people who come to me, they have a therapist, and they are afraid of disclosing their H S V status to their therapist. I don't know why. Maybe it's fear of judgment, maybe because they've developed such a rapport with that therapist and things have been going so great that if they say this, they're running the risk of losing that security. I don't know. But I do know that Something Positive for Positive People, at its core, is a suicide prevention resource. That's why this started. And I've been applying for grants--it's when I do things that are out of alignment with my values that I begin experiencing symptoms of burnout. And one of things it doesn't allow my values is, I'm applying for grants and funding that really touch on the components of the triangle that are external labels and expectations about other people and what Something Positive for Positive People is. When people validate the true core of Something Positive for Positive People, when they say things like, "This saved my life. I was in a dark place." I learned that this is so much bigger than herpes. I learned to be reflective. And I took out a journal when there was an episode that had no significance to herpes that just helped me with, just like, going through the process of what you would go through in self help settings. Something Positive for Positive People is...I don't know that I was in a super dark place, I can't say that I was ever experiencing suicidality, but I know people who have gone through with it. I know people who have talked about it. I know survivors of suicide. So suicide is essentially the driving force in me to fuel Something Positive for Positive People. That's why it's seemingly an infinite capacity for emotional availability through this organization. Because that's really the passion, that's what I care about. 

I'm learning that as I apply for these grants, don't nobody care about herpes. There are so many mental health resources out there that exclusively focus on mental health. There's so many organizations that provide support to people who are living with H I V and everything that they need in there. I can't foresee there being something like that for herpes, because people who have herpes don't have to step up, they don't have to come into the space and be like, "Hey, I need help." They can just come to a person, they can come to this podcast resource, get what they need and then leave. So, I've been fucking up. The last two...almost three years, it'll be three years in May. The last three years that Something Positive for Positive People has been a non profit, I've been wanting to raise money and pay for people to get therapy who don't want therapy. 

There's a group that I'm in that has, probably about...it's several thousands of people for sure. It's not ten thousand. And in this group I posted that, you know, I'm offering to pay for people to get therapy if you are someone who might be struggling with stigma. And nobody stepped up, nobody wanted therapy. And I recognize, like, I've gone to people who I've had like close proximity with to get them in therapy. These were just people who were like, "You know what, I probably need to be in therapy." These weren't people who were in a dark place or, like, "I need something." And the people who come to me who are in that place, oftentimes, like, I've been just able to recommend them a podcast episode that resembles what their story is. Or I've been able to just hear them and hold space for them and listen to them. Something Positive for Positive People's resource--its product, its service--isn't therapy. It's this podcast. This is what people who are living with herpes--who are struggling with their mental health as a result of an S T I diagnosis, who need support in learning to communicate about their sexual health, who wanna learn to heal the sexual trauma of an S T I diagnosis--this is what people come here for. Those people come here for that. And at the end of it all, like, having the presence that it has is, in fact, suicide prevention. Or I could even say suicide minimization because I don't like the word prevention in relation to S T Is. So if we can minimize a person's chances of suicidality or suicide ideation through the existence of this product, this service, this community, then that is something that is directly in line with its origin story and its intention. And maybe when I apply for grants that are in relation to suicide prevention, I'll be able to have more conversations or be able to even get the funding for that. 

But right at this point, I've already started the conversation with a few of my board members in that we really need to invest in this podcast. We need to invest in Something Positive for Positive People and what it's offering now. And keeping true to the core of what it is: Suicide prevention. Period. That's what it is, that's what it started as, and as it evolves, yes, it's going to touch on more spaces. And what the content quality of the podcast is, that's gonna just be determined by what comes up. 

And I'm learning even through these most recent episodes about the intersectionality of Queerness, straightness, and Blackness. These have really sparked conversations. And people have reached out to me that I didn't even know listened to the podcast, and were like, "Wow, you know, I felt this. You said this thing..." and I'm like, "Damn! We said that?" [chuckles] So I'm really thankful to the guests that I've had on, Patrick and Dr. Rob, for just being mirrors for me. As I process this you'll probably hear in the tone of my voice and some of the stuff that's said that this is being processed. And you don't know what's gonna come out of my mouth about it but the parallel here just being that I, in my exploration of those intersecting identities, have not been true to my core. And therefore as I show up in Something Positive for Positive People, the same exact thing has been happening. So I've had to challenge the external labeling and expectations of what it means to be a mental health resource, a sexual health communication resource, a herpes resource. Because those are essentially just secondary impacts of what Something Positive for Positive People provides as a suicide prevention resource. So I say that to say that as I do continue to apply for funding, I need to do so with suicide prevention in mind. As I do these talks, as I do these conferences, these presentations, the topics are all about the interconnectedness of sexual health and mental health from a place of suicide prevention, suicide minimization. I don't know how that sounds, that doesn't really roll off the tongue. And when I say to minimize suicide it implies that, "Yeah, people are still gonna do it." And that sounds different than S T I minimization because it's like, "Yeah, people are still gonna get S T Is." I don't know, it just seems a little bit out of context, so I'll play around with that and be able to more so speak to it. 

But it does feel so liberating to me to have recognized that these are my symptoms of burnout. And it's just like when you're in relationships or when you have proximity to particular relationships. Some can be more draining than others, some can be more energizing than others. The ones that I speak to...self care as identity care. And identity care being having yourself in a position to have your identity validated. Any opportunity that invalidates who you are, your identity, that is something that drains you. That's where we begin to get burnt out. So for me, I'm constantly hearing how great of a job I'm doing, how great this work is, how useful it is, how supportive I am to people who are just in need of something. They don't know what it is, they find this and then they get it. Only for me to go to the places who can help me help these people more or expand on what it is that I'm doing, and be told no. "No, your work is great but it's not great enough. It's not important. Herpes isn't a big deal." They're not saying that, but that's what I'm hearing, that's the invalidation that I'm beginning to receive as I look at these rejection letters. As I scroll through and I get the copy/paste email where they just fill in my name: "Dear Courtney, after reviewing hundreds of proposals, unfortunately yours didn't make it. Try again next year." Or even to see that there are grants and funding opportunities that you have to be invited to apply for. And then I go through the process, still, of trying to get through and just present, just my passion and how...how passionate I am about this work! How intense it is to me, how intertwined this is with who I am. Like, I am aligned. After that speaking through processing of what is coming out now in this podcast, more processed of how I am in my core, and how Something Positive for Positive People is in its core, like we're talking about alignment. Like, I know now, something--things--are already happening in order for me to be able to make this happen. 

Like I'm currently--I just got a part time job working at O H S U, Oregon Health and Sciences University, here in Portland, Oregon. I am producing two podcasts for a University back home on the topic of Implementation Science. I'm teaching Yoga. And I'm also obtaining a lot of speaking opportunities. And these are all things that I'm learning, that when you're in alignment with who you are, when you're connected to yourself, with what it is that you wanna do, who you are, all of the logistics come together later, along the way. I learned that as I prioritize the needs of my spirit, my purpose, my mission, my passion, the needs of the body are taken care of and I'm finding myself surrounded by very loving and supportive people in the relationships that I have. These are people who support me and accept me and I don't know that I've had that before in relationships as I am. And it feels really beautiful to be able to have these moments of alignment where I'm getting glimpses of myself as I am, who I am, detached from any of the external labelings that are there and still being met with love and acceptance. Unconditional acceptance, along with a little bit of understanding for people who, like, don't just see me, but they get me. This is what happens when you take these kinds of moments to reflect on who you are, who you choose to be. In the sphere of that triangle, in the center, it's like the debris and gunk and all of that just calcified around the core of who I am to the point where I just forgot. And I think that this may happen with us all. Even if you take an opportunity to look at intersecting identities for yourself as a human in whatever ways that you identify. Begin to play with that and look at what your beliefs are in the center: Your privileges, your experiences, how you express, what your desires are, what makes you happy, what brings you pleasure, what scares you, your fears. Look at all of those things and see if they hold true to who you are in relation to how the rest of the world sees you. Or how you've chosen to see yourself in accordance with the rest of the world.

Because there comes a point where we just sort of wake up from this daydream, this sleepwalking, of not really knowing who we are or feeling a sense of purposelessness or passion is somehow just not--it's not present within us. We have those realizations, we have those moments and it's when we begin to just reconnect to that core of who we are that we can start to bring that core into what it is that we do. 

I can't wait to release this podcast episode. I can't wait to start to speak more to suicide prevention and look for opportunities to fund my podcast. I want to do this full time. I want to be able to host my podcast, I want to teach Yoga from time to time, and I want to make this podcast the best podcast it can possibly be. And that's gonna include, you know, more vulnerability like this. It's gonna continue to include guests and conversations with everyday people who are navigating stigma. People who are challenging these social norms that have been projected onto us, these expectations, these labels. I absolutely need for people to have that because it's then that we begin to have the self-reflection necessary to grow to encourage that self-reflection in other people to the point where we can become allies toward ourselves and create allies within our communities to support us through the things that we're struggling with and that is suicide prevention. When we can have our identities validated--despite going through something that can conflict with our own self image of how we are, who we think we are--that's suicide prevention. That's identity validation. And that's what I'm here for. 

I believe that I needed this podcast series in order to find this truth about myself and reconnect with this truth about myself. Because it's something that has just not been--I've not been connected to. Unknowingly. It's not like it was a conscious thing that I was doing. It was just like I recognized that I'm in spaces where sometimes I think people forget I'm Black. And that whole thing about, you know, having to portray myself as safe or non threatening. That's a real thing. Like, if I'm riding in the car with a friend, a White girl who's got drugs in the car, if we've been smoking and she gets pulled over and the cops happen to find those drugs, like, there's not a doubt in my mind that no matter how close of friends we say we are, like, you can't convince me that you're going to tell that cop that these are your drugs. Like, "Oh, no, officer, those aren't his, those are mine." And there ain't no way that they ain't gonna look at me and be like, "Oh no, you're definitely peddling drugs." [sighs] It's stupid. It's real stupid. I have friends who, like, talk shit on police and like flick them off and yell things when I'm around and I'm like, "Yo, please don't do that while I'm right here." All it'll take is for somebody to be like, "Yeah, it was him!" And then it's like, my voice doesn't sound like that at all, but these are real fears. And I appreciate my allies for what it means for me to navigate this world as a Black person. To be received as and present as a Black person. Like, yeah cool, you're showing my allyship, great. Do that shit when I'm not around, please. [Laughs] Yeah, I love y'all, love y'all to death, but it's my unfortunate trauma response, survival mechanism, to have to go into a state of being non threatening. Right? Because my default, you know, as you heard me and Patrick talk about, if you've listened to that episode. 

We talked about having to grow up and we had to look hard so people wouldn't mess with us. So I had to look threatening. Looking threatening was safe. And then coming into adulthood, in my mid twenties, that shit did not serve me anymore to look threatening. I needed to look non threatening. And I think that that statistic, dude, like we weren't supposed to make it past twenty five for Black men. I think it comes from holding onto things that served us at one point that no longer serve us. That being one of those things. Don't talk to strangers, look mean, look hard, have status by having these certain types of dress attire. You need these things in order to survive, in order to not be messed with. Don't collaborate with, don't trust people who are outside of your community. And you know, even sometimes, like, it's people within your community that are the ones that are out for themselves or out to bring you down too. And this is something that, you know, I've had to learn. I had to learn this. And I hate that it took me so long to learn it. I hate how long it took me to learn it, I hate how I had to learn it. But it's a lesson that needed to be learned. And it's a lesson that allowed for me to be blessed enough to see the age 33 and be able to do what it is that I'm doing now.

Like, I packed up, y'all, I moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Portland, Oregon. You know how many--"Why you moving there? What are you doing that for?"--how many types of responses I got--"What about the cost of living?" I sold all my stuff in my apartment and I ended up moving here. I had five grand, I had five thousand dollars when I moved in October, on October 31. I paid my first month of rent, had to buy my plane tickets, packed up my two suitcases, a carry on and a backpack with everything I could and I got out of there. Like, I picked up and I moved here because there was a pull. There was an undeniable pull. And I let people say, "Oh, you're gonna be the only Black dude in Portland. You know, it's a bunch of weird people out there, there's all types of people in different genders and you don't know if you're gonna bring home a man." Like, I had to hear that phobic, all types of phobic shit. And then, just the challenge of, you know, my straightness, even. Like, "Oh, with you moving out there, you better be careful." [laughs] Like some of the most ridiculous things. And if I listened to that, if I subscribed to either of those identities as being Black or being straight, or being man-ly, or even being Queer, then that might have deterred me from making a decision that was going to connect me with the core of who I am. 

I'm not my body. I'm not my thoughts. I am the electricity that runs through the nervous system that takes action based on the thoughts that I choose to respond to. I move in this body. I'm speaking these words. And I truly believe that, like my beliefs, the power of my belief is gonna be what gets me ahead because I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for that. There have been, like, very short spurts and moments of intense belief and passion that have brought me here. And I'm here. You know? Like, I don't fit in. I don't have to fit into any of those three places or even the place of being someone who has herpes and the communities there. Like, I know that I'm just an outcast, in a sense, I'm a misfit. I'm not "supposed to" be vulnerable, I'm not "supposed to" talk about my herpes status openly, I'm not "supposed to" do any of this. But I am. I'm not "supposed to" be in non monogamous relationships because that's "White people shit", according to [chuckles] whoever it is that has not decided to consciously communicate what their needs and desires are according to themselves. I'm not "supposed to" be teaching Yoga, I'm not "supposed to" be this vulnerable, I'm "not supposed to" a lot of things. And I don't fit in, I'm not enough, I'm not manly enough, not Black enough, not Queer enough, I'm not anti-herpes stigma enough. Like I "should be", because I'm somebody who has herpes and I "should be" out here fighting for a cure. That doesn't align with me. It's the suicide prevention. Or minimization, however I'm gonna [chuckles] decide to move forward with that statement. That's what aligns with me. 

And I hope that you'll stick around. Like, I'm gonna make the announcement, like yeah, Something Positive for Positive People is, and always will be, a 501c3 non profit organization that, you know, secondarily connects people with herpes to support resources. But that's not all it is, like that's secondary. At its core it's a suicide prevention resource that provides a podcast that helps people walk through the mental impacts of stigma. The emotional impacts of stigma. That's whats peoples getting--that's whats peoples getting [laughs]--that's what is getting people here and I hope that people come, I hope people get what they need, and I hope people leave, y'all. Please do. Unless you decide that you like some of the stuff that I continue to talk about, like more on this, like I want more conversations on curiosity. Being a positive person is not exclusively limited to having herpes. And I hope that me putting myself here, like, the evolution of the show, the evolution of the non profit. There's also been an evolution in me! I spoke to this in an article that'll be published--actually really soon after this podcast recording, and I'll share it on social media--but the writer, Sam, we talked a little bit and they rephrased things in a way, very beautifully. And I hope it comes across in the writing. But I remember when I started out, when I was interviewing people, maybe 90 percent of it was about herpes and 10 percent was about the person. And throughout my evolution, it became to a point where it's like now 90 percent of this is about the person and 10 percent of it is about the herpes. There's been a transformation. There's been a transformation in the show, there's been a transformation in me. And I'm at a point now where I have to accept and align, so that there can be consistency there. 

People ask me if I'm a metric for success and where I see Something Positive long term. Like, I don't know. I used to think that this was gonna be an organization that people who've experienced a sexual trauma would be able to come to for therapy. And now I'm just like, damn, you know, this is gonna be--because I've already seen it. Like, one of the podcasts that I'm producing, this is funded by a grant. A 20 thousand dollar grant to produce ten podcast episodes. If I can do, you know, a 60 thousand dollar grant to produce 30 podcasts episodes, like that's my goal, that's my magic number. I don't need much. Five thousand dollars a month for me and I'm rich. Like, right now I ain't making shit [chuckles]. I'm able to pay my rent, fortunately. My board members keep giving me shit about not paying myself. They're like, "Courtney, you need to pay yourself." And it's like, why? When I'm gonna have to put the money right back in order to, like, keep from accumulating the bank fees for not having a certain amount of money in your account, and then I gotta pay things like the phone bill. Or if I'm meeting a new potential podcast guest or somebody in the field of health and we're talking about this, and it's a lunch or dinner that's I'm paying for, and then I gotta pay off the credit cards. So, like, why move the money? [laughs] So that's what I want to do, I want to be able to do that. 

And we get podcast sponsors as well, and I've noticed a trend of people who come here often in a pretty dark place. And I know how challenging it can be to support a sponsor, to want to put your name or email address into something that links you to an organization that is a quote "herpes resource." According to society and the people who found this resource and talk about it to themselves, or to me directly, like that's what it is. But these sponsors, I mean, they keep me here, they keep [chuckles] my studio space, this rent paid. They keep me being able to find guests because it's getting to a point now where I'm not seeing as many people open about herpes, as they were in--when I was starting my podcast. And people aren't, you know, beating down the door and I'm also not as involved as I was in a lot of the groups where I was getting guests. Simply because I think that, like, maybe I've just outgrown those spaces and I desire a new type of community that fits me. I see a lot of, like, hetero-normative or like, gender--traditional, like, toxic monogamy type things that occur in some support groups. And those just don't align with me anymore, like I don't feel like I belong there. And so, like, I hope to be able to create my own community that serves as an extension of me, that does align with those values. And I feel like I'm there, but I also don't think that it's something that people should have to pay to be a part of. And that's probably part of what my problem is, is that I don't want to have money as a barrier. I don't wanna ask people for money, I don't think that you should have to pay for information. You shouldn't have to pay for change, you shouldn't have to pay for growth. And that's why I continue to apply for funding, that's why I keep going for these grants and tolerating rejection, like that's my...that's while it like dampens my flame a little bit, the fire is infinite as long as I stay true and connected to the core source. Which is that this is a suicide prevention resource. This is a suicide prevention resource. And I hope that people know that, I hope that people will begin to support it and promote it as just such. Like, yeah, it might seem ridiculous, yeah, "people with herpes wanted to kill themselves, so I started this podcast." But I now have surveys, I now have findings, I now have the information that supports the fact that this podcast is worth funding. It's worth donations, it's worth being able to support myself from. And I hope that, you know, as I align myself and connect with myself and go through this recalibration process of being who I am, who I'm supposed to be and showing up how I'm supposed to, I hope y'all with continue to rock with me as well, throughout that process. I really do. I really, really, really do. 

So with that all being said--look at me I'm trying to use my dirty talk, [laughs] trying to use my dirty talk lessons from Marla Renee Stewart's "Dirty Talk" class on Beducated dot com. If you go to the link that's in the episode notes and you enter code S P F P P, you will find that you are gonna get 65 percent off of the annual subscription of Beducated. It's educated with a B in the front. Bed-u-cated. So yeah, Marla Renee Stewart is--one her classes was on dirty talk. And I took that and I learned that sometimes you wanna just like slow down...create pauses in what you're saying...[whispers] maybe you wanna whisper. And then when you really get into it, maybe you breathe a little bit heavier, maybe you talk a little bit louder and yeah, we took it there [laughs]. But yeah, this was a really great class for dirty talk. And I learned that it's not really about what you say, it's more about the pacing of what you say. It's about how you say it, it's about how much passion's behind it, how much do you MEAN it, oooooh, I think I did good! I hope me and her get to meet, because I think that she put together the "Sex Down South" conference and yeah, I would really like to be there and attend some of the stuff that they have going on. But that’s besides the point. Beducated dot me slash S P F P P, the link is in the episode notes. There are just so many courses on here. I watched one on pegging with a partner and we were watching that. And Lola Jean was the educator for that, and it was real cool to see all of the demonstrations and learn the importance of lube and different ways of going about it, and some of the stuff that you just need to know if you're going to practice pegging someone. The next class that I'm going to take, I have it queued up, I'm 19 percent of the way through, is on dominance and submission for playing with power dynamics. I'm really thrilled to be able to participate in that. But yeah, for $9.99 a month you get 65 percent off of the annual membership for Beducated, by going to Beducate dot me slash S P F P P. And whenever you check out, please insert that promo code S P F P P. In the next ad that you hear, hopefully I'll have finished the Dominance and Submission for Playing with Power Dynamics class, because I also wanted to talk about threesomes. And I would love to hurry up and get that [chuckles] video under my belt because I think I've had three or four really unsuccessful group type situations and I tried to set up a fourth or fifth, whichever one that was, and none of these went the way that I envisioned them in my head. So I'll speak more to that when you come to the next ad. But I do hope that you decide to support our sponsors. I'm aware of stigma being something in a way as a barrier that will prevent people from wanting to put their name out there and email address with things. But this is a really fun platform for you to have, like, a library of educational resources to utilize in the bedroom, or outside the bedroom, you know, wherever you decide to get a little freaky at. But again, that's Beducate dot me slash S P F P P. Be sure to use that promo code S P F P P at checkout. Wow, I actually recorded that in the show and I feel like that was kind of smooth. If you like that ad, let me know, and you can Venmo me for my OnlyFans voice quality right there [laughs]. I'm just kidding. 

I want to bring home just the entirety of this intersectionality belonging series of Something Positive for Positive People because it's important. It's very important to me, that I have now come to the conclusion of just remembering

who I am. It's all a remembering. And it's OK to not fit in. And I feel like for so long I've thought of Queer as being, you know, you are willing to have sex with someone who's not your reproductive counterpart. And I've learned through exploring this and asking questions that Queerness is so much more than who you have sex with. Queer is an active or conscious way of being, defying or challenging, or consciously going into whatever structures you choose for yourself. Society has its framework for how to do relationships, how to express yourself, how you should present as someone who has a penis or someone who has a vagina. Like, based on your reproductive organs that puts you in a box of who you are. Queerness is something that directly defies that and says, "No." It's a middle finger to societal structures that try and tell you how to be. And it's a conscious way of choosing to be who you are. You can be Queer in your politics, you can be Queer in your sex, you can be Queer in your passions, you can be Queer in your work. It's just a matter of challenging the status quo of what has been deemed "normal"--and I use air quotes with that--or acceptable. And I choose to do so through my dating, like I date people who just happen to be somewhere on the spectrum of Queer. I am a non monogamous person. I just find that these are more generally accepting people. And I don't feel like I can claim the title of being Queer myself, like yeah, I'm gonna root for you, Queer allyship, yay, but I present the way that I feel and express myself. And while my manliness is potentially something worth challenging because of my emotional awareness, my emotional intelligence, and then my Blackness directly conflicting and you know, going back to the triangle. 

Despite that...like I said, like I don't belong and I hope that everybody realizes that none of us belong. And Queer has just become a label where, you know, the misfits are accepted. And I feel accepted to a point where I can be an ally, like I feel a sense of allyship from the people who are some form of Queer around me. But I don't feel like I belong. And I think that there's...like, that's healthy. It's healthy to be able to say, you know, "I feel supported by you, I support you, but this isn't my space. I don't belong here." And I don't know that I'm gonna find a place that I belong. Like I'm an outcast, I'm a misfit [chuckles]. And I am A-OK with that now that I recognize that about myself. Like, I'm just passing through. And I now accept that about myself.

I was talking to somebody, I said, "I make a damn good side dude." [laughs] Like, I offer unconditional love and emotional support and I think that that's probably why non monogamy works well for me, because I can love the shit out of you. And at the end of the day, like, everybody's still able to get what they need. Like, I've struggled with enmeshment throughout my relationships, becoming the kind of person that my partner needs me to be at the expense of me being who I am. And, again, just going back to enmeshment in my personal life and looking at enmeshment with Something Positive for Positive People. Look how quick I was to conform this shit in order to make it fit to get funding and provide therapy based on something that I think this community needs and can benefit from. But it's not about me. It's about what has manifested in the way that it has and how Something Positive manifested was as a suicide prevention resource. It's suicide prevention. I'm not gonna get like long term, life long podcast listeners, I recognize that. And I don't want that, like I'm actively telling people to listen, get what you need, and then go. Get up outta here. Recommend it to somebody else. People are gonna always get diagnosed with herpes and S T Is. People are always gonna struggle with their mental health, and I hope that they find what they need when they come here. I really, really do. And this podcast is gonna just be here as long as it can be. 

And I know y'all probably tired, if you have, you know, listened through every episode. You're probably tired of hearing me rebrand shit and talk about how I need to get back to the root of what this was and what it is and I'll be honest with you, like [laughs] I'm tired of it too. So, I can't try and fix a thing without looking at and providing whatever maintenance it is that I need for myself. If I make the machine, and I'm maintaining the machine, who's maintaining the man? So it's important for me to invest in myself, it's important for me to invest in the nourishing and reciprocal, mature, consistent relationships that I have because I recognize that when I'm not, when I'm investing in things and people that aren't reciprocating, it's because I'm spending time in a space where my values are not aligned with. And we all need to be able to recognize that for ourselves and perhaps it's through exploration, perhaps it's through reflection. I don't know why I said exploration, I meant to say the reflecting of just, like, journaling and writing. 

Y'all, I had a hard day. When was it, I think it was Monday. Monday was really hard for me. Monday would have been...February 21. It was just hard. I just, I was getting rejected left and right. Like I--the emails all seemed to have come in on the same day. [Laughs] And I think I was also feeling a little bit rejected by someone that I've had interest in and just kind of like watching them repeat a pattern, going into a, like, abusive relationship dynamic and just kind of like observing. Being like, "I'm really sitting here watching you do this and enabling this." Like I'm asking, you know, "What do you want to do?" So that I can be supportive in the best way that I can, but that's, again, that's invalidating to me. That's me invalidating my own identity as somebody who is supposed to be like [sighs] sex positive and, you know, I'm talking about all this healthy behavior and recognize consent, being able to pick up on and walk the fuck away from abusive behavior. I'm over here like, "All right, if that's what's you wanna do." And that was something that took a toll on me, I ain't even realize it. So the more that I am with myself, even with meditation and just sitting in stillness with my own thoughts, it's like the more positivity I absorb. Whereas when I try and listen to other people or things or be to others what they don't need, that's when I start to feel drained and taken from. 

I stopped listening to podcasts, y'all. Unless I'm about to be interviewed and be a guest on it, like I had to stop listening to them because some of the podcasts I listen to just made me feel bad about not being in a place where I should be. I've spent significantly less time on social media because social media has been making me feel bad. Like I hop on whenever I get a message, if I see something as I'm scrolling through that seems useful, I'll share it. But the pressure of Instagram to now start making reels and investing time into that. Like, people who watch reels aren't donating to Something Positive for Positive People. I don't even know that they're listening to the podcast. People who are watching reels are watching reels. And that, you know, unfortunately, that's a realization--a real "ization", you see what I did there?--but, it's when I'm putting the time in to making these graphics and promoting to audio, like I can

put these soundbites together, I even got discouraged from that. And I got discouraged from that because the capacity that I had has been going into things that haven't been in line with Something Positive for Positive People at its core. 

So I'm getting back to that shit, man. I'm done fucking around. I'm done with spending my time and energy in places that aren't reciprocating and like, I'm telling y'all, you gotta start saying no to shit. You gotta start saying no to people. Sometimes you gotta say no to yourself. And "yourself" meaning: "Yourself" that's obviously about to participate in some toxic behavior or do something that just doesn't serve you. You know, understanding intentionality. Intention, that's a powerful ass feeling. To be in alignment, to be connected with yourself and then to go forward consciously with intention. Everything has an intention, whether you're aware of it or not. To go into it aware, even if you're aware that you're unaware of your intention, you start to interact with the world differently. You start to have more healthy relationship dynamics. You start to have your identity validated and affirmed. And there's nothing better than that. That's self care. Self care is identity care. And identity validation through your own expression of yourself. Get to the core of yourself, get to your core. 

I believe we're not meant to fit in, we're all unique, we're all our own snowflakes. It's a matter of identifying what our passion is and giving it a purpose, focusing it on something. Because unchecked passion often demonstrates itself in insanity. I recognize now that I have the kind of relationships that anchor me. I'm not unconsciously putting energy into toxically pursuing them in a way that's, like, um...like I'm settling for something less than what it is that I really desire for myself. I'm not doing it anymore. I've been in relationships with partners who I've proposed non monogamy to, and the process of ongoing-ly communicating with them about what it looks like, about what our mission is together. Every relationship, I feel like should have like a relationship mission statement. And whenever there's conflict, whenever there's check-ins, they need to be like created--or, I'm sorry--there needs to be a consultation with one another that points to that mission. "Hey, are we on track for this mission? Do we agree that the mission needs to be revised or changed or maybe we need to do something different." What does that look like? I've not had that until now. And it's been through following the pull in my core to where I am to where I've been able to get that and also recognize what's not that. 

And not putting energy into pursuing it so that I have more energy to remain connected to myself. More energy to invest energy into the core of Something Positive for Positive People. Because if I got to, like, this would be my primary  partner. Something Positive is my primary partner and this is, like, we're supporting one another and being able to show up in the world as our fully expressed selves. As long as one of us is doing good, the other one doing good. And it's about consistency. This baby has taught me consistency. That's fear in the center. I mentioned it's your privileges, your experiences, your val--you're, um, your beliefs, behaviors. Damn! I snuck in values, I was gonna say that last, but it's also your values. A value consistency. And yeah, like once we get through April, I believe, like wait til y'all see how these podcasts episodes coming out. I'm telling you, this is it! This is it. I found my flame, I found my stride. And I found my purpose and I'm pointing it in the right direction, I'm pointing it into the podcast, it needed to be pointed inward. And I'm so grateful that that exploration of myself through those intersecting identities was something that brought this all together full circle for me. And I thank you for being a part of this journey with me. And I hope that the next time I deviate from herpes content or whatever it is that you expect in regards to sexual health communication or mental health resources, like you'll still see that here. You'll come here and you'll get that. 

But, thank you for fucking with me. Thank you for rocking with me. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for donating, thank you for supporting me. Thank you for keeping this going. So now, as I move forward, the focus is on this podcast. This podcast is a resource. Something Positive for Positive People is a suicide prevention resource. And it's also something that is a useful self help [chuckles]. We're helping people navigate the stigma and the internalized stigma that they have, not just about their diagnosis, but about life. Anything that might send them down that dark path, like, this is bringing you back to being a positive person. So you'll hear the next few episodes talk about the non profit as connecting people, like, naw. Something Positive for Positive People is the resource. This is the service, this is the product. And if you wanna support it, please go to Venmo or Cash App at CourtneyBrame and just put S P F P P in there so I'll know where to--what account to send the money to. PayPal dot com slash S P F P P. And you can become a Patreon subscriber by visiting Patreon dot com slash S P F P P. Thank you so much. Til next time, stay sex positive.