Courtney Brain (0:01)

Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 non profit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma. We also educate clinicians, mental health professionals, public health professionals, anybody who is curious about how to use stigma free language, how to minimize stigma in their care practices. And we do so by creating simulation experiences for professionals where they work with a sex educator who is a patient actor who adopts a script. They have a story and your job is to just support that person for whatever it is that they're coming in for. And then we just explore from the patient's perspective what it was like for you to be their provider. In addition to that, like, there's much smaller things, like I'll just speak about herpes and stigma and share some research that we've collected over the years. So yeah, if you're somebody interested in that or if you have a project that you think that maybe we'd be a fit for, please don't hesitate to reach out. All right. My intention with this podcast episode, let's name that now, is to speak to us. What's the word I'm looking for? Is to speak to something that I feel is very important here, that I don't speak on myself. And I'm taking it as a sign that I'm supposed to for a number of reasons. So it is Men's Mental Health Awareness month. It is also Pride month. And as I look at the intersectionality of stigma as well as what it means to do this, people call it work. It does not feel like work to me. There's something else that I would identify it as. I've gotten paid sometimes, but like the fulfillment that comes from it is much more valuable to me than is the money that, you know, sometimes comes in. And I know that because even this year I have not paid myself through the non profit in 2025. So we had June, we, we in the second half of the year. And I'm doing this because, yeah, again, like I feel like I have to. I think I've mentioned that before. But ever since going deeper into what it means to be involved in or active in the space that I occupy has really been about some self reflection for myself. I'm a cisgendered heterosexual black man and I have herpes. A lot of my existence is really not validated based on how I feel and what I value. My values, I've condensed them down to two. And they might seem a little bit contradictory, but they definitely con. They, they complement one another. These two values are challenge and liberation. Challenge, by my definition, is necessary for learning, for growth. It's also something that contributes to the feeling of liberation. And what liberation for me is, is through challenge, right? I become more and more liberated in just being myself. I think that oftentimes we can wear masks or we can dim down our personalities. And I do that. I've done that for years. Um, and I've mentioned that finances were my greatest insecurity for a while, and that's no longer the case. But I recognize for myself that something I am very insecure about is my fear of success. This fear of success comes from probably the trauma of seeing that when people become vocal about things that are important, people who become more successful in their activism or their advocacy, and they start getting results and garnishing, garnishing, gathering a following, and people are responsive to them and they become a leader in relevant spaces. Right. Like, I'm fine being seen as a leader in herpes, but what does it look like to become a leader in spaces or among men? I look at Malcolm X, I look at Dr. Martin Luther King, and, you know, there are many others, of course, that led things like the civil rights movement. And I look at the things that are happening in the world right now. We have the protests that are in la, we have the war in Gaza, we have, you know, a homelessness epidemic. We have so much division between what men and women are in society. And then we have just this. What else is there to speak to? There's a lot to speak to. So if I'm missing anything that's not intentional. But Dr. Donna Oriowo was at the ASEC conference and coming away from her presentation, there was a challenge to integrate intersectionality into our advocacy work. And as somebody who, you know, I engage with Trump supporters, I engage with die hard liberals, like everybody on the spectrum of existence. And I'm finding that through herpes stigma, this is in fact something that we are able to that. That does bring people together, whether we want to or not. And at this intersection, I've been able to get people on the same page about collaborative efforts for what it's going to take to minimize stigma, what it's going to take to be. Be real with a partner about talking about not just your sexual health status or herpes status, but also relationships, talking about alignment, talking about what things do and don't go together between you and this other person. And that translates. I think that it's been a lot of practice for me over the years to Be able to hold a space where someone whose identity might be, be more so aligned with their political views, like their identity, not just being in their sexuality, but their politics, their identity and their relationships, their identity as a parent, as a sibling, as a partner. Right. There are all these ways of existing, and I do this so well for so many other people that I've not really taken in the inventory of it on myself. And I think that the ASEC conference, so ASEC stands for the American association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists. I went to this conference because I work with therapists, and this is a place that I like to funnel people to. I enjoy being able to have access to resources that I know are going to be supportive to people beyond what's in my realm of perspective and what my offerings are. And yes, I have the yoga, I have the peer support calls, I have the yoga therapy. However, there's more beyond that than what I'm able to give people. And sometimes when we go down that rabbit hole of curiosity and interrogating curiously what herpes means to you, what stigma means to you, we come to intersections of identity that I don't feel equipped to be able to handle. Now, being at that conference, it was very affirming to me to, as a straight man, be in these spaces, learning from queer individuals. This includes, like play parties. I mentioned in the past having gone to the Sex down south conference, working with and seeing presentations in public health. There are a lot more LGBT educators and that, you know, I, I guess to sum up, the best way that I can say is like, these queer spaces and what they've done is they've become like for me. And I'm speaking for myself here because I, I know that I've been afraid to say the wrong thing. And for so long, I fear getting canceled or anything like that. And I, I, I intentionally over humble myself, especially in these spaces. So it's not to, you know, take more than what it is that I contribute to the communities, and I'm very mindful of that. So whenever I go into these educational settings, I really make it a point to be present. And what happened is that I recognize it's not just the education I'm getting, but I'm also getting inspired. I'm getting inspired by individuals who have had the challenge of having to learn to be themselves and witnessing and experiencing the presence that they have because they are in process of liberation, not just in how they exist, but also in how their existence models existing for others. So I say that to say that Queerness, while I'm myself, you know, identify as a heterosexual man, queerness has, in fact, transformed, framed, and shaped my own relationship with what it means for my identity as a man. Masculinity. And this is something that I think it's important to speak to because I look at June as Men's Mental Health Awareness Month as well as Pride Month, and these two things have not. I don't see really any intersectionality between the two, at least not on the surface. I'm not hearing how, you know, masculinity from a queer perspective can look like blank, or queerness from a masculine perspective can look like blank. And maybe that's, you know, where my. When we continue to peel back the layers, like, I think that me getting herpes was about something much bigger than me getting herpes, and it was about something much bigger than me just talking about herpes. Right? The stigma component speaks to identity. And the more I think about identity, I think that the challenging and the liberation that comes from being expressive in one's identity is what changes the world. I think that every single person's purpose is to be who they are. And in the spheres that you are in, being who you are inherently encourages other people to be who they are. And that's really what this is about. So much of masculinity is doing. It's about what you do, what your accomplishments are. It's about performance. I use sports as an example of the best players got the most playing time, and their best was communicated by what their stats look like. So there's a stat sheet based on performance. So the better your stats, the better your performance, the more playing time you get. There's a real outcome that can be worked towards, whereas with queerness, there isn't one. There's no metric. So as a man coming out of the sports world, you know, there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance. Why are y' all doing this? Why. Why are y' all being queer? Right? Like, you want to make it make sense. And from a sports perspective, like, you more manly, more performance, more respect, more love. People want to be like you. You get more admiration based on what you do. And then I enter these queer spaces, and none of that matters. None of that matters. Don't nobody give a about, you know, how many blanks you got, how much money you got, how many bodies you got. Don't nobody give a about that. Are you a kind person? Yes or no? Right? Like, do you care about what's important? Do you care about people's well being do you perpetuate, you know, promote just like the ongoing existence of human consciousness. Now that's like really deep level for me to say like that sentence, but that's what I see. People care about the intangible aspects of self when I enter these spaces and in these spaces I'm primarily there under the educational piece because I, I don't know, I have some weirdness for myself around the fun stuff. Like I feel like because I'm not queer, I can't really engage in the fun stuff, whatever you want to consider that to be. And in the most recent ASEC conference, I want to shout out, Jax, Jax and I, we had a little bit of a conversation where it felt like a little bit of a nudge for me to lean into this a little bit. But looking at how I do show up in these queer spaces as a straight man and maintain that integrity. I don't try and like make the spaces about me. I don't try and pull from and take anything away from there. I'm able to hold my straightness in a queer atmosphere in a way that I don't want to say it's non threatening necessarily, necessarily, but it's very present. Present is the best word that I can think of for it. And I was really grateful for that conversation because it did, I think like set off an aha moment for me to recognize just how much of my confidence and straightness and validation of my identity and my presence has been contributed to by queerness and by learning from black women and especially in the sexuality education place space. And as I have studied yoga, you know, and, and listening to the book Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. One of the things that he interviews the devil about is about these structural systems that are run by the devil or negativity or just absence of presence because a lot of don't make sense. If we look at policies, we look at politics, there is no consciousness in the politics that we're seeing right now. Because if there were, then a lot of the things that are happening wouldn't be happening. And sex education is one of the solutions to the problems that exist within politics. If people are learning about their bodies, are learning about how reproduction and pregnancy works, if they're learning pleasure, then what happens is they're given choice. And queerness is something that I see that directly challenges the status quo and it also liberates people from these oppressive systems. Oppressive systems, meaning let's, let's say capitalism as an example. The inability, the, the lack of access to Quality education, the, the food that we consume, like the, the cost of living, how tremendously high it's getting. Right. I, I see, and I ain't got no science behind it, but these are just things that I see that can make sense. You can do what you want with the information, but what I see is like, the less money I make, the more likely I am to commit crime. The more kids that I have unplanned, the less access there is to abortion, you know, regardless of the reason for it. And, you know, I've always had my own beliefs and feelings about it because I'm someone who wasn't aborted. Right. But that doesn't mean that my experience with that should be the absolute end all, be all of what other people get to do with their bodies and their situations. And I think that a lot more people will and can agree on a lot of the topics under the umbrella of sex education if there was able to be mutual understanding, if the gaps were bridged. Because I see how on one end of the spectrum, you know, people view the opposite end as just so extreme, just like the most extreme of the opposite opinions. And it's not that there's these extreme opposite opinions, it's a lack of understanding. We look at the media, I can pull up the same, I can type in the same topic in my phone next to somebody who has a completely different algorithm than me, and we'll see completely different things. And that, that I use this example of standing across from someone and I just throw what I drew as a six on the ground. One person is going to see a 6, someone else is going to see a 9. Depending on where you're standing, depending on how you're looking at it, you might even notice the texture of this. The, the six or the nine. You might think it's a G, you may think it's an E, you may think it's a number of different things. And until we're able to like, share, hey, here's what I see. What do you see? And engage with curiosity, then there's not going to be any sort of resolution. We just, we just looking down at a, a symbol, if we can even agree to that. And I, I, I, I'm scared. I'm very scared. I'm scared of naming how not just revolutionary but evolutionary queerness has been to my identity as a man, my masculinity, how transformed it's been. I had somebody tell me I was living in Portland. It was shortly before I moved away. 2023. I remember me and my Friend Kevin. We were just chilling on the dance floor, holding our drinks, talking, just two stepping. And this lady comes up and she goes, y' all have really safe male energy. And I remember I looked. I was like, you just call me a. I was playing. I was playing. But it was just. It was a funny moment of believing. I didn't believe that it was 100 a joke, but that's like something that some people would say and actually be offended by being called a safe male. And I've struggled with having that kind of an identity because of, I guess, what. What it. What it represents. Like, that's not. That's not how you get women. That's not how you achieve things. Like, you need to be not a safe male, right? Because what that comes out to is that it equates to. It equates more to softness, I guess. Like, not hardness, not ruggedness. Like safe male energy don't get you on the playing field when it comes to sports. Safe male energy doesn't get you the highest quality of women. It don't get you laid, right? These are the things that masculinity and manhood and manliness really value. It values, results. And as I've entered queer spaces, I've had very much a, like, I ain't gonna say not giving a fuck attitude. But the things that I used to care about so, so much have zero significance to me now. My friends give me all the time. They're like, damn, Courtney, you played sports this middle school through college, and you don't even watch that no more. It's like, no, I don't like. It's just not important to me. And the things that are more important to me are this space. I value connection. I value relationships. I value validating the identities of others. I very much value learning and getting to enjoy queerness in a way that I'm not, like, making it my own or objectifying it or like, what was the word? Appropriating it, right? Like, I still feel good about, like, not having tattoos, not having piercings, and just showing up as who I am. Not to say that those are the things that make someone queer, but for me, like, I've been living a queer identity, especially by Bell Hook's definition. I don't have access to it right now to be able to name what it is, but. But queerness outside of a sexual context, which it can be in sexual context, but the feeling of not belonging has held so true for me. And I think about not belonging in terms of my views and beliefs around sex. Like as I, as someone who also like, I, I don't just date outside my race. I'm also dated within my race as well. But as someone who dates interracially, someone who likes anime, as a black man who is a yoga teacher. Right. There's not a lot of representation of me for the things that I like. And I've always just felt like I didn't belong. My friends don't want to go out and be in places that I have no desire to be, but because I want community, because I want companionship, I'm there. Like, I would much rather just hang out with my friends that the people that I like and maybe we get some games, some drinks and we just socialize. We had a music there, we had a house party. Cool or one of them EDM spots. I don't know why, man. When I was in Portland, that was my. I love that loud ass electronic music and, but like that's, that's my. And everything that I thought was like cool was considered white people. And the, the thing is like, is it white people or is it queer or is it just like stuff that I like? You know what I'm saying? I don't know why I said, you know what I'm saying? Ain't no reason for that. And I, I have this new found relationship with queerness that probably I've had for the longest, but I never looked at queerness outside of sexuality until looking up these definitions and seeing that it is like I've lived a queer ish existence or an existence that has been shaped by queerness, if that's a better way of saying it for me. And always would say like. I remember thinking about this in 2022, am I queer? Am I a queer person? And it was like, nah, like I, I don't, I don't like dudes. Like I gotta. In the words of David Wraith, I remember he said this, he was like, I have to obey the politics of what makes my dick hard. And I was like, you know what? That's a good way of putting that. And yeah, like that's, that's my, that's my existence. And I think that having had the history of straightness that I've had, the straight identity and the life that I've had, it has put me within these rigid rules of what it means to perform masculinity rather than just be present with who the fuck I am. Right? To over identify with anything is at one's detriment because over identifying with a man as an example or over identifying as straight. Right. I think that we can become so who we are, like, so confident in that, so identified with knowing who we are, that we miss out on finding out, that we miss out on learning who we can be. And if we had a world like that where people were just like, nope, this is it. This is me. This is what I do. This is who I am. If it just stopped there, what kind of evolution will we have? Like, what would art look like? What would science look like? What would research look like? If there was no receptivity and openness and compassion that I find to really be integrated into queerness and queer spaces. Excuse me, if not for my experiences with queer people. Queer. Queer relationships that I've had, like, my longest standing relationships have been very queer relationships. The ones where it's like, all straight. Like, there's no. There's no room for flexibility, there's no room for creativity, there's no room for exploration and curiosity around just things that are not the norm. And as I go forward into more consciously navigating these queer spaces, I. I feel like it's important for me to learn and live this out loud, even if at the expense of making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, getting it wrong. And I think that that's a part of this stigma. Work. Work doesn't feel right. Work as a word, just does not feel right. This does not feel like work to me. My work is going to get these genital exams at medical schools, but this is literally something that I just get to. I get to exist. Like, I get to exist as someone who is curious, someone who creates someone who values connection. And to have my existence validated by the intangible, the intangible aspects of queer people's identities. Like, it's not about how they look. It's about the way they live. And the way that they live is without these, like, without submitting to societal, structural norms. And I. I find that that's really, really what. What lights me up. It. The. It's the challenge and the liberation that go hand in hand. The transformational fire that brings presence to my identity for myself. Ain't nobody judging me. Ain't nobody telling me, courtney, you wrong. Like, you're bad for that. Like, I've been asked what I want, what I like, and it's very difficult for me to answer those questions because of my rigidity with straightness, my rigidity with the heteronormative monogamy rules that were in place. And I think about something that I've gotten over the Years out of non monogamy is a queer way of relating. Queer ways of relating whatever it is, queer ways of creating spaces, creating a safety container for sex to be something that is explorative and experimental. And this is a direction that I don't think that I would have gotten to without my herpes diagnosis. And having gone through the fragmentation of identity throughout stigma, navigating, oh, I don't know what my sex life is going to look like. I think this might be it for me. No more sex. Ain't nobody going to have sex with somebody who got herpes. Come to find out, there's a lot of people who would still have sex with me despite having herpes. Come to find out, there's a lot of ways to engage in sexual despite what your herpes status is. There's ways to. Yeah, there's so many ways of just existing. And I think about the spaces where it's been most safe for me to be vulnerable. It has not been in my relationships that I've had pre queer understanding. Like, I've gotten more safety out of relationships than that were queer or with queer people, especially emotionally. Because growing up, I remember, man, it was not safe for me to say I don't know. And to say I don't know is a very vulnerable thing for me. Even throughout the years of this podcast and hosting something positive for positive people, a lot of this I haven't known. I just been doing the. I just been doing it. I've shown up and just consistently done it. And something that has, you know, bitten me in the ass is, as a kid getting in trouble for saying, I don't know, having to learn how to get around that. Okay, well, I'm gonna say something. I'm gonna tell you what you want to hear. All right? Now that I've told you what you want to hear, I gotta make that thing true. Even if it was a lie or not, I have to make that thing true. And making that thing true sometimes comes at the expense, expense of identifying a new truth or finding out. You know, it makes me. It makes me a liar. It's flat out like, not being safe to say I don't know has created a sense of safety in lying, not telling the truth, being dishonest. And that's something that I've grown up with and grown into, like, despite what the intention is, right? It. It can also translate into how you do relationships. Like, all right, I'm supposed to want this thing. Boom. External expectations. This is what I'm supposed to want this is what I'm supposed to do. This is what I'm supposed to work toward. This is how I'm supposed to get there. And then despite your nervous system, despite the messaging of your life experience being like, nah, that ain't it. Because as human beings, we have the ability to consciously choose what it is that we engage with, what we do, how we do. As long as we have sound mind, sound body, you can look up and be doing. A lot of you don't want to do just because you think you're supposed to be doing it. What I've learned out of queerness, out of the sex education space, the space that is able to heal a lot of the damages that have been caused by political administration, history of medicine, history, period, media, health, all of these things through sex education. There is so much to be learned through queer black sex education. That's how I've been able to be more firm and solid in my identity as someone who holds reverence for queerness. I'm not queer. I do queer. I, I don't, I don't know. I don't think that I would be embraced as a queer person, but I feel like my identity is more validated in spaces where queerness is more forward than not. And I made this call out, you know, just, I, I posted it to my post, my close friends on Instagram. Just like I was asking Chad GPT, I was like, am I queer? Because this is how I've been doing the exploration of things, of trying to understand things by like book definitions and whatnot, right? So Chat GPT knows my work history, what I do for work, the kinds of questions that I've been asking, etc, and so to have gotten the response, you know, based on Bell Hook's definition of seeing around me that my environment and what I'm engaging with is not reflective of my identity. For me to have to go and create for myself these spaces where I can be emotionally expressive, where there is emotional safety, where. Where there is the ability for me to align my beliefs and my behaviors, for me to actually have these spaces, even if I'm, you know, creating them on my own. Like, I feel most aligned with and in community, in spaces that are queer. And this is coming from a man who, very masculine, presenting, not in your traditional sense, by any means, but learning to embrace a lot of aspects of humanness, of wholeness. Right? Because again, stigma. Irving Goffman defines stigma as an attributes that makes a person less than whole and over. Identifying with masculinity just means inherently leaving out aspects of self that are not masculine. I didn't say feminine, but that are not masculine. The over identification with masculinity inherently makes someone less than whole, less than human. The over identified identification with someone's sexuality makes you less than human, less than whole because of an over identification. I'm not saying you can't identify with your sexuality. What I'm saying is that is a consistency between the people that I've spoken to who over identify with their sexuality because of their herpes diagnosis, suffering. And it's the same for anything. Even if you're somebody who has a negative status. Oh, you know, I'm, I'm clean. I never, I never get STIs. I've always tested negative for like then now that becomes your over identification. I over identify because I run something positive for positive people. Yes. I have to tell people very early, often before I'm ready to. Yeah, I have herpes. This is my, this is my situation. This is my story. I'm living with hsv. Whatever, whatever. Because this is what I do. And oftentimes like me, oh man, I stepped in all types of mud crap. Why'd I do that? I'm walking outside after rain, but it's really sunny outside right now and I was walking in circles. But yeah, whenever I meet new people and introduce myself, like, that's kind of something that I have to lead with. And so there's even an over identification there for me. And I recognize it, you know, and I acknowledge it. And I think that there's something to be said for being able to recognize and acknowledge that for yourself and then take it, you know, wherever it is that it needs to go. But rather than like not really knowing this about yourself, but what queerness has done for me is given me the reflection in other people's existences that it's okay for me to find out who I am. And that's one thing that I'm grateful for out of queerness. Like not just in the sense of non monogamy. Like, I'm not non monogamy. I'm not a non monogamous person. Just to like be out here catching bodies. Like, the non monogamy component comes with this challenge and liberation of really being able to discover who I am. Because so much of me discovering who I am has in fact come from a lot of the challenges that I face through relationships and being able to have the kinds of intimate relationships with people that specifically women that historically are or have been or would have been threatening to my monogamous relationship. And so that's one of the things that has most appealed to me about non monogamy when, which is like a queer way of doing relationships, it rejects societal social norms and like that ability to be able to grow and expand and practice presence with other people who also value, you know, liberation, who also value challenge, who also value doing important work like making money. I. I' ma just, I' ma just say it. Yes, we need it. That's cool. Like I've never had a desire to make a lot of money. I've had more of a pull to just like do something meaningful. When I was working in sales, I moved to Houston in 2014, 15 and I was working in sales and I got my first like fat ass commission chat. I was like this cool. I get to like pay my bills. Yay. And shortly after that I remember I started applying for and looking for non profit jobs. This was before I started something positive for positive people, of course. But it's real interesting how I've been able to really just make a way for myself throughout prioritizing like those intangible aspects of myself. And the only way that I've been able to get that kind of confidence has been through queerness, through being in these spaces where I've been, I've been welcomed into like, I, I've legit. These are people who sometimes are super traumatized by men who don't feel safe with men who, you know, they. There's always like a little uncertainty or hesitance, especially in new spaces. So I'm very mindful of that. And I try and go and you know, just be there without taking up space. Like my presence is. I have a presence. We can just name that. I do have a presence. But the presence that I have is very much, you know, respectful of the intentions that I'm in, whatever the space is that I'm there for. So it is nice to be able to just learn from. Steph Zapata is a perfect example. Steph facilitates the slam conference. And this is someone that I've always looked up to throughout my time in the field of sex education. This person had given me an opportunity to uplift my work. And I've just, I ain't gonna say studied them necessarily, but the way that they show up as who they are and being someone, one of the earlier people who again, just like who with me, like not. It ain't a lot of people who openly have with my me for being who I am now, the work that I do, yeah, it opens doors. Cool. But I Think that me as myself and being who I am has really been difficult for me. Especially like looking at this over the past month for sure, of a tornado coming through and just ravaging my crib. And how symbolic it is that I've been looking for what home is. And in being away from home for the last month, I feel more at home than I have over the last two years. And it, it's been from not like forcing home externally anymore. It's been like, I ain't got one, I ain't got no crib. And I found that being able to stay with family, being able to stay with friends, like, that's cool. But like, a home to me is not where I rest my head, you know what home is. Home is where my identity is validated. Home is where I can say, I don't know. Home is the emotional safety for me to be able to say like, it is important to me to blend these two seemingly not complementary things together, queerness and masculinity, and be able to say, like, I'm sure you know, I ain't the first person to think this or say it, but like I said, man, it's very scary for me to try and do any revolutionary ass. Like, I have played small for years, and part of my motivation for playing small or not getting too big or not saying too much and stand in my lane and all that is because the people that look like me who have gotten big, who have gathered traction, they get assassinated and then they warrant this. The opposition. Right? Like, the more positivity you have or you are, the more negativity you're likely to, you're going to inherently draw in. And I've been living this very under the radar life, like, and I, I was in a position for a while where I was just really working towards trying to have and be a family, but because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. And, you know, if that's for me, that's for me. It'll be for me, it'll happen. But I, I, I do feel like a newfound sense of freedom in that now I can be big without having to worry about nobody else. Like, I don't have to worry about anybody using my family against me or no shit like that. I know how crazy this sounds, but, like, these are thoughts that I actually have. And, you know, I think that one of the most grateful things for me right now is having had all these things taken away from me. Like, I don't have a, I have my family. Yes. But like, I ain't got no kids. I don't have a partner. I don't have a lease that I'm in. Like, I'm as free as I've ever been. And I just so happen to get a little startup money from the insurance that, you know, I got from the tornado. So I get to live this bigger existence. And I think that part of this bigger existence is embracing through my masculinity, the transformation that queerness has brought to me. And that's something that I've been having conversations with people about, especially other black men who have really appreciated and been thankful for me. Like, opening that conversation, opening that door up for it to be a potential topic of discussion. Because I, I don't know anybody talking about it. I don't know who's talking about it, but that doesn't mean that it's not being talked about, if that makes sense. So I guess it's like my accountability podcast episode, because it is important that I hold true to that. It's important that I maintain the integrity of the spaces that I enter. I, I find myself being very protective of these spaces. You know, it. I do feel that maybe, like, that's part of my masculinity of, of, you know, protecting and allowing for whatever my actions are to be doing. Oh, my God, that's a, that's an eagle or a hog, one of them. Damn, that huge. Sorry, I ain't mean to say that I, I forget people be listening to this, but, yeah, I, I, I very much feel like a sense of. Damn, maybe a sense of. You ask me, courtney, what do you want? What do you want? I don't, I don't want anything. And I think about the last time that I was asked that question, and, you know, I, I still ain't answered the goddamn question. But, like, it's not. Life isn't about what I want, right? It's about what, what's necessary. What does the moment want? What does this moment call for? And you, if you scroll social media, you see exactly what the moment calls for. It calls for presence. It calls for leadership. It calls for connection. It calls for people to come the together and be able to resolve a lot of these issues. Sometimes it doesn't call for action. We do so much that often times the doing is not productive or counterproductive and just warranting a counteraction. What happens if we create stillness? What happens if we bring presence and we bring queerness, right? And challenge all this motion with stillness? What happens if we collectively in our communities decide on all Right. Hey, here's a day that. And. And, you know, protesting, awesome. We're exercising our rights, but they don't give a about that. Like, the people who are in charge, the powers that be, that don't work. I was having a conversation with somebody about how protesting used to be. People put their church clothes on, they're in unison, they're marching, they're. They're singing. And all you see in the media is, what. Wait, what the. The military showing up here? Why is the military being deployed? Why they getting hoes down? Right. And the anger, the rage that we have collectively, very much warranted. Absolutely. But channeled into a way where that resistance cannot be met with anything but solutions. The only resistance you can bring is solutions. What happens if we all go do our shopping, you know, the last week of the month, you know, and. And we got groceries on deck and we got the clothes that we need. What if we just don't buy luxury items? What if we don't shop at, you know, Walmart collectively? What if we don't utilize the Amazon, if we don't use doordash? Uber just talked about, you know, aligning with Trump, one of Trump's policies, and I know a lot of who have voted for Trump who are, like, really regretting that decision. So if you one of those people who listening to this right now, then I think it's. It's very. It's okay. It's okay. You made a mistake. All right? So now what we do is we commune and we do something different. We learn, we educate ourselves, all right? We listen to people and we just, like, sometimes the best thing that you can do is do nothing. And if you. Somebody who's big in the Bible, there's a Bible verse, be still and know that I am God. And all that is is a recalibration for aligned action. Whatever it is that you do next from that place, from that place of knowingness who you are, what you stand for, your action will be in alignment with what it is that your beliefs are. And as long as your behaviors and beliefs align, you good, you good. And in the name of good and in the name of, like, what's right, I think that everybody, we. We ain't got to see the pathway of getting there the same. But I know damn well we got the same outcome that we desire. We want. We want peace, we want pleasure. Everybody here has had their pleasure threatened if you listen to this podcast is because you. You got herpes. And you think you ain't gonna be able to no More. Or if you get here later down the road where this is, like, more stigma episodes, and you just so happen to step back and go, oh, what's this queerness and masculinity thing? And then you find yourself here. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe you're somewhere else. But I do believe that it's important for me as a cisgendered heterosexual black man, to acknowledge the lessons that I've gotten from queerness. And, you know, for a while, I was thinking, I need to do this big, extravagant announcement thing, right? And I don't. I think that it's more important that I. I show up and just, like, allow for myself to be and be visible in a way where I ain't the only. I ain't the only person. I'm not. I know I'm not. I'm not the only one. I was asked a couple of years ago, why aren't there more men in the sex education space? And, you know, I didn't want to give my answer in that moment. But in hindsight, like, I think about it and it's like, well, it'll. It'll look different because there. There is no performance. There is no stats. There's no. No value in this that can be monetized and put on a stat sheet, right? But that's the point. That's not what it's about. It's not about that. It's not about performance. It's about presence. It's about giving people choice. It's so empowering in ways that I think a lot of people are ready to comprehend. But there's an unwillingness due to this division. And I do believe that at the intersection of pride and men's mental health awareness, there's something there. So for. I feel supported in a few people who I've shared this with shout out to y' all. Y' all know who y' all are. I don't want to get y' all canceled if I get canceled, but there is. There's work to be done here. And even for myself, right? Like, there's a lot of reflection, there's a lot of learning, There's a lot of unlearning, but more importantly, there's a lot of presence to be had. There's a lot of just being that needs to occur. Becoming, becoming, and being. These are very new words to me because they are not outcome driven. You don't. You don't. You don't get there. You don't just evolve and be evolved, right? Healing is an ongoing process. Being is an Ongoing process. Loving is an ongoing process, and I see that now. And I'm not. I'm not scared anymore because I don't have to fear for and be accountable for, you know, anybody else in my immediate bubble. So the way that my advocacy looks like, I look for. For, you know, more meaningful and productive ways of doing so. This might be a starting point. But I also think, man, like, there are so many more creative ways that we can collectively make change if there are leadership voices that can align that are across different community groups. So if Courtney rallies all of the people with herpes and so. And so rallies all of the people that are in their coaching circle and so. And so on their influencer for their skincare page, right? And we just call for collective action. Call for collective action. All we gonna do is we're not gonna. We ain't gonna block traffic. We're not gonna march. We're not gonna throw at cops. No, no. If it were my idea, I think that what we would do is not watch a season of sports. Maybe we don't use Spotify. Maybe we delete the Instagram app. Maybe, like, there's all these ideas that I. I got ideas. But also, like, I recognize, like, I'm. I'm one man. And I think a lot of people, you know, for where we are in the world right now, I think about, like, voting, not voting, thinking that, well, it's just me. It's just my vote. Like, mine doesn't. My vote won't make that much of a difference. My voice won't make that much of a difference. If I do it this one time, it'll be okay. And I think that what. What needs to happen is that we need to recognize that we are responsible for a community. And there's a lot of men out there that if any of them feel the way that I feel. Oh, my fucking God. Sorry, Train. I think there's a lot of men out there that if any of them feel how I've ever felt at one point of just not fitting in, like, these are people who maybe believe that. Who believe that they don't have a community, that they don't have anyone to be responsible for or accountable for, and therefore, their decision making is inherently selfish because it's just them, or maybe it's just their family, and they think that if they don't take care of it, ain't nobody going to take care of it. But I tell y' all, man, if y' all listening, right, like, community is the cure. Community is the cure for all of this. Community is the cure for herpes stigma. Community is the cure for these corrupt ass politics that we have to endure and live in. Community is the cure for capitalism. But we can't have this. Every man for himself and we can't be looking at Men's mental health awareness month is like, oh, you know men, men, we need, we need sympathy. We, we're victims too. No, we can't have that shit. And as far as the pride in like, this shit just look like partying. But it's not. Like the more I got into this, the more I'm seeing like, it is in fact about revolution. Like, it's about the history of rebellion, of calling out inequalities and just wrong shit. And as men, like, we know what's wrong, but if we ain't got nobody to be accountable to, I, I learned I can live off a thousand dollars a month. That for me that means doing these general exams two days a month and I get to just go off and do whatever I want to. And in a relationship, having a family, having a community to be responsible for. I have to do more than that. I have to become more than that because I am choosing to welcome in and bring into my bubble these community spaces that I'm so proud of that have given me so much and be someone who can hopefully, you know, proudly represent these people in these places and all of that. To say, man, like, this is where home is for me. Home is in queerness. I've found home in queerness. Yes, as a straight black man, I have found home in queerness and how I live and how I communicate and how I challenge the societal norms, how I challenge masculinity, how I challenge the, the up that's happening in the world. And it's important that I do that. It's more important now than ever that I don't just stay in my lane of talking about herpes, but expanding more in the stigma and being able to speak to a men. We. There is a lot for us to learn from queerness. There's a lot for us to learn from just listening to these women educators and yeah, man, like I'm, I'm, I'm inspired. And this ain't no inspired in a sense of like, all right, I'm gonna make this post and then go away. No, this is in my being. So you may not see me doing much of anything, but you'll see it represented in my presence. You'll see how I carry myself and hold space in these settings where queerness is the is centered. And that's okay for me. Like, I don't got to make it my own. I don't got to claim it as mine as part of it. Like, I can walk in these spaces and hold my straightness while simultaneously being witness to queerness and the expansiveness of it and also allow for that to be something that liberates and challenges me. So with all of that said, like, I. I'm speaking here to this now because I'm definitely coming out as someone who has benefit from queerness in a challenging and liberating way. It has challenged me, it has liberated me, and it's in that that I want to challenge y' all. If y' all got queer friends, if y' all got people who, you know, are willing to disrupt systems and who are loud about things like, hear them out. Hear him out. Because I. I'd have never. You couldn't, man. Before I got my herpes diagnosis. And this. This speaks, you know, to my own testimony. Like, I was as straightest. Straight as they come. I did a lot of I didn't want to do. I did a lot of I didn't like. But just in queerness, man, just even my relationship to my own body, my relationship to pleasure, my relationship to communication, my relationship to potential partners, all of this has evolved through the lens of looking at things from a queer lens, looking at my identity through a queer lens, looking at my masculinity through a queer lens. So that's. That's it. Like, that's. That's really all I wanted to say here, because I've been trying to get around talking about it directly because of a fear of saying the wrong thing. And I had some podcast interviews that I did with two men, and neither of the transcripts are loading. And I know exactly why, because I was supposed to do this first. Watch. I'm gonna upload this when everything's gonna be fine. And then the other two, they might work, they might not. But regardless, I'm glad I was able to just get this out. I want to shout out Steph Zapata for being that inspiration to me for Dr. Donna Oriowo from the ASEC conference for that presentation that was challenging everybody in the room to bring intersectionality into their work, because I don't think that I would have come home with this takeaway and at least, like, felt that call to action in a way that I would implement it especially so quickly. So I thank y' all for listening. If this ain't for you, I understand. You can, you know, Utilize whatever support resources you need, go on about your business. But if this is something that resonates, I encourage you to share it. Share with the man around you. Share it with some queer people in your bubble. You know, uplift this. This ain't just about herpes no more. It's not all herpes. And while, you know, stigma is very broad, I think that this intersection of my own existence is something that speaks to the direction that this podcast is headed and the direction of the healing of this organization. All right, so we minimize and stigma across the board at all the areas of intersection that we can through conversations, through healing, through being. And I want to just acknowledge the role of queerness in that as it relates to my masculinity. So that concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive people. Please like Rate Review Share subscribe to this podcast. I can't thank y' all enough for your support for being here. Support groups meet Monday 7:30. There's a stigma support group for general people. Everybody welcome. 7:30 Central Time on Mondays. Just subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on that. We've got the second Monday of every month, the Atomic Living one. That's a men's group. We've got fourth Monday. I want to do something like live. Usually third Monday. I take off or move things around if I need to for any reason. And then Tuesdays are yoga. But again, just get on the newsletter. SPFPP.org until next time, stay present.