Maggie (our student intern), interviews Dr. Ryan Conrad, an activist, artist, and scholar. They discuss activism within academia, issues within queer politics, radical openness, sex work, and more. Dr. Conrad shares insight on his contradicting feelings related to academia, gay marriage, and intersectional versus co-constituted identity.

And of course, Dr. Conrad shares his career story and advice for those looking to work in the field of sexuality. To see more of Dr. Conrad’s work, check out https://www.faggotz.org.

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Rough Transcript

This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.

Maggie (00:00):

Hi everyone, my name is Maggie, I’m a student at Concordia University in the Simone de Beauvoir institute, and I’ve been working as Dr. Jess’ intern over the summer. I initially started this mini podcast series initially to explore different jobs in the sexuality field, as a resource for people who might be interested in a career in sexuality. However, during my interviews I found that much more interesting topics came up, like sex education, “sexperts,” racial and social justice, sex and disability, activism in academia, sex and substance abuse, sex and cancer, queer and sex worker politics, prison abolition, health care, and a whole range of topics related to sex and sexuality. So in this podcast, I’ll be speaking with Dr. Ryan Conrad, who I know because he was my first professor within the sexuality program. And Dr. Conrad is really interesting because he is both an anarchist and an academic. He’ll be talking about some really important issues like queer politics, activism in academia, sex worker research, and more. Hi, Ryan, thank you for talking to me today. How are you?

 

Dr. Ryan Conrad (01:10):

Hi, Maggie, I'm doing well.

 

Maggie (01:12):

That's good to hear. So jumping right in, on your website, you describe yourself as an activist, an artist, and an academic. Can you briefly go over some of the work that you do?

 

Dr. Ryan Conrad (01:20):

Yeah, so I sort of go by all of those titles, when it's useful to be one of them, if that makes sense, in terms of making oneself legible in certain situations. So sometimes I'm an activist, sometimes an artist, sometimes a scholar or an academic, and sometimes all three at the same time. But I'm very much by any medium necessary, if that makes sense. So depending on the goal of what I'm doing, I'm more of an activist or an artist or a scholar. And so I work sort of at the intersections of sexual liberation, queer politics, sex worker politics. And I do everything from teaching in sort of more academic settings, to running workshops and stuff in more community based settings, as well as making cultural production or cultural work, whether it's film or video or performance, sometimes just visual art. So maybe what I'm trying to say is I'm a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary kind of person, and depending on what the goal of a particular event or situation or experiences I engage in, in different forms, different practices, to sort of make things happen, so to speak.

 

Maggie (02:26):

I love that. And I think those three titles, you know, academic, artist,