Intimate Interactions

Sophia Sky invites me to her bedroom to podcast about the subjectivity and intimacy of art. How does are create intimacy between the art subject and the viewer or for that matter between viewers? We’ll try not to be too all over the place but… no promises.

We also talk about Sophia’s passion for art and sexuality that has in part led her to become the director of pan eros foundation, a non profit organization that focuses on celebrating and cultivating sexuality through education and the arts.

Aside from the erotic gallery in the historic pioneer square neighbourhood of Seattle, Pan Eros is also responsible for Consent Academy and Seattle Erotic Arts Festival.

Let’s dive into the intimacy of art with Sophia Sky now on Intimate Interactions.

Today wicked is back to touch on career and gender stuff. What does success or failure look like in the mind of a depressive? How does career play into that?

Gender also plays an interesting role in depression as it informs your sense of community and isolation. Body language is powerful, and isolation in small communities can be fatal.

Outside of secondary sex characteristics like scent and lines of the body, almost all of gender is abstract and constructed from the clothes we wear to most of the behaviours we socialize as evidenced by differing behaviours among sexes in different societies. Some societies recognize a third gender and have done for millenia. Others have fewer boxes in which they categorize themselves.

Fortunately, more and more countries are understanding that cosmetic modification of children’s genitals is probably a really bad thing that leads to mental health problems later in life, and that gender affirmation surgery is literally a life saving procedure.

I think we discuss three notions today: that failure isn’t the absence of success, that gender is sorcery, and that mental health meds are a journey.

Resources

The Pyramid of Regulate-Relate-Reason from Dr. Bruce D. Perry (https://twitter.com/bdperry/status/931235578976329728)

The Window of Tolerance Image from Dr. Marie S. Dezelic (reposted on my site because her links appear broken). Read her article here: (https://www.drmariedezelic.com/window-of-tolerance--traumaanxiety-rela)

Questions

I’ll begin with an aside about a cat. I mention rescue cat 27705 who is a foster kitty with black and white tuxedo colouration and an incredibly sweet disposition found malnourished and abandoned on a wooden pallet that has gained 50% of its body weight in under two weeks with me. Still underweight and almost 11 pounds, this cat plays fetch, is easy to pick up, and meows at me while I’m recording these introductions. Now to the introduction.

My father like most humans is many things. He grew up Roman Catholic but commit apostasy and after travelling and soul searching decided to follow a spiritual path in an ashram in South India, the one in Puducherry specifically. If you’ve read Life of Pi, the ashram’s pool after which the protagonist is named is one in which my father has taken at least one swim.

The ashram has been accused of being cultish before, lead by two leaders, one called Aurobindo Ghose after which I derive my middle name and my sister derives part of her first name. He is known to the ashramites as Sri Aurobindo. He was “arrested in the aftermath of a number of bomb outrages linked to his organization but in a highly public trial where he faced charges of treason… could only be convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British rule in India.” During his stay in jail, he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry leaving politics for spiritual work.

The other is Mirra Alfassa, In her young adulthood she was a documented occultist, an atheist, and eventually a spiritual teacher. She married and divorced Heri Francois Morisset and Paul Antoine Richard. A full life to say the least. She also became revered as The Mother. I’ve heard stories through my father that these two leaders knew of each other before they met.

So there are two potential narratives here: there’s the skeptic’s narrative of the ashram as a cult, and the mystic’s narrative as the ashram as a teaching temple guiding those willing to take the spiritual journey to a place of awareness and consciousness, the next evolution of humanity.

The town of Auroville sprung up as a place of spiritual communism or if you prefer radical anarchism (to quote one man who met Mirra Alfassa), where anyone could meditate and advance their awareness regardless of creed, nationality, ethnicity, religion, etcetera. In Auroville is a quite amazing structure in my opinion called Matrimandir, an egg shaped structure with gold lotus-like petals arranged on the outside. I’ve had the privilege of going there and meditating inside the structure and offer my experience briefly.

All in all, I try not to have too strong an opinion about any of this. My father is my father. Whether I apply a veneer of mystic or cultist or something in between, he is who he is and that narrative is less important to me, especially if it were to damage or estrange me from him. I love my father and hope simply to offer all the facts and perspectives and leave it to you to decide the frame you wish to put on this interesting portrait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirra_Alfassa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrimandir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville

Jazz Goldman and I talk about organizing sex positive and sex-on-premises events. We talk about our love of these events and why we volunteer to do that work. We share our experiences in sex communities including the burner scene. I do use the word “literally” in this episode to mean “figuratively” which is now definitively one of the definitions of the word literally - don’t hate me for using modern English. I don’t like that the word has come to mean what it means, but I’m rolling with the punches.

We also talk about the experience of organizing as mixed-race people of colour.

Hi, Intimates! We talk with Yana Skorstengaard again today about her thesis in art therapy. Her research reveals great results from programs for incarcerated folks. Programs involving art can create the kind of self expression and other communication skills necessary for functional relationships.

Outside of programs within incarceration, there are also alternatives available to a very small number of incarcerated folks including indigenous healing lodges. While I acknowledge both she and I are settlers which is to say non-indigenous to this land, the success of the healing lodge programs and our inability to create more spaces like it is too important not to mention, so we’re going to go ahead and try in a flawed and somewhat self aware fashion.

Strategies developed by indigenous peoples in relationship repair and accountability for harming other folks in society are often radically different in approach from European descended strategies like incarceration, and it's worth lifting up the voices and values of marginalized cultures.

Our values for results are aligned with indigenous values for relationship repair as a holistic process that considers offenders and victims, not just the relationship between offender and society focused around a social contract - to use colonial language.

tl:dr - we could be less violent in how we treat consequences of harming others. There are ways to divert people who would be harmed by our traditional system. Yet we haven't capitalized on solutions like healing lodges that improve recidivism rates by about 100% which is to say they double the number who leave incarceration and stay out of incarceration. That is a truly remarkable accomplishment, literally twice as effective at what we supposedly value: rehabilitation and a restoration of the social contract.

Well, let’s get into the session with Yana and chat more about how art can help people become more intimate with themselves and what her experience was visiting a healing lodge as a settler.

This session discusses group sex while Jazz Goldman and I are walking around at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary feeding ducks and getting accosted by gaggles of geese. Nerdy aside - Occasionally those gaggles would form a skein or two, the word for a gaggle of geese in flight. Of course, both gaggles on the ground or water and skeins in the air can be called flocks of geese correctly.

Back to group sex - we talk about the sights and sounds, our personal experiences, misconceptions, and favourite parts. We talk about the way we move through group sex spaces and the way those spaces move around us as people of colour and non binary gendered humans.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skein

Happy Two Year Anniversary of Intimate Interactions Podcast! This is the current episode I'm publishing to my patreon feed that I decided I'd publish to my free feed early! ^.^ Remember all of my content publishes free but as a thank-you to my patreon subscribers, I offer early access to great content.

Usually knowing those things, experiencing that intimacy - it represents a connection. Usually we could both predict what the other would likely do, feel, and

Get ready for some meta content, folks. I am honoured to introduce you to both: one of my favourite short fiction podcasts, and to the esteemed veteran podcasters that in my opinion use their voices to promote talented new authors and build the writing community - all while bringing you great new fiction by donation or if you prefer, for free. S.B. Divya, Mur Lafferty, and Alasdair Stuart.

By the way, it’s the two year anniversary of Intimate Interactions - hooray! Who would have thought I’d be interviewing veteran podcasters from a popular podcast on my little show? If you want to show me some love, post something kind on https://www.facebook.com/intimatevictor

First, we’ll start with a quick introduction I recorded with SB Divya as one example of the kind of folks who have hosted Escape Pod. I’ll feature Mur’s intro next episode.

SB Divya

Mur Lafferty

Alasdair Stuart

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

Session 1 questions I'll be asking will likely be similar to:

1) What's the most intimate part of podcasting for you?

2) What excites you about podcasting?

3) Do you consider what you create art and why (or why not)?

4) How do you decide what to share of yourself or your life in your introductions and analysis of stories?

5) What has your time on Escape Pod taught you about life?

My soon-to-be 70 year old father visited from India and had a trans-ischemic attack while here. He’s been sick for about four weeks since he got here and was sick before he came, so I felt a sense of urgency to get to know him better, document for my nieces, and to ask what questions I had.

He speaks well and often chooses only to highlight predominantly`the positives which could be seen as editorializing the past, you know - what I’m doing right now by offering a forward - or alternatively choosing to see only the positives. While some might argue parents who feel they’ve made mistakes and focus only on the positive are avoiding accountability, I haven’t gotten that sense from him and choose to believe he’s trying to illustrate the importance of focusing on the positives.

I’ve recently been trying hard to notice positives in my life more and have been finding the effects if nothing else, relieving. The world feels less dark. I feel more hopeful. Of course, I’m also medicated, and both have played roles in my increasing satisfaction in life. It’s not about only seeing positive though - I lean into the negatives and express the bad. I feel when I’m hurting. However it’s easy as a depressive to only do those last ones. It’s much harder to notice the colour of leaves changing seasons or smile at fresh snow falling.

Also, fun fact: this was recorded on Friday the 13th which was also my father’s mother’s birthday. Whelp - let’s go to the session.

Jazz and I drive to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary for a fun day out and have a conversation about their experiences in group relationships like the Triad they were in during college.

They discuss the needs of the individual versus those of the group (a la Spock, or if you prefer, the Three Musketeers or … insert maybe whatever French philosopher that inspired themes in that book here). They also discuss the benefits and drawbacks.

Let’s talk group sex and triads, here on intimate interactions.