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Episode 77: ‘Communion’ (Sister Penny Costal)
00:35:23
Will God still love me if I’m a heathen sinner? This week, Sister Penny Costal of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence tells her true story of forbidden love in the deep South. As a young boy growing up in a small, religious Mississippi town, she was...
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- [00:04]
A
This episode of the Body Storytelling Podcast is brought to you by OMG Yes. A video series that helps women and other vagina havers experience pleasure. OMG yes. Is explicit yet comfortable. Sort of like friends sharing recipes or travel tips. Each technique is brought to life in beautiful videos of people with vaginas share in their experience. OMG yes. Asked thousands of women what felt best to them and found the patterns with no blushing and no shame. Learn more about OMG yes. And how to save on the series later on in the show.
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All of my life I've never fit But I won't complain and I won't quit I am enormous. Get used to it. Everyone tells me I'm too much Maybe it's just you're not enough for me can't you see I'm the kind of woman I'm supposed to be? Hey, my vagina is eight miles wide. Absolutely everyone can come inside. If you're ever frightened, just run and hide. My vagina is eight miles.
- [01:41]
A
Hi there and welcome to the Body Storytelling Podcast. I am sexual folklorist Dixie de La Tour, and This is episode 77 of the podcast. By the way, here's something that just happened. Body Storytelling's podcast was listed as one of the 15 best sex podcast from Esquire Magazine. Esquire magazine says we're the best. How's your week going? I hope you're having a good because I'm pretty fired up. I'm really excited about my life right now. I have really interesting things coming up. I have too many things coming up which should make me go, girl, what the fuck are you doing? But instead, I'm just kind of like, really giddy. Like, oh, that's a bad idea. Let's do that. One of the things that made me laugh, I was getting ready to record. I was looking at my reviews on itunes and there's one that just came up and it says, good way to loosen up for tight asses like me, he says. I love this podcast and the community behind it. The host is a total delight. She's funny, spunky, and unapologetically crude. Stories are exceptional on their own, but the host really brings it home with her touch. No pun intended. Perverts love puns. Have you noticed that? Well, thank you, person who wrote an iTunes review. All tight asses need me and their earbuds, apparently, so that I can help lighten you up. The one before that said, I listened to the whole series, and while I'm not the target audience, I really enjoyed it. I don't really have a target audience. I want to cover the gamut. I don't want to be for straight people or queer people or furries or swingers or any of those things. I want to be for everybody. I want to be a sample platter. So don't really have a target audience. The really frustrating thing about reviews is you can't answer them. I want to write that person and go, honey, yes, you are, because you're breathing. So we're right on target. And thank you for being, you know, my target audience. I just got off the phone with a friend. I wanted to check in and get a current bio and, like, you know, make sure that the information I'm going to say when I introduce her story was correct. And she informed me that she's like. We chatted on the phone for a little while, and then she said, girl, I just need to tell you I got to go to bed because I'm flying at 5am in the morning. She's from the south, too. I'm flying at 5am in the morning, going to a bear campout, and it's in Tennessee, and they've got a sex maze. I'm gonna be face down in a sex maze all weekend. I'll be thinking of you. So, Sister Penny, you rock it. Yell my name when you come. That's my goal in life, just having people yell my name when they come. One other thing is that we do have. Thank God for Carly. Carly came forward and had a bunch of people write me in Portland to say, I can't organize this thing for you, but here's a bunch of great bars and meetup places. And thank you to everybody who was trying to help. But Carly contacted me a few days ago and said, I can help you put it together. I gave her the information I had so far. I said, I don't know Portland, so you know you're going to do better than I am no matter what you do. I just got off the phone with her a little while ago. She has put together a gathering. She's going to show up early, so the first person there will be Carly. So say hi to Carly and say thank you for putting together our Portland meetup. We are going to be meeting at the Rambler, which is a bar with an outdoor patio on Mississippi and Portland. If you're near Portland and you'd like to say hi face to face. I like faces. I really do. So you're welcome to join us. It's going to be Sunday, June 9th at 7pm is when we're going to start. We'll all have drinks together and catch up and who knows, we'll see if it comes together. I'd really love to have some people tell me about their experiences listening to the podcast, whether whether it brought them out, whether it, you know, helped change their life. Maybe it helped them find the other people they were looking for. They found their community. That's my goal in life. I want to help you find your community and feel like you can do anything. Oh my God, I'm talking so much this time. I'm going to tell you a secret. This is a secret. Don't tell anybody. It's a podcast. So just me and you, right? I did a thing that scared the out of me this week. I've always had a dream of doing a TED Talk and this week I submitted ted did an idea search where you could submit a pitch and I recorded. I recorded a pitch for TED Talk to be on the big stage of ted. You know, I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but I'm, I feel hopeful, I feel excited about it. And so I'm telling you because when you open your mouth, stuff happens. So I just opened my mouth a lot. Maybe we should get on to the rest of the episode. What do you think about that? I've told you all my secrets. I'm gonna see your face in person if you're anywhere near Portland later on this week. And now I'm gonna do my job and share a story. But first, OMGYes.com is a website about women's sexual pleasure. It's not a subscription site. You pay once for permanent access to a set of videos and animations and your payment goes on to fund ongoing research into sexual pleasure. When it comes to the actual ways that people with vaginas touch themselves or the way that their partners touch women, there are lots of myths out there. OMGS decided to do the first ever large scale scientific research, interviewing over 20,000 vagina havers ages 18 to 95 about what actually feels good to them and why. What they found was of course, that people with vaginas vary in what they like, but there were a lot of shared techniques. Here's what you can find out at OMG. Yes, 47% of people with vaginas have had multiple orgasms. Lots of women think they can have multiples because they get really sensitive after the first. But by altering the technique after the orgasm in specific ways, many people can build up to second and third orgasms. Here's another one. Season two just came out and it's all about penetration and the ways that people can make penetration more pleasurable. While 18% of people with vaginas orgasm from regular in and out penetration, there are other penetration techniques that lead to orgasm for over 75% of women. And you can explore them all at omgs. The site has short videos of all kinds of people with vaginas sharing and showing their techniques. And researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine found that 95% of women experienced pleasure in a way that felt physically new to them after just a month of OMG Yes. Check out the newly released season two at OMG Yes.com and use the promo code Dixie to get $5 off. That's OMGYes.com Dixie Somebody say, yeah, I'm coming through this thing.
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Even with tears in your eyes, don't you worry.
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Are you ready for your Storyteller for this week? This storyteller is a dear friend that I originally met many years ago, more than a decade ago. I was away at a Burning man pervert campout out in the woods, sit on the grass next to a beautiful pond, and this tall drink of water came up. And that's how I met Sister Pentecostal. She sat down next to me, had a super heavy Southern accent, and we started chatting. I said that I'd lived in Atlanta. She said, girl, I used to live in Atlanta. Turned out we lived in the same building in Atlanta, except she moved in like a year after I left to move to San Francisco. And she goes, do you know who moved into your apartment, Dixie? And I'm like, who? She said, arrested Development. I'm like, arrested Development. She goes, the band Arrested Development. She goes, in fact, there was some chaos in the building because one of the female singers in the band got into a fight with the band one night. It's pouring rain outside, and she came stomping down the steps dragging her suitcase. She's pulling her suitcase with one hand and in her other arm she's clutching her MTV Award. They'd won an MTV Award. She's sobbing, holding her MTV Award. Isn't it interesting to know what happened after you left the building? And she said, we took her in. She had called a cab, pouring rain. She was sobbing. We comforted her. And that's how I met Sister Penny. We fell in love with each other. We rarely see each other, but while we were sitting there on the grass that time, she told me a story. We talked about growing up in the south and about religion. And she told me a story. And I sat There with my mouth hanging open and went, I'm gonna have to get you on stage to tell this story someday. And it happened. You're about to hear the story as it was told on stage. But I'm gonna give you what you should officially know about Sister Penny. First, Sister Pentecostal grew up in a strange land called New Albany, Mississippi. She recovered very nicely and after moving to San Francisco, became a member of the Sisters of perpetual indulgence in 1994 and is celebrating her 25th anniversary, expiating guilt and promulgating universal joy. Sister Penny is a sexual health educator and is working towards a master's in public health at San Francisco State University. Growing up in the deep south in the 60s and 70s, Sister Penny witnessed and experienced oppression daily. These experiences inspired her to be a staunch advocate of diversity and social justice. She currently works with incarcerated youth in a pre trial diversion program. Isn't she amazing? This story is from Sister Penny Costell.
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C
Oh, I'm going to hell tonight for telling this story. Did I dress the part? Oh, my gosh. Well, I am from a little town in Mississippi called New Albany, 5 miles from Cotton Plant, 3 miles from Myrtle, 20 miles from Tupelo, 30 miles from Oxford, and 15 miles from Holly Springs. Do you know where I'm at? Well, my story starts on a Sunday morning, and in the south especially where I'm from, church is paramount. So we would get up early in the morning, we would get woken up by my grandmother, whose name was Sarah Lucy. So my grandmother Sarah Lucy would wake me up with this loud blaring noise coming from her really old radio from the 40s playing Looking for a City by the Happy Goodman family. So that would get us up really quick. So we would have our breakfast and everything, and we'd get ready and get dressed and get in the car. And my granddaddy, whose name is Hubert Foley, he would drive us and we would get to church. And when we got to church, grandmother would get out and she went to the First Baptist Church. That's why we would let her off first. So she would get out and she would always stop, turn around and lean into the window and say, hugh, you make sure you take that boy to church. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sarah Lucy, we're going to go to church. So we would drive away and about one block we would take a right where we were supposed to take a lift and we were on our way to Coleman's barbecue where all of his little buddies from when he was a truck driver were. I loved it because I Would get a Coke, you know. So that day we got back home for our Sunday dinner, which is a very traditional thing, in the afternoon. We have dinner in the afternoon and supper at night. Well, grandmamma had all of the fixings, you know, she had her pot roast, she had her fried vegetables, you know, because we eat fried vegetables lots of times. Fried green tomatoes, fried okra, fried everything. But always one side was burnt. Always. I don't know why she did that. But anyway, it still tasted good to us. But we're sitting there talking, and she brings up the sermon that happened at the First Baptist Church that was done by her preacher brother Evans. And I never really liked brother Evans, because when I was a little boy, my mom and dad got a divorce. And he was beating my mom up and beating me up as a four year old. And she went to him for counseling, which was what people did back then. And his words to her was to stand by your man. Go back home. Right? I mean, come on. That is just like the craziest shit, huh? But she became an atheist after that. But anyway, my grandmother was telling this story, and I could tell she felt a little uncomfortable. And one of the reasons was because instead of his normal fire and brimstone sermon, he was doing his God hates fags sermon. And you know what all that entails. Yeah, yeah, give it to him. He's dead now. So in this sermon, you know, he was letting all gay people have it, you know, and just quoting and just twisting Bible verses just around like, you know, it was just crazy. So. But I could tell she felt uncomfortable because my grandfather worked for a lesbian couple in this little town of 7,000 people. It was Ms. Pat and Ms. Earlene, Ms. Earlene Barrett, and she owned M and R grocery and army surplus. So my granddad, when he retired from being a truck driver, he got a job there. And my family was okay with Ms. Earlene and Ms. Pat. And I grew up with them. They were like my aunties. And I never really even knew that they were lesbians. My grandmother always said, they're friends. But anyway, my granddad was, like, listening to her, and he just looked at her and said, why don't you just tell that preacher to go fuck himself? Oh, well, my grandmother wasn't like that. And she would just start shrugging her shoulders and she would shake and, well, Hube, I never. And of course she had. She hears that shit every week, you know, but she would always say it. Well, I was getting really mad because, you know, I was closeted and I was out I mean, not out, but I knew I was gay at 17, and I was having to hold that in, and it was really, really hard. So what I did was I thought, I need to go talk to my best friend, Robert Shannon. So I got in my convertible. It was an old brown 72 Oldsmobile Delta 88, with cream interior, puke stains everywhere from everybody partying and a sour smell because I always left the top off when it rained. But anyway, I got to Robert's house, and Robert was my secret love. We had discovered our homosexuality together, and we were basically boyfriends. But we couldn't really do anything about it. We couldn't express it in public. We couldn't do anything. But Robert and I were just really close. And I loved him, love him still very much. So I told Robert this story, and Robert was like, what the fuck? My God, we gotta do something about this. I'm like, I don't know what we should do. What could we do? And then I got to thinking, oh, last summer I was doing my God and Country badge for Life Scout and the Boy Scouts. And I had to spend time, like 16 weeks, one day a week with that asshole, the preacher. And it was hard enough getting through that. But he told me, you know, you can't really get ahold of me. We didn't have cell phones to call up or anything. So he said that the door in the back was always open. So I remembered that, and I thought, why don't we go check and see if that door is still open at the First Baptist Church? Well, we decided on the next night, it was Monday night. We're going to go at midnight, and nobody's in church on Monday. You know, it's like they're all done from prayer meeting on Wednesday and then all the crap on Sunday. And so we thought it would be a really, really good place. So we go. Sure enough, that door was open. So we go in there and we're looking around, and we have no idea what we're going to do. I mean, it's like, here we are in this church. We can't even get in his office to fuck with this stuff, you know, I didn't know what we were going to do. Well, Robert noticed something. At the top, above the choir pit, was a set of curtains, maroon velvet curtains that were hanging. And he was a Methodist, so he had never really seen this. And I said, well, that's the baptismal. He said, well, can we go look? And I said, sure. There's a little ladder thing in the back behind the Choir. So I took him up there, and there it was. It was a little pool of water, 6 by 6ft, about 3 or 4ft deep. And we're looking at the water, and Robert said, wouldn't it be funny if we peed in the water? It might be funny, but wouldn't it even be funnier if we had sex in this water? So, knowing we didn't have much time, because who knows? Might walk in that church, we decided to do it. We took off our clothes, and before we knew it, we were naked. You know what the difference between naked and naked is? You know, naked is, you know when you're naked, and naked is when you're up to no good. So we got in the water, and I knew I could get him in that water because Robert liked to have sex in the water. We used to sneak off out in the country to the country club and cross the fence on really hot summer nights and go swimming, and we would have sex just about every time we did it. So Robert was laying there, and I laid him back on top of the water, pulled his legs up, and bam, we got to it. And, you know, when you're 17, you can come in two seconds or it can take you four hours. You know, it's like you can do anything you want. Well, what we wanted to do is get out of there quick. So, bam, bam, bam. Come, come. And we were done. So we left there, and the next day, I kind of started feeling a little guilty. You know, this was the baptismal that I was baptized in when I was. You know. And this is my grandmother's church. Oh, my God. Well, I got to thinking about it, and, you know, at that time, the God that I believed in didn't have a problem with homosexuality. He didn't have a problem with anything as long as you were loving good to people and did all the right things. And that's what I did. I mean, I have been involved in nonprofits since I was 7. I had done so much, and I'm like, fuck him. This was an okay thing for me to do, and I have never felt guilty since. All right, so I guess I'm off to hell. And I even wore loafers in case the devil makes me walk a long way. But anyway, thank you so much, and give it up for Dixie, because she's fabulous doing this.
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The truth runs wild like a tinder on her cheek Trying to save face and daddy heartbreak L into my teeth this voice inside has been eating at me Trying to replace the love that I fake with what we both need the truth runs wild like kids on concrete Trying to sedate my mind in its cage and know what I see we quiet eyes yeah I'm screaming at me Trying to keep faith and picture his face staring up at me without losing a piece to me how do I get to heaven without changing a part of me how do I get to heaven? All my time is wasted Feeling like my heart's been sleeping Stay so if.
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I'm.
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Maybe I don't want heaven.
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The.
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Chest like the rain to the sea Trying to set straight the lines that I trace to find some relief this voice inside has been eaten in me Try to erase the picture I paint and color me free without losing a piece of me how do I get to heaven without changing a part of me how do I get to heaven? All my time is wasted Feeling like my heart's mistaken so if I'm losing a piece of me maybe something counting to 15 counting to 15 counting to 15 someone counting to 15 counting to 15 counting To 15 someone counting 1515 counting to 15 counting to 15 so counting 15 counting to 15 counting to 15 without losing a piece of me how do I get to heaven without changing a part of me how do I get into heaven? All my time s feeling like my heart's mistaken the truth turns wild like a tear down her cheek.
- [27:33]
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That was Heaven by Troye Sivan. It's June now, and that means it's LGBTQIA Pride Month. Watch the video for this song. I'll include it in the show notes. It's beautiful. I want to say thank you to superfan Sindri in Reykjavik, Iceland, for that song suggestion. I got an email this week from someone who said that he loved this podcast so much. The only thing that he felt was a shortcoming was that there was only one story per episode. And I'm with you. I'd like for it to be bigger and better too. Patreon can help make that possible. I've been mentioning that when we get to $2,000 a month, we're going for bigger, better episodes. So you can control that experience. You can make it happen. Go to P A T R E-O-N.com Bawdy B A W D Y Give whatever you can. We've had a few new subscribers today, but currently we're at like 185 patrons and we have a lot more who listen to the podcast. So if you've been someone who's been listening and you've been enjoying it, but you wish there was more, you can help me not just keep it going, but help it grow. Go to patreon.com bodi give whatever you can and thanks in advance for your support. All right, let's talk about upcoming live body storytelling shows. You still get to listen to me run my mouth. Just like the podcast, but it's so different. There's Bango where you get to ask people about their buttholes. You didn't know them before and suddenly they're your best friend. You get delicious cocktails. You get people who are curious and open minded minded, people you're going to want in your life sitting in the chair next to you, listening to stories and then telling you their own. I've had people write me to tell me that they're battling cancer and one of their things they want to do while they're on this planet is attend a live body storytelling show. So come see me at a live show. Come up and say hi, listen to stories, be in the room. All right, here's what's coming up in Seattle. June 6th this week is our five year anniversary in Seattle. Five years. I will confess to you I tried to get Dan Savage for the five year anniversary and I did not pull it off because he is a busy, busy man. But he was very polite and apologized because he wanted to do it, but he was booked.
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So.
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So we won't have Dan Savage, but we will have some stellar storytellers, some amazing music, some great drinks. And if you can't get to Portland on Sunday, you can always see me in Seattle on Thursday. But come to Portland too. And then the next show in Seattle is going to be on July 11th and then I'm gonna go to Sexgeek Summer Camp in Portland. If you are not yet registered for Sex Geeks Summer Camp and you're an aspiring sex educator or sex podcaster or maybe if you like sex sex. It's really for people who want to learn how to be better educators and help create a more sex positive world. But I'm teaching storytelling for Sex Geeks there and I'm going to be there all week. We'll have our get together on June 9th. I'm going to be in Portland for Sex Geek summer camp from June 10th through 14th. Then I come back to San Francisco and our San Francisco shows that are coming up are June 20, which is a Thursday. The theme is Best Fiends. That's at the Verity Club in San Francisco. And then our next show after that is going to be July 18th in San Francisco. Got it. You know, it's Coming up in June and July for both cities. Now, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know that I'm also traveling to the east coast to celebrate my mom's birthday. We're surprising her. People have been writing me to ask if I'm going to be doing shows then on the east coast, because they're like, I'm getting in the car and I'm driving five hours. Wherever the you are, I'm coming to see it. There's not a show at the end of June. I apologize for that. But that's a little short to try and plan a live show. This one's just to celebrate family, and my partner is going to Virginia with me. He's never been to Virginia. He's never seen my upbringing. Maybe I could point out the chicken coop my drunk Uncle Roger used to live in. I had an uncle who lived in a chicken coop, y'.
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All.
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But I'm gonna be home visiting family. There's not an east coast show in June, but I'm working on it, y'.
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All.
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I will have more information about stuff that relates to the east coast in next week's show, so just hang on a little bit longer. And one more thing I wanted to tell you about. I was contacted by the National Storytelling Summit, and they contacted me for two different reasons. Two different people, two different reasons. One, they wanted me to teach how to produce a storytelling event and sort of how I created community through storytelling for an underserved niche. That's what you guys are. That means perverts. But that's not what they're calling us. I'm going to be teaching to the producers who are part of the National Storytelling Conference and Summit. And the other thing is, I was contacted by someone who was organizing the main showcase for the National Storytellers Summit. I was contacted. They said, we are in our showcase. We are putting on the six best stories of the year. And they've asked me to tell a story. This is very funny to me because I can tell you that in the traditional storytelling world, I've always been the whore in church. I've even had people at the conference just kind of like, oh, you're that. You're the lady who does the dirty thing, aren't you? They've come around. They've asked me to not only tell a story, but also to present, which is a big deal. Maybe that's why I'm giddy on this episode. The world's changing right now. It feels like, at least for me, so that is going to be happening in Fremont, California. You can look up the National Storytelling site Summit. I think you can even buy a day pass and come in and support me, because I'm gonna be up in front of a bunch of vanilla people. That's terrifying. Telling a story and. Yeah, how fucking weird is that? It's time to say thank you. Thank you to the team that puts this podcast together. Thank you to podcast producer Marty Garcia, who is amazing and I love working with him every single week. To project manager Dana Hanna, to sound engineer David Grossoff, to video archivist Joe Moore. Thank you to you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for putting up with me being all over the place on the episode this week. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week. Please give me feedback on what you think. I am sexual folklorist Dixie de La Tour. And this has been episode 77 of the podcast. Here's a peek at what's next. And so Steaton strips her down to her bra and panties, and he shackles her to this throne. He's using, like, wrist cuffs on her tiny little ankles. And she's so small and adorable. And I'm standing there like, what do I do now? I'm supposed to be dominant.