Intimate Interactions

Today I reconnect with my friend William. He’s a distant acquaintance with whom I never really forged a connection of substance but now all that’s changing. He’s a heterosexual cis man who recently had a near death experience. This forced him to confront a history of distracting himself from what was important. Whether it was gaming or alcohol then, it’s become therapy now. We discuss therapy, medication, forgiveness, and compassion. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Lisa Tamati is many things. She’s Maori [m-ow-ree] from Aotearoa [ow-tay-uh-row-uh], or as settlers call it, New Zealand. The Maori use the word iwi for band or tribe, meaning bone. It signifies a lineage and ancestral connection, but that metaphor communicates strength and resilience to me across language barriers, and I still see that strength and resilience today in communities continuing to survive colonialism and find ways to thrive. Lisa is from both the Te Ati Awa iwi and from the Ngati Rau^ka^wa iwi. For settlers, one might just say “around Wellington” but it doesn’t mean the same thing. She’s also the first woman from New Zealand to do a lot of things. If I described them all, the podcast would be over before the intro had finished. Instead, I’ll just say she’s an incredible writer and ultramarathoner who brought her mom, who she describes as the very best mum, back from the verge of death with an intense amount of grit and some help from hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a recognized medical treatment for

I decided to revise the format of the show two days ago when this was recorded. I'm going to try to include helpful tips or advice when discussing difficult or depressing stuff. I've always been personal development focused, so this feels more in line with my values. The show is also going to get shorter unless the episode commands more time. I'm currently aiming for about a twenty minute runtime but we'll see what is reasonable given the content. I’ve been feeling increasingly burned out from the pandemic and other stressors in my life so this is only the second time in three years I’ve produced an episode the day before and posted it either the evening before or the morning of. So far I’ve hit every deadline and I intend to keep doing that even as I explore other formats for the work I produce. So today we're talking about strategies for managing burnout during a pandemic with Billie. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Post pandemic hope, threesomes, hot tubs, sex parties, touch starvation, and lots more get covered today with my friend Robin Beatch. She mentions Black Noir, a history of Black folx in movies and films. She also hosts Sex with Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST. If you would like, check her out at sexwithrobin.com. One last thing she mentions is the similarities she experienced between pregnancy and BDSM. Whoa - she’s the one making the comparison. Don’t at me! Actually, at me. Intimate Interactions social media is lonely right now. I think I need to create a community facebook group rather than a Facebook page. Look at me, being all old and unable to use social media well. Okay, I’m creating a Facebook group. We have a discord server. Go at each other. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Who doesn’t want to talk about masturbation and first orgasms? Lauren and I tell stories and share about our experiences and relationships to our sexual selves. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Consent is so relative to the culture in which you’re interacting. I almost perceive it as the most important kind of etiquette a culture practices; however how a culture practices consent can look wildly different one to the next. In my opinion, there’s no long linear string of evolution of concepts from touching and grunting through to highly intellectual discussion and negotiation. Instead there are clouds or pillars of vetting consent. Just because some of that vetting or certainty or support for consent is missing doesn’t mean you don’t have consent; however, Western society has such litigious and indemnity focused ideas that when non consent has happened, we are often asked what we did to prevent the outcome or mitigate damage if it arose. So we have yes means yes consent and also no means no consent, two separate philosophies that can exist independent of each other or superimposed. More interestingly, those philosophies really struggle to spread when people have direct proof they aren’t always right.

After a fall damaged her shoulder and she needed surgery to fix it, Billie has waited eighteen months so far due to various complications. Today we talk about chronic stress, strategies, and symptoms. We also talk about medical testing and explain what POTS is. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Edging describes the process of getting close to your orgasm and then allowing your body to move further away from orgasm for the purpose of climbing back up to orgasm, closer each time. Doing this can increase the intensity of the eventual orgasm. We chat about edging, sensuality, erectile dysfunction, edging exercises, antidepressants, masturbating a penis with a very tight grip, and of course training your orgasm. My friend, sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST shares with us today about all of those topics. You can learn more about Robin at sexwithrobin.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

From extreme sex to vanilla sex, what does experimentation look like for you? Vanilla sex here means sex that isn’t kinky in any way, usually referring to penis-in-vagina missionary position. We talk about first BDSM scenes, extreme experiences, and then settling back into what feels more like home for us, the experiences that we continue to feel fed by. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

This session we talk about needs for emotionally well, embodied, and connected masculinity and role-models for boys and men. We offer resources and chat about our agreements. On gender, I resonate strongly with both masculine and feminine feels in ways that are often perceived by cis men as different or other or in some way either gay or just not cis or perhaps both. I think of it as nonbinary or queer gender. I’ve gotten to the point where when folks talk about an ideal masculine or sacred feminine or any other parsing of these categories that are perhaps not strictly arbitrary but are very much mostly arbitrary in my opinion - I tend to kind of smile and nod because choosing only one archetype of gender has never appealed to me. Court does a good job of qualifying language around this one. I used to police language a lot and get offended when people misgendered me and I think once my family and found family started getting it right most of the time, I’ve started caring a lot less. That’s not available to ev

cw: mob violence, violence against women, witnessing disturbing images as a child Today we were going to talk about fires but ran into a trauma landmine so I figured we'd run the episode anyways and instead try to talk more about landmines. Unfortunately this episode does contain violence against an 18 year old woman and ongoing trauma from seeing disturbing images at 13. Props to Billie's friend who was dating two army guys at the same time - don't worry, they're not the culprits of the story - and please do take care of yourselves. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

What does a village look like when you’re raising a child? Does it need to be only two parents? What about uncles or aunts? What about the parents across the street? Today we chat with sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every Monday at 10AM PST. You can learn more about my friend Robin at sexwithrobin.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Lauren shares with us openly today about working through trauma to find her sexual self. We talk about relationship to self, trauma, panic attacks, sexual abuse, and the light at the end of the tunnel. Content warning for all the things I just described. Still, if you’re resourced for it, please join Lauren and myself as we tackle these hard subjects with care and kindness. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Permission to exist sexually is something I’ve craved since I was a teenager. Whether you’re queer or not, sometimes it’s really hard to learn how to exist with kindness and compassion for yourself, and without that it can be hard to give it to others. Today we’re talking with Court Vox about how we as a society give or deny permission for sexual exploration. Interestingly, this often hinges around trauma because of our cultural narratives around sexual pleasure. If you want to follow Court Vox on Instagram, he’s @courtvox, or you can reach out on thebodyvox.com. Similarly I’m @intimatevictor and you can reach out to victor at victor salmon dot com. Now, Court explores how we permit sexual pleasure to those recovering from trauma but deny it if it’s just pleasure for pleasure’s sake. As always, enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

cw: graphic depictions of needles at the end A former psych nurse and dominatrix talks about the pleasure, pain, risk, and intimacy of needle play. Don’t you love it when moms open up? The mom in question today is sex educator and host of the radio show Sex With Robin on BFM 109.6 every monday at 10AM PST. You can learn more about my friend Robin at sexwithrobin.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Have you ever received an evacuation notice for a forest fire? This episode we talk about air tankers, helicopters, fire breaks, smoke, air quality, and anxiety. We also discuss what an anxiety attack looks like and what a panic attack looks like. Note that we talk about indigenous rights and climate change briefly. If you'd like to learn more about Indigenous peoples to the land we call Canada, there is a great introductory book called Indigenous Writes that's available everywhere books or audiobooks are sold. Hope you're all staying resourced this fire season. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Lauren is back to talk to us about pandemic ennui and burnout. We chat about intrusive thoughts and content warning for descriptions of suicide and graphic suicidal ideation - we’ve both been suicidally depressed and want to make sure you’re safe and cared for while we take our space to have the conversations we feel we need to have about it. Please take care of yourself however that looks for you. May you find a grounded, resourced place for this conversation, or if it feels like a cruel joke at this point in the pandemic, this might still be for you. If it feels right, come commiserate! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Cw: covid-19, transphobia, gender reassignment surgery My friend Sapphire and I chat about gender and accessibility during COVID-19. We touch on their gender advocacy at school, accessibility for immunocompromised people, and we briefly touch on the law in alabama that recently changed. The term transmasc is a shortening of transmasculine which usually refers to masculine appearing trans non-binary people but also includes transmen. I originally was going to say also includes men as transmen are men just as transwomen are women, but realized since trans is in the transmasc term, it does technically only apply to transmen. There, that’s straight now. Well, not necessarily straight. Some trans folks are straight but others prefer to give traffic directions by saying “go gayly forward” so… not necessarily straight. Okay - let’s get to the episode with Sapphire! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Lauren, a recovered alcoholic talks about her first year sober, hospital opiates, and a near miss she has with relapse very recently. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Sapphire and I have a conversation about poverty and universal basic income. We talk about BC housing, accessibility, minimum wage in Vancouver, and more. Ultimately the middle class and wealthy folks who can afford it might say: move out of the city, but until there’s a grant that pays for moving costs to get out of the city, some can’t afford the disruption to income of having to find a new job, or just can’t afford to move which locks them into a cycle of poverty. Keep in mind that UBI could also provide one program to replace most of the social net bureaucratic costs associated with all of the various different programs like persons with disabilities, welfare, employment insurance, and many more. Instead of thinking of UBI being funded exclusively from public money, keep in mind that we pay an enormous amount into employment insurance. If current funding for welfare, PWD, and EI were to funnel into a joint UBI system, it wouldn’t be as expensive as it sounds at first. Anyways, neither of us is a financial