Spfpp 267 Home is Where the Work is to be Done

I’ve been struggling g with “fitting in” and I think it’s because I’ve allowed so much of my social media consumption to dictate how I behave even if I don’t agree with it. 

I took a break from social media and really reconnected with these repressed aspects of myself that I started to believe were “wrong” back when I went to visit Germany in October, and then realized there’s nothing wrong with me, or anyone who thinks there is. 

In my travels and moments where I’m disconnected from social media, what I’ve started to ponder is where I belong, where my people are, what’s my community, and how do I find people like-minded who I can absorb from and pour into?

Reality is I’ve not been able to connect with people on a genuine level because I’ve not been myself, I’ve been a product of the algorithm telling me how to interact with these strangers online through likes, comments, and shares. 

Many of my thoughts aren’t “like” worthy and a lot of things I desire or believe in leave me isolated because the people who most put themselves out there operate in extremes, whereas most people who think realistically just aren’t involved in putting themselves out there to be connected with. 

That all said, my place I belong is wherever the fuck I create the space to be, and that’s wherever there’s the work to be done that only I can do. I’m here for it. 

Episode 267 Transcript

The Evolution of SPFPP and Personal Management

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 that is essentially a self-development resource for people who are navigating herpes stigma. This organization itself began in 2019. Um, but the work began in 2017 after I found out that there were people who were living with herpes that wanted to end their lives because of their diagnosis. What that led me to do was ask questions. I began to ask different people about their experiences. And I asked if there was anyone who was at an okay place with their diagnosis. um if they would be comfortable with me interviewing them about their experiences from diagnosis to dating to disclosure to having sex to managing outbreaks, every aspect that you can think of. For myself personally, what I found to be most useful for me throughout my experience navigating my herpes diagnosis since 2013 was getting into yoga in order to manage my stress. I'm working on my nutrition in order to manage my immune system.

00:01:29 Courtney Brame: and then beginning to get back into exercising. So, I had taken a break from it. I played football most of my life at that point in time from middle school all the way through high school and then through college and once I was done I was done. So, there was no more exercising for me. And I think that this may have created the circumstances for my immune system to be low enough because I wasn't always active to where I would have my first herpes outbreak. So after this happened for me, that was when I began to look up ways of managing herpes symptoms. And those were the three things that came up. Um how you eat, how you move your body, and then how you manage your stress. And yoga is something that i've stuck with over the last… going on 10 years, and it's been really useful for me. I had my first outbreak in 2013. I had my second one um two years later, I believe, when I got fired from a job.

00:02:23 Courtney Brame: And then I had one in 2021 after I had too much sugar. So for me, I was able to just learn my symptoms and that was like it's not really an issue. I know that this is like my day-to-day work. I run a nonprofit. I run the podcast. I run all the social media accounts and talk to everybody who messages me. But um otherwise I don't really have to think about it unless I'm telling someone new um or unless somebody reaches out to me and they're wanting some sort of guidance or information about a situation that they may be in where they have to tell someone that they have herpes. And in that case, it's perfectly fine. Like that's easy for me to do. Um it doesn't add any stress to me or my life at all. Um but yeah, at this point that's just how I navigate it. What I found to be the most useful things to me throughout this entire process and a number of other people is self-help period.

Sleep, Immune Health, and Play Party Disclosure

00:03:22 Courtney Brame: It's not about herpes self-help or herpes support groups. It's always a bunch of different things. Oh, thank you for this question. So, i'm on Instagram live for anybody listening at home. Thank you for asking this question. i'll answer it. Um, but it's really been about um reading different books, understanding more about human psychology, learning about myself, journaling, um, and even sleeping. So, i've been, uh, practicing yoga lately. Shout out to Saras Huitt, uh, who is my yoga mentor person. Um, she's been teaching me about yin yoga and how that, uh, how sleep is so impactful to the immune system. i'm listening to an audio book now. It's titled “Why we sleep”. And i'm learning a lot about how important it is that we get full night sleep and how that plays a role in our immune functions. And it's just something that people don't even think about unless someone enters their perspective and starts speaking about it.

00:04:23 Courtney Brame: And you can begin to look into it yourself and see how your sleep may be impacting your overall health and your immune system health. So, uh, i'm looking forward to being able to incorporate that into the yoga classes that I teach as well as, um, when I speak to people and they talk about their outbreaks or their stress and the anxiety that you get around, uh, disclosure and being able to, um, help people in that way as well. So, uh, i'm going to go ahead and answer some of these questions that are coming in. I didn't expect questions to be coming in. That's tight. I ain't, I don't know why I never thought to do a live podcast before. Uh, but here we have a question that says, "Hey, have you ever been to a play party since you've been diagnosed? And how did you navigate the situation-slash-disclosure? Uh, i have found myself in situations where i've honestly avoided them. Like i'll be in a situation and i'm looking around, i'm like, "Oh, I know what's about to happen here." And i'll just like leave because I wouldn't want

00:05:24 Courtney Brame: to put myself in a position to compromise the integrity of the group. Because while somebody at the play party may be comfortable with the fact that I have herpes and playing, there might be some objections. And this is my own thing. Um, i've been working through this for myself with uh just trying to not reject myself before anybody else gets an opportunity to. Um, and it's hard. It's really tricky. Um, so, so I haven't participated in a play party since my diagnosis at all, but i've been in settings where a play party would be about to take place, and I recognize how I respond in those situations. I just kind of get up out of there whenever um, the discomfort comes up for me. Uh, and what a play party is is if we're talking about adults who are participating in consensual sexual acts or like there's an orgy agreed to or some sort of maybe nonpenetrative play or something that's agreed to, but basically looking around a room and you see that something sexual is about to pop off in the entire environment, what i've done is just leave.

00:06:34 Courtney Brame: I've left. Um, however, what I have done is i've gone to like sex clubs basically. Ain't no basically sex clubs. And typically when you go, I think it's a really good idea to go with people. Like if you are interested in playing, have conversations beforehand and express what's on the table, what's not on the table, and then you can use that as an opportunity to disclose your status um, if you haven't already. But I think that in those settings, like if i'm the person who's initiating us going or if I were to facilitate a play party, all of the disclosures and discussions will have already been had prior to us the time on the clock starting. So like if the event is from 7 to 2:00 a.m., then at 6 or whatever, uh or whenever the invite goes out, like it's already known or when i'm expressing to people that I would like for them to come. So, I think that that's probably the best way to go about it is to attend play parties with your people already.

Navigating Stigma in Kink and Sexual Spaces

00:07:38 Courtney Brame: Um, and then that way it's a little bit less anxiety on you to feel like on one hand you got to participate or that you are scared to participate because of a fear of disclosure. I hope that answers your question. Um, I have a comment here. Uh, oh, also there's a second part to that question. And it says, "Also, would you go about that any differently if you were asymptomatic versus symptomatic or had HSV1 versus HSV 2?" My experience in this space is that people have this assumption that people who do have an STI wouldn't be there or it's just something that is assumed, we're assuming that people wouldn't come up to these events if they do have an SI. Uh that's something that i've heard pretty commonly is that, you know, there's just this assumption that if you have something, you won't participate or you won't even be there at all. It's like a very kind of turn your nose up type thing. Like nobody should be here if they're uh having any kind of symptoms of anything or if they have an SCI.

00:08:46 Courtney Brame: It's like that that tends to be uh oh that uh my apologies there. I kind of backed out. uh that tends to be the overall attitude um for some people. Now, for others, it's perfectly normal to initiate and have a discussion around your sexual health status um even if it's assumed to be negative. And then I have, oh, thank you for facilitating support in the various ways that you do. Thank you. I appreciate that. All of that ended for me after my diagnosis. And i've encountered people that simply didn't disclose until I came up front. So that too is unfortunately a common thing where uh I can't tell you how many people i've disclosed my status to and then I kind of side-eye after i've side-eyed them afterward and been like all right well when were you going to tell me because they be like oh me too. I like it, it kind of makes me a little bit uneasy. Now on one hand yeah i'm open about my status.

00:09:48 Courtney Brame: It's my work. i'm very comfortable talking about my sexual health status. i'm comfortable with talking about herpes when it comes to myself or speaking on behalf of other people. And so I feel like there's a little bit of leeway for me whenever i'm having a sexual health conversation with a potential partner. And like there's not really a who should say something first etiquette in any way, shape, or form. It's just about the flow of the conversation. And it's all about the right time for the situation. So in my case, I would love somebody to tell me first. I remember, um, where did I go? It was like a clothing optional skating rink um back in what month was that? Oh, it was in November and I was there and I remember this lady um she said to me, she goes, "What would you do if I told you I had herpes?" And I thought to myself,

00:10:41 Courtney Brame: I was like, "Oh, you have no idea who I am. Awesome. This is going to be fun." So I said to her straight face, I go, "Don't everybody got that s***?" and then we started just continuing the conversation. So, uh I can't say the name of the place or maybe I could, but um and uh damn, i'm doing that thing where I get caught up in the comments. I do forget the name of it, but I found the event on Fat Life. Uh it was something about titties, something that said titties and skating or something. I don't remember. But um yeah, that situation was like a one-off for me because this was probably the first time someone had disclosed to me first. And um whenever i'm out and about, like whenever the conversation comes for the first time of myself and another person um communicating, typically what would happen is um that they'd ask, "Well, what do you do?" And what do you do is a very common question to be asked.

00:11:49 Courtney Brame: So, um I tell people I run this nonprofit that's essentially self-development for people with herpes. So, I was out at a house party and um this came up because me and someone we were talking about being in therapy. Real good conversation and it was like there was close contact and we were just enjoying the conversation. And then when I told her that she was like, "Oh, so are you telling me you have herpes?" I was like, "Yeah." She was like, "Oh, well, thank you for telling me that." And it was kind of implying that she was ready to hook up or leave together. I don't know. Because after that, the whole tone changed. It was just like that was the end of it. Um, so I mean, like, regardless of how confident someone is or how attractive someone may be, it's always going to be the risk of someone just not feeling it, too. Um, so yeah, the whole who says what first, who says it first.

Ethics of Disclosure and Personal Integrity

00:12:49 Courtney Brame: Um, I don't know how I ended up off on that tangent there, but uh, the skating ring was in St. Louis. That's all I know. It was in St. Louis, Missouri. Um, someone here says, "I reached out to you when that exact scenario happened to me, and after reflecting on the situation, I realized that he never intended on telling me." Ah, that is a tricky one as anything in regards to herpes is. So when we often find information, we get information that we wish that we just rather have not known. Um, and I think that that's the situation there. Uh, when you put yourself into the situation where now we have herpes and we feel this ethical compulsion to have to disclose our status. Um, and then we begin to question, well, you know, the people who say, "Oh, I have it, too." When were they going to tell us? And it's not like it's our responsibility exclusively to address that or bring it up.

00:13:50 Courtney Brame: It's just it, it just helps us feel better. I think generally I can speak for the general population that um if and when we do share our status with someone u if we choose to do that then it really allows for us to lean into whatever the experience is going to be with that person. i'll tell you now from personal experience when I haven't disclosed that I couldn't get hard and it's as simple as that. And the time that I could get hard it was not a full erection. I didn't like how I showed up in those encounters. And since then, um, coming out of that, like I recognize how important transparency is to me. So to be able to say, "Oh, hey, this is the situation." And I also now need to make sure that the person not just knows that I have herpes, but they understand that there is a possibility that they could get it. Not to say that a person has to be like, "All right, I want to get herpes from you." not that kind of level of acceptance,

00:14:50 Courtney Brame: but I want for them to understand and be accepting of the possibility that that could happen if we're going to have this experience with one another. So, take that information and do what you will with it. Uh, I hope that this is something that's helpful. So, while we don't have any questions here, I probably should have just waited until the end for those. Um, the main reason that I wanted to have this live, is first off because I need to record a podcast episode, um, I just released one, but it didn't have anything to do with herpes. It was more of myself and Anthony, who is on Instagram at I am Controversy, talking about Black male leadership and then talking as well about uh, like how sex positivity doesn't do anything to create strong, healthy Black families. And i'm 34 now. And when you first started following Something Positive for Positive People, if you were around when I was 27, 28 years old, then hopefully you've noticed a level of maturity throughout.

The Sense of Purpose and Suicide Prevention

00:15:50 Courtney Brame: Um there's much more professionalism. Uh there's much more transparency. There's much more confidence as well in how I deliver the messaging here. And it's really interesting to just reflect on that. Like we're going into a new year, 2023. And 2022, 2021, 2020 have all been really hard years for people. And somehow Something Positive for Positive People was something that remained consistent over those really, really challenging years. And in fact, i'll argue that this organization thrived during this pandemic. Um, at one point the peak subscribers of the podcast got up to 20,000 people, which is for me a lot considering when I was monitoring it. In the beginning, I think there were maybe a total of like up to 300 downloads per week. And that says a lot for this being a podcast that is about herpes and herpes stigma. People don't want to support that. People don't want their names associated with it. People aren't bragging about how good of a podcast episode this was, right?

00:16:56 Courtney Brame: So for Something Positive to be thriving and show those kinds of numbers behind the scenes says that one there is a need for this. Two that people are consuming the content and then another thing is that this has given me a significant amount of uh a sense of purpose. You know I don't know what i'd be doing if I didn't follow or lead with the passion that I have for Something Positive for Positive People. And I mentioned that it began as a suicide prevention resource. And the reason that I have such a strong passion for suicide prevention. I shouldn't call it suicide prevention but suicide prevention awareness is because there have been a few people around me not necessarily directly. There was one person who was like a direct uh friend of mine who had taken their own life or committed suicide whatever. There's a lot of controversy around language right now. But right now like it suicide happened. They killed themselves. if I don't if I don't want to be politically correct and just cut through the b******* of what it is, that's what happened.

00:17:59 Courtney Brame: And it wasn't just that this person killed themselves or that um another relative killed themselves. And more recently um I have a cousin who I don't believe this happened, but uh they say that he killed himself and I and then my sister um had a brother who also killed himself. Uh it's a lot of suicide like in my peripheral and I just happen to be aware of it and have experienced enough things to make me go hm maybe there's something here with this community of people and suicide ideation. I don't know if any of these people who did kill themselves were struggling with the herpes diagnosis or herpes status, but I know that finding myself in this space and knowing that there are people there, it's like maybe I can do something for these people. So, if anyone is considering it or doing anything to themselves, then hopefully someone's story, one of these social media posts, one of these messages will do something for them to keep them here just a little bit longer. And even when I was younger, I remember relatives around me were talking about or threatening suicide as, you know, maybe they weren't serious, but I I can't take the chance on that um on whether or not someone's serious about ending their own life.

Growth, Fundraising, and Professional Goals

00:19:19 Courtney Brame: So, um, having that strong sense of duty, that strong sense of purpose has been what really carried me, uh, to this point to remain as consistent, remain as discipline because like i'll be honest, I don't give a f*** about a lot of s***. I don't watch the news on social media. Like, i've been very mindful of my scrolling lately. Like, I get on, say what I got to say, and then I try to get off of there. I might check in on some people, friends, family, and then like some people that have uh I i've engaged with over the years through Something Positive for Positive People, but i'm very oblivious to whatever's going on in the outside world because i've decided to allow for my focus to be on this. And the more that I focused on this, the more that it expanded. like the first year um of Something Positive for Positive People being a nonprofit I believe I raised uh I want to say it was like $11,000 and then that was in 209 2020 um I think it was $18,000 and then uh 2021 actually I don't know that I counted 2019 but um whatever it was this past this year 2022 Something Positive for Positive People's raised 27,000 and now granted sometimes when I get

00:20:34 Courtney Brame: opportunities to speak at conferences or teach yoga, I just let that money go to the nonprofit. So, i'm not making that money, but the organization gets that money. And the best part about it is it's taxfree. So, like when somebody writes me a check for $2,000, when that goes to the nonprofit, it's $2,000. If I were to send that, like pay myself that, it'd be closer to like $1,400. and I can do more with $2,000 through the nonprofit than I can do $1,400 for myself. So, um, with that said, it really speaks to the growth and the maturity of the organization as well as myself alongside it. And i'm really pleased with how things are going. i'm very pleased with how i've been developing and the way that how I show up in uh Something Positive for Positive People is impacting my personal relationships, how it's impacting my career. Um, I work at a university teaching medical students how to give genital exams in addition to um being a standardized patient and supporting students uh medical students through how they make a patient feel.

00:21:38 Courtney Brame: So all of these things that i'm doing really do go hand in hand and i'm really just thankful and grateful for all of the support that i've received over the years and i'm thankful to people who have continued to listen to positive for positive people and share the resources and um to recommend uh opportunities and send those my way as well. Um I hope that you all are able to find something that you're grateful for. If you're here and your herpes diagnosis has been something that you've been struggling with, I do hope that you're able to reflect on a moment, a connection, a relationship, an experience that means something to you. You know, like just look back on that. look back at how the last amount of time since your diagnosis has been, since you made a decision to look into some self-development resources for yourself, because that's been most useful for me. Having a sense of purpose and applying my passion toward this has kept me from being down in the dumps. It's kept me from wanting to run away from everything and just be alone and isolate myself.

Finding "Home" and the Future of SPFPP

00:22:47 Courtney Brame: And in fact, like while going through that, the process of learning how to run a nonprofit, how to run a podcast, how to run social media accounts, how to engage with people, uh how to maintain a level of professionality along with being personable and still being involved with the community. Like there's a lot here. And i've learned that i'm the kind of person who can handle this. Um in fact, I was journaling. I looked over because that's where my journal is. Uh, i journaled a couple of days ago on figuring out where home is for me because I feel like in a lot of spaces that I occupy, I don't belong. It's very lonely. i'm a Black man in sex education and i'm straight. And there's not to say that there's not a lot of Black men in that space, but when I think about Black men in sex education, I think HIV prevention. And typically, you'll see that there are a lot more queer and gay or bisexual Black men who serve people who are living with HIV.

00:23:46 Courtney Brame: And so for myself, like coming into this space and like seeing that, oh, that's where all the other Black men are. Um, where i'm at with sexual health even, like there's a lot of public health professionals. That's a lot of people who work in nursing, uh, who are nurses, who are doctors, healthcare providers. Those are the people that i'm probably closest to. But these are people who have medical degrees, who have public health degrees, um, who went through nursing school, medical school. So, I don't have that experience. Like, essentially, all i'm doing is reporting on the truth as someone who is a journalist in regards to HSV um and STI stigma. So, having a podcast and a media background, uh that's what my role is. And I don't know of anybody else who's like reporting on this stuff or trying to get it into the face of the Centers for Disease Control um or the National Coalition for uh Sexual Health or the National Coalition of STD directors um or the American Sexual Health Association.

00:24:51 Courtney Brame: I don't know of many people, any at all, who are actively attempting to get any sort of funding or get into these people's faces and be like, "Hey, we need to do things a little bit differently." There are advocacy groups. There's people who just have social media accounts who are um advocating for different things, but we all do our own things our own ways. But for me, I feel like the most straight and to the point way and path of doing that is going to the people who have the authority and the power to make it happen. What I envision for myself is for Something Positive for Positive People to be sort of a network of therapists, a network of uh coaches, a network of uh social media influencers and accounts and pages that want to offer herpes support. and I want to be able to support them and give them the tools that they need in order to offer support to everybody else. Not to say that like Something Positive is the end all be all of where people get all of their herpes diagnosis information and uh learn how to navigate stigma and that this is the only thing that is helpful to them.

Community Specifics: Kink, BDSM, and Non-Monogamy

00:26:01 Courtney Brame: But I want for people to be able to come here and identify what is the most helpful for them and then be able to move forward accordingly. Um, another example would be just like with uh kink BDSM and non-monogamy groups. So there's a lot of uh different segmented groups within the herpes community. So you can find herpes support through um you can find it through Facebook groups, you can find it through the dating app positive singles, you can find it through social media accounts, you can find it through hashtags, there's different blogs and forums. there's all of these resources, but then um when people start to get in there, it's like they begin to want to be more of themselves. And so now they want to identify things that they have an interest in, but also alongside other people who have herpes. And what I feel like this kind of does is while you're looking for more of a sense of community in a much more segmented way, it keeps you from putting yourself out there in order to make the more quality meaningful connections for yourself that don't have anything to do with herpes.

00:27:08 Courtney Brame: There's so much weight that we put onto our herpes diagnosis and how stigma shows up and we think that other people can't relate because they don't have herpes themselves. But we really just don't know. There shouldn't be a group of four people, a group for people who have herpes and drive cars or people with herpes who also have pets or a group of people with herpes who also are interested in painting. A group of people who have herpes and also are into sewing, right? And I use these examples because that's how specific it is and how specific it can get. Um, and so what i'm hoping to be able to do is offer people the opportunity to just see what's more important to them, not just their herpes diagnosis, but also their common interest. So, like you can use your herpes diagnosis as a way of connecting to yourself and working through this adversity, this hard thing in order to get to the core of who you are and then begin to recognize for yourself, oh, this is what's more important to me or this is what's most important to me or these are hobbies and interests that I have and then begin to pursue those things.

00:28:18 Courtney Brame: And you can pursue those things without looking for an intimate connection. Or if you are looking for an intimate connection, not letting your feelings about your herpes diagnosis override the more important things about being in that space and just connecting with people, which is being in that space and connecting with people, right? So, uh, taking it back to the group and the segmentation, um, what I did was I started Something Positive for herpes positive, kink positive people, something like that on Fet Life. So, if you want, you can message me and I can get you added into that. And right now, I think there's just like six people in there. This is my first time announcing it on the podcast or on social media at all. Um, I made a story post that nobody saw. Um, I put the link in there and i'm sure that that's why it got no visibility. And that's something that i've been up against lately with social media is just not getting any visibility at all for my educational posts or anything that's directing people away from the platform that i'm on.

00:29:19 Courtney Brame: So, if i'm telling people, hey, I just uploaded this podcast episode. Check it out. No story views. Like 100 126 seems to be a very consistent number over a 24-hour period time span. So, when I post like I posted some BS that's like some gossipy drama thing on my Instagram story and i'm sure it's already in the few hundreds of uh views unless I have something around that in relation to herpes. But we'll see. i'll check on that and make a comment. But uh yeah, like I want for people to be able to get everything it is that they want, but I also don't want people to isolate themselves or use the herpes groups as a um as sort of like a a copout for not putting themselves out there to make the quality connections that they want. So this group that I created that is on fat life is more about um normalizing like an intermingling of people who do have herpes and don't have herpes who just have this common interest.

00:30:22 Courtney Brame: All right. So, we're people who are aware, people who've been with people who are living with herpes, people who do have herpes, being able to reach out, disclose their status, talk about their sexual health, set relationship intentions, just like we talk about on uh the stars talk, and also be able to just have a good time and feel so safe in that space to be able to do so. There have been a lot of people who've reached out to me, and when I say a lot, I mean at least a dozen, and asked, you know, hey, Courtney, do you have play parties or why don't you host a play party or host some type of a play event or a sexual event? And the reason that i've not wanted to is because like first off, I think i'd probably be the only dude there. It'd be me and like a couple of my friends that I told about it who'd be like, "Oh yeah, i'll check that out." but also like the power dynamics like i'm a leader in this

Power Dynamics and Professional Boundaries

00:31:15 space. Um, and it's very difficult to um draw that line between what's business like because this is a nonprofit like I… my personal life is my personal life. My professional life is my professional life. But it's such a gray area because this is also how I meet people. Like I meet people through Something Positive for Positive People. I meet people through my podcast and the social media accounts and sometimes those connections uh there's a mutual attraction there and then it can go to uh wherever it is that it's going to go and so for me to facilitate groups events and things like that I have this concern about how with the power dynamics like maybe someone wouldn't feel comfortable saying no to me or feel like there there's like a Um there's just like an attraction thing. You know how you kind of get sex brain or how you get starruck for instance if you're starruck and you meet your celebrity crush for instance like when you get there like you're going to give them whatever it is that they want.

00:32:19 Courtney Brame: You're not going to say no. So it makes me very, it's made me very hesitant with that in the past. But now I feel very firm in my boundaries and being able to communicate like this is who I am. This is where I'm at. This is what I do in this space. Here's what you get in this space. Here's what you get. And i've demonstrated a long enough track record for people to have an idea of my character in the event that some BS happens. And I don't know, like I don't know what to expect, but I know that living in the world that we live in now, I think that it's very reasonable to be a little bit cautious about mixing business with pre pleasure or mixing my professional and personal life uh to one another. But it's more of a need. And like I said, I feel lonely. i'm alone in this space as a straight Black man who is in the sex education field.

00:33:12 Courtney Brame: Um, and it's been pointed out to me that there's a number of things like emotional intelligence that are lacking or like how I communicate uh being something that is I guess rare uh to women. Uh, I get a lot of complaints, screenshots from different interactions that women have with men and I see I see what the struggles are. And so what I want to do is be able to create that kind of space where people don't have to worry about those specific struggles. And so with this particular community, like i'm making an attempt to somewhat vet people. I don't know what this is going to look like over time, but I know that it's something that I want. I know that it's something that others have asked for and that others have wanted. So, um, if you want to be involved with that, if you want to be in that community, um, feel free to just shoot me a message and then i'll go ahead and add you to that group. Um, what else has come up?

Self-Help, Repressed Masculinity, and the Hero-Villain Analogy

00:34:09 Courtney Brame: So, I think I mentioned that i'm working on a book and i'm just stuck with telling my own story and my own personal experience. i've got just about all the chapters done to it and it's going to be an audio book. I don't know anything about publishing books, but i'm paying people to help me with the editing process and organizing it in a way to where it tells a story. Um, people won't have to listen through 300 whatever podcast episodes in order to get what they came for. So, I am hoping that by condensing the lessons of Something Positive for Positive People uh podcast episodes into a an an audio book that's just a couple of hours long or four, five, six hours long that people will be able to just pay, get what they need, and then go on about their uh life. Because again, like the most useful things to me have been this self-help stuff. Self-help is, as much as it's like talked down about or people say, "Oh, you know, that's woo woo" or whatever, it's been helpful to me.

00:35:10 Courtney Brame: Um, it's helped me with my confidence. It's helped me from the way that I dress, the way that I talk, the way that I speak to people, the way that I non-verbally communicate, the way that I now value myself, the way that I set and uphold and honor boundaries. These are all things that i've gotten from self-help that when applied to my herpes diagnosis have really really helped me out not just in my dating life, but also in my professional life and then in my personal life as well with myself. Like these lessons that i've learned have allowed for me to be as consistent as I have and disciplined as I have with Something Positive for Positive People. Because I tell you like if it wasn't for these things, i'd have f***** this up a long time ago. i'd ended up being involved with the wrong girl. i'd have probably got into a relationship and just been like, you know what? Oh, I don't need this positive for positive people, baby.

00:36:01 Courtney Brame: i'm gonna go get a real job. i'm gonna take care of us. i'm going to get us a house. We are going to start having kids. All that. And I can see that. I can see that for myself when I was younger. But now, like, I think that i've just more so had this involution process. I say involution because it's like an internal evolution for myself that like i've just cocooned and had the metamorphosis of becoming a man. And when I speak about becoming a man, like I mean all of those traits that i've repressed for a really really long time uh after having played college sports and sports for most of my life. Like I feel like i've been told repeatedly that those things are toxic. And I use this analogy of like the hero and a villain. Everybody praises the villain and everybody demonizes a villain. But at any moment, one life situation, one experience can make a hero into a villain and a villain can be a hero.

00:36:59 Courtney Brame: And they carry the same traits. When we look at their commitment to their cause, their discipline, their consistency, their attentiveness to move forward, their uh leadership, all of these things that make up uh what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine, and then also like sticking to that s***. A lot of these things about myself have been completely just repressed. And it's been after living where I live now. And shout out to my roommate slashlandlord because every day i'm upstairs where i'm at. This is my bedroom. i'm in the attic of a house. When I went downstairs and I got to go to the bathroom, I walked past his office. And when I walk past his office, I see that man working all day, from uh probably like 7 a.m. to whenever it's time to go to bed, like 12 hours with whatever breaks in between. And when I see that, like i am, i'm motivated by that.

Belonging, Hiding, and Professional Commitment

00:37:50 Courtney Brame: And to hear that, oh, you know, it's toxic. You should take breaks from work. Like i've learned that i'm the happiest when i'm working. Going back to what I was trying to say earlier about the journal entry is that i've been really debating on where I belong. And I haven't belonged in the herpes support groups because people in the herpes support groups typically don't want other people to know about their status. And I caught myself a few times in situations where groups were intermingled and um someone was like, "Oh, you know what's going on here?" and i've had to bite my tongue or lie about what I was doing there and who I was with and why we were there and it just didn't align with me anymore. So, that was one of the reasons that I backed out of and pulled out of the herpes support groups um and the different social groups, but like i'm still connected to them and like I i support them, but I don't like my level of influence on um I don't like how easy it is for me, like if I show up, let's say somebody does recognize me, I don't know, I don't feel like i'm that big of a celebrity, but it it's not okay for me to hide

00:39:06 Courtney Brame: myself anymore. And that's kind of what I felt like. I felt like a lot of the time that I spent in the herpes groups was just me hiding for the most part. And now that i've come into recognizing what i'm capable of, who I am, who i'm capable of being outside of hiding myself, I can't go back. I can't go back to that. What? But uh that even has been lonely. Um, being on social media, you know, it's social media. It's not an in-person connection. I have friends who are getting in relationships and who are beginning to prioritize that for themselves, who are prioritizing their families, their significant others. And you know, that's great. And here I am as unavailable as can possibly be. Like me, I didn't ever want to really accept the fact that i'm not as available for a relationship as I thought I was. Um this what I do does take up a lot of my focus, my energy, my time, and this is my this isn't my baby anymore.

00:40:09 Courtney Brame: Like this is my primary partner. This is my significant other until we need to part ways or until further notice. But um i've given a lot to Something Positive for Positive People to the point where I think that it's really hard for me to connect with other people or for people to connect with me because of how committed and passionate I am about this. and it keeps me from being involved in sports or being involved in hot topics and being able to uh maintain or hold a conversation about something that I don't really care about because this gets so much of my care. So, i've been really asking myself and wondering where is home, you know, where am I going to settle in? Where am I going to make my home? Where am I going to start my family? And for a while I was thinking I was like, well, you know, I do like being able to travel. Maybe traveling around is where I belong.

00:41:07 Courtney Brame: Maybe moving around and being in different places that allow for me to continue to move forward with Something Positive for Positive People is where I belong. But after journaling, I recognize that I am happiest when i'm working. I think that my place that's home. It's not that home is where the heart is. Its home is where the work is. Home is where the work needs to be done for you as the only person who's capable of doing what it is that you do. And as far as I know, I believe i'm probably the most consistent person um who's been in this whole herpes sex education space. I don't know anybody else who's consistently been doing it. Maybe people have come and gone, taking breaks. The only break that I took was the time where I had so many podcast recordings uh scheduled to release that there was just nothing to do for a few months. And even then, I think that i've continued to be working and working through the nonprofit and um getting people who have been looking for the resources throughout that uh the resources that they need.

The Realities of Production Quality and Consistency

00:42:11 Courtney Brame: So, i'm very proud of that. This is the longest i've done anything aside from playing sports. Um these are the only things that i've committed to for this long. And i'm really excited about and proud of that. And um one of the things that i've wanted to do, i've wanted to take this to the next level, whatever that means. I watch a lot of YouTube shorts. I watch a lot of people's Instagram reels and their Tik Toks, and the production quality, y'all, is through the roof. Like, it is amazing video quality. I ain't got that s***. Like, I was going to turn the spare bedroom up here into a podcast recording studio to where I can bring in people and we can have like a panel of four people doing a podcast interview because that's what that's what more podcasters are doing. That's what the algorithm is asking for and approving of and moving forward with. And I realized like ain't no four people on a weekly basis going to come into my house and talk about herpes.

00:43:14 Courtney Brame: And i've wanted to get these cameras and invest in making it to where you got this shot of me, this shot of me, that shot of me, and it zooms in and out. You get the words across the screen, the captions, and that's a lot of work on one hand, and it's not a job for one person. One person cannot do all of that in the way that the algorithm is asking for it to happen. So, um, I was struggling with this. I was struggling with the fact that I wanted to improve production quality, that I wanted to improve Something Positive for Positive People overall, especially as a podcast, and be able to get more visibility out there and for me to be able to welcome in more people and get the listeners up. But, tel um, one of my friends, he told me, man, he was just like, "Hey, you know, you need to realize that you've been consistent regardless of the production quality, regardless of what it looks like. like i've been consistent and that's something to um keep in

00:44:12 Courtney Brame: mind. Like I feel like 2020 really f***** the podcast game up because a lot of celebrities and people who were just who have money who were just bored at home, housewives, uh people with big ass houses, whoever was just like working for someone and decided to just do whatever on their own and start a podcast. These people f*** the game up for me, y'all. I recorded a podcast on my phone, holding it up to my face in my closet. It went from that in 2017 to me having a microphone set up in my closet in 2018 and 2019 to me recording at the gym in 2020 and then uh in my bedroom or in my living room and now here I am like i'm in my bedroom in the attic. Like this framework has been with me for forever and like I ain't got it like that. I can't pay for podcast recording studio time. I can't pay for the video production team. And I hear people like in between podcast episodes, they're like, "Oh, my producer, my production team. I am part of the production team.

00:45:18 Courtney Brame: i'm the producer. i'm the social media manager. i'm the podcast host. i'm the podcast editor. I ain't got no music in here because there's just one more job that I would have to do in order to increase the quality of this. But what makes me feel good though about it is that I have been able to be consistent and I know that people are getting what they came here for. I know that people are able to come in, get the content, and it's helpful to them because I get the messages. I may not see it in the downloads. I may not see it in the social media shares, but what I do see is that there are people who come, they express gratitude for um people who are sharing their stories for me for putting this whole thing together. And that's enough for me. Like i'm, i'm good with that. But I just don't want people to think like i'm being cheap or i'm being sloppy with the production quality.

00:46:04 Courtney Brame: like this is a step up for me because i'm giving myself uh more work to do now that I have this video and I can chop that up and put it into YouTube shorts and maybe put it into uh some Tik Toks or put it onto the social media feed. But I know that I have to be active. I got to be in all these places and I want for Something Positive for Positive People to continue to develop, grow, and just thrive overall. So that's what i'm hoping to accomplish with this. um uh with doing this live right now and this live podcast recording and being able to bring about engagement for people to be able to ask questions or add their input. Hopefully over time this will get better. I cannot say when i'm going to consistently be recording live podcasts because i've always just recorded them when I had a window of time to where I could just sit down uninterrupted for an hour, hour and a half and then just press record and speak my mind or if I have a guest be able to coordinate things with them and be able to bring them onto the platform and be able to talk about their experiences which i'm also always looking for guests.

00:47:10 Courtney Brame: Um, if you are someone who wants to share your experience and you can make about an hour time work for us to be able to sit down in front of your phone, computer, wherever, um, you'll see if you go through one of my past lives recently, um, you'll see that I was interviewing Black Blood Blood Swan. I was interviewing Blood Swan and uh, music, Blood Swan music. And uh that was an example of what a live podcast could look like. But also if we were private like that's what it would look like. We'd see each other and then I would only record the audio so that people who download the podcast episode will be able to only hear us rather than hear uh see us as well. 2023 is around the corner and there is a herpes survey that my intern worked on for all about 250 hours. So Something Positive for Positive People had an intern and we put together a new and improved herpes survey for us y'all and that will be ready to be released in January.

The 2023 Herpes Survey and Closing Thoughts on Racial Dynamics in Advocacy

00:48:19 Erika Velazquez's Presentation: i'm hoping to be able to take the survey myself and then uh reward whatever needs to be rewarded, ask whatever is releasing it. i'll release it uh in the podcast episodes. i'll be releasing it on social media and i'm going to be asking that you all share these with your people. And for anyone who is in a relationship with a man or who f**** a man, please make them take this survey. Don't get them no head. Don't get them no ass until they take this survey. Like, make them take this survey because the last time I thought 3% of the people who took it were men until I made that announcement. I was like, "Hey y'all, don't give him, don't give him none until he takes the survey." And then that shot up to 15% real quick. So, i'mma ask that right out the gate. Like, I need for people to take this survey, the first one from 2021. We got 1,149 uh total participants.

00:49:40 Courtney Brame: And so, i'm hoping to be able to get 2,000 this time. and with this data be able to go to these organizations and talk about uh why it's important for us to utilize this information and integrate this into our STD prevention programs and integrate this into um how we are educating people on talking about sex and sexual health and their relationships because there's a lot of value not just in the surveys but in the people's experiences who are taking these surveys. So, i've tried to curate those as much as possible. Um, limiting the questions to 50 something or 60 something so that we can get all this information from as many people as we can and make it as relevant as we can of what we represent for the year 2023. All right? There is nothing that is out there that I believe is consistent or even accurate or even recent in terms of talking to the communities of people who are living with HSV. So this survey itself is hopefully going to satisfy the void that is there where it's needed for us to be able to present this information y'all.

00:50:56 Courtney Brame: So, um, yeah, please do like work with me. Work with me, y'all. I It's going to be a while. It's going to take a while to take the survey, but it's going to be worth it. If you haven't done anything else at all, you'll be able to take this survey and that will make up for whatever time you've been here and you haven't participated in any of the events. If you haven't left me a podcast review, if you haven't donated, if you haven't supported Something Positive for Positive People at all, this is a way that you can do that. It'll be through taking this survey, y'all. Um, taking it back to what I said about sex positivity, not doing anything for strong, healthy Black families. So, I am a Black man. I date period. Like, the whole race thing, I don't give a f*** what race you are. I date outside my skin color. All right.

Getty Images

00:51:49 Courtney Brame: So, if we want to be more accurately honest about that, then that's the reality. So, whatever kids I have, because i'm Black, will be Black as well, right? I heard Neil Degrasse Tyson say this on a podcast. Uh the host was actually offering up that he was biracial, his mom was this, his dad was, and Neil Degrass Tyson cut him off right there. He was like, "No, you are the human race. If I line up you and somebody from another continent and another country, whatever, if we all are lined up, we are all part of the human race. You might have been born there, you might have been born there, you might have been born there. And I really love that. And I know we're not at a place or a community or environment where we can transcend our race or ethnicity or skin color, but I really thought that it was beautiful to understand that we are all a part of one race, which is the human race.

00:52:43 Courtney Brame: And hopefully it doesn't take a reminder like an alien invasion to come here to remind us of that. Um, why did I say that? Oh, because I was talking about uh sex positivity not doing much for or anything for strong, healthy Black families. Um, i'm someone who has been very easily and heavily influenced by the space that i've occupied for a long time. Like i've let uh the sexual health or sex education, sex positivity community of mostly straight white women uh make me think that one, i'm a bad person for being a man. Um that I shouldn't want what I want and that uh any of my thoughts that are mine or my opinions are inherently wrong because it's coming from a man. And I I really hate that I ate that s*** up like that. like I actually let that s***, you know, come into me in my space and I even let that influence like my thoughts about having children or my thoughts about being in a relationship. And what i'm seeing is that this space is more conducive for teaching you how to be sexually liberated in the sense of just being able to have multiple sex partners or being able to date.

00:53:57 Courtney Brame: It's not giving me the resources and tools that I need to date for being in a relationship or even build relationship skills necessary to maintain a relationship or even be in a relationship that is going to uh work toward creating a family, a strong healthy Black family. Because again, while I date outside my skin color, whatever I put my meat in and whatever comes out of that is going to be Black like by society standards. So, um, i'm not equipped for that. And looking at what goes into creating a strong, healthy family, period. You have to look at your economical situations, finances, your geographical location, what kind of schools you're going to be putting your kids into. You got to look at what the neighborhood crime rates are. Is there a grocery store nearby? Making sure you're not in a food desert. And I went to a sexual a sex education conference this past week and one of the things that came up was uh plan uh not planned parenthood family planning and how family planning actually doesn't have anything to do with planning for having a family.

00:55:08 Courtney Brame: It's more about uh abortion and pregnancy prevention. And so speaking to that and looking at, you know, what that represents and like my role in that as well. Like I remember people were telling me to say something when Ro vers Wayade got overturned. And not a lot of people know this, but if you follow me pretty closely, then you'll know that I unfortunately know the backstory of when my mother was pregnant with me and how her parents wanted her to get an abortion with me. So I don't ask people, i'm like, "Hey, like I i haven't said anything. haven't just been like, "You don't want to talk to me about this." Like, it's one of those things that i'd rather just avoid because I know how it can come off, how it will come off, and what it'll sound like when I have to say like, "Yo, i wasn't aborted." And I can see m************ putting that on the t-shirt now and like Courtney Brame said he's against abortion.

00:56:00 Courtney Brame: No, that's not the case. I just know that I know what my situation was and I know that I have a completely differing opinion than what people would expect for someone who's in this space to have. Um, and i'm working on that. It's something i'm working on is being more expressive in my own opinions. But, um, yeah, like I have for so long been just kind of going along blindly with, uh, what's been on my news feed. Like I think that the algorithm is the new god essentially. This is what we praise. What we give to the algorithm is what it gives back to us. It tells us how to think. It tells us what kind of content to create, what music to put in the background. It tells us how to be creative in a sense to where it's not even really creativity anymore. And so if my s*** gonna continue to look plain and basic, and if my opinions are going to be, you know, shitted on or disagreed with, it is what it is.

00:56:59 Courtney Brame: Um, at this point I think that i've demonstrated for long enough like where I stand with things and the kind of person I am. And more importantly, I want people to see me for my character. I don't want people to see me for the words that just come out of my mouth, but look at my actions, look at my behaviors, um, not my thoughts because I have the capacity of thinking anything. So, I hope that the previous podcast episode, um, which was two hours, um, was one that demonstrated, you know, a little bit of what's been going on inside my head and these conflicts because it took for me to take a break from social media for me to really connect with what was mine, what my thoughts are, what my beliefs are, how I want to behave. And in doing that, I just realized there's a lot of stuff that is just not relevant for me right now or relevant to me. Like, yeah, I know how to date. I know where the clit is.

00:57:53 Courtney Brame: I know uh what questions to ask and what um consent is. I know these things. But while these are things that give me the practice for beginning to create a physical family, it's not things that give me the practice for maintaining a strong healthy foundation for a relationship that is going to lead to the outcome that I ultimately want, which is to be able to have a family, whatever that may look like for me. So, this may be another one of those things where I got to create that for myself. And I know that like, you know, you can do more than one thing and i'm the kind of person that I want everything. I feel like I deserve it. Like I bust my ass. i've sacrificed and i've gone into the extremes of only one aspect of life and trying to do things one particular way that I was shown how to do or uh do things um how others have done them and it doesn't fit for me.

00:58:49 Courtney Brame: Like um I had this witchy lady one night like tell me she was like you have a very hard road ahead of you. In fact, it's not even a road. Like, it's something that you're just going to have to make for yourself. And she told me, she said, "I shared the load with you." And then she walked off. It was the biggest mind f*** i've experienced this in my life. But she stuck with me. And I think that that was something that was really affirming to me from the universe and being like um a little more about the you know precourtney conception story uh or birth story is that my grandmother like I kind of felt like the spirit of my grandmother reaching out to me through this lady and part of it is just like speaking my truth and being able to be competitive or disagreeable with things that don't align with me and speaking up about that s*** when it happens. So, um, I feel very validated and affirmed in that and that's how i'm going to be moving forward.

00:59:46 Courtney Brame: And therefore, like when i'm concluding podcast episodes, I cannot allow myself to say till next time, stay sex positive, there has to be something different. Now, we can say pleasure positive, but then that's not uh what i'm encompassing when I say stay pleasure positive. It's not really about that for Something Positive for Positive People. So, i'll be looking for a new way to close these things out. Um, if you are on the live, stick around. You can ask whatever questions, but i'm about to run out of time here on the audio recording and i'm going to wrap this thing up. I cannot believe it's already been 59 minutes and 40 seconds. That's crazy. But, um, thank you for listening. I hope that you'll continue to listen. You'll have much more solo episodes very similar to this. And i'll be sharing a lot more of my own personal experiences while still looking for guests. Look out for the survey. And yeah, i'll talk to you all next time. Visit www.spfpp.org for more.

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