When I say dominatrix, what’s the first thing you think of?

In my experiences, dominatrices are just people. Most of the ones I know are moms, for example. Many have partners. Many have partners. Sure, sometimes those partners are sexually submissive but not always. Most of the ones I know are fun people to hang out with.  Some are married to cis men and some are queer.

We chat about how dominating men for money interacts with family life, partnerships, sex, and doing sex work. We talk about risks and costs a little. Mostly we’re just two people talking about jobs we’ve had.

Sex work is just work - no matter how dangerous or safe the specific version takes, sex work is real work and is rarely ever just for fun - though most providers have had moments that haven’t felt like work, and that’s true of most people who have gone to work in any job. Most of us have had those rare days where we can’t believe we’re getting paid to do what we do for work.

Sapphire is a non binary friend who has cancer. They have four children and a husband, and are kind enough to give us their time to chat about their experience in the medical system as well as their experiences beating thyroid cancer and what treatment for that was like as well as their effective treatment so far with triple negative breast cancer. I learned stuff and hope you will as well. Content warning: if you’re American and free healthcare bothers you, we will talk about free healthcare and more to the point: we will be a couple of sick Canadians complaining about our free healthcare. This may enrage you. You have been warned. Enjoy the session y’all.

Today, my guest Intimacy con Amore, discusses what it was like spending years building her professional speaking business only to have it damaged by COVID-19.

What’s it like as a polyamorous parent during COVID? Have you ever had another set of parents with kids about your age and shared parenting responsibilities like having them look after your kids while you were out for a bit? Imagine living with another parent and their kid.

Robin doesn’t need to imagine any of that as she literally lives that life. Join us for a conversation on polyamory, parenting, and a funny metamour story.

Billie is back to chat about friendships, having fun, pushing your body, and other concerns with chronic pain and chronic illness when it comes to friendship activities. It’s a good session and not as heavy as some of the others.

Speaking of friendships, Billie is kind enough to offer me some criticism and praise near the end around how I used to be fatphobic. Billie is kind enough to offer me the out of mentioning it last so I can easily edit it out, but my personal feeling is the more we censor our mistakes from others, the more we pressure each other to try to be perfect at everything. I think setting the expectation with others that we fuck up and can do better is a positive thing.

No matter how bad it is or how far you’ve gone, there’s always a way home.

Here are the Feelings and Needs Inventories I bring up.

https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory

https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory

Here are searches for the Assertiveness Workbook not tied to a store account.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=assertiveness+workbook

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=assertiveness+workbook&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Vivica, a sex worker who strips and pole dances to earn money chats with us about Imposter Syndrome. We talk about intensity, anxiety, self-compassion, and covid. These times have been hard on all of us, but sex workers have been hit really hard by covid. Vivica brings a casual and informative presence to the show, and I look forward to recording more with her in future. Enjoy!

Tillie is back to talk queer bodies, reproduction, fertility, endometriosis, having kids, adoption, fears of reproducing disability or mental illness, cannabis use, STIs, and more. As usual, we have a great time in this content packed session.

Usually the acquiring and losing of skills and abilities is compressed towards learning when you’re younger and losing when you’re older. In some ways, chronic illness and loss of ability is like aging in super speed with your body fighting back to retain what it can. While we often think of people as how they lived, not how they died; so too do I see among the loss and death of things in chronic illness the vivacity and life that carries us through it.

It may seem confusing to have life and fun so intermingled with death and loss; it can be hard with chronically ill folks as some might describe, “watch them die slowly” but in truth you’re also watching them live. In some ways the triumph of life and joy and fun over great adversity is a hallmark of the human condition and an essential part of our nature that has led from the first cell that existed on the planet through its descendants, each reaching sexual maturity, reproducing, and protecting their offspring long enough for them to reach sexual maturity. That unbroken chain from the proverbial slime in the primordial soup through single-celled life like bacteria, still ubiquitous and successful today, through other branches of successful modern life like plants and animals; even fast forwarding to hominid - think great apes - evolution from the first apes to stand upright to the first tool users to your most distant imagined ancestors all the way to your life today - every single organism from that first cell to you exists suspended in time in an unbroken chain.

That chain is no shorter and no less impressive for any human being alive today, including the human I interview today, Billie, a veteran of EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) with other conditions like POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), has some great take aways. Last time, we covered the psychology of surviving sickness.

Today we continue chatting about how appreciation of the high points in our life change throughout life. That is to say a great blackberry that you eat when you’re 27 might be more appreciated in a genuinely grateful kind of way at 57 when you can’t eat them anymore than when you were 27. This idea, that gratitude need not occur simultaneously with experience, is one of my favourite take-aways from the session; but it’ll make more sense when Billie communicates it herself. As usual, content warning for graphic descriptions of sickness and dark humour.

Dating can be a fun, connective adventure. Or you could be doing it during a pandemic. Robin Beatch is back today to talk about dating as a polyamorous person and how COVID has impacted her and her polycule. We share strategies on risk profiling and figuring out what you want, who in your life is most vulnerable, and what is a boundary for you. Robin also talks about her longest sexual dry spell.

And just in case you don’t know, a polycule is a group of people who sleep with some of the same people. So if person A sleeps with B and C with person B sleeping with A and D and person C sleeping with A and E, the five of them would be in a polycule. This is just one configuration out of many. Some folks call this a line or a V configuration - the name doesn’t matter. The group of people who are connected in that they are all sleeping with the same people are a complex sort of polyamorous extended family. Metamours are the lovers of your lovers. Often they are not your lovers.

Tillie and I talk about job loss, home-schooling, latchkey kids, pets, and intensity as coping for chronic pain. Mostly we talk about COVID: our fears, our hopes, and our coping strategies. At least COVID hasn’t slowed down my content generation. Stay safe out there, everyone.