Intimate Interactions

Over the years Bronwyn and I have built a friendship, and I’ve come to trust and care about her. Today she exercises her vulnerability muscles, no not the physical ones, and we talk about racism at orgies and briefly touch on orgasms. She even models what accountability for racism can look like. I appreciate her so much. We talk about our origin story and attachment as well. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Ricardo Scipio talks about his personal journey and struggle as an artist. What made him decide to make sexual art? What has he learned about sex from photographing over 500 people having sex? How has seeing his work affected the people who have seen his work and how does that affect him? Trinidad-born Ricardo Scipio has thus far garnered the reputation for making unique, multi-layered, provocative work in film and photography. His first feature film "When" was an irrepressibly brutal and comedic portrayal of dysfunctional struggling actresses in New York. His second feature film "Watershed" was the first independent feature film in North America to be shot in digital high-definition, breaking ground with its technical and narrative accomplishments. His third feature film "Finder of Lost Children," set in the Caribbean community of Canada, is a poignantly moving and humorous story of two half-sisters that meet for the first time at the funeral of the father neither one of them knew. Ricardo grew up in Toronto

Sapphire is a friend of mine. They are also a transmasculine cancer patient and survivor. We talk a little bit about social welfare, taxes, and businesses but mostly we talk about Sapphire and cancer recovery. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

I sat down with my friend Lauren recently. She’s a recovered alcoholic talking who has had a really interesting relationship with sex and relationships that has changed radically from when she was was an addict to now rediscovering who she is and what she wants sober. We touch on kink and daddy doms as well as Lauren’s experience of self-identified sex addiction. The focus here is on compulsion rather than desire. Some folks have a pretty strong position on whether or not sex addiciton is even a thing. All I’ll say on the matter is if someone self identifies their experience, my default is to validate and encourage them to talk about it. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Who do you think usually attends an orgy? … What kind of person do you expect usually gets fucked at an orgy?... Well, in my experience, it’s anyone from all walks of life from lawyers to counsellors to carpenters and everything in between and all around. Bronwyn is just such a friend that I met at an orgy. I’m pretty sure I gave her a blowjob at the second party I saw her at. No regrets. Here’s a great session with a person who does a professional job and goes to orgies. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Representations of people of colour in the world of sex- why is it important that people of colour be in this space? What are some of the barriers to more people of colour being in this space?  What has been my experience as a poc being in this space? Trinidad-born Ricardo Scipio has thus far garnered the reputation for making unique, multi-layered, provocative work in film and photography. His first feature film "When" was an irrepressibly brutal and comedic portrayal of dysfunctional struggling actresses in New York. His second feature film "Watershed" was the first independent feature film in North America to be shot in digital high-definition, breaking ground with its technical and narrative accomplishments. His third feature film "Finder of Lost Children," set in the Caribbean community of Canada, is a poignantly moving and humorous story of two half-sisters that meet for the first time at the funeral of the father neither one of them knew. Ricardo grew up in Toronto and attended both The Nova Scoti

What would your life look like if you never learned how to talk to people? How would going to a party and sitting on the outside feel? Now imagine you had the cure to that problem, an inexpensive way to make yourself immediately likable to most of the people there - your gateway to being interesting: relationships, sex, intimacy. One catch though, it might kill you. No, this isn’t the plot to a new episode of Black Mirror. This is alcohol. Lauren, a severe alcoholic in recovery, joins us today to talk about intimacy and how alcohol can be a gateway to that intimacy temporarily. She discusses how alcohol can lift this “oppressive fog of depression” and bring moments that feel intimate even if in the sober light of morning, they weren’t all that intimate or even connective. When you’re disconnected from yourself, it’s pretty hard to be connected to others. Content warning for alcoholism and addiction. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Ash and I talk about our coming from under-resourced families, our academic performance, our feeling disposable to our parents, and our fear of having children of our own. I don’t mean that we don’t like children. I like hanging out with my nieces. As a non parent, kids are amazing for the first few hours, and then you give them right back to their parents, right? Joking aside, I mean our fear of having children revolves around discovering our abusive parents have embedded harmful habits within us that we reproduce much to our probable shame and self resentment. Stuff is complicated when you’ve experienced violence or abuse. If hurt people hurt people and currently you’re hurting, what does that say about how you treat others? What does that say about how you might treat your future children? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

If you have a potentially fatal illness, treatment probably comes with risks and is probably anxiety inducing. Recovery is sort of like that except in order to be treated, you have to do intense, deep psychological work. If someone said you had to go to counselling and talk about the things that upset you the very most and that failure to do this just right would probably lead to your own death, how nervous would you be? We talk about feelings, coping, fear of success, fear of failure, inner child work, catharsis, and more. Content warning for child abuse and alcoholism. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Do you feel a sense of comfort and security when you think of your heritage? Do you feel a sense of connection with a long line of ancestors? Are you sad about traumatized family members you never even got to know? Are you grateful to enormous and traumatic sacrifices your parents or ancestors made? Connection is one of those funny things: essential to humans, but some start out with traditions of connection be that culture, location, or some other form of identity. Being third culture means your experience is radically different in culture - I’m talking heritage, race, language, or ethnicity-based culture here - radically different such that in many ways your parents don’t really understand why you’re not the child they thought you were, and society doesn’t quite understand why you can’t just be more like them. According to InterNation, quote ”A third culture kid (TCK) is a child who has spent a considerable part of life or years of development outside their parents’ culture,” but that doesn’t do it justice.

Today we meet someone new. Lauren was referred to us by Yana, so I hadn’t actually met her before this session. We talk about motivations behind addiction and the reasons that lead you down that kind of path. Socialization, bullying, parental coping strategies, validation, acceptance, trauma, and more. Sometimes you have to see yourself dying and make a choice. Fortunately, Lauren made the choice to still be with us, telling her story. Content warning for severe alcoholism and suicidal tendencies. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Yana, my soon-to-be doctoral candidate for a doctorate in either Criminology or Theatre depending on how it all shakes out in the end, discusses her passion for True Crime. We talk about victim-centered approaches to True Crime that are respectful and informative while mentioning that fascination for the little mistakes in the system that when put together, can lead to horrific tragedies. Understanding how we go wrong is part of making the world a better place. Yana’s research on reducing recidivism and improving outcomes for incarcerated people is really fascinating but we won’t be touching on it this session. If you’re curious, I encourage you to go back and listen to those sessions. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Today, my friend Ash is back to talk about trust and safety. First, we talk about trust in recovery, and then move on to trust in oneself. We then talk briefly about trust and safety in relationships. We hit on how previous experiences can lead us to feel unsafe in circumstances that most folks would consider safe. Content warning, we are two BIPOC folks and as such racism we’ve experienced comes up a couple of times. Hope these conversations about addiction, suicidality, and recovery are as interesting to listen to as they were to discuss. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Yana is currently locked down with a government curfew. I had originally thought mandating masks would be enough. Of course some people didn’t respond. They kept partying. Almost a quarter of the population were what are called cynical spreaders, having not taken any steps what so ever to try to reduce spread. And here we are. Fortunately we talk about more than just COVID-19 this episode although as a content warning we do spend a fair amount of time talking about unemployment and our situation. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

My friend Ash is an addict in recovery. He’s relapsed multiple times and gone into recovery multiple times plus one. Content warning, we talk about drug addiction and suicidality. Harm reduction is a central focus as we discuss how he’s stayed away from using. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Every time I say chronic pain, I’m starting to feel like that TV ad where they talk about the dreaded gingivitis. It’s hard not to be serious when talking about chronic pain and how much it sucks - unless of course, you’re Billie. Billie’s ability to hold onto dark and sarcastic humour is second to no one I know. We share some stories about pain and a pain management strategy. Billie briefly touches on periods and then we talk about her last major trip to the hospital. As a content warning, COVID is very briefly mentioned. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Decolonizing can mean many things. It rarely if ever gets used to mean making people move but instead about undoing the damage done by colonization also by the ideology of Colonialism. But what does that have to do with fucking? Well, it impacts the way I navigate sex positive spaces as a non white person, and most definitely impacts the way my guest today, Lex Wilson navigates sex positive spaces as a Black, femme, non-binary person. I won’t give too many spoilers though. It’s best to let Lex explain it in their own words. As a content warning, I do talk over Lex to add context for the audience at one point and while Lex is very kind and compassionate and doesn’t even mention it, I do come back to it towards the end of the session to point it out and make an apology (although it starts with an explanation which isn’t ideal for any apology). On the plus side, I’m noticing this stuff and getting progressively better at offering apologies and owning stuff I screw up. I’m also getting progressively better - I th

Kathy from the podcast Friends in Your Ears return to the show to talk about podcasting pros and cons. Why get into podcasting and what’s enjoyable about it? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Sex educator and Johns Hopkins harm reduction expert Lex Wilson is back! They talk about attending orgies, having group sex, experiencing intimacy, learning consent, and un-learning shame. We have some good conversations, and I share my story about double fisting a fellow sex educator. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message

Sex educator Lex Wilson is a non binary black human located in the capital of the United States where they do harm reduction work at Johns Hopkins. They also work as an anti-oppression educator focused on reducing shame and increasing education around sex, racism, ableism, misogyny, and many other forms of bigotry. Today we talk about working from home and working in person ad well as tech anxiety and the other challenges of navigating the mid to, hopefully, late coronavirus pandemic of 2020. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intimate-interactions/message