The 69 is all about perspective. I've had a healing experience that impacted me immediately because I decided to finally ask for what I needed, which is foreign to me as someone who's been disappointed so often by people. What I learned is that I've created a narrative about my beliefs that stems from thinking that I know what other people think of me and responding to that. This started with my parents. I sought out to resolve our unfinished business directly and it paid off. I hope this episode is one you find useful for wherever you are in your life experience and that if you can attempt this exercise, that you do.

Since I mentioned it, the link to the intro to sex positivity will be added to THAT episode which will be episode 237. The show notes will contain a link to the google forms and you can RSVP for the event by July 20, 2022. I'll send the calendar invite about a week before but if you're interested in learning how sex positivity can be a great space for resources navigating relationships after a diagnosis, I strongly encourage you to attend the virtual meeting July 21 at 6:30pm pacific time.

There’s a difference between having needs and being needy. Asking for what you need is often also synonymous with begging, and no one wants to be a beggar, so in that, no one wants to ask others for what they need. This episode offers an opportunity to reframe how we view having needs, as well as folks’ reactions to us asking for what we need. I think neediness is synonymous with “begging” in the traditional sense of the word. In neediness, we are trying to get our needs met from others without directly asking for them to meet our needs. Having needs is just an observation.

How people choose to respond to our needs request is not a rejection or reflection of us, but a reflection of their boundaries. We may be uncomfortable with asking for what we need because we’re so comfortable meeting the needs of others. So let’s practice asking for what we need where it feels safe to do so, or we can practice with high stakes like going to someone who’s historically let you down and then directly making a request from them with no attachment to whether they comply or say no.

Here I share some moments where I expected to feel rejected after requesting my needs to be met by people, only to actually feel an alleviation of expectations. Let’s start being intentional about identifying our needs and then asking for them to be met before we can start covertly ask people to meet them through manipulation and neediness.

Mark your calendars for July 21 at 6:30pm Pacific USA Standard time for a virtual event introducing SPFPP community members to sex positivity/sex positive world! Updates, a podcast episode, and RSVP info will follow in upcoming social media posts and podcast episodes.

The shorter the podcast episode title, the bigger the message. This is another solo episode with a real emphasis on our narratives. The unfinished business we have with our primary caregivers who nurtured us gave us experiences that allowed us to form a narrative around. This narrative becomes our beliefs. Challenging our beliefs, we begin to grieve that version of ourselves that held those narratives as true to our identities. I had an interesting experience with grief in last night's Yen Yoga class where I hyped myself up and received my own validation, however, there was a major resistance to it because in order to receive, I'd have to accept a truth that I was conditioned to reject about myself. This is an episode that absolutely reflects healing if you're up for it, or at the very least, it'll plant the seed for you because you won't be able to just unsee whatever this reflects to you. Enjoy!

I strongly recommend listening to episode 232 titled "dating" prior to listening to this episode on relationships. What I've come to learn in my 5 years running SPFPP is that the relationships that include sex are the ones that carry a significantly higher value to us when it's our friendships and other non-sexual relationships that allow for us to really be who we are. I learned that my relationships haven't worked out in the past because when you are who you are, and others can be who they are, there's this abundance of self that spills into the relationship/connection. I and my past partners haven't had that. In fact, our lack of self is what caused us to "take" from one another and "give" to each other from a place of scarcity that looks like "Here's all I have to offer" and it would be attached to an expectation. So this reciprocated taking led to a metaphorical overload as we still tried to give beyond our capacity hoping to get what we needed in order to feel "loved" and secure in the relationship.

All that to say, in this episode, I came to the realization that I've struggled with this word "selfish" and confused self-care to mean that until my therapist broke it down to me. You get to hear my ah-ha moment real time when I realize that relationships are co-created by two or more people. The experience is sort of a sphere or container between them where there's reciprocal give to the interaction/relationship and then you're responsible for getting what you need from the relationship, not the person. When two people are able to, through a healthy, secure, enriching relationship, freely express themselves without their selfishness/self-care being perceived as a threat, there's an abundance of expression that just overflows into the relationship from both or all parties so that the relationship itself is abundant to where each individual is able to freely receive and give TO THE RELATIONSHIP.

My example is how I "selfishly" have to maintain boundaries for myself in order to show up in the relationship that you and I have through SPFPP. This is our relationship. I selfishly talk through my experiences and express myself, and prioritize my pleasure and needs so that I'm abundantly able to leak my expression into this platform for you to get what you need from it. Your presence, engagement, support, challenging, and celebration are what I get out of this relationship AS YOU CAN GIVE TO IT, I'm not coming and seeking it directly from you which means potentially overloading YOUR capacity. This sphere is a massive ass community that I through my selfishness have cultivated. A good example is a tree. It simply does what a tree does, grow roots, eat soil, absorb water, grow toward the sun. In a tree just being a tree, it provides shade, sometimes fruit, and when it does what it does, it produces in abundance for EVERYONE else to benefit. I got that analogy from Mr. Locario along with the idea that selfishness isn't a bad thing.

Something I kinda touched on unintentionally this episode was "self-rejection" so I just briefly talked about that, but will get further into that another time. I feel like that's its own episode.

And lastly, why is unavailability attractive? We want to experience others, period. The quality of a person's experience is unfortunately compared to their value of where they give their attention. Someone super available all the time is invited to things and places sometimes as an afterthought, or there's this belief "Oh so and so ain't doin shit, so let's see what they're doing tonight." and that abundance of availability really doesn't make a person put any quality to the attention you give them. Now when you run a business, or volunteer, or make a lot of money, or are pursuing your passion, and others KNOW that, then there's a little more respect and value placed on your time and attention, so when they get it, there's this "Oh my god! They're making time for me with everything they have going on!!!??" appreciation for it. Actually a lot of these thoughts were sparked by Mr. Locario videos. I went down a rabbit hole on selfishness so shout out to him! Enjoy this episode and again, bring your notes!

Identifying the most recent event that triggered you in dating can often be tied to one of the first triggering dating experiences you've had. Don't try to find consistency in the situations, but instead, loo, for the consistency in emotion and you can tie it all together. I use my own dating experience lows as an example for you to work with when identifying your own patterns. I process this avoidance of rejection i've faced since childhood dating scenarios and recognize how it comes up now as I associate my identity with being @honmychest and the Founder of Something Positive for Positive People, but I also look at what dating looks like if herpes wasn't a factor. The most invalidating rejections come from one sided emotionally connecting exchanges for me, as I tend to be drawn to people who aren't available. If I intentionally "approach" those I have an interest in, I have an internalized fear there that I'm going to speak to my therapist about and explore on the podcast once I process it.

I recognize SPFPP is more of a self help podcast than a lot of other things I try to make it into. Letting the audience's needs guide the content, this episode was much needed and it really transitions well from the previous episode where we speak to athletics and what a coach/team represents. This episode touches on a lot of self-awareness/self-help jargon, so if it isn't your thing, I understand. For those who resonate with it, I hope you're able to take away what ya need and move on, and/or reach out to me if you're considering a coach and would like to connect to Clarice.

We conclude part 1 which we just abruptly ran out of time for considering how deep the conversation got compared to how we had intended. I wanted to speak about being former athletes and how that navigated herpes which we eventually got to organically haha, but we took a JOURNEY to get here that was unexpected but was absolutely necessary. We spoke to how athletics and the culture of sports can be a lesson of how we seek out unconsciously what's familiar to us. While we use our experience as athletes, this absolutely applies to anyone who makes decisions. I hope you enjoy this thang as much as we did recording it.

We didn’t get to the topic I wanted to discuss AT ALL about being a former athlete but I promise this is worth the listen. Our guest, Bri, discusses having moved forward with a partner who disclosed to her, they moved forward with intimacy and immediately from that ‘session’, she had her first outbreak. We talk about the emotional labor of supporting a partner through their diagnosis and symptoms, whether or not this was intentional, weaponizing herpes as a means of ‘trapping’ a partner, and how cis-het men navigate the emotional aspect of herpes stigma vs cis-het women.

Part 2 is where we’ll get into concluding Bri’s story, and hopefully get to go into the bit about being a former athlete. So for ya’ll wondering how the abusive relationship ended, stay tuned. Oh Trigger warning on this one…. abuse. But we talk about identifying abuse here too.

Our guest, Chuck Copenspire and his identities

Former queer life coach

He/they

Make corporate environments gayer, more efficient and more accessible

Combining skill sets of sex work, trauma-informed, accessibility and neurodivergence

DEI

To chuck

Creating space where an actual human can thrive without needing to pretend 

Contribute true gifts- special brain and incredibly powerful when applied to the right problems

Not only creating opportunities, but proactively seeking out people who think “they cannot do it”

Getting out of the way and making room for other people

BDSM

Empowered in bossy/take no shit/boundaries part of themselves

Unwillingness to consent to power dynamics that don’t make sense

They need to be a respectable person, if they want respect

Birth

Dysphoria around default she/mama/

Brought into contrast his masculine experience

Herpes

HSV1 positive for 12 years, 20 when first experienced symptoms

Getting comfortable with disclosure

2 or 3 rejections 

Act of disclosure helped formalize consent boundaries for him

Explicit consent for any bodily interactions

Sexual health is mental health

Shadow work/ Integration work

Living in shadow is the self you were taught to hide

Found BDSM spaces as a consenting space to be greedy, bossy, sadistic, silly, to be anything

Regardless of BDSM element in one’s sexuality, there is inherently a shamed self who can be integrated with public presentable self

Danger of not integrating- non consensually humiliating people he had crushes on

Book: “Romancing the Shadow”

Favorite fetish- helping straight people realize they’re gay

How people react to dating him and realizing they are more queer than they thought

Denial

Curiosity

Fear/anxiety: what will happen if they start to be gay, doing something wrong

Challenging/validating/invalidating identities of people he dates

Having identity challenged brings a lot up for people’s safety 

Ways you feel comfortable being approached

Masks w/ pronouns

My identity is not validated by other people’s reception of it. It is mine and validated by me.

Finding a space where he belonged

In Spokane in his 20’s in drag and comedy scene

Making mistakes and failures

Cult

Destroyed a cult

Solo parenting

Navigate disclosing

Welcome new ppl into community, to sense if there’s the energy to disclose

If a kiss might be coming, let them know I’m HSV1 positive

Getting self-consent! Checking in and being a partner with his body

Closing: 1 message, 3 asks

Stay curious

If you wanna talk to him, please do

Willing to adopt a scorpion or tarantula

Meet & hold a super billionaire to let them cry in his arms

LinkedIn: Chuck Copenspire

Instagram: your.pansexual.crisis

(Transcription available on the episode web page directly) Let me apologize in advance for the audio quality ya’ll. Liam is a firefighter and was chatting with me via FaceTime and this was the best quality we could’ve gotten for his story as someone who hasn’t tested positive for herpes who dates someone positive. We have more clear audio after a few minutes and if you make it through you won’t regret it.

Liam speaks to valuing the integrity of his partner. He talks about how she disclosed to him and he found her character attractive. He didn’t feel as if he needed to have a particular reaction to her disclosure, and I thought it was interesting that he used the phrase “having an out”.

I think this speaks to the importance of how we can put in so much effort presenting perfect in hopes of acceptance, but becoming exhausted over time because that isn’t a sustainable way of being with anyone, nor is it sustainable FOR anyone.

While the discordant dating series has come to an end, I think we may have stumbled into a little bit of an expansion of what SPFPP is capable of providing.