Something Positive for Positive People

First, if you have yet to take the 2023 HSV Survey, please do so now by visiting www.spfpp.org/survey and if you are on a mobile device, once you're taken to QuestionsPro to begin the survey, you'll need to first click a slightly visible blue box on the right side of your screen in order to begin. In fact, you can do that while listening to this episode. My goal is 2k responses by 2024.

Next, mark your calendars for May 23, 2024 for Something Positive for Positive People's five year anniversary. We'll celebrate with a day long virtual conference where we'll present the survey findings at. I'll share details as we lock in some guest speakers and start ticket sales.

Third, SPFPP support groups will happen on Mondays at 6pm pacific time FOR PATREON SUBSCRIBERS. If you are NOT a Patreon subscriber, you can join here: www.patreon.com/spfpp and have access to the weekly support group calls where you can come vent, get feedback, ask questions and or just share space with others navigating herpes stigma. Should you not want to join, the fourth Monday of each month will be open to anyone and you can find that on the events tab of the spfpp site.

Ok, now for the episode description:

I have finally learned the lesson of why it is so important to have boundaries and to take care of and prioritize myself AND THEN prioritize Something Positive for Positive People/others. It only took for the same lesson to knock me upside my head from different people a few more times before I got it.

I go into some detail about recent experiences that led to the creation of new boundaries I am upholding. If you want support, the options above are available to you. Outside that if you still want support or a call of some sort, I have to see that you're even somewhat invested in SPFPP before we can go into your experiences/story by seeing proof of a donation before we set up a time to talk.

Now having the SPFPP book, this survey, support groups AND the SPFPP virtual conference to work on, I am choosing to focus my efforts exclusively on what supports these three things within appropriate boundaries. So if I seem like a little bit of a jerk to you it's because I know the quality of my work, support, and my organization to know it's worth being more forward on how serious I take this work.

Our guest Bette Minou (Instagram BetteMinou) is a Sensual/Alternative model who's also on the OnlyFans @BetteMinouMeow if you want to check that out for yourself.

This episode is really about things much bigger than herpes that stigma can be applied to.. At the core, everyone here is just feeding their inner child who, as kids may have had many needs met, but the ones that didn't get met are what shaped our pursuits toward meeting those absent needs. Bette talks about her BPD squared as she calls it, Borderline Personality Disorder and Bi-polar Disorder, as well as Cuban culture, queerness and polyamory as she identifies as Pansexual. We didn't get to go much into the herpes but I think ya'll know by now every type of story with herpes and we're just putting different faces to it.

Bette was diagnosed a year and a half ago at age 30-31 in case ya'll were wondering. But going back to stigma. We lock in to herpes stigma and STI stigma when we live in a world where it applies to many other things. So I'm glad to have a guest with so many intersecting identities represented here. Speaking of Stigma, if you haen't already gone to www.spfpp.org/survey and participated in our 2023 HSV survey to learn about your experience with stigma, support, meds, dating and disclosure, please do so. When you first open the survey, you'll be taken to the consent form where there's a tiny blue box on the right side (if using a mobile device). Click that and it'll take you to the consent form where you'll see words laid over one another. .You can zoom out to read and scroll down to start the survey. Thank you for your time. As always you can donate to www.spfpp.org today, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/spfpp and I'm always looking for new guests to add diversity to herpes.

Mila is newly diagnosed (3 months in) and agreed to do a podcast with me not only on her recent experience not just with herpes but her shift in dating intentions. As a Pansexual woman of Mexican descent, we talk through some culture and non-mainstream aspects of attraction including masculinity and femininity. My hope is that you are able to take away the importance of maintaining and developing your value for the sake of the community. There's a difference between having needs and being needy, and as with all things, the x factor is moderation.

Chasity has been in pharmacy for 10 years and joins our series of interviews with health care professionals dispelling some conspiracy theories and speaking about stigma. One thing that stood out about our chat is that leadership, team, and environment keep coming up and I’m seeing how influential these components of the healthcare field influence one’s care they receive. We can utilize communication to set new expectations and change narratives in media about expectations of someone positive for an STI or start even sooner to get them the support that can mitigate the need for SPFPP’s existence as it initially began . . . supporting people through the mental health challenges of navigating an STI diagnosis. We need to integrate these learned communication skills SPFPP’s guests have shared into STD Prevention efforts.

Shaina French is a Certified Nurse Midwife. She joins us on SPFPP this episode to talk about a Team approach to health care. We discuss time restrictions and workload providers have to navigate in order to meet the requirements necessary to be able to take insurance, and what we’re paying for in order to get that extra time and quality of care from those who opt out of taking insurance. Overall we discuss bias and stigma, and that communication and awareness are essential to the quality of care someone is receiving and able to give. Patients and providers both have needs and we discuss how social media CAN potentially meet those needs, even though simultaneously it could cause different challenges. We discuss the importance of a referral list and I inquire on bias vs identity compatibility which speaks to one’s scope of practice. Talking about sex in the doctor’s office presents a number of challenges that can be resolved by having practice talking about sex in the doctor’s office, and that is one of the things your donations to SPFPP support. Connect with Shaina on Instagram at 1whiskeytangofoxtrot.

Shaina (she/her) is a Certified Nurse Midwife and Sex Counselor with 16 years experience specializing in gynecological care and the care of pregnant/birthing people. In the last half of her career she has focused her skills on assisting her clients in addressing their sexual health concerns, such as navigating vulvar dermatological problems and in individual or partnership counseling sessions for low libido or lack of orgasm. She uses a biopsychosocial approach to tailor treatments to each individual in a shared decision making model of care. She is an Accredited Sexual Healthcare Provider ™ , Kink Affirming Practitioner ™ and Fellow in the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (IF). She currently is caring for birthing clients in hospital only, but coming this fall will be returning to in office sex medicine/gynecological and sex counseling care. Stay tuned to her Instagram for details @1WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot or contact her at [email protected]

Here we interview a Planned Parenthood Nurse Practitioner on the East about stigma in the healthcare field. We talk about some of the clean vs dirty language, differences between men and women’s responses to their diagnosis and some of the useful resources that have supported our guest in dealing with patients. I also present a lil’ bit of guidance for alleviating stigma with patients so I did my deed for the day here. This episode is part of my interviewing healthcare providers series. My intention is to optimize the patient/provider communication for the sake of minimizing new infections through getting people comfortable talking about sex.

Gena is a nurse practitioner who has been working in reproductive healthcare for over a decade, with expertise in trauma-informed gynecology, abortion care, and gender affirming hormone therapy.  In her current role at Planned Parenthood, Gena is particularly passionate about destigmatizing STIs, consent advocacy, and empowering patients in every aspect of their care.

We discuss how stigma cannot survive the presence of truth. We talk about how addressing stigma may not necessarily be something to address with the health care provider or patient. It could be something to address with parents in the home and educators at school. I been thinking about giving providers practice talking about sex with patients, but maybe its the teachers who need this education to distill to the youth so that we don’t see so much stigma prevalent in adulthood.

Theresa has been an RN for 47 years, working mostly adult care -- in hospitals, long-term care facilities,  in a underserved clinic and as a case manager for an insurance company. Currently, she is semi-retired, working part-time from home as a remote triage nurse, which is great.

So what exactly does a Sex Therapist do? In my exploration of trying to identify opportunities for patients and providers to best communicate about sex, what I’m finding is that there’s a lot more to understand than the stigma component. Kimberly shared that on the surface, doctors don’t talk about sex with patients because of time, but what we learn is that that’s just an excuse for a much larger issue.

Kimberly Resnick Anderson, LCSW, is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, speaker, writer, and professor, with more than 30 years of experience treating individuals, couples and groups. She specializes in helping her clients achieve optimal sexual health and satisfaction.

In her practice, she has been known to make her clients feel extremely safe to discuss deeply intimate topics. Over the years, she has been praised for her special style of talking to people about sex that is both comforting and profoundly liberating. Her life-changing technique that she has coined, “Comfort-Inducing Sexuality Dialogue” is her own unique clinical model that has helped save the marriages of hundreds of her clients.

Ms. Anderson conducts Support Groups, Couples Retreats, Intensives and traditional couples counseling. She has a special interest in the impact of chronic and acute illness. She has also treated thousands of individuals with alternative sexual lifestyles including LGBTQ, Polyamory, Ethical Nonmonogamy, and BDSM; and has been a champion of depathologizing these marginalized populations.

Ms. Anderson is regularly quoted in Playboy.com, CNN.com, Cosmo.com, Huffington Post, Yourtango.com and dozens of other national and international publications. Ms. Anderson has published articles in medical journals including The Female Patient and The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy. She was also an on-air expert and consultant for the TLC’s “Strange Sex” series. As a sought-after speaker and expert, Ms. Anderson has been quoted and mentioned in over 25 countries. She is a speaker at sexual health conferences around the globe. Kimberly also hosts and produces a podcast Called Sex Savvy, which tackles all things sexual. Click here to listen.

Her work in graduate medical education makes her a popular Professor among physician trainees and mental health professionals, teaching them to comfortably discuss sexual issues with patients and clients. She is currently an assistant professor of Psychiatry at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

In addition to in-office therapy at her Los Angeles-based location, she offers online sex coaching and teletherapy programs to her national and international clientele. She also teaches a sex therapy training program to licensed professionals, offering her unique approach.

Contact Kimberly via:

www.kimberlyresnickanderson.com

Phone: 818-334-5811 (For a free 15 minute call/consult)

I wasn’t sure if I’d publish this as a podcast episode considering I’m exploring the new territory of just collecting information from health care providers that can support my mission to help people navigate the stigma that comes with not only a herpes, but any STI diagnosis. As I learn more, I learn more. While I filter and curate this information from them to you, maybe you’ll have my same experience and growth while I’m learning out loud here through these conversations. So I decided to get their consent to share these recordings that aren’t quite podcast episodes, but conversations with providers on their challenges and perspectives as they treat patients. Dr. Lourdes here is the first interview in that series. I look forward to sharing with you here.

Lourdes Mantecón-Garza obtained her medical degree in 1982, at the medical school of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, in Monterrey, Mexico. She continued with specialty studies in Internal Medicine at the SSA Metropolitan Hospital in the same city in 1988. She completed a master's degree in business administration at the University of Texas (MBA, UT-PanAmerican) in 2005. She continue with studies on human sexuality at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality (IASHS) and at the Buehler Institute, both in California USA. Dr. Mantecón is a certified clinical sexologist by the American College of Sexologists International and is also a certified sexuality counselor by the American Association of Sexuality, Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) also in the US. Dr. Mantecón -Garza has fellow studies in women's sexuality by the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH). She is a visiting professor for human sexuality readings at different educational institutions in Mexico (UANL) and the United States (UTRGV school of medicine and family residency). She has presented research papers at national congresses in Mexico and the United States and world ISSM (International Society for Sexual Medicine) 2018, WAS (World Association for Sexual health) 2019 and ISSSWSH 2020. In addition to her practice, Dr. Mantecón Garza decided to write reference books that could be available to the population without the difficulty of medical technicalities. His first work, “The diet and the diabetic”, was published by Editorial Trillas in 1996, the second is “Healthy Sexuality” in the process of printing with the same publisher. She is dedicated to work as sexuality counselor at her office in McAllen Texas, she also offers services through telemedicine in English and Spanish.

Our guest, Fran, lives in Australia and talks about sobriety after years of having her identity as a party girl. She got herpes 6 months into a health, monogamous relationship that ended after 2 years for none of the reasons you may be thinking. We talk about something big here, which was how Fran thought her purpose was to be a party girl, and how she just didn't know any different. We discuss the illusion of presence that can come from sex that just doesn't feel connective, and how we aren't looking for "attention" and "validation" necessarily, but we're seeking presence in our relationships. Join Patreon for our after show where we got deeper into some of Fran's self reflections that we uncovered during our episode. www.patreon.com/spfpp