SPFPP 285: Some Positive Dating Experience
This was supposed to be more positive dating experiences, but turned into me ranting about a call I was on this morning with an organization that got some funding to do something about herpes. I eventually talk about how positive of an experience we can have when negotiations go well for relationships as well as elaborate on the "Be the Best Option" episode description about animals. My Yoga alarm going off really blew it for me though.
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Episode 285 Transcript
Advocacy, Representation, and the Reality of a Cure
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Hello and welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves as self-help for people living with herpes. Uh today I sat in on uh an organization I hadn't heard of before, but this organization um speaks about funding that they received in 2021. And it's supposed to be a 5-year round of funding. And today they were talking about adding herpes to the addendum. I believe that was the wording that they used. Um, and in this discussion, a few people introduce themselves as leaders in whatever this organization is going to be doing whatever it is that they're doing with herpes. And I know that's vague, but um by the time that this podcast releases, we'll have already gone through uh yeah, it'll have been a couple of weeks to pass. But I think it's important to at least acknowledge that it looks like there is momentum or at least acknowledgement coming from the advocacy groups that exist that are like yelling about or not yelling, I don't want to diminish what they're doing, but they're working towards just being heard and having the voices of the community heard.
00:01:48 Courtney Brame: But the problem to me with that is that it's not representative of our community. I think that the majority of our community that is really represented in the world is here. You know, I think um I hear such a wide range of experiences of people from people who do have severe symptoms to no symptoms at all to people who have gone on to live amazing lives after their herpes diagnosis in those initial stages of grief that they've gone through and people who are at this point like still just choosing to opt out of dating or who are not dating and going through the illusion of choice. Like I think it's our real lived experiences that need to be heard and not just these advocacy groups who are complaining about one extreme being the case. Like there is a diverse range of experiences here and there is no one solution. And I think that's part of my problem, like why I'm not making any progress is because I'm not locked in the one thing getting people behind that one thing and then spearheading that.
00:02:52 Courtney Brame: Because what Something Positive for Positive People represents is it represents the sex worker. It represents the victim of sexual assault. It represents the experience of the domestic violence um victim. It represents the person who didn't disclose their status. The person who does everything right and still got herpes. the person who's divorced, the person who just opened up their relationship, the person who got cold sorcered, the person who was in love with a person and decided they were worth the risk and still went on to get it. And the people who date us as well uh despite not having uh positive herpes status themselves, who are open and willing to share their experiences and their um ideas and and the way that they've gone about being in relationships with people who are living with herpes. So there's this wide range of experiences, but I think that the one common ground here is that it's real. And it's nice to see that there's traction by advocacy groups, but the reality is that our voices collectively are not being represented in this space.
00:03:59 Courtney Brame: I've made my contributions speaking about how much the communication component is really what people struggle with. You know, it's the disclosure piece that is the number one thing people uh struggle with overall is how do I talk to my partner about this and the way that they receive their diagnosis from a healthcare provider. These have been the main two things that have come up consistently over the last 6 years, but we've got people, you know, who are being heard talking about, well, there's this link between herpes and Alzheimer's, so we need to cure herpes. We are not close to a cure. And this money that they have that they're wanting to distribute. I don't know that a cure is even the best use of the resource. I know there are people who wish that they could just cure this, make it go away, never have to think about it again. But that is a hard it's going to be hard to wait on something like that. It it's just going to be hard to wait or it's going to be hard for you to deal with what's underneath your ideology around what you do if there was a cure.
00:04:58 Courtney Brame: Like what if you knew that there wasn't going to be a cure aside from kill yourself? because I I don't want anybody going down that road. So, if you thought that, I want you to backtrack. Get out of that thought process. That is not an option. Your options are going to be anything in the range of doing something that you're not currently doing. All right? So, think about that. You know, if there were if there was uh something else, you know, I think that we get so locked into what the end all beall solution is that we think we're closest to that we don't really have any sort of bandwidth to expand our thought process or expand our vision of what life can look like for ourselves outside of having to navigate the world as a person with herpes. Okay, what does it look like to navigate the world? I talked about this on my 10-year herp-versary episode where I talked about just how I've been living my life.
Practical Solutions Over a Cure
00:05:53 Courtney Brame: Herpes is such an insignificant part of my life. I talked to a lot of people who have herpes, but it's not really about herpes. It's about living. It's about their lives. It's about everything that's going on around herpes because sometimes it's just a matter of snatching somebody up by their collar, turning their head in the direction, the different direction of what they're focused on and what they're used to and showing them what else they have around them and in their life. and this organization that is I don't know how much money they have but some of the things that they were talking about doing was uh looking at testing I don't know what that means where like I asked a question and I didn't get an answer I even said I was like you know what is your solution to these inaccurate inconsistent testing and the answer that I got back the response didn't I don't even think he addressed it I might have recorded it I think I recorded it on my Instagram story but I remember just sitting there like that didn't answer my question.
00:06:48 Courtney Brame: And that just goes to show like if we don't have an effective use of our energy that we're putting in towards our advocacy or what we want to see change, what we want to see is different. It's just going to be a lot of runaround. We going to be looking, we are going to look up and I've had herpes for 10 years now. It'll be another 10 years before anything even changes. like I'm getting the same answers to questions I had 10 years ago that now 10 years later. So I I can't sit and wait for things to change. I can't wait for myself to be heard. I can't jump the line with these advocacy groups. And like one of the guys that was in there, he talked for like 10 minutes. They were like, "We're going to limit it to two to three minutes." And this dude talked for 10 minutes. I don't even know that he said anything. And again, like I think that a lot of people have a very selfish agenda when it comes to this.
00:07:42 Courtney Brame: Um, I don't know anyone who wouldn't want to if there's like a consequence-free cure. I don't. I don't see anyone who wouldn't take the uh herpes cure if there were one. But that's the issue. Like, we got to be realistic. Ain't no cure coming. It's too much money to be made off of this s***. and is we're we're on a hamster wheel trying to fight for some type of a cure when the reality is right now what we can do is advocate for a better test because then the argument there like as f***** up as this might sound, you know you have to be able to think on the full spectrum of thought process. If I'm the owner of a pharmaceutical company, I find out that if more people know that they have herpes, more people are going to buy the medication to keep themselves from getting herpes. So I'm going to fuel that. Like that's what makes the most sense to me.
00:08:30 Courtney Brame: There is much more money in me uh funding one consistent test, getting people tested more regularly, and getting more people on the medication that I'm selling that doesn't even f****** work. That would be my thought process. Now if we're looking at this from a good guy, bad guy perspective, good guy perspective is going to be for Courtney to get an amplified voice to be able to tell y'all, yo, we don't need to take these antivirals. Like that's just a general thing. Like if you don't have severe outbreaks, like there are going to be people who the antivirals benefit. But I will say many people that I know who've made lifestyle changes, who've gone through the process of figuring out what their triggers are. Um, these are the people who don't need medication. I even know people who still take it because they're just scared of possibly getting an outbreak. They're scared of possibly giving it to a partner. So, they'll decrease the risk of passing it on by 3%, whatever that means, and take these antivirals that potentially cause medical induced psychosis, that cause hair loss, that cause uh whatever other symptoms there were throughout the different podcast episodes that I've had.
00:09:41 Courtney Brame: You know, these are like why are these things like not near as much of a priority as just making sure that because we have herpes, we're on our medication. You know, I don't. I don't get it. I do get it, but I just don't see that… I don't see this going anywhere. Like I, I left this meeting very discouraged. I ain't going to lie to you. Uh Terry Warren was there who wrote some kind of a book about herpes. Um the herpes cure advocacy group, they were there and uh they had their input. Their input was this big over-the-top s*** that I just don't see working. Like what makes the most sense to me is for these organizations to work with the advocates that are out there. Your SafeSlut, your Suzbubs, your uh Emily Depass, um and the Pickering Fitness, uh Rich Manuso. Um and if I'm missing anybody, I apologize, but all of the people who are already out there and open about having herpes, let's support these people because they have a massive reach.
The Need for Community Backing and Institutional Support
00:10:47 Courtney Brame: They're informing the public. Let's get them accurate and consistent information that can be used. Let's support these people. That's really what needs to happen in terms of addressing stigma. And stigma came up so many times and I was so pissed off in my head because someone said, "Well, we don't really know the extent of stigma. We don't know how people are suffering from stigma." And I've been f****** interviewing people for the last six years about this s***. I have a survey with,00 people on the website uh that I've been trying my damnedest to get in with the CDC, with the National Coalition of STD directors, uh the American Sexual Health Association, the National Coalition for Sexual Health, whatever other acronyms that I'm aware of that existed, I have done my damnedest to be a part of. And I know I'm only one person, right? But people have very much been supportive from their own job roles and getting me opportunities and at least doing something to uplift uh the experiences that I represent through Something Positive for Positive People.
00:11:52 Courtney Brame: So I'm very very very appreciative for those opportunities. Um the unfortunate problem is and I think I mentioned this before. Um, I listened to this book from good to great and it talked about nonprofits and the five things that they need to do in order or the five things that the most successful nonprofits all have in common. I have four out of those five things. The fifth thing that I need is for the people who are benefiting from the service to go out and brag about how amazing this service is. That is not happening. But you know what is happening? the people who are bitching about how uh s***** it is to have herpes in these other advocacy groups, like there's more coming from them than it is the real things that can be fixed right now. And I see so much of this. People will scream things and chants and s*** about how things are wrong, injustices, blah blah blah, but nobody will do the hard thing, which is the most tangible right now immediate action that you can do rather than just sharing a post or uh making a donation.
00:13:02 Courtney Brame: Like we ain't out here. Like I was there and multiple people were saying the same thing because they were connected to each other and part of the same organization. Do you know those organization heads looked down from their camera with their pens or whatever they were doing and they were writing? When I spoke, they just looked at me. They looked at me and they nodded their heads like, "Oh, okay, whatever." But when they heard the same things from the herpes advocacy group that is like, "We need a cure. We need a cure." They at the very least were writing something down. Whether they wrote anything down that was useful or helpful or that they're going to even take into consideration, I don't know. But I noticed that difference because the camera highlighted these three people specifically and I watched them do this every time. And I made it a point to speak twice. They spoke a total of four times. I spoke twice.
00:13:50 Courtney Brame: Once about testing, once about stigma. It was like, "Hey, here's what's coming up when I interview people. I've been interviewing people for the last six years. And the common thing is disclosure. How health care providers deliver a diagnosis impacts not only how a person goes on to disclose their herpes status, but if that person even goes on and discusses their herpes status with another partner. And what that does is like it's the initial touch point of STD stigma and STD prevention. And what we can do is take these lived experiences that people have that have been shared with me on my platform and integrate these into some sort of a sex education resource to aid prevention efforts. And they were they just looked at me like ain't nobody look down and write s*** down. And I don't know, man. It just seems like it's not discouraging. It's expected. Like I I expect to be met with this kind of s*** when I'm in front of people who can make a difference because it's just way too simple of a solution.
00:14:55 Courtney Brame: Like what does it take to if you're going to throw money at a problem, throw the money at the most practical solutions? It's like what? I get that you want like it's a business at the end of the day. Businesses don't go into business to put themselves out of business. I completely understand that. they got however much money and funding they got not to put themselves out of the opportunity to get funding again. I get that. Me, I'm a one-man show. If somebody gave me $500,000 to accomplish a goal, I would be good. I would be incentivized to put myself out of business. Like, I ain't never had that much money before. But if somebody were to offer me, you know, $10,000 over the course of the next five months or so to get my solution done, maybe I'd be a little less incentivized to like to complete it. I'd like to do enough and be like, "Hey, uh in order to get to the next step, we might need a lot more money." So,
Prioritizing SPFPP and the Politics of Nonprofits
00:15:51 Courtney Brame: I get it. I can think in all aspects of this, but being in it, being in the trenches, being someone who's directly hearing from people newly diagnosed, newly out of a divorce or relationship, going back into the dating world, who've been stigmatized by their healthcare provider, family member, friend, partner, past partner, potential partner, whatever. It's very difficult for me to not want to see something change, for there to not be some sort of an action that is taken in order to get us closer to where we can be because I see it. And part of uh now that I can pay myself, I guess this incentivizes me to take more bold actions because I'm more invested in this now. Like I didn't think that was possible. I thought I was as invested as I could be, but I noticed that, you know, going to work, and I I've said this before, going to work and making money and having to take the trips back and forth to work, getting to work, being at work, prepare for work has really limited how much I've done for something positive for positive people.
00:16:57 Courtney Brame: But now, uh, being able to pay myself, I know that some of the stuff that I've considered doing makes more sense to do now and put additional time and effort into that because I don't have to worry about, oh man, I need to use this time to go to my job. I need to be able to go make money. And what that looks like is me reaching out to these doctors, uh, nurses, health care organizations and being like, "Hey, here's this resource that um, people are really benefiting from who are living with herpes. Uh, health care providers can use this. Patients can use this. I'm Courtney. I'm located here. I'm happy to come talk to your staff. I'm happy to talk to whoever is newly diagnosed. Whatever it is, just know that this organization, this resource exists and it is designed to really help people with processing and navigating the stigma after their diagnosis, which we know is one of the most harmful aspects aside from the physical pain of an outbreak for a person.
00:17:57 Courtney Brame: So, I'm leaving that meeting. I left that meeting, I'm sorry. And I just felt like I wasn't heard. I felt like uh in order for any sort of progress to be made that people want to see through me, it's going to have to come from the people who are part of this community who are um impacted directly by having herpes who um who yeah we we just we got to we got to show up. We got to show up. And the people who are showing up for us, I feel like don't represent our population and they need all these different opinions because all they know is herpes stigma. It sucks, right? And the few people that they hear from again and again and again are telling the same stories and telling their own stories. Like for me, I can speak on behalf of all these people, but it doesn't carry nearly as much weight because it's just me.
00:18:53 Courtney Brame: I don't have the backing of people who are like, "Yeah, you know, Courtney's right. You should listen to Courtney. Courtney's done this for a while. Courtney's interviewed 300 people. Courtney has a survey of,00 people. Courtney's been doing this consistently for six years, longer than anybody, longer than any of these people have been in the advocacy space. So, I mean, this ain't no knock to them. They doing what they're supposed to do. They're doing uh they're doing what they're supposed to do, and they're doing it efficiently. So, am I hating? Yeah. because they've been able to gather a community that can rally behind them and show up to these uh types of events where there's money involved and they're like, "Hey, you need to give money to these kinds of organizations and do these things because they have people power. It's politics, man. It's just political. You know, I can be the best potential candidate for president, but if I ain't got people voting for me or telling people why they should vote for me, it ain't going to work.
00:19:52 Courtney Brame: the person who has the best marketing and the most backing, that's who's going to win the position of power regardless of what their intentions are. Like, y'all know my intentions. Y'all know I'm I'm I do this to not have to do this anymore. I would love for people to not get herpes and want to kill themselves anymore. Like, that's what I'm here for. And the sooner I can get to that point, the sooner I can transition on to the next useful thing that I'm going to be able to do or uh I'm going to go into the next focus of whatever my career field is, whatever that may look like. And I don't know, s***, maybe y'all don't want to see me go and that's why y'all ain't stepping up and showing up to these things and yelling about how great uh Something Positive for Positive People is and how impactful it is and how much it's helped. Um, so yeah, if that's the case, all right, cool.
Dating, Self-Certainty, and Being the Best Option
00:20:44 Courtney Brame: Uh, but yeah, I guess I need to just accept that that's a possibility, you know, that it's just pleasant to have this resource here or it's pleasant to have me in this space and have access to me in this way. Maybe there is a little bit of fear of, man, if we really do stigma, Courtney ain't going to be here no more. Let me stop. That's a stretch. But it's fun to think about. All right. uh rant over. I wasn't even supposed to be talking about that. It just came out and I'm actually kind of glad it did. But um the next piece of what I was supposed to be speaking about is just like my experience with dating. And uh I think I shared a negative experience before. I think I talked about how important it is for you to be your best uh option, be the best option. And I talked a little bit about managing expectations.
00:21:38 Courtney Brame: Uh and I wrote this in the podcast description of the expectation management episode, but I talked about how uh like in the animal kingdom, how the female of whatever the species is in most most cases in general, uh the female doesn't have to compete, doesn't have to fight, just kind of is there, just puts herself in the position. And then the males in the area, they have to compete for her. They have to not only be, you know, born probably with more size, with bigger antlers and equipment like teeth or claws, but they also have to have the skills of being able to use those, being able to hunt, being able to protect, being able to uh maintain their environment. They got to have a nice coat, a shiny coat on them to make themselves presentable as the best option for breeding. And it's the fight to the death. Like that's what the males have to do. And metaphorically what it looks like today is, you know, it's being able to um make money, being able to protect.
00:22:46 Courtney Brame: It's not like being able to fight off other animals anymore. That's not what it means to be the top choice now. It's just how well put together your environment is. uh what your genetics are, you know, do you have those strong masculine features? Uh the the things that set you up for uh reproduction that set you up to be appealing to the female. And what that made me think about was just like how the female has the choice essentially and then when we look at the males like the males have to they got to be their best and even being your best just might not be enough. And that really stuck with me and it it kind of f***** with me a little bit because that's an unfortunate reality that your best just might not be enough. My best might not be enough. And I think that uh we have to become masters of our own environment. We got to be masters of self.
00:23:52 Courtney Brame: Um I heard something on a YouTube channel I was listening to. It was like boys are confident, men are certain. It was uh he's not a guru, but he's um freak Bob something. I just watched it. It was a YouTube short, but he said that he said, "Boys are confident, men are certain." And that that resonated with me because I also spoke about how, you know, being alpha isn't necessarily being able to beat the s*** out of or like being able to physically dominate uh the next top person or like the top dog, right? Being able to compete with them. It's really about a sense of self-certainty. What are you certain about within yourself? For me, it's my emotional intelligence. It's my ability to hold space for all energies that exist and allow for them to fully express themselves in their most pure raw form. Whatever that may be. That can be verbally, it can be uh physically, it can be um sexually, it can be uh just processing thoughts.
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: It can be in an artistic way. Whatever way the energy around me needs to be expressed, I am a master of facilitating the environment that allows for it to organically uh express itself and and exist and have whatever experience it is that needs it needs to have. And I think a lot of other people really don't get to understand or fall into what their thing is to be certain about until there's something that happens that makes them default back to whatever that baseline is for them. So for me, like I, I know that I've been my mom's emotional boyfriend. I know that I've been the emotional support for a lot of the women around me. And then as I've become an adult and kind of leaned into that thing, I've figured out that I'm that for my friends as well. And I know how to manage that for myself. And I kind of look for that for myself and other people. And since realizing I was like, "Oh, I'm pretty f****** good at this." Like this is like my thing.
00:26:03 Courtney Brame: I'm so good at it. And oh, the recording was interrupted, but it's still going. Sorry about that if y'all heard my alarm go off. My bad. And then this yoga class just tells me 30 minutes before that I've been added to the class. So now I have to type in no. Uh I ain't going to make it to that. I already planned on doing this podcast. I planned on just chilling hanging with the homies on video games. Anyways, it looks like nothing stopped. So we're going to continue to do this. Um, I forgot where I was. Oh well. So I yeah that all of that aside, man, like looking at how we really have to be certain within ourselves. Uh damn, I should have wrote this down. Yep, I lost it. Uh maybe it'll kind of organically come back up a little bit later, but I'm packing up.
Moving Forward and Creating Stability
00:27:09 Courtney Brame: I'm getting ready to move. I'm excited about what's to come. I already got one suitcase full of stuff and I think it might be under 50 lbs. I hope it is cuz I ain't trying to pay extra. Um, I got a lot of my clothes in there. Uh, and then I got another empty suitcase. I'mma put some more stuff in. And I'mma check these two bags. I got a carry-on that's full of winter stuff. And yeah, I got…. I'm ready, man. I'm really ready for this next part of my life. Like I'm thinking about getting a house in St. Louis, if that's something that's actually realistic for me. But what it does is it forces me into um it forces me into having to succeed and be able to uh look for these speaking opportunities and to be able to present about the work that I do and seek out grants and more opportunities and also being able to work more at uh the the university that I work at.
00:28:06 Courtney Brame: um as well as a couple of other opportunities that I've been given. Um like as a standardized patient, there's an online job that pays $25 an hour. and that part-time job for me, you know, given however often those opportunities do present themselves, it'll be really helpful for me and alleviate me of uh some of the the pressure to, you know, take fast action and try and get money at the expense of moving slower and being able to make more money for myself. So, I'm very grateful for these opportunities that I've been given. Uh, going back home is exciting to me now. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that there may have been some like pinned up resentment towards me going back home, towards my family, but uh this time around, I'm ready. Like I'm, I'm pumped. And I got a plan. Like I I always, you know, have an idea in the past, but this time like I have a plan.
00:29:01 Courtney Brame: I have a vision. And with all the synchronicities that had to occur for me to be able to come back um this time around like I I know I have a much stronger sense of self-certainty in this atmosphere uh coming back into it that is coming back into the atmosphere that is my home. So yeah, um I don't know if I really closed out the animal analogy or why I brought it up or where I was going with it, but it made me think just kind of adding on to what that first of um this series of podcast episodes is about my dating experience. It's that, you know, I think that I've put a lot of emphasis on, you know, who's going to be my person or my people or like just looking for companionship and there really hasn't been much emphasis on me making myself the best option. Uh that instance that I had with uh who I spoke of in the episode two weeks ago was um yeah, it was motivating for me.
00:30:09 Courtney Brame: It was very eye opening for me to just see like, oh, I wasn't her best option. And I wasn't her best option cuz I wasn't the best option. And that's what I'm having to allow myself to strive for, like to be the best option. And it's it's s*** that I already know because I've known it inherently. I've known about it from my friends. I've known about it from podcasts. I've known it from movies I watch, superhero stuff. like we have to be improving and striving. And I think that maybe one of the points I wanted to make was just like for the female of the species who you know dates the male of the species is like they know that they want the best option and they know what their value is. Just like, "Oh, if you want babies, y'all got to fight to the death." And that's the only way to ensure that these are going to be your babies, right?
00:30:59 Courtney Brame: You want to ensure mating, y'all. Yeah. I need to know which one of y'all is the best cuz I'm getting the best option. So, who the best and y'all got to fight to the death? That'd be crazy. Can you imagine if the female of the species had to fight to the death? Like, what would that look like? And we'd have like wounded uh wounded mothers to the to to the children and it probably f****** the birth series. Like it's just so much that really boils down to uh life paralleling um the nature like how human nature and the animal kingdom are so synonymous and uh un complicated until we start throwing our own complications into it. But uh yeah, man. Oh, I really wish that I was able to. Oh, I remember now. I was supposed to just talk about more of my dating experience really. So, um I've had positive dating experiences as well.
Positive Dating Experiences and the STARS Talk
00:32:01 Courtney Brame: And I guess I just haven't really talked about those because, you know, we remember more of the negative than we do the positive. But the STARS Talk has been really powerful for me because I've been able to use that framework to initiate conversations about not just sexual health but also like relationship intentions and being able to lead with that. Um here's where I'm at relationship wise. I would like to have this type of experience. Talking about turnons and avoids like being able to say, "Hey, here are some fantasies I have. Here's some desires that I have." And is it always a yes match? No, but when it is, it's electrifying. Like I've had an experience recently where I was able to say, "Hey, you know, I'd really like this." And I wasn't able to get some of the stuff that I would have liked or what I would have wanted just given that we were able to talk about some trauma. And because of those traumas, it made us, you know, it made me feel good cuz I wasn't just like throwing her into positions that would have triggered her or doing things to her that would have put her into a fight or flight response.
00:33:08 Courtney Brame: And it was just an overall beautiful experience, you know, and I don't know if we'll ever see each other again, but I know that we had a really good time and we checked in afterwards and talked a little bit about it. Um, and the possibility of seeing each other again, but it's… I don't want people to think that I'm just having these negative experiences out here. Um, and this was with someone who doesn't have herpes, and I met her in person, and uh the first the first time we met was in person. I mean, um, and yeah, it just started with me being like, "Hi, I'm Courtney." And, um, I think that it's important for us to hear these positive stories cuz I really haven't been getting any lately now that I think about it. Uh, DMs and private messages. You know, people talk about getting laid, but that's not what that's not like what everybody's out for. Like for me with this experience that I had, you know, it wasn't about sex because even when I saw her, I remember how she was dressed.
00:34:07 Courtney Brame: She's just super conservative. I had no idea what her body looked like. She wore a mask and glasses. I know what her face looked like. But then um when I got to talk to her, she had stepped outside, wasn't wearing a mask, and I was like, damn. Like this energetic pull to you was like, I'm I'm excited because you're all so pretty. And then she took her clothes off. Yo, I was shocked. I was excited. Um, but it was a very pleasant experience to have just from um, going through like that STARS Talk. This s*** sounds corny, but it works. Like the idea of stopping and being like, "All right, hey, you know, so here's my STI status. I normally get tested this often. Um, I like to wear condoms with new partners." Like the s*** don't have to go that way. If you are used to having conversation, you can make it flow a lot more smoothly as long as you get what's most important out there and you get the ball rolling in the direction of being able to communicate and talk about what experiences that y'all want to have together.
00:35:08 Courtney Brame: Like it's a very healthy and sometimes sexy negotiation. So I encourage y'all like whenever I do these disclosure workshops and this practice for us to talk about it and and get comfortable with it, y'all got to show up. Y'all got to be there for these things because it's useful. I'm living proof of it, you know. And um I I keep talking about how, you know, I'm I'm wanting to be more open about my own experiences for the sake of not just being more vulnerable, but giving people real lived experiences for how to navigate this s***. and to see it from a real person's perspective more day in and day out than uh you might just from listening to the podcast episodes and people bringing in just like the positive experiences but it it it's about the real experiences and this was a real experience I had like we got to have a whole weekend of uh well it wasn't a whole weekend just like when things weren't going on but I'm really… now I want to see her again.
00:36:09 Courtney Brame: I should text her after this podcast. something to see how she is doing. Um, but yeah, uh, this it's real. It's real. Like I, I have positive experiences and I don't want to put it out there like I'm just, you know, out here getting rejected or ain't, you know, having no kind of action at all. Um, it's just like I don't want to seem like I'm bragging or anything like that and I don't want to put all my business out there cuz I also don't know if these people are listening to the podcast. So I'm also careful about names and timelines. So yeah. Um yeah, if you if you have questions like about dating or about my dating life, like I invite those, especially in the comments of s*** that I share, but like I I'll always have a conversation with people. One-on-one conversations and dialogue is still something that I enjoy and I like to have with people. But uh all in all, man, I really wanted to just speak to some of my dating experiences and part of the managing of expectations is something that the stars talk is useful for.
Testing Resources and Outro
00:37:17 Courtney Brame: Um and yeah, we we we we have successes out here, but we got to be willing to have failures in order to get those successes. And that's kind of what my lessons have been. And we got to take risks. We got to take chances. We got to live, man. Let's not put all of a priority on this herpes diagnosis s*** or this herpes stigma s*** at all. We, we got this. I got this. You got this. We got this. All right. And we in this s*** together. So, let's be together whenever we get the chance to when we have the opportunities to commune together um and share resources uh and stories and things like that and our experiences. So, uh, if you haven't been tested in a while, I encourage you to follow the link in the show notes and utilize the Shameless Test STI testing, Shameless Healthcare. Uh, I have a link for me to get $50 every time that you all make a purchase.
00:38:16 Courtney Brame: It's a good sponsor, the podcast. They include herpes testing. I will say the tests are expensive. Um, but if you use the link, it'll be worth it at least for Something Positive for Positive People for us to be able to get uh that added money. Um, they the test that they have does include herpes and it includes the same inaccurate test that you'd be getting uh anywhere else. So, um, you know, to take it at your own risk. So, if you're someone who's curious about what type of herpes you have, whether or not you have herpes, um, or if you have a partner that you want to try it out and see if they are positive or not, then I encourage you to check it out. Uh, the link will be in the show notes with the description of the episode or if you're listening directly on the uh, websites episode page, then you'll see it there right away. All right, that concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People.
Transcription ended after 00:39:31
