Bawdy Storytelling Podcast

Episode 296: "A Stubborn of Queers" (Kelli Dunham)

Date: July 12, 2024
Host: Dixie De La Tour
Featured Storyteller: Kelli Dunham

Episode Overview

This episode of Bawdy Storytelling centers around resilience, connection, and joy found in queer community, particularly within the context of grief and unconventional healing. Featured storyteller Kelli Dunham (nonbinary, polyamorous, ex-nun, nurse, comedian) recounts a transformative story of loss, friendship, and sexual liberation following the deaths of two partners. The show continues Bawdy’s tradition of blending raw honesty, humor, and sex-positivity through lived experience.

Key Discussion Points & Story Breakdown

1. Community Connections in Portland & Live Show Magic

• Host Dixie De La Tour shares reflections from recent Bawdy events in Portland and at Sex Geek Summer Camp, emphasizing the magic of live storytelling and personal connections the show fosters.
• Portland Show Highlights:
  • Dixie spotlights how Bawdy events help people make friends and create transformative experiences, including calling an audience member (Sei) on stage to help them meet locals, and facilitating a birthday surprise for a longtime fan named Jen.
  • Quote: “To me, the show was incredible. It blew my expectations out of the water and the atmosphere in that room… made me so happy to know that it worked.” (09:18)
• Theme: The importance of vulnerability, community requests, and the unique alchemy of in-person events.
• Timestamp: [02:03 – 11:32]

2. Introducing Kelli Dunham

• Kelli Dunham is introduced as the week’s featured storyteller, highlighting their impressive background as a nonbinary, ex-nun, nurse, comedian, and polyamorous storyteller.
• Notable fact: During the live taping of their story, Kelli paused mid-performance to assist an audience member with a medical emergency, exemplifying their nursing skills and quick adaptability.
• Light-hearted note from Dixie: Kelli’s set led to “three dates with audience members… Bawdy gets you laid.” (11:42)
• Timestamp: [10:57 – 12:36]

Featured Story: "A Stubborn of Queers"

Storyteller: Kelli Dunham
Main Theme: Finding healing and connection through queer community and sex, in the wake of profound loss.

a. Loss and (Grief) Support

• Kelli shares their experience of losing two partners to cancer before age 40, segueing with humor:
  • “That is not the sexy part of the story, in case you’re confused.” (12:44)
• Participation in two grief groups at the local LGBT center, highlighting the awkward mismatch between the grief group facilitator and the stubborn, grieving queers:
  • Group leader was “majoring in problematic clichés” and would say things like, “healing is possible,” which felt tone-deaf to the realities of grief.
  • Collective noun joke: “I would say if there was a collective noun for my people, it would be stubborn. Never mess with a stubborn of queers.” (16:12)
• Timestamp: [12:36 – 16:24]

b. Chosen Family: Diner Meetings & Twin Twinks

• The group forms their own informal “afterparty” at a diner, where more authentic grieving and connection happen:
  • “We would go to the diner afterwards and tell the stories that we should have been telling at group and cry a lot and that waitstaff did not get paid enough.” (16:46)
• Introduction of “the two tiny twinks”—friends from the group who become central to Kelli’s story.
• Timestamp: [16:24 – 18:54]

c. Discovering Healing in Sex and Cruising

• Kelli learns the twinks aren’t heading to bars, but rather out cruising (“something more fun”).
  • Insight: Sometimes when emotional connection feels impossible, physical connection can fill a void.
  • “Sometimes when you can’t connect emotionally, the physical connection makes all the difference.” (19:42)
• Kelli becomes the group’s “lookout” during their cruising adventures and is eventually invited to Fire Island (the “island of my people”) as lookout.
• Timestamp: [18:54 – 21:09]

d. The Meat Rack Epiphany

• In the fabled Meat Rack—scrubby wilderness between gay enclaves—Kelli’s role shifts from lookout to participant.
  • Hilarious negotiation over the “lookout” signal (“make the noise of a whippoorwill”).
  • Memorable sexual encounter with a well-dressed stranger:
    • Stranger approaches Kelli, assessing gender ambiguity, and says:
      • Quote: “You are delicious.” (23:07)
    • Kelli, in a vulnerable disclosure, says:
      • “I don’t think I have the equipment you may be looking for.”
    • Stranger replies:
      • Quote: “Let’s give it… An asshole is an asshole.” (24:03)
• Kelli joyfully describes the physicality and warmth of the experience, contrasting it with prior (toy-based) anal sex, and the emotional breakthrough achieved.
  • “Because it was attached, he had an extremely efficient thrusting motion.” (24:53)
• Timestamp: [21:09 – 25:09]

e. Epiphany & Queer Healing

• Big idea: Sometimes healing isn’t in the therapy room, but “in between two scrub pines with a man in penny loafers trying not to spill his cum on the sand.”
  • Cites poet Paul Monette:
    • Quote: “We must make love in between the bombs.” (25:07)
  • “That’s what it felt like to me… it opened me up not just to that fucking in the wilderness, although that was kind of my thing for a while, but to experiencing physical pleasures in all the different ways—hot showers, cold dicks, you know?” (25:15)
  • “Our failed LSW group leader might have thought that healing was possible in that room… but for me, I knew that healing could happen in between two scrub pines…” (25:52)
• Timestamp: [25:09 – 26:49]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the stubborn beauty of queer grief:

  • “Never mess with a stubborn of queers.” – Kelli Dunham [16:12]

• On physical connection during grief:

  • “Sometimes when you can’t connect emotionally, the physical connection makes all the difference.” – twin twinks (via Kelli) [19:42]

• On spontaneous, affirming sex:

  • “You are delicious.” – Penny loafer stranger [23:07]
  • “An asshole is an asshole.” – Penny loafer stranger [24:03]

• On queer sex as healing:

  • “Paul Monette, during the early years of the AIDS crisis, wrote that we must make love in between the bombs. And that’s what it felt like to me.” – Kelli Dunham [25:07]
  • “For me, I knew healing could happen in between two scrub pines with a man in penny loafers…” [25:52]

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Host updates & Portland recap: [00:58 – 11:32]
• Dixie introduces Kelli & story context: [11:32 – 12:36]
• Kelli Dunham’s story ("A Stubborn of Queers"): [12:36 – 26:49]

Tone & Style

The episode blends irreverent humor, vulnerability, and sex-positivity. Dixie’s inclusive, warm style frames the stories; Kelli Dunham’s storytelling is both raw and wry, anchoring pathos in punchlines and candid sexual joy.

Summary Takeaway

"A Stubborn of Queers" delivers a powerful testament to the resilience of queer community—how found family, humor, and sexuality serve as vital tools for survival after loss. The episode’s central motif: that healing can bloom in unlikely places, often outside of prescribed norms, and that authentic connection—whether platonic or carnal—remains at the heart of queer thriving.

For fans of honest, raucous, and poignant storytelling, this episode of Bawdy Storytelling does not disappoint, offering laughter, liberation, and cathartic healing with every minute.