SPFPP 215: Belonging Series - Identifiers

There are three main characteristics projected onto my by the expectations of others. My masculinity, my blackness and my queerness are all labels that, while valid af, are still invalidating to me because I don’t fit into any of these. Masculinity as what it means to be a man directly challenges what it means to be queer, directly challenges what it means to be black. I’m a walking contradiction of these identities. Yes I am Black. Yes I present masculine. Yes I occupy queer spaces. But who approves or rejects your blackness, queerness, masculinity, or any identities for that matter?

After being challenged about my dating profile saying “queer-friendly”, I decided to explore any internalized phobias within me. It isn’t that I’m rejecting my queerness, it’s that my queerness directly rejects me. Then I had to ask myself wait, why does who I have sex with qualify or disqualify my queerness? Do I need to “prove” myself to the queer community by somehow proving I’m not attracted to men/masculine presenting people? Why would I have to do that? I don’t challenge others’ queerness, so why challenge my ‘straightness’?

I was asked how I’d feel about someone putting “black friendly” in their dating profile and my visceral response was, “Well I see BLM in people I’m attracted to’s profiles all the time so same thing. It just makes me feel like they’re down with that brown if you know what I’m sayin’.” So the argument there really stems to this three way conflict of queer, black, and masculine. As a black man, especially as a black man who also dates outside my race, I need certain qualifiers to know I’m safe. I present super straight and super black, so if I don’t use qualifiers such as ‘queer friendly’, then how exactly am I supposed to welcome in those who are matching my vibe/energy? I only have about 3 pictures and those first three description lines in my profile to demonstrate that there’s more to me than what is presented on the surface.

The identifications of being a masculine, queer-friendly, heterosexual black man can come with some stereotypes, and I’ve done the work to dissolve those through my ongoing challenging of the status quo that comes with these labels. The more I looked at the three and saw their conflicts, the more I realized that I was trying to label an integrated identity here. Something like ‘hetero-queer’ still felt off to me. After reflecting and lots of conversations, I realized I was feeding into the status quo that I have spent at least the last 5 years aiming to dissolve by attempting to identify a label that ‘fit’ me.

Truth is, I have no role models at this intersection of identities. You know why? Because I AM that role model and you should be yours as well. Nobody is “like” me because I’m the only person who’s had my experiences, just as you are the only person who’s had yours. It’s important that we shave away these expectations projected onto us as the norm and get to the core of BEING. This space is where identification is no longer necessary because you just ARE. BE yourself. That means challenging identities that were placed on you that you disagree with, don’t exclusively fit into, or . . . if you do agree, then shit, validate yourself in that. No one should be able to tell you where you fit in because wherever you are is where you fit in. We are all unique, and the discovery of that means examining internalized stigma, checking your privileges and healing.

It isn’t a matter of integrating conflicting identities, it’s shaving away societal expectations of what it means to fit into those identities to connect to who you are at your core. These identifiers were added TO your core and serve as a smokescreen disconnecting you from your core of BEING. In this space, you don’t need identities, labels, expectations, you just get to BE who you are.

Episode 215 Transcript

The Triangle of Identity and the Illusion of Belonging

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. I just got really, really nervous about my mic. It has this blue light that turns on whenever it's working and active. And that light did not come on. So, I'm glad we got that light right now. Uh cuz this is a really nice mic. I'm gonna be honest. I think that the podcast sounds better whenever I speak directly into my phone, but I paid for this mic, so I'm using it. I'mma ride it till the wheels fall off. Uh notice this isn't your usual introduction. And at this point, you'll probably hear another 8 weeks worth of podcast before you hear any implemented shifts that are coming as a result of me not introducing this podcast episode in the way that I have in the past. And here's why. Yesterday is actually when I recorded what was supposed to have been this podcast episode that you're hearing.

00:01:29 Courtney Brame: It was me just wrapping up the conclusion of the belonging series. And as I was speaking, um, I was able to process something that I didn't realize was really impacting Something Positive for Positive People. Like I consider myself to be a very reflective and introspective person. Uh, as you'll have heard over at least the last three podcast episodes on intersectionality between being Black, being someone who is uh very aligned with queer spaces and people, and then also being straight and masculine or manly, heterosexual, all of these things. And as I was doing that, I spoke to how as time goes on, like we have an established identity. Like we're all figuring out who we are, but we can really only figure out who we are in relation to who others think we are. And over time, if you'll look at the diagram that is uh present in the previous episodes, you'll see that it's a triangle with spheres at the edges of the triangles and then a sphere in the center of the triangle.

00:02:40 Courtney Brame: And at the edges of those triangles, those are society's labels and expectations that are put onto us around our sphere. And our sphere is uh where that question mark is. And that question mark is what is that? Who are we? That's who we are at our core, at our center. who we are as people who just exist as beings who have a collective of experiences, beliefs, who have desires, who want to explore and express, you know, that element of who we are can often become uh calcified in the expectations of other people. And that's what those three identities were. I am put limitations on me by my Blackness, by my manliness, by my queerness, and there are assumptions made about me. And I spoke to this um in the episode, but I don't want to give this any more energy than it deserves. But uh there was a Black woman who commented on a Facebook post that I made about, you know, for people to just stop saying you act white.

00:03:53 Courtney Brame: And she was one of those people who says you act white. And simply put, you know, just because I can't handle spicy food, I do yoga and I watch cartoons. And uh those were her arguments. And I mean, I can argue that a lot of other s*** that I do is considered white people s***, but those were the things that she locked in on. And I hate that those expectations really make me feel like I don't belong in certain spaces. So, my proximity to queerness while I'm straight makes me feel like I don't belong in queer spaces. And being someone who considers myself to be a queer ally or queer friendly, it doesn't feel uh 100% aligning to be in straight spaces. And then being someone who's Black who enjoys like being a vulnerable man and being someone who's in tune with my emotional intelligence and emotional awareness, as well as doing white people s*** doesn't fit in with Blackness. So there's these three areas where I essentially just don't feel like I have a place of belonging and add to that that I have herpes and for someone who is open about my herpes status as a man, as someone who is Black and as someone who um I guess like in queer spaces is probably where it seems the most accepting to be someone who's living with a positive herpes status.

00:05:18 Courtney Brame: like even there, you know, the spaces that are for people with herpes even also don't feel like I belong in there. And I've spent the last month since coming up with this diagram and exploring these uh intersections of my identity. And I just realized that I've been trying to create a new identity for myself, another label that I can project onto other people that comes with expectations that include all of these aspects of my being according to how other people say I show up or how I present myself. And I don't think that that is something that I should have been focused on. My focus should have been really shaving away and challenging those external expectations that society has put on me. Like that lady to tell me I act white or for someone to tell me or challenge for someone to have challenged my straightness. for someone to have challenged um the fact that like I may look like a man who's supposed to behave like a man in a traditional sense.

Navigating Public Spaces and Overcompensating

00:06:32 Courtney Brame: And there's just so much there between me having to, you know, portray myself as more non-threatening for me to have to fake smile or start kind of singing or dancing if I'm crossing paths with someone. Like, I'll use this example. I remember um there's a girl at the gym that I go to and I wear the same mask. It's not a whole lot of people who look like us at the gym. We've crossed paths a few times and she's like picked up one of the pieces of equipment next to me and we've got masks on. Yeah. But she was like I'm taking this. Like I knew she was saying I'm taking this and I just kind of gave her a thumbs up. But we cross paths pretty regularly. And one day I was leaving a partner's house and catching a bus to go to the gym and she was on the same bus. And um we had to switch buses.

00:07:18 Courtney Brame: So it kind of looked like I was following her or something. So um when we got to a crosswalk like I tried to just say hi and be like, "Hey, I'm Courtney." Introduce myself so it didn't just seem creepy like I was following her. And I recognized what it was that I was doing there. And it was like me wanting to overcompensate and make this person feel safe walking in the same direction at the expense of uh potentially looking creepy. And it's embarrassing because we hit a crosswalk and I tried to talk to her and just introduce myself and um she was watching the video so I didn't like jumping in front of her and be like, "Hey, I'm Courtney. We're going to the same place." So, when that crosswalk changed to uh we could walk past it, y'all, I don't walk super slow. I'm tall. I have pretty long legs and I take big strides. I cannot tell. She's probably three blocks away from me before I cleared one block.

00:08:12 Courtney Brame: That's how fast she was walking. And, you know, that's kind of something that goes into this whole emotional intelligence piece. Like I'm aware enough that women uh especially women who are uh considered attractive by other people and get a lot of unwanted attention. These are people who feel threatened by the presence of someone. And she was also white. So me being Black, I felt like I had to come off as non-threatening by introducing myself. And I recognize that now. At the time it was just like, oh, I don't like, oh, this is a girl at the gym. Uh, I should say something like, "Hi, we've liked to walk past each other all the time and you know it would just be cool to make friends cuz that's a priority of mine." Um, I've gotten off dating sites and I'm making an effort to make friends in person, in real life. And today I actually made a friend in the hot tub who's a Black dude who also teaches yoga who also lived in Texas who also moved here uh last year.

The True Core of SPFPP: Suicide Prevention

00:09:13 Courtney Brame: So, it was cool to see how this is like, you know, coming together as I talk it into existence. But, um, going back to the whole point of me sharing the conflicts of my intersecting perceived identities is that I'm also projecting that into Something Positive for Positive People. Here's how I have allowed for other people to sort of conform the outer edges of its triangle to being mental health focused, herpes focused and then sexual health communication focused. Now, while these are things that people can, you know, take away from Something Positive for Positive People, these are not the core of what Something Positive for Positive People is. How it started is how when you begin to deconstruct those labels and you break down what the external expectations have come to be of Something Positive for Positive People, you get that it is a suicide prevention resource. Y'all, I have been feeling extreme symptoms of burnout and compassion fatigue as a result of my own doing. Here's why. Because when I took that hiatus, I recorded podcast episodes.

00:10:40 Courtney Brame: I went hard recording last year. Um, and I released everything that I had through November, I believe, uh, in the month of June. So all of June, July, August, September, October, and then November was when I started recording again. So there were five to six months where I wasn't recording podcasts. I was only applying for grants. I was only trying to get speaking engagements to be able to get out there and be able to fund Something Positive for Positive People so that we could start paying for people to get therapy. Again, something that I haven't shared in relation to, yeah, Something Positive for Positive People got 40-ish people in therapy is that these were people that I had to like hunt for. Like I had to go hunt these people down. So, it's not like people are beating down the doors of Something Positive for Positive People in order to get us therapy. I happen to have had more money than I knew what to do with my unemployment.

00:11:37 Courtney Brame: So, I negotiated a decent rate between a few therapists that I worked with, and I was able to get 40 people into therapy. They all said it was helpful. They talked about how useful it was. Uh, but that wasn't what they liked. That wasn't what the most useful thing was to them. You know what it was? It was a podcast. And I'm convinced at this point now that most people who have herpes, they're okay. I won't hear from them. These are people who probably are in their relationships. Maybe they get oral herpes outbreaks. Maybe their partner's okay with it. Maybe they don't have any issues with dating. But I'm not here for them. I'm here for the people who are at the most extreme end suicidal and on the least extreme end just looking for information to disclose their status to partners and be able to comfortably speak to family and their support systems about what it is that they're going through as they navigate stigma.

00:12:42 Courtney Brame: And I have allowed myself to burn myself out because I haven't been really focused on doing what I want to do. And what I want to do is host a podcast. If people are coming to me and saying that this podcast has been more useful than anything else that they found and that the uh it's been something that helped them even with disclosing to their therapist. A lot of people who come to me, they have a therapist and they are afraid of disclosing their HSV status to their therapist. I don't know why. Maybe it's fear of judgment. Maybe because they've developed such a rapport with their therapist and things have been going so great that if they say this, they're running the risk of losing that security. I don't know. But I do know that Something Positive for Positive People at its core is a suicide prevention resource. That's why this started. And I've been applying for grants.

Realigning Values to Cure Burnout

00:13:38 Courtney Brame: It's when I do things that are out of alignment with my values that I begin to experience symptoms of burnout. And one of the things that doesn't align with my values is I'm applying for grants and funding that really touch on the components of the triangle that are external labels and expectations about other people on what Something Positive for Positive People is. You know, when people validate the true core of Something Positive for Positive People when they say things like, "This saved my life. I was in a dark place. I learned that this is so much bigger than herpes." I learned to be reflective and I took out a journal when there was an episode that had no significance to herpes. That just helped me with just going through the process of what you would go through in self-help settings. Something Positive for Positive People is yeah I don't know that I was in a super dark place. I can't say that I was ever experiencing suicidality but I know people who have gone through with it.

00:14:44 Courtney Brame: I know people who have talked about it. I know survivors of suicide. So suicide is essentially the driving force in me to fuel Something Positive for Positive People. Like that's why it's seemingly an infinite capacity for emotional availability through this organization because that's really the passion. That's what I care about. I'm learning that as I apply for these grants, nobody cares about herpes. There are so many mental health resources out there that exclusively focus on mental health. There's so many organizations that provide um support to people who are living with HIV and all of the everything that they need in there. I can't foresee there being something like that for herpes because people who have herpes don't have to step up. They don't have to come into the space and be like, "Hey, I need help." They can just come to a person. They can come to this podcast resource, get what they need, and then leave. So, I've been I've been f****** up the last two almost three years.

00:15:52 Courtney Brame: It'll be three years in May. For the last three years that Something Positive for Positive People has been a nonprofit, I've been wanting to raise money and pay for people to get therapy who don't want therapy. There's a group that I'm in that has probably about thousands of people for sure. It's not 10,000. And in this group, I posted that, you know, I'm offering to pay for people to get therapy if you are someone who might be struggling with stigma. And nobody stepped up. Nobody wanted therapy. And I recognized that I've gone to people who I've had close proximity with to get them into therapy. These were just people who were like, you know what, I probably need to be in therapy. These weren't people who were in a dark place or like I needed something. And the people who come to me who are in that place often times like I've been just able to recommend to them a podcast episode that resembles what their story is or I've been able to just hear them and hold space for them and listen to them.

00:16:51 Courtney Brame: Something Positive for Positive People's resources, its product, its service isn't therapy. It's this podcast. This is what people who are living with herpes, who are struggling with their mental health as a result of an STI diagnosis, who need support in learning to communicate about their sexual health, who want to learn to heal the sexual trauma of an STI diagnosis, that that's what this is what people come here for. Those people come here for that. And at the end of it all, like this having the presence that it has is in fact suicide prevention or I could even say suicide minimization because I don't like the word prevention in relation to STI. So if we can minimize a person's chances of suicidality or suicide ideation through the existence of this product, this service, this community, then that is something that is directly in line with its origin story and its intention. And maybe when I apply for grants that are in relation to suicide prevention, I'll be able to have more conversations or be able to even get the funding for that.

00:18:05 Courtney Brame: But right at this point, um, I've already started the conversation with a few of my board members in that we really need to invest in this podcast. We need to invest in Something Positive for Positive People and what it's offering now. Keeping true to the core of what it is, suicide prevention, period. That's what it is. That's what it started as. And as it evolves, yes, it's going to touch on more spaces and what the content quality of the podcast is. That's going to just be determined by what comes up. And I'm learning even through these most recent episodes about the intersectionality of queerness, straightness, and Blackness. These have really sparked conversations and people have reached out to me that I didn't even know to listen to the podcast and were like, "Wow, you know, I felt this. You said this thing." And I'm like, "Damn, we said that." So, I'm really thankful to the guests that I've had on, Patrick and Dr. Rob uh, for just being mirrors for me as I process this.

00:19:07 Courtney Brame: You'll probably hear in the tone of my voice and some of the stuff that said that this is being processed and you don't know what's going to come out of my mouth about it. But the parallel here just being that I in my exploration of those intersecting identities have not been true to my core. And therefore, as I show up in Something Positive for Positive People, the same exact thing has been happening. So, I've had to challenge the um external labeling and expectations of what it means to be a mental health resource, a sexual health communication resource, a herpes resource, because those are essentially just secondary um impacts of what Something Positive for Positive People provides as a suicide prevention resource. So I say that to say that um as I do continue to apply for funding, I need to do so with suicide prevention in mind. As I do these talks, as I do these conferences, these presentations, uh the the topics are all about the interconnectedness of sexual health and mental health from a place of suicide um prevention, suicide minimization.

Chipping Away the Marble: Finding the Core Self

00:20:22 Courtney Brame: I don't know how that sounds. That doesn't really roll off the tongue. And when I say to minimize suicide, it implies that yeah, people are still going to do it. And that sounds different than STI minimization because it's like, yeah, people are still going to get STI. I don't know. It just seems a little bit out of context. So, I'll play around with that and be able to more so speak to it. Um, but it does feel so liberating to me to have recognized that these are my symptoms of burnout. And it's just like when you're in relationships or when you have proximity to particular relationships, some can be more draining than others, some can be more energizing than others. The ones that I speak to um self-care as identity care and identity care being having yourself in a position to have your identity validated. Any opportunity that invalidates who you are, your identity, that is something that drains you. That's where we begin to get burnt out.

00:21:23 Courtney Brame: So for me, I'm constantly hearing how great of a job I'm doing, how great this work is, how useful it is, how supportive I am to people who are just in need of something. They don't know what it is. They find this and then they get it. only for me to go to the places who can help me help these people more or expand on what it is that I'm doing and be told, "No, no, you your work is great, but it's not great enough. It's not important. Herpes isn't a big deal." They're not saying that. But that's like what I'm hearing. That's the invalidation that I'm beginning to receive as I look at these rejection letters. As I scroll through and I get the copy paste email where they just fill in my name. Dear Courtney, after reviewing hundreds of proposals, unfortunately, yours didn't make it. Try again next year. Or even to see that there are grants and funding opportunities that you have to be invited to apply for.

00:22:21 Courtney Brame: And then I go through the process still of trying to get through and just present just my passion and how uh how passionate I am about this work, how intense it is to me, how um how intertwined this is with who I am. like I am aligned after that. Uh speaking through processing uh what is coming out now in this podcast more processed of how I am in my core and how Something Positive for Positive People is in its core. Like we are talking about alignment like I know now something things are already happening in order for me to be able to make this happen. Like I'm uh currently I just got a part-time job working at OHSU uh Oregon Health and Sciences University here in uh Portland, Oregon. I am producing two podcasts for a university back home on the topic of implementation science. Um, I'm teaching yoga and I'm also obtaining a lot of speaking opportunities. And these are all things that I'm learning that when you're in alignment with who you are, when you're connected to yourself, with what it is that you want to do, who you are, all of the logistics come together lately or uh later along the way.

00:23:50 Courtney Brame: I learned that as I prioritize the needs of my spirit, my purpose, my mission, my passion, the needs of the body are taken care of. And I'm finding myself surrounded by very loving and supportive people in the relationships that I have. These are people who support me and accept me. And I don't know that I've had that before in relationships as I am. And it feels really beautiful to be able to have these moments of alignment where I'm getting glimpses of myself as I am, who I am, detached from any of the external labelings that are there, and still being met with love and acceptance, unconditional acceptance along with a little bit of understanding for people who like don't just see me, but they get me. This is what happens when you take these kinds of moments to reflect on who you are, who you choose to be in the sphere of that triangle uh in the center. It's like the debris and gunk and all of that just calcified around the core of who I am to the point where I just forgot.

00:25:02 Courtney Brame: And I think that this may happen with us all. Even if you take an opportunity to look at intersecting identities for yourself as a human uh in in whatever ways that you identify, begin to play with that and look at what your beliefs are in the center, your privileges, your experiences, how you express, what your desires are, what makes you happy, what brings you pleasure, what scares you, your fears. Look at all of those things and see if they hold true to who you are in relation to how the rest of the world sees you or how you've chosen to see yourself in accordance with the rest of the world. Because there's come a point where we just sort of wake up from this daydream, this sleepwalking of not really knowing who we are or feeling a sense of purposelessness or passion is somehow um just not it's not present within us. We have those realizations. We have those moments. And it's when we begin to just reconnect to that core of who we are that we can start to bring that core into what it is that we do.

00:26:17 Courtney Brame: I can't wait to release this podcast episode. I can't wait to start to um speak more to suicide prevention and look for opportunities to fund my podcast. I want to do this full-time. I want to be able to host my podcast. I want to teach yoga from time to time. And I want to make this podcast the best podcast it can possibly be. And that's going to include, you know, more vulnerability like this. It's going to continue to include guests and conversations with everyday people who are navigating uh stigma, people who are challenging these social norms that have been projected on us, these expectations, these labels. I absolutely need for people to have that because it's then that we begin to have the self-reflection necessary to grow to encourage that self-reflection in other people to the point where we can become allies toward ourselves and create allies within our communities to support us through the things that we're struggling with.

00:27:25 Courtney Brame: And that is suicide prevention. When we can have our identities validated despite going through something that conflicts with our own self-image of how we are, who we think we are. That's suicide prevention. That's identity validation. And that's what I'm here for. I believe that I needed this podcast series in order to find this truth about myself and reconnect with this truth about myself because it's something that has just not been I I've not been connected to unknowingly. It's not like it was a conscious thing that I was doing. It was just like I recognize that I'm in spaces where sometimes I think people forget I'm Black. And that whole thing about, you know, having to portray myself as safe or non-threatening, that's a real thing. Like if I'm riding a car with a friend, white girl who's got drugs in the car, if we've been smoking and she gets pulled over and the cops happen to find those drugs, like it there's not a doubt in my mind that no matter how close of friends we say we are, like you can't convince me that you going to tell that cop that these are your drugs.

00:28:45 Courtney Brame: Like, oh no, officer, those aren't his, those are mine. And it ain't no way that they're going to look at me and be like, oh no, you're definitely pedalling drugs. It's stupid. It's real stupid. Um, I have friends who like talk s*** on police and like to flick them off and yell things when I'm around and I'm like, "Yo, please don't do that while I'm right here." Like, all it'll take is for somebody to be like, "Yeah, it was him." And then it's like, my voice doesn't sound like that at all. But these are real fears. And I appreciate my allies for what it means for me to navigate this world as a Black person, to be received as and present as a Black person. Like, yeah, cool. Show me you're showing me allyship. Great. Do that s*** when I'm not around, please. I love y'all. I love y'all to death.

00:29:33 Courtney Brame: But is my unfortunate, you know, trauma response, survival mechanism to have to go into a state of being non-threatening, right? because my default, you know, in and as you heard me and Patrick talk about if you've listened to that episode, we talked about having to grow up and we had to look hard so people wouldn't mess with us. So, I had to look threatening. Looking threatening was safe. And then coming into adulthood in my mid20s, that s*** did not serve me anymore to look threatening. I needed to look non-threatening. And I think that um that statistic, dude, like we weren't supposed to make it past 25. Um for Black men, I think it comes from holding on to things that served us at one point that no longer serve us. That being one of those things. Don't talk to strangers. Look look look look mean. Look hard. Have status by having these certain types of dress attire.

00:30:33 Courtney Brame: You need these things in order to survive, in order to not be messed with. Don't collaborate with, don't trust people who are outside of your community. And you know, even sometimes like it's people within your community that are the ones that are out for themselves or out to bring you down too. And this is something that, you know, I've had to learn. I had to learn this. And I hate that it took me so long to learn it. I hate how long it took me to learn it. I hate how I had to learn it, but it's a lesson that needed to be learned. And it's a lesson that allowed me to be blessed enough to see the age 33 and be able to do what it is that I'm doing now. Like I packed up, y'all. I moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Portland, Oregon. You know how many “Why you moving there?” “What you doing that for?”

00:31:29 Courtney Brame: How many of those types of responses I got? What about the cost of living? I sold all my stuff in my apartment and I ended up moving here. I had five grand. I had $5,000 when I moved in October. On October 31st, I paid my first month of rent. Had to buy my plane tickets, packed up my two suitcases, a carry-on, and a backpack with everything I could. And I got out of there. Like I picked up and I moved here because there was a pool. There was an undeniable pull and I let people say, "Oh, you gonna be the only Black dude in Portland. Oh, you know, it's a bunch of weird people out there." Like, it's all types of people in different genders and uh that you don't know if you are going to bring home a man. Like, I had to hear that phobic, all types of phobic s***. And then just the challenge of, you know, my straightness even like, "Oh, you moving out there, you better be careful. just some of the most ridiculous things.

00:32:34 Courtney Brame: And if I listen to that, if I subscribed to either of those identities as being Black or being straight, being manly, or even being queer, then that might have deterred me from making a decision that was going to connect me with the core of who I am. I'm not my body. I'm not my thoughts. I am the electricity that runs through the nervous system that takes action based on the thoughts that I choose to respond to. I'm moving this body. I'm speaking these words. And I truly believe that like my beliefs, the power of my belief is going to be what gets me ahead because I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for that. There have been very short spurts and moments of intense belief and passion that have brought me here and I'm here, you know, like I'm I don't I don't fit in. I don't have to fit into any of those three places or even the place of being someone who has herpes and the community's there.

00:33:46 Courtney Brame: Like I know that I'm just an outcast in that sense. I'm a misfit. I'm not supposed to be vulnerable. I'm not supposed to talk about my herpes status openly. I'm not supposed to do any of this, but I am. I'm not supposed to be in nom monogamous relationships because that's white people s*** according to whoever it is that has not decided to consciously communicate what their needs and desires are according to themselves. I'm not supposed to be teaching yoga. I'm not supposed to be this vulnerable. I'm not supposed to do a lot of things. And I don't fit in. I'm not enough. I'm not manly enough. Not Black enough. Not queer enough. I'm not uh anti- herpes stigma enough like I should be because I'm somebody who has herpes and I should be out here fighting for a cure. That doesn't align with me. It's the suicide prevention or minimization, however I'm going to decide to move forward with that statement.

00:34:53 Courtney Brame: That's what aligns with me. And I hope that you'll, you know, stick around. Like I'm going to make the announcement like, yeah, Something Positive for Positive People is and always will be a 501c3 nonprofit organization that, you know, secondarily connects people with herpes to support resources. But that's not all it is. Like that's secondary. at his course, a suicide prevention resource that provides a podcast that helps people um walk through the mental impacts of stigma, the emotional impacts of stigma. That's what people get. That's what people's getting. That's what is getting people here. And I hope like I I hope that people come. I hope people get what they need. And I hope people leave. Y'all, please do. Unless you decide that you like some of the stuff that I continue to talk about, like more more on this, like I want more conversations on curiosity, like being a positive person is not exclusively limited to having herpes.

Inspiring Advocacy and Board Member Support

00:36:02 Courtney Brame: And I hope that I put myself here, like the evolution of the show, the evolution of the nonprofit, like there's also been an evolution in me. I spoke to this uh in an article that'll be published actually really soon after this podcast recording and I'll share it on social media. But uh the writer Sam uh we talked a little bit and they rephrased things in a way very beautifully and I hope it comes across in the writing. But I remember when I started out when I was interviewing people maybe 90% of it was about herpes and 10% of it was about the person. And throughout my evolution, it came to a point where it's like now 90% of this is about the person and 10% of it is about the herpes. There's been a transformation. There's been a transformation in the show. There's been a transformation in me. And I'm at a point now where I have to accept and align so that there can be consistency there.

00:37:01 Courtney Brame: People ask me about my metric for success and where I see Something Positive long term. Like I don't know. I used to think that this was going to be an organization that people who have experienced sexual trauma would be able to come to for therapy. And now I'm just like, damn, you know, this is going to be cuz I've already seen it. Like one of the podcasts that I'm producing, this is funded by a grant, a $20,000 grant to produce 10 podcast episodes. If I can do, you know, a $60,000 grant to produce 30 podcast episodes, like that's that's my goal. That's my magic number. I don't need much. $5,000 a month for me and I'm rich. Like right now, I ain't making s***. I'm able to pay my rent, fortunately. Uh my board members keep giving me s*** about not paying myself. They're like, "Courtney, you need to pay yourself." And it's like,

00:37:50 Courtney Brame: why when I'm gonna have to put the money right back in order to like keep from accumulating the bank fees for not having a certain amount of money in your account and then I got to pay um things like the phone bill or like if I'm meeting a new potential podcast guest or somebody in the um field of health and we're talking about this and like it's a lunch or dinner or whatever that I'm paying for and then I got to pay off the credit card. So, like, why move the money? So, that's what I want to do. I want to be able to do that. And we get podcast sponsors as well. And uh I've noticed a trend of people who come here often in a pretty dark place. And I know how challenging it can be to support a sponsor, to want to put your name or email address into something that links you to an organization that is a quote herpes resource according to society and the people who found this resource and talk about it to themselves or to me directly.

00:38:57 Courtney Brame: Like that's what it is. But these sponsors, I mean, they keep me here. They keep my uh my studio space, this rent paid. Uh they keep me being able to find guests because um it's getting to a point now where I'm not seeing as many people open about herpes uh as they were when I was starting my podcast and people aren't, you know, beating down the door. And I'm also not as involved as I was in a lot of the um groups where I was getting guests simply because I think that maybe I've just outgrown those spaces and I desire a new type of community that fits me. Um, I see a lot of like heteronormative or um like gender traditional things like toxic monogamy type things that occur in some support groups and those just don't align with me anymore. Like I don't feel like I belong there. And so I hope to be able to create my own community that serves as an extension of me that does align with those values.

00:40:10 Courtney Brame: I feel like I'm there. Uh but I also don't think that it's something that people should have to pay to be a part of. And that's probably part of what my problem is is that I don't want to have money as a barrier. I don't want to ask people for money. I don't think that you should have to pay for information. You shouldn't have to pay for change. You shouldn't have to pay for growth. And that's why I continue to apply for funding. That's why I keep going for these grants and tolerating rejection. Like that's my that's while it dampens my flame a little bit. The fire is infinite as long as I stay true and connected to the core source which is that this is a suicide prevention resource. This is a suicide prevention resource. And I hope that people know that. I hope that people will begin to support it and promote it as just such.

00:41:07 Courtney Brame: Like, yeah, it might seem ridiculous. Yeah, people with herpes wanted to kill themselves. So, I started this podcast. But like, I now have surveys. I now have findings. I now have the information that supports the fact that this podcast is worth funding. It's worth donations. It's worth being able to support myself. And I hope that, you know, as I align myself and connect with myself and go through this recalibration process of being who I am, who I'm supposed to be, and showing up how I'm supposed to. I hope y'all continue to rock with me as well throughout that process. I really do. I really, really, really do.

Exploring Beducated and Dirty Talk (Sponsor Segment)

00:42:30 Courtney Brame: So, um, with that all being said, look at me. I'm trying to use my dirty talk, trying to use my dirty talk lessons from, uh, Mara Renee Stewart's dirty talk class on [suspicious link removed]. Um, if you go to the link that is in the episode notes and you enter code SPFPP, you will find that you are going to get 65% off of the annual subscription of bed-ucated. It's educated with a B in the front. Beducated. And uh so yeah, Mara Renee Stewart is uh one of her classes was on dirty talk and I took that and I learned that sometimes you want to just slow down, create pauses in what you're saying. Maybe you want to whisper and then when you really get into it, maybe you breathe a little bit heavier, maybe you talk a little bit louder. And yeah, we took it there. But yeah, this was a really great class for dirty talking. I learned that it's not really about what you say. It's more about the pacing of what you say. It's about how you say it. It's about how much passion's behind it. How much do you mean it? Woo! I think I did good. I hope she and her get to meet cuz I think that she um put together the Sex Downs South conference and yeah, I would really like to be there and attend like some of the stuff that they have going on, but that's besides the point.

00:43:35 Courtney Brame: Beeducated uh mesp. The link is in the episode notes. Um these are there are just so many courses on here. I watched one on pegging with a partner and uh we were watching that and Lola Jean was the educator for that and um it was real cool to see all of the demonstrations and learn um the importance of lube and different ways of going about it and some of the stuff that you just need to know if you're going to practice pegging someone. And um the next class that I'm going to take, I have it queued up. I'm 19% of the way through is on dominance and submission for playing with power dynamics. I'm really thrilled to be able to participate in that. Um but yeah, for $9.99 a month, you get 65% off of the annual membership for um Beducated by going to beducate.mefpp. And whenever you check out, please insert that promo code spf. And uh in the next ad that you hear, hopefully I'll finish the um dominance and submission for playing with power dynamics class cuz I also want to talk about threesomes.

00:44:50 Courtney Brame: And I would love to hurry up and get that um video under my belt cuz I think I've had three or four really unsuccessful group type situations. And I tried to set up a fourth or fifth, whichever one that was. And none of these went the way that I envisioned them in my head. And so I'll speak more to that when you come to the next ad. But I do hope that you decide to support our sponsors. I'm aware of stigma being something in a way as a barrier that will prevent people from wanting to put their name out there and email address with things. But, uh, this is a really fun platform for you to have like a library of educational resources to utilize in the bedroom or outside the bedroom, you know, wherever you decide to get a little freaky at. But, um, again, that's beducate.me/spfpp. Be sure to use that promo code SPFPP at checkout. Wow, I actually recorded that in the show and I feel like that was kind of smooth.

Redefining Queerness, Enmeshment, and the Board of Directors

00:45:55 Courtney Brame: Um, if you like that ad, let me know and we can uh you can VMO me for my only fans voice quality right there. I'm just kidding. Um, I want to bring home just the entirety of this intersectionality belonging series of Something Positive for Positive People because it's important. It is very important to me that I have now come to the conclusion of just remembering who I am. It's all a remembering and it's okay to not fit in. And I feel like for so long I've thought of queer as being, you know, you are willing to have sex with someone who's not your reproductive counterpart. And I've learned through exploring this and asking questions that queerness is so much more than who you have sex with. Queer is an active or conscious way of being defying or challenging or consciously going into whatever structures you choose for yourself. Society has its framework for how to do relationships, how to express yourself, how you should present as someone who has a penis or someone who has a vagina.

00:47:13 Courtney Brame: Like based on your reproductive organs, that puts you in a box of who you are. Queerness is something that directly defies that and says no, it's a middle finger to societal structures that try and tell you how to be. And it's a conscious way of choosing to be who you are. You can be queer in your politics. You can be queer in your sex. You can be queer in your passions. You can be queer in your work. It's just a matter of challenging the status quo of what has been deemed normal, and I use air quotes with that, or acceptable. And I choose to do so through my dating. Like I date people who just happen to be somewhere on the spectrum of queer. I am a non-monogamous person. I just find that these are more generally accepting people. And I don't feel like I can claim the title of being queer myself. Like, yeah, I'm going to root for you.

00:48:07 Courtney Brame: Queer allyship. Yay. But I present the way that I feel and express myself. And while my manliness is potentially something worth challenging because of my emotional awareness, my emotional intelligence and then my Blackness directly conflicting. And you know, going back to the triangle despite that, like I said, like I don't belong. And I hope that everybody realizes that none of us belong. And queer is just tradition has become a label where, you know, the misfits are accepted. And I feel accepted to a point where I can be an ally. Like I feel a sense of allyship from the people who are some form of queer around me, but I don't feel like I belong. And I think there's like that's healthy. It's healthy to be able to say, you know, I feel supported by you. I support you, but this isn't my space. I don't belong here. And I don't know that I'm going to find a place that I belong.

00:49:08 Courtney Brame: Like I'm an outcast. I'm a misfit and I am a-ok okay with that now that I recognize that about myself. Like I'm just passing through and I now accept that about myself. I was talking to somebody. I said I have a damn good side, dude. Like I offer unconditional love and emotional support. And I think that that's probably why nom monogamy works well for me because I can I can love the s*** out of you. And at the end of the day, like everybody's still able to get what they need. Like I've struggled with enmeshment throughout my relationships, becoming the kind of person that my partner needs me to be at the expense of me being who I am. And again, just going back to a meshment in my personal life and looking at a meshment with Something Positive for Positive People. Look how quick I was to conform to s*** in order to make it fit to get funding and provide therapy based on something that I think this community needs and can benefit from.

00:50:14 Courtney Brame: But it's not about me. It's about what has manifested in the way that it has and how Something Positive manifested was as a suicide prevention resource. It's suicide prevention. I'm not going to get like long-term lifelong podcast listeners. I recognize that and I don't want that. Like I'm actively telling people to listen, get what you need, and then go get up out of here, recommend it to somebody else. People are going to always get diagnosed with herpes and STI. People are always going to struggle with their mental health, and I hope that they find what they need when they come here. I really, really do. And this podcast is going to just be here as long as it can be. And I know y'all probably tired if you have, you know, listened through every episode. You probably tired of hearing me rebrand s*** and talk about how I need to get back to the root of what this was and what it is.

00:51:09 Courtney Brame: And I'm going to be honest with you, like I'm tired of it, too. So, I can't try and fix a thing without looking at and providing whatever maintenance it is that I need for myself. If I make the machine and I'm maintaining the machine, who's maintaining the man? So, it's important for me to invest in myself. It's important for me to invest in the nourishing and reciprocal, mature, consistent relationships that I have because I recognize that when I'm not when I'm investing in things and people that aren't reciprocating, it's because I'm spending time in a space where my values are not aligned with. And we all need to be able to recognize that for ourselves. And perhaps it's through exploration. Perhaps it's through reflection. I don't know why I said exploration. I meant to say the uh reflecting of just like journaling and writing. Y'all, I had a hard day. When was it? I think it was Monday.

00:52:14 Courtney Brame: Monday was really hard for me. Monday would have been February 21st. It was just hard. I just was getting rejected left and right. Like I, the emails all seem to have come in on the same day. And I think I was also feeling a little bit rejected by uh someone that I've I've had interest in and just kind of like watching them repeat a pattern going into like an abusive relationship dynamic and just kind of like observe and being like I'm I'm really sitting here watching you do this and enabling this like I'm asking you know what do you want to do so that I can be supportive in the best way that I can. But that's again that's invalidating to me. That's in me invalidating my own identity as somebody who is supposed to be like sex positive and you know I'm talking all this healthy behavior and recognize consent being able to pick up on and walk the f*** away from abusive behavior. I'm over here like all right well if that's what you want to do.

00:53:18 Courtney Brame: And that was something that took a toll on me. I didn't even realize it. So the more that I am with myself even with meditation and just sitting in stillness with my own thoughts it's like the more positivity I absorb. Whereas when I try and you know listen to other people or things or be to others what they don't need that's where I start to feel drained and taken from. I stop listening to podcasts y'all unless I'm about to be interviewed and be a guest on it. like I had to stop listening to them because some of the podcasts I listen to just made me feel bad about not being in a place where I should be. I've spent significantly less time on social media because social media has been making me feel bad. Like I hop on whenever I get a message. If I see something as I'm scrolling through that seems useful, I'll share it. But the pressure of Instagram to now start making reels and investing time into that.

00:54:17 Courtney Brame: Like people who watch reals aren't donating to Something Positive for Positive People. I don't even know that they're listening to the podcast. People who are watching reals are watching reals and that, you know, unfortunately that's a realization of realization. You see what I did there? But it's when I I'm I'm putting the time into making these graphics and promoting the audio like I can put these sound bites together. I even got discouraged from that. And I got discouraged from that because the capacity that I had has been going into things that haven't been in line with Something Positive for Positive People at its core. So, I'm getting back to that s***, man. I'm I'm done f****** around. I'm done with um like spending my time and energy in places that aren't reciprocating. And like I'm telling y'all like you got to start saying no to s***. You got to start saying no to people. Sometimes you got to say no to yourself and yourself meaning yourself that's um obviously about to participate in some toxic behavior or do something that just doesn't serve you.

00:55:21 Courtney Brame: You know understanding intentionality, intention that… that's a powerful ass feeling to be in alignment to be connected with yourself and then to go forward consciously with intention. Everything has an intention. Whether you're aware of it or not to go into it aware, even if you're aware that you're unaware of your intention, you start to interact with the world differently. You start to have more healthy relationship dynamics. You start to have your identity validated and affirmed. And there's nothing better than that. That's self-care. Self-care is identity care and identity validation through your own expression of yourself. Get to the core of yourself. Get to your core. I believe that we're not meant to fit in. We're all unique. We're all our own snowflakes. It's a matter of identifying what our passion is and giving it a purpose, focusing it on something because unchecked passion often demonstrates itself in insanity. I recognize now that I have the kind of relationships that anchor me.

00:56:23 Courtney Brame: I'm not unconsciously putting energy into toxically pursuing them in a way that's like um like I'm. I'm settling for something less than what it is that I really desire for myself. I'm not doing that anymore. I've been in relationships with partners who I propose non- monogamy to and you know the process of ongoingly communication with them about what it looks like about what our mission is together. Every relationship I feel like should have a relationship mission statement and whenever there's conflict, whenever there's check-ins, they need to be created or I'm sorry, they need to be there needs to be a consultation with one another that points to that mission. Hey, are we on track for this mission? Do we agree that the mission needs to be revised or changed or maybe we need to do something different? What does that look like? I've just not had that until now. And it's been through following the pull in my core to where I am to where I've been able to get that and also recognize what's not that and not put energy into pursuing it so that I have more energy to remain connected to myself.

00:57:33 Courtney Brame: More energy to invest energy into the core of Something Positive for Positive People because if I got to like this would be my primary partner. Something Positive is my primary partner. And this is like we're supporting one another and being able to show up in the world as our fully expressed selves. As long as one of us is doing good, the other one is doing good. And it's about consistency. This baby has taught me consistency. That's fear in the center. I mentioned it's your privileges, your experiences, your val your uh your beliefs, behaviors. Damn, I snuck in values. I was going to say that last, but it's also your values. I value consistency and yeah, like once once we get through April, I believe like wait till y'all see how these podcast episodes are coming out. I'm telling you this is this is this is it. This is it. Like I done found… I found my flame.

00:58:27 Courtney Brame: I found my stride and I found my purpose and I'm pointing it in the right direction. I'm pointing it out in the podcast. It needed to be pointed inward. And I'm so grateful that that exploration of myself through those intersecting identities was something that brought this all together full circle for me. And I thank you for being a part of this journey with me. And I hope that the next time I deviate from herpes content or whatever it is that you expect in regards to sexual health communication or mental health uh resources, like you'll still see that here. You'll come here and you'll get that. But thank you for f****** with me. Thank you for rocking with me. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for donating. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for keeping this going. So now as I move forward, the focus is on this podcast. This podcast is a resource. Something Positive for Positive People is a suicide prevention resource. And it's also something that is a useful self-help. We're helping people navigate the stigma and the internalized stigma that they have, not just about their diagnosis, but about life. Anything that might send them down that dark path like this is bringing you back to being a positive person. So you'll hear the next few episodes talk about the nonprofit as connecting people like no Something Positive for Positive People is the resource. This is the service. This is the product. And if you want to support it, please go to Vinmo or Cash App at Courtney Brain and just put SPFPP in there so I know where to what account to send the money to. paypal.comsp and you can become a Patreon subscriber by visiting patreon.comsp. Thank you so much. Till next time, stay sex positive.

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