Intimate Interactions

Today I talk with someone else who has a formal diagnosis for ADHD. Mine was as a child and hers was as an adult. We chat about the experience of having ADHD and how it impacts us. While today we focus on the experience of it, there’s an upcoming session where we talk about strategies and coping.

Shame Expert Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti calls in to talk about her life as a black femme with undiagnosed autistism growing up. Gloria somehow continues to be her usual charming self sharing very personal anecdotes about anti-blackness as it affected her in school and as a younger person.

Today, two POC folks discuss monogamy, polyamory, autonomy, and agency. Jet Noir shares a story of his parents’ and how they dealt with extramarital adventures. I discuss relationship anarchy and how it relates to Jet’s identity within non monogamy. Enjoy!

https://linktr.ee/JetNoir

Jet Noir is back to talk about racial fetishization. We talk about dating, conventions, and other stuff in how it relates to race. As a former fitness coach, Jet has some experience as, what he calls, a body image coach. We talk a bit about tea to ease into the conversation as well as how we met before diving into the topic.

I mention “Love is Not Colorblind,” a book written by Kevin Patterson about non-monogamy as experienced by a person of colour. That book is useful in my opinion for any folks wanting to see more representation by people of colour in their currently mostly white space. Let’s hear from Jet himself on Intimate Interactions.

https://linktr.ee/JetNoir

https://www.kcnerdfest.com/

Happy two days after Canada day or the day before the 4th of July. Former British North America week? Ugh colonialism is gross. While everyone is talking about the concept of being free from restrictions, I’m interviewing veteran podcasters about their flagship projects that produce free short fiction for me and for you. From the horror stories of Pseudopod to the science fiction of Escape Pod to fantasy stories of Podcastle - there’s an Escape Artists’ podcast for that. Check them out at https://escapeartists.net/

Today, the inimitable SB Divya, Mur Lafferty, and Alasdair Stuart chat about what they’re passionate about in podcasting, how they got into podcasting, and how they’ve built community.

SB Divya

Mur Lafferty

Alasdair Stuart

Escape Artists (https://escapeartists.net/)

Check out Escape Pod:  http://escapepod.org/feed/podcast

I mention: 697 - The Last Stellar Death Metal Opera

I also really liked: 701/700, 692/691, 672, 661, 660, 636, 633/632, 624, 619, 617, 613,

1) What themes in science fiction excite or fill you with passion?

2) Why did you decide to get involved hosting Escape Pod?

3) How has podcasting built meaningful relationships for you among other show contributors?

4) How has Escape Pod built community for itself over the years?

5) I've noticed since 2014, Escape Pod has become significantly more representative of women, people of colour, and queerness in story choice. Was this a conscious choice and how did it happen?

6) Have you ever felt exposed or surprised by information the community had about you that you published years ago?

There’s a fascinating distinction between the way we see ourselves and the way others see us. Those might be the same. Those might be radically different. For public facing folks like Jet Noir or even myself, it might be intentional that we show part of who we are to make art, construct a performance, or for a host of other reasons or pressures.

I love events like burlesque and related but quite different events like drag. They often have something valuable to say about sex, sexuality, and identity. What that is differs by performer, act, and the audience experiencing it. I encourage you to experience both burlesque and drag for different reasons, but what they both have in common is you will possibly learn a lot about other people if you don’t also learn something about yourself.

Jet Noir is a Black, cis-gender, non-monogamous, pansexual burlesque performer and sex educator from the Bay Area. This was recorded on April 12th, on day 27 of self isolation for him during the Covid-19 crisis.

https://linktr.ee/JetNoir

Today we talk about scripts around what words like community mean. We talk about housing and how we’ve been taught to “live together” either in couples or with roommates. How does that look for folks off script like triads?

We’ll talk about relationship orientation, the traditional white-picket fence Canadian dream, gender and its impact on scripts, queerness and its impact on scripts, and we’ll even chat a bit about environmental sustainability. Really, we aren’t having happy, loving relationships with more than two people for the sake of the planet, but hey - it’s a legit benefit! Now let’s chat about triads here on Intimate Interactions.

Long distance relationships like any kind of relationship are diverse, varied, and complicated. Jazz Goldman discusses the benefits, challenges, and milestones of long distance relationships while reflecting on our comet partnership, one flavour of long distance relationship. We have had some struggles that felt intense to me and some successes that felt like big wins. Your mileage may vary, but we can only speak from our experiences. Here’s Jazz and myself talking about our comet partnership on Intimate Interactions.

1. What are comet partners?

2. How do you distinguish between comet partners and other non monogamous long distance relationships?

3. What regular maintenance do you think is helpful for you in long distance relationships?

4. Are holidays significant for you in long  distance relationships?

5. What feeds you about long distance relationships?

6. What are some milestones of long distance relationships?

There are places in the world right now where you can’t even say the words coronavirus. This episode I catch up with my friend Morgan while we’re both doing self isolation as directed by government policy. While we don’t live in a place that enforces lockdown, we’re both responsible enough to know if the government says it’s dangerous for us to be out and about, we’ll do our very best to self isolate for the full 14 days.

We’re also fortunate that we both have roommates who are understanding. Mine helped me out with some shopping! Part of being low FODMAP for me is the tremendous difficulty of finding food that won’t make me sick though usually plain meat is okay. I had just recently bought a chest freezer from Craigslist and after a particularly good sale on eye-of-round beef at a local grocery store, I had more than 28 days of protein making meals significantly easier for me though they were plain and similar. Most recommendations: pasta, tomato sauce - had to be very specific forms. Rice pasta makes me sick, and any garlic in anything makes me sick so most prepared pasta sauces are out. Wheat makes me sick so most cereals are out. Corn I can have in limited quantity so some cereals are tolerable in small amounts. Yeah. So basically I ate eggs for breakfast every morning, small amounts of cereal or oatmeal in the afternoon, and beef for dinner for fourteen straight days. Remember, barbecue sauce and ketchup are out of the picture because I can’t eat much fructose without getting sick. Plain beef. Spelt pasta with olive oil and white vinegar was an option though.

Right - back to Morgan the extrovert who’s one day ahead of me in isolation. Actually I’ll just let Morgan tell you about their situation here on Intimate Interactions.

Getting a throat infection or cold sores are often seen as something that most people experience at some point in their lives. However when those infections are lower down, say on someone’s genitals, there’s a tremendous amount of added stigma that seems to come out of nowhere.

Whether you get cold sores on the lips on your face or on your genitals, they’re still just cold sores. A bacterial infection in your throat that is easily treatable with antibiotics isn’t really different from a bacterial infection on your arm or genitals that is also treatable with antibiotics, so why all the stigma?

Today we’re talking with Charisma, a former addict and genital cold sore person about the concept of catching stigma. The real fear for me in contracting any STI is really catching stigma rather than the infection itself.

I know which ones are easily treatable like most Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphillis infections. In fact, those infections only really do damage if they go undetected and untreated so get checked! They may cause pelvic inflammatory disease as well as serious long term permanent consequences if untreated. What’s stopping you getting tested? Is it stigma?

Consider that you might have contracted them from someone asymptomatic. For some diseases, most infections are without symptoms. For others, many infections are without symptoms. If you’ve never been tested, if you can, go get a read-out that says you’re all negative - unless you’ve literally never had sex.

I also know which ones have vaccines like HPV, the treatment for which is a nearly painless cooling of the skin over the infected areas, stimulating your immune system to naturally take care of the infection itself. The process takes less than two weeks although you may be infectious to others before you see infected areas, during infection of course, and afterwards. Like HSV - that’s herpes simplex or cold sores - any viral infection can be transmitted when you’re asymptomatic.

Even HIV has a treatment these days. What used to be a death sentence is only a real danger if you use a condom and have sex with someone without telling them where you can be convicted in court - thanks to stigma - of crimes like attempted murder - though I should mention these crappy outdated laws are finally being overturned in courts.

The point being the most harmful part of STIs in my opinion are the long term effects and the stigma itself. Stigma also gets in the way of testing, diagnosis, and treatment. So go get tested and get educated about what’s really at stake. Be safe. Try not to get sick. If someone gets sick, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to; you can always say no; however be as supportive as you’d be if they had gotten sick in a non genital way. Just my two cents. Now, let’s hear from Charisma.

http://www.bccdc.ca/resource-gallery/Documents/Educational%20Materials/STI/Herpes%20Patient%20Guide.pdf