SPFPP 243: Honmychest x Iron Man
The Iron Man Suit served Tony Stark very well to get him out of the unfortunate circumstance he was in. It definitely saved his life, but more importantly, outside looking in, it changed his life. When you take a much deeper look though, I am willing to argue that the suit didn't do anything at all. The creation of it came from Tony himself because he was present to his circumstances and out of recognition of his own needs, the Iron Man suit and persona was born.
I've been struggling with integrating Honmychest into who I am as Courtney Brame, and all this time the answer was right here. I don't need to integrate something that came from within me. I need to remember that this creation served a purpose as a result of a situation I was present for, and recognized I had to become something more than what I believed myself capable of being in that moment. That moment has gone on for 5 years. 5 years of me challenging my beliefs of what I was capable of through the the experiences I had as honmychest only to realize none of those were possible without Courtney.
Honmychest did for me what the Iron Man Suit did for Tony Stark. It was a pathway to Self. I ain't gathering infinity stones or anything like that, but I can confidently say that my Selfed path through the Honmychest suit has served its purpose as I explore one less external to cultivate my self image.
Episode 243 Transcript
The Global Web of Support and Shifting Focus to Healthcare
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization advocating for anti-stigmatizing, identity validating, sex positive or pleasure positive healthcare. I started this podcast 5 years ago in 2017 as a Um, I need a better word for suicide prevention resource because while that's what sparked the beginning of it, um, I can’t really say that, you know, this was that legally. But, um, street slaying wise, like I started this because people with herpes wanted to kill themselves and me asking them why or uh, saying it'll be okay wasn't helpful. So, what I did was just find people who had lived experiences and decided to um bring those into this platform for people to be able to access and hopefully let that be something that guides them into a new direction of thought. And uh so far, I mean, I think that it's worked. Um, I think that it's working. Um, the only thing is that it's just not really having the speed of impact as I would like for it to.
00:01:54 Courtney Brame: And what I mean by that is people find it I mean and and I'll say this like some people are having their doctors and uh their therapists tell them about Something Positive for Positive People if it's relevant. Uh, but I'm still catching people who are like, I've been diagnosed for years and never knew this existed. Uh, some people who've been diagnosed for a long time and regret not having known that this community existed. So I ask you to share this uh if you have an episode that speaks to you, if there is a story in particular that you feel moved by, if it's even an episode that doesn't have anything to do with herpes, like whatever it is that um you feel comfortable with sharing because like we we don't know. And I'm someone who I've put myself in a position of being the center of a global web and that global web has so many connecting pieces and people communicate through that web and it comes directly to me. If I were to remove myself from this web or if I were to be removed from this web, then the web would exist, but people wouldn't be communicating with each other.
00:03:26 Courtney Brame: Like I communicate through people's lived experiences that they share with me. I communicate to other people who are looking for these lived experiences that have been shared with me. Uh and I'm the middle piece. It's like playing that game of telephone. Like how many more experiences can be exchanged and shared? How much more of a feeling of community of um just belonging can occur if you know instead of DMing me directly, you know, asking a question that has more than likely been answered before, like why not comment on the post so that others can see it? like I'm seeing some of that direct engagement if someone's having a rough time and they say something like that. Um one or two people will chime in, comment and make that person feel good, you know, like it's expected of me to do that. Like I'm expected to make people feel good after 5 years of podcasting and putting myself out there as the kind of person who if you reach out to me, I'm going to give you support.
00:04:37 Courtney Brame: Imagine how good it'll feel for someone to just have a kind stranger just in their corner rooting for them. Hey, yeah, I've been through that as well and here's where I'm at now. You'll get there. It'll be okay. And I'm seeing it periodically. It's very spontaneous. It's very sporadic. Uh but I just know the potential. I know that there can be so much more of it because I mean what's going to happen is like I am now taking my um in my my focus to the health care field and being directly in the health care field of coal calling like I'm essentially going back into sales and coal calling these healthcare organizations and working to set up presentations and connect with sex educators because what I'm doing is offering a simulated patient experience with uh sex educators as patients to clinicians, public health professionals who've been in the field for a really long time. And what that is going to do is allow for them to have experiences with people who understand language, who understand trauma-informed healthcare, who uh understand anti-stigmatizing healthcare, who understand the importance of identity validation and sex positivity.
00:06:04 Courtney Brame: So that these doctors can have practice, these nurses can have practice with not only delivering a diagnosis to a person, but using and asking for someone's pronouns and the discomfort that may come with some of the conversations that can come up if you ask someone about their sexual history. We don't have a lot of practice with that. uh especially because you know generally people are a little bit uncomfortable with sharing about their sexuality sexual health but in the instances where there's an STI diagnosis that is um prevalent or if someone has an STI like that's one of the ways that I feel I can impact stigma. Um, not to say that like, you know, y'all aren't helpful or y'all haven't been doing anything and I really don't want for this recording to sound like that, but what it is is that I'm recognizing that there is a much more significant and efficient, impactful way of doing what it is that I want to do, and it's working through the health care organizations that exist as they do.
Empowering Youth Through "Sexless" Sex Education
00:07:26 Courtney Brame: Um I think that what I do for Something Positive for Positive People will circulate through the health care field way faster than it will circulate through people who are newly diagnosed with herpes directly. Right? So if the health care field is aware that this resource exists and that this is what it is that we're doing now and this is what the focus is then that'll circulate so that when people are diagnosed or when people are struggling with stigma or struggling with sexual health communication at all that they'll be able to hopefully um have this resource offered to them upon diagnosis or during their sexual history and my intention here is I want to make the impact. It's like pulling at me. This isn't something that um I feel like, oh, I could do that. No. Like everything that has led to me being exactly where I am right now is as it is leading to that being what the work is that I do. I moved to Portland, Oregon.
00:08:44 Courtney Brame: I got here, I didn't have a job. I didn't have a plan. You know, when I got here, my plan was I was hopeful that I would get one $10,000 grant so that I can bust my ass, get that money, show some results, and then be able to ask for more money from more people to do the same thing. Unfortunately, like this has been working out. Like right now, I just need to interview um I've got one person lined up, so two more people. and I will have completed this grant that essentially demonstrates the importance of sexless sex education, the stuff that we typically learn after our STI diagnosis is through self-education, about communication, about relationship management, about boundaries, about navigating rejection and wants and needs and to be able to receive and know and to recognize healthy and unethical behavior. and also being able and willing to seek support in the event that there is a violation of a boundary so that you can do something about it because some of us are doing a great job of having and setting boundaries but we don't do a great job enforcing those boundaries and if we are to enforce those boundaries I know that we will have much more filling fulfilling relationships because we're able to give people a framework of how to engage with us how to interact with us, how to treat us, and most importantly,
00:10:18 Courtney Brame: we're modeling how we treat ourselves and what we expect of them, like what the standard is. And in addition to that, um the world of sex positivity is something that teaches that. looking at how the kink and BDSM community navigates negotiations and how people tend to um negotiate a relationship or a sex scene without even bringing up sex. It's like, yeah, you'll say what you do and don't like, but aside from that, it's speaking to your needs, speaking to the other person's needs, learning and to to have a communication exchange and dialogue around something that we do. And we regularly have assumptions of what that thing we do is supposed to look like, but we're co-creating that experience. If you've never co-created an experience of sex, you are missing out on intimacy or a relationship because it's not just, you know, what do you like? Okay, I'm going to do that thing you like with no regard for what I like. A co-created experience is just like this reciprocal energy field of just like giving and receiving rather than taking and feeling empty.
The Role of Healthcare Providers in Stigma Reduction
00:11:55 Courtney Brame: That's not what we're striving for. And I'm hoping to be able to teach healthcare providers to even navigate that. I think that with um what I'm finding through this funded project is that there's two main things that people are concerned about when they receive a herpes diagnosis that a health care provider can mitigate right away. The two concerns are how do I manage symptoms and how do I tell a partner? Easy as that. So, if a healthcare provider can say something as simple as, "All right, well, um, uh, you may not have any questions right now, but one of the more frequently asked questions that I get as someone who diagnoses people with this just about every day is um, how do I manage the outbreaks? How do I manage symptoms?" So, outbreaks are occurrences where the virus presents physical symptoms. You may feel it. You may see it. You may see it and not feel it. You may see it and feel it.
00:12:56 Courtney Brame: You may feel it and not see it. But in the event that you have any of these episodes, what we can do is take medication one uh like an as needed medication and that medication will be something that you'll just have to take twice a day for 3 days and then voila, the outbreak will be gone. Otherwise, um if you find yourself having consistent reoccurring outbreaks, if that doesn't work for you, then we can consider a daily suppressive medication. Here are some of the pros and cons to that. And then um also another question is disclosure. How do I disclose to someone that I have HSV? Well, it's really going to be a matter of just speaking to them the same way you would just vetting someone about their sexual health status. You ask them what theirs is. Maybe you can offer up uh the last time that you were screened, what you were screened for, and perhaps that you learned that herpes wasn't something that was tested for unless you specifically asked for it and you were diagnosed.
00:14:02 Courtney Brame: A lot of people have it and uh you manage it with medication as needed. Um, here's like I'm I'm here if you have any other questions and then they can just slip a plug in for Something Positive for Positive People for people to go and listen to the uh the podcast episodes in order to see if there's any other questions they have and offer them the opportunity to come back with questions later if they have any. But for people to Google like it doesn't - I don't want people to go to Google. I don't want people to go to the herpes support resources. Uh they should be able to get this information from their health care provider right away. Another thing that really frustrates me too about the health care field, and when I say the health care field, what I really mean is the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control here in the United States of America, is um how many people there are with large followings who um talk about sexual health, they talk about STI.
The Problem with Influencers and Missing Statistics
00:15:08 Courtney Brame: So many of us were diagnosed. We learned on our own the reality of these things and then we started talking to people and now we are more of the go-to resource. I can't tell how many people come to me like I'm a doctor and I have to tell people, hey, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a licensed mental health professional. But what I can tell you is this. You need to talk to your doctor. Here is how you can talk to your doctor. And as far as the statistics go, I don't touch statistics. They're inconsistent. I don't want to give some information and then somebody comes to me and says, "Well, this thing says this." It's not consistent. I can't tell you that if you do this exact thing, this will pass herpes on to someone. If you do these things, then it won't pass herpes on to anyone. I can't, I don't, I don't know.
00:15:55 Courtney Brame: I don't have that. The information isn't out here. It's not available. Uh, and it's really unrealistic to expect information that speaks so concisely to that given that me, a dude who's just been interviewing people for 5 years, has the largest survey information available for people who are living with herpes. And I'm standing on that until somebody can convince me or show me otherwise. Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood has been trying to get 500 people to participate in a herpes study in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Um, that was in 2021. Where they are, I don't know. I sent emails just checking in. I ain't heard back. So, um, I'm standing on it. Largest herpes survey, study, research, whatever. Goes to Courtney Brain, founder of Something Positive for Positive People. Thanks to y'all. Thank y'all for participating and sharing this with people because for so many people to have participated in the survey compared to how many people listen to the podcast and how many people I um engage with regularly on Instagram.
00:17:09 Courtney Brame: Like these numbers were insane. I expected a couple of hundred people. Um, my goal probably started out at 500 and then like to have gotten 49 people, man, that really shows what we as a community of people are capable of when we decide that we want to show up for something. So, when we decide to show up, we get things done. And I really just appreciate um y'all having shown up to this point because I can't say it keeps me going because what keeps me going is my own internal drive of seeing this through. I have a very strong like I I think that we all kind of have this driving force of addiction within us that can be applied to something healthy or unhealthy. Um, I haven't been masturbating. I did like twice, but there was a period where I didn't masturbate for a month. I looked up and was like, "Whoa, I ain't masturbating." And then I was like, "Oh, I haven't been watching p***." Whoa.
"No More Mr. Nice Guy" and Confronting Self-Sabotage
00:18:12 Courtney Brame: And let me tell you that woo, that first orgasm after not uh getting off for a month, man. But in that time frame, I had been just busy. I've been journaling. I've been working. I've been getting this thing running. I've had a little bit of stress to work through and apply that to the things that were important to me. And what I learned from that experience has just been like where my focus is is where I choose to put it. So that driving force of addiction, it went from, you know, maybe masturbating in p*** and the feeling uh feeling good and pursuing potential partners and having relationships, being liked, being desired, uh getting validation from people that just like feels good uh in that moment or felt empty to like now like I have obsessively been self-developing I've been going through a ton of self-development stuff with just journaling and um like asking myself real hard questions about myself, about my identity.
00:19:34 Courtney Brame: I've been back on my self-help videos. Um, I started to listen to a couple of the audio books that I had a long time ago and I'll just go ahead and say it, but one of them is No More Mr. Nice Guy by um Ronald. It's not Donald Glover. I believe it's Robert Glover. And what he talks about in this book that is the most fascinating is just how nice guys are manipulative. And I've seen so much of myself in that when I first downloaded this book cuz I went home and I found journal entries from 2015. And one of those journal entries actually was what triggered the thought of, "Oh, let me check out that that No More Mr. nice guy book again because I I don't know why but I thought that it was just like for for dating um and I didn't really think about it but when I listened to it again I realized that a lot of the stuff that uh I talked about on the manifesto episode where I talked about masculinity and what would happen if masculinity pursued wholeness instead of pursuing femininity.
00:20:42 Courtney Brame: Like if as a man instead of pursuing whole relationships with women, if I recognize my own two available for um women for relationships and kind of it was paraphrased, but it's crazy to me that seven years later, uh this seed had been watered and starting to bloom in a way I could communicate it in my own way. But the book basically just talked about like the nice guy syndrome and like that's something that I recognize like I have and I I have it for my career of people like I do a lot of those things. I don't prioritize Courtney. I don't prioritize getting the needs of Courtney met. Um, and at least not directly because I know at some point I'm going to be able to pay myself a lot of money and when I can pay myself a lot of money because the CDC is going to fund this podcast that I will like this will have been meeting my needs. So I had to like having a legitimate reframe because so much of what I do on a daily basis looks like I am more so prioritizing other people.
00:22:10 Courtney Brame: other people who come here, other people who are diagnosed, other people who are struggling with uh everything it is that they have going on. I prioritize them over getting a good night's sleep. I prioritize them over having my me time in the morning. I prioritize them over um maybe making dinner early or eating. And you know, that's really not what is happening. and I needed to hear No More Mr. Nice Guy again with this new framework of experiences that I've had so that I could apply it to it. And in applying my experiences to the book again, like I'm hearing the same information again. And yet it's hitting so much different because the whole thing I said about like being selfish, the word self keeps coming up and there's so many like variations of it between self-acceptance, self-worth, self development, self-esteem, self image, self-realization, self-reflection, all of these things. like and I'm recognizing that my manliness, my manhood, my masculinity is more of a pathway of reconnecting to the self than it is anything else.
00:23:33 Courtney Brame: And it's not about being a man. It's about having an understanding of what a man is and then getting to the essence that has been just like uh coated in gunk and life and labels and descriptions of what it means to be man versus what you really are genuinely at your core. And I believe that what I'm learning is that it's about presence. One of the examples in the book was of a lover who he'd go down on this woman for a really really long time and it was all about her pleasure. And like not everybody wants that. Some people just want a person who knows how to meet their own needs to show up and do that with them in their presence. and to hear um you uh someone I I don't know what his uh title was. I think some sort of a uh psychologist to hear him, you know, speak so clearly to many of the experiences that I've even had with women.
00:24:45 Courtney Brame: Um I think y'all know about her, the girl who uh was okay with me having herpes. We slept together and then she wasn't okay with me having herpes. Like I still think about this girl. It's been damn near a year. And um I see so much of what I did wrong in that situation as a result of listening to this No More Mr. Nice Guy book. Like yes, I was very direct and intentional about like, yo, I want to date you. I want to pursue you. And some people might find that hot, some people might not. Right? Um, and I'm learning that we as people don't want anything that's just easy. Like eventually, I guess you get beat down to the point of wanting something easy. But if I'm the kind of person that I claim myself to be, especially according to my self-image, then I absolutely did not prioritize myself. I even look at the sexual experience that we had like yeah it was fun but it wasn't like I wasn't present with that and so being present looks like you sharing the experience of having an interaction and engagement where you demonstrate that you are capable of meeting your needs.
Retiring "H on My Chest" and Becoming Courtney
00:26:13 Courtney Brame: You are capable of asking for what you need because people want to give us what we need. They want to give us things. They want to give us experiences. But as a nice person, you go about doing so in a way where you won't or may not get rejected. And I see so much of that from that particular encounter. And um I know that I'm speaking to primarily an audience of women. So, it's not really relevant for me to go into many more details, but as a man who um is looking at being considered a leader of a group of people, a community of people, um I think that it is important to note that the kind of person that I am, I mean, like I know a lot of people like find me attractive physically and like that I'm vulnerable and that I do the work that I do. Um but yeah, I I recognize my f***-ups, my flaws. And one of the things that I'm really working through right now is not necessarily compartmentalizing who Courtney is versus who H on my chest is, but it's more about recognizing that I strive to be more like H on my chest when the reality is I Courtney created H on my chest as a persona.
00:27:53 Courtney Brame: as someone who could do the things that I, Courtney, wasn't capable of at the time. So, HMC has shown me who Courtney is rather than me looking at it like who I could be. And I share this much background and detail about this because what I want to say is that I think that a lot of us do this in a way where we don't realize that the person that we've become is a person that we've constructed. Like that's how powerful we are and that's what we are capable of. We're capable of creating an identity for ourselves, a self-image for ourselves that we forget we created and we think that it's creating us and we strive toward being that. No. No. We found ourselves in a situation where we needed to be someone and we were present in that situation and in order for us to get through it, that's what we did. that we created that version of ourselves that is quite strong enough to handle it or that is focused on that thing and is capable of seeing it through.
00:29:09 Courtney Brame: In my case, I've been reflecting on why my relationships have failed. Like I was in a I was in an actual relationship with someone for um it's been a month now since we ended things, but I was in a relationship for 2 months and like I I didn't even I didn't even get a chance to announce it because there were there were things there that I as a nice guy overlooked. And I recognized that I wasn't being manipulative. I was like more so trying to ninja myself into recognizing, okay, this has the potential of being a healthy relationship. This girl's cute. She cooks very, very well. She takes care of her body. She's very intelligent. She's independent. She has her own job, her own money, her own stuff going on. Uh, and so much was like a positive on the surface, but intuitively there were just things that just did not fit and I couldn't figure out why.
00:30:12 Courtney Brame: If I prioritize myself, I would have looked at what my intuition was saying. I would have followed my gut and I would have ended the relationship before it even started. Or the second that, you know, I recognized that there were incompatibilities and as a result, you know, I I've just decided to go along with it until I blew up. And that's one of the things that happens in these nice guy books. And by blow up, I don't mean like I got angry. I blew up as if one thing happened and then it just unraveled all of these other little things that made me realize like, oh yeah, we weren't compatible. We shouldn't even be in this relationship. And it was always like right around the time I'm about to post somebody. That's when they start tripping or right after they get the title. But I can't really say that anymore because the whole time I was the one tripping, you know, and um part of what I was able to revisit through listening to this audio book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, was that I need to be selfish.
00:31:22 Courtney Brame: That I need to be intentional. I need to be direct. I need to like doing those things. And I had a period of time where I was just asking for what I wanted. And I heard no sometimes, but also heard yes a lot. Like not not that I was keeping score, but I do more so remember the nos than I do the yeses. And that's okay. I'm not dead. I'm not hurt. I didn't lose any income. I didn't get kicked out. So for me, and this turned into a whole like thing about being about me, um I had to recognize that there's two things. One of which is I am someone who is worthy of having my needs met and receiving. And then the other thing is that I've been doing this for the last 5 years. I've been asking for what I need. I've been hearing no.
00:32:31 Courtney Brame: I've been moving forward. I've been hearing yes through Something Positive for Positive People. Like I ask people to interview. I ask for guests and I hear no or a version of no that is avoidant. You know, like people to reach out. They'll get what they need from me and then like I'll make an ask and I just won't hear from people anymore. Uh these are rejections. I'll apply for a grant and put hours into the application and then I won't even hear that I didn't get it right. So these rejections these forms of rejection hurt significantly and are uh they hurt significantly in dating in personal life. whereas so much more goes into them on a professional level and yet there's no significance. I put so much more time and energy, effort and passion into Something Positive for Positive People and I ask guests to, you know, hold space. I send calendar advice now and only to not hear from them the day of or to hear from them after the fact and they say, "Oh, hey, I'm sorry. I missed it." Or just to not hear from people at all.
00:33:45 Courtney Brame: And like those rejections don't hurt, but for somebody to, you know, be okay with moving forward sexually and then not, you know, that I mean that's consent. You know, like you can change your mind at any time regardless of what the circumstances are. And that's something that I had to understand. This person was taking care of themselves and I have not had much experience with taking care of myself. So, as I speak to having created the persona of H on my chest as a way of meeting the needs of what my circumstances have been at a particular time, um I'm finding that, you know, maybe that maybe the time for that persona has served its purpose. You know, I look at Tony Stark. Tony Stark was in a very very dire situation. He had to create that iron suit and break out of the situation he was in. So he developed that iron suit, created an identity around it. He was Iron Man. He was Tony Stark and then he was Iron Man.
00:34:54 Courtney Brame: And then he became known as Iron Man for the four of the Avengers movies. And then Tony Stark needed to change and show up and recognize Iron Man didn't make Tony Stark. Tony Stark made Iron Man and then he was just Tony. You'd see him a lot in his uh suit. He wouldn't have his helmet on. He could press a button and situationally become Iron Man, but he was always Tony Stark. And Tony Stark was the one who had character development. H on my chest served a purpose, you know, like H on my chest had to be the supportive, emotionally aware and available and spaceholding version of Courtney. Like that was my iron. This is my iron. H on my chest. And as I speak through this and I'm saying this for the first time, podcasting is a really great way of processing things. Like, yeah, I journal, too.
00:35:54 Courtney Brame: But for me to be saying this out loud with the accountability of speaking to and being heard by however many hundreds of people the time of uh over the time that it's been like it it holds me accountable and it also makes me understand that like when I say these things out loud and I'm hearing myself say these things out loud and it it's doing something in my body. It's formulating or in my mind too is formulating the beliefs around what it is that I'm saying because right now I'm speaking from my raw truth and I've always had this draw to Iron Man because you know so many people knew Iron Man was Tony Stark. So many people knew Tony Stark was Iron Man. But at the end of it all, Tony and when Tony needed to put that suit on and do things that Tony just physically was not capable of, he did it. So, um I don't know. Like, as I'm speaking through this, I think that maybe it's time to get rid of, you know, the H on my chest whole thing and just be Courtney.
Prioritizing Needs and Dropping the "Nice Guy" Act
00:37:19 Courtney Brame: um founder of an organization, Something Positive for Positive People. And yeah, like um I ain't going to be Courtney H on my chest brain. That ain't going to work cuz that's too long. We'll figure it out. Uh but yeah, I'm recognizing how much more important it is for me to meet my needs, whatever those are. And like I can confidently say here like my needs are um in relation to what I heard in the No More than Mr. Nice Guy book, like more life for myself. Like I want to have more satisfying sex. I know that I haven't been having nearly as much sex as I want or satisfying. And then the times I do get it, I'm like, "Yo, what's up? Let's go." Girls be like, "Oh my god, again." I'm like, "Yes." as though I want more of that quality and I recognize that that's going to take some work. Like I got to set my s*** up.
00:38:20 Courtney Brame: Like um dressing wise like I'm y'all see me on Instagram. I'm always in like a workout t-shirt and sweatpants. Uh and my hair looks a mess. I always look like I just woke up cuz I'm always working. Like my desk is at the foot of my bed. Like there's about two feet of space between my uh bed and then my computer chair. I sit there and I'm doing s***. I'm making presentations. I'm reading stuff. I'm responding to DMs. I'm talking on the phone in voice messages, supporting people through potentially disclosing. I'm having therapy. I'm talking to the therapists that I work with to get people who are struggling with stigma into therapy. I'm checking in with board members. I'm updating my meeting notes. I'm doing stuff that I didn't know existed for running a business as a nonprofit that popped up on me out of the blue.
00:39:13 Courtney Brame: I'm doing so much of everything except taking care of myself. So, I'm actively making it a point for myself to to do that because of revisiting this and just looking at the lack of success and relationships that I had just sent stemming from me not having a solid foundational relationship with myself and being real with myself and being real with other people about what my intentions are um in the relationship, but not like not leaving like um what are my intentions with you? But what do I want for myself in these interactions? You know, like I'm I'm coming to learn that so much of relationships with other people really come down to do I like myself in the presence of this person? Am I able to be present with this person? And I've not while I talk all this s*** about taking time in between relationships to just be by myself and then I'll start dating again. What happens is I like depriving myself and then I go into dating again because like I I'll step out, dress up and like be peak Courtourtney and then somebody will you know approach me most most of the times and then be like oh damn, you know this is nice.
00:40:39 Courtney Brame: This is great. And then bam, like we start like everything is so much better because it's not being compared to anything. So like going from an unsuccessful relationship to just like a new standard without comparing like I'm not comparing anything to this person because each time I end a relationship, no two relationships end for the same reason for me. And I do a really good job of screening people who don't have the same character traits or behaviors of um that that caused the end of a previous relationship. And I've been doing that, but I'm like, "Okay, well, who am I?" Like, clearly I'm the same person because I'm just having these experiences in different ways. Same experiences, just different ways, I believe. And so, yeah, I think that it's important for me, for all of us to take in, excuse me, that was like a hiccup burp thing. It's important for me, and I'm going to use eye statements here. In my experience, I've done this thing where I reverted back to H on my chest.
00:41:57 Courtney Brame: I think I mentioned it in a previous podcast episode about going on a date and, you know, not even setting the intention of it being a date, not like making moves, not putting myself in a position to um to get what I wanted, which was I wanted to have sex. I didn't make that clear. And I reverted into nice guy mode. And I was like, "Oh, I tripped. Let me just ride this thing out and think about it and self-reflect on it later. Um, but then like when I did just prioritize Courtney and be intentional and say what was on my mind and be myself, like there are genuinely people who like that s***. And it shocks me because for so long I've been taught that who I am is not good enough. Like I'm all these things at my core, but like I mean I'm a f****** man. Like at the end of it, I'm a sexual man. I'm respectful.
00:42:55 Courtney Brame: I only do things that are consented to, consensual. So it doesn't make me a bad person for wanting what I want. It doesn't make me bad for liking what I like. It doesn't make me bad for communicating that and making an effort and attempting to get my needs met. And so like I am learning this through practice through practice of being Courtney, of being me. And um I do I do this thing now and you can take this if it works for you where if I stumble across like an event that's coming up or something, I'll just put it in my calendar uh for the date with a reminder the week before, two days before, two hours before, and I'll buy tickets for it. Like um I've done this with Tyler the Creator concert. Uh Dave Chappelle was in town. Um, I bought Jack Harlo tickets way later. I bought uh Kendrick Lamar tickets. I bought tickets to these comedy shows.
00:43:52 Courtney Brame: And one of the things popped up on me for tomorrow for tomorrow night. It's a comedy show that's going to be filmed for HBO. And this was $5, y'all. Like the price was cut ridiculously. I don't know what the situation was, but that thing $5, I'm in there. Um, I've gone to sex club that had a dress up like summer night and it was really cool. I got to dress up as Finn from Adventure Time. And um I also like uh what was the other thing I did? I went out one night and I told y'all about the best night I had going out by myself. But so much more of these things that I do are not just building my confidence but building my self trust like being able to have this trust in myself that I am capable of meeting my own needs. I am someone who can pursue what it is that I want to pursue.
00:44:54 Courtney Brame: And yeah, I might not get it, but I also might get it. Just like with um disclosing our herpes status, yeah, we might experience rejection, but we might not. And I want to spend more time on the might not thing. Like it might actually happen for me, the thing that I want to happen. And as I put more of my focus there, I'm seeing that more things are happening for me. So this is, you know, this is more not so much of integrating H on my chest into Courtney anymore, like I've said in the past, because Courtney created H on my chest. So, it's it's been integrated and Courtney has learned from Ho My Chest and developed and grown and changed uh evolved in a way that allows for me to show up more as Courtney and realize not necessarily the insignificance of H on my chest, but to recognize that H on my chest served the purpose serves the purpose of being there as H on my chest is like if that's my my Iron Man suit, you know, I don't have that.
00:46:05 Courtney Brame: It's evolved. It's not big and bulky and clanky and inhibits my ability to walk or navigate Earth. If you've seen Iron Man, then you know what I'm talking about. But over time, like I've sort of redesigned H on my chest. I rebranded H on my chest and made H on my chest work a lot easier for Courtney Brain. Just the same way Tony Stark did with the Iron Man suit. As he became better and innovated, you saw that he has more suits fitting for situations. But at the end of the day, it's Tony Stark. You run up on Tony Stark. You might not get Iron Man, but you are going to get the guy who created Iron Man. That's still dangerous. May not be physically dangerous, but that boy got skills. And that's that's me. That's my journey and where I am right now at this point in my life is recognizing the value of Courtney.
Channeling Anger and Targeting Healthcare Reform
00:47:06 Courtney Brame: And I hope that we can all get to a point of doing so. And you know, this episode was inspired particularly by last night's introduction to sex positivity for sex positive people event. Um, so if you missed the event, we recorded it and uh once I get the audio, I'm going to edit it and put it up onto the podcast feed because what was so cool about that is all everyone there was was u all women were there uh except myself like even the lady who I had hosted Jamie Cowley uh the executive director of Sex Positive World even you know she was a woman and it was one cool to see all these women show up. But two, just like it was very symbolic to what I see through Something Positive. What I see through Something Positive. What I see through Something Positive is that so many of the women who are here are the responsible ones for initiating conversations with partners about sexual health. Women who date men.
00:48:14 Courtney Brame: um yeah the the responsibilities on them and it there's various reasons why that is but um to see so many women too have shown up and want to get the same information that like I've and I this will come up in the episode so I'm not going to spend too much time here but to want to receive the information that allows for them to have better relationships not just with other people but with themselves is a very strong demonstration of what me pursuing wholeness in myself and my masculinity is bringing out of the feminine like this was very reflective of that to me because it wasn't them chasing a man's validation or approval. It was essentially like just being led by one, by their intuition, by their feminine energy to follow the masculine energy of myself who's evolving and developing and wanting to pursue wholeness in myself. Not necessarily in relation to pursuing their validation, but just pursuing wholeness within myself and naturally organically doing the things that allow for the feminine to trust and demonstrate trust within the masculine within men because as I've said before there's a strong distrust of the masculine.
00:49:36 Courtney Brame: There's a strong distrust of men and I am Courtney working on that. So, I thank y'all. I thank y'all for being a safe space for me to emotionally express myself and to process some things out loud for the first time uh like I did with today. Um Courtney's Iron Man or Courtney's uh H on my chest is Tony Stark's Iron Man or vice versa, whichever way sounds better. And um yeah, I'm I'm just I'm realizing how much more important it is that I be myself than it is for me to be h on my chest. And this was something that I learned just through having the challenge of going back home as Courtney with, you know, I ain't going to say I left my Iron Man suit at home, but I went back home as Courtney and I reverted back to H on my chest in situations. And I say reverted back to because I put these limitations on myself and tried to show up as someone that I thought that um the few people that I did that would need to see or wanted to see as opposed to just being myself.
00:50:51 Courtney Brame: So that's that again, this is something that I'm working through, working on and I think I got it. I think I got the next steps for myself. So I got my next journal prompt for sure. Uh, be on the lookout for that introduction to sex positivity podcast episode. Once I get it, I'll edit it and upload it right away. Um, and also be on the lookout for this game changing ass project that I'm doing through Something Positive for Positive People. Uh, bringing the simulated patient experience to clinicians and healthcare providers. If you've had a good or bad experience with a healthcare organization or provider, especially with getting tested, uh, hit me up. let me know because this is what I'm doing now. This is my career. This is my business. Like this is what my business is. I got the money to start it. I got the money to collect the information that is going to allow me to be able to go and ask for more money in order to do more of this thing that I am very confident is going to change the world. The best part about it is it doesn't require me being h on my chest to do it. It's Courtney. It's Courtney's project. And I thank y'all for supporting me, for challenging me, for celebrating me, for loving me, for showing up for me, for connecting with me. And as of right now, I can be found on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit at HOMC. Um, but yeah, again, I'm Courtney. Till next time, stay pleasure positive.
Transcription ended after 00:52:57
