SPFPP 323: When I Get That Feeling, I Need Relational Healing
There's an accountability in relationships that just doesn't come with dating that allows us to heal things that we never will if we let our fear of rejection for having herpes get in the way. It's not just the rejection that can happen . . . Listen to this one. We touched back into the essence of this podcast that I've gotten away from for a while now. I realized that this morning while recording this. Herpes stigma doesn’t have to dictate how we go about navigating relationships.
Episode 323 Transcript
Intro and the Mission to Train Healthcare Providers
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 serves as the go-to hub of sexual health communications resources for people navigating herpes stigma. We train people in the field of sexual health services as workers organizations to offer stigma-free communication. We also teach people how to talk about their sexual health. Ya’ll… This is such a crucial skill as we're learning over the years that people just don't know.
Courtney Brame: I like to say offer “how” of STD prevention and STI prevention and sex education even. We talk about things that can be done to help, but how do we go about, implementing these things, what does it look like in practice? So, what we're doing here at Something Positive for Positive People, especially with this upcoming conference on May 23rd, 2024, if you have not gotten your tickets yet, please go ahead and do so.
Courtney Brame: And if you're at an organization, we have sponsorship opportunities that include some tickets for your employees to be able to go. and at this conference, what we're going to do is talk about what that looks like. I'll be introducing the framework for how we train and give practice to health care professionals on servicing people for their sexual health related needs. And I'm not going to go into too much detail about it. You have to be at the conference in order to receive that bit of information. But this is a really big deal, This is a big deal for not only myself, but for the nonprofit organization as well. And even the work when we look at herpes stigma because it's not just about, you've got herpes, now you're dirty.
Why Standard STD Prevention Isn't Enough
Courtney Brame: That's the surface level of what it is, but we really need to understand the symptoms of herpes stigma and how the core of that really comes down to how sex education doesn't teach us about sexual health communication. Neither does STD prevention. When I look at the articles that come out year-over-year about how we're seeing a rising alarming rate of new sexually transmitted infection rates, all we see is a proposal to just throw more money at it. We need more money. We need to give out more condoms. We need to do more testing. That's not what it is.
Courtney Brame: talking to people and talking to the people who've had experiences navigating STI stigma, talking to people who have tested positive, who've had to go through this communication process with their health care professionals. and the survey that we've been doing, we've got more than 1,200 responses at this point to the herpes stigma survey. And it's not just do you have herpes and what are your symptoms. We're talking about interactions with health care providers that perpetuate stigma that enable people to go on and not want to talk about their sexual health with partners who don't engage in or initiate conversations about sexual health with their health care providers.
Courtney Brame: the very people that they're receiving the information that can reduce the risk of being exposed to an STI. And we can do so much better with just giving health care providers the practice and the training that they need in order to be able to offer stigma-free sexual health care. And in doing so, not only are we mitigating the symptoms of stigma in the health care setting, but we're also mitigating the symptoms of stigma between people who are dating, in relationships, who are sexually active because we're giving them the tools and resources that they need to talk about their sexual health.
Courtney Brame: And this gets a lot deeper because so much of it is also harm reduction because when we incorporate the elements of Something Positive for Positive People’s intervention program that support sex education resources and STD prevention efforts, what we is that we're not just talking about how to talk about sex, but also relationships. And we're looking to receive consent, what it means to see boundaries in action, and how to uphold and respect those boundaries, and how to seek support in the event that something doesn't go How to not only receive a no, but how to also say no, and what a really looks like. and understanding the complexities of people just changing their mind even.
The Ripple Effect of Stigma-Free Care
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: So, as a secondary effect of us going in and training health care professionals on offering stigma-free care, we've got such a trickle… a trickle trickle down effect, a ripple effect of people who are sexually active going on to have stigma-free conversations with their sexual partners that create the space necessary for people to discuss their sexual health status. whether that be with a positive infection or if you're positive for something or negative, but the general population is not receiving this information. It's people who test positive for something and then go on and look for resources that find this. Why is it that the default for STD prevention is surrounding people doing things that just are supposed to prevent you from getting STI?
Courtney Brame: This excludes people who are living with one from the conversation. And these are the people who we need to be having conversations with. It's not a matter of, " man, I talked to that dude with herpes and I don't ever want to get that, so I'm going to make sure that I do the things that are said in STD prevention." No, it's what lessons are being learned post outcome that can be incorporated preemptively before a person is even sexually active or thinking about sex or talking about not even I won't say that far back but there are ways to incorporate these communication skills that people learn after their diagnosis and all of the work and the research that has to go into that and the trials and errors
Announcing the First SPFPP Conference
Courtney Brame: that occur when a person is going through the process of dating, seeking information, looking for answers to how they're supposed to navigate conversations with their sexual partners. There's a lot here. And without me delivering the presentation, I'm saying y'all is May 23rd, 2024, I'm asking that you consider coming to this More details and the tickets are on sale at www.spfpp.org/conferences and that's with an s at the end. All right. This tab is going to have the upcoming conference, the date, the details, a link for you to be able to register and purchase the tickets. Anyone who has already purchased tickets, please be on the lookout for an update coming to you by March.
Courtney Brame: I'm in the process of getting the Zoom links and everything in order. I don't want to give it out too soon because I don't want people passing it around. So, y'all just bear with me, to me. This is new for me and it's going along very smoothly. I called a consultant to shout out to Steph Zapata from the Slam Sexuality Liberators and Movers conference. She's been facilitating that conference for years now. And so she was able to come in and help us with giving the consultations that we need in order for us to have a smooth process in setting this up. So I have invested finances into this and been able to move forward in a way that the people who are going to be purchasing tickets are going to get exactly what it is they're coming for. The conference is from 10:00 a.m. central time to 400 p.m. Central time. and we have four presenters. We're sponsored by the American Sexual Health Association.
Courtney Brame: Shout out to them as well as Wisp. I'm so grateful that we were able to get some sponsors to support being able to pay our presenters as well as any costs of the software that are in place as well. So, we doing this. This is a really big deal for me because I've never planned a conference. I've never really been big on events, but for 2024, that's going to be a huge part of our fundraising efforts. This conference is the launchpad of the rest of what Something Positive for Positive People is going to be doing. not to say that we're leaving the herpes space. here. We've even brought back therapy for people with herpes. I'm in the process of collecting more therapists who can work with more people in a broader way across different states. I don't know about other countries, just other states. All right. So, we keep that in the United States.
The "Brag or Nag" Provider Directory and Sponsors
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: just so I don't get in trouble with the IRS or anything. and as mentioned this is virtual. Everybody can join the… I got to be careful what I say because I have to leave some for the conference. I need y'all to be there. Please come to the conference and get this information. We are going to announce the training program where we are giving health care providers and organizations practice with providing sexual health services. On Something Positive website, there's a directory tab and that's called brag or nag.
Courtney Brame: It's called directory, but the page is brag or nag where you can fill out a form where you talk about what a professional in the sexual health realm has done well for you or what they've done poorly for you. You can give us their contact information. You can share that experience and that story. Get that to me. I need to stop- get that to us at Something Positive for Positive People and we'll reach out. We'll contact these people and we don't have to use your name and say what you said about them exactly but we need to know who is sSomething Positive for Positive People community approved to have people reach out to them for their services. So whether that be STI testing, whether that be treatment, whether that be for sex education resources these are all things that exist and people don't know exist.
Courtney Brame: So, if you found a hidden gem of a place where you can go and get testing and treatment done, please visit the directory tab on spf.org's website. All right? And once you do that, I'll compile this information. I'll put it up on the website so that people can see where we're going to get high quality services taken care of for ourselves. All speaking of, Shameless Care, this is an organization that offers at home STI test kits. You and it includes a herpes test for HSV2. It's a blood test and I believe they only test for HSV2 at this time.
Courtney Brame: So, if you're someone who likes discreet, to be discreet, you don't want to leave your house, getting in for an appointment is going to be challenging for you, then you can go to shamelesscare.com/spfpp… what tab is that on Something Positive site? STI testing. It's the STI testing tab on Something Positive for Positive People website. You can go and check that out. And if you click that link, whatever purchase you make, you'll get a percentage off and Something Positive for Positive People gets paid for that as well. If you're looking for alternative treatments to your outbreaks, if you're having any physical symptoms of herpes, Vanquish Care is one of BISE's products, the… hold on, let me make sure. Yeah, the STD coach. and she's on our partners tab as well, spfpp.org/partners.
Courtney Brame: You can check out her Vanquish Care products and get a discount on those and we're part of her affiliate program and we'll receive some money for that as well. So, yeah, if you're listening to this and you have not purchased a ticket to the conference, I invite you to please do so soon because early bird ticket prices are up now. That is not going to always be the case. All right. So, yes, if you are wanting to be a sponsor, please reach out to me, courtney spf.org. I wanted to keep this podcast episode short because I don't think that there's really any that I've done exclusively talking about the one thing that is getting the most of my attention right now, which is planning for and executing this conference. The theme is sexual health is mental health. We're going to talk about stigma in the healthcare field.
Expanding the HSV Stigma Survey and Outro
Courtney Brame: Stigma in therapy and the mental health field. I'm going to bring all of those things together and tie it into the keynote, which is going to be a presentation and analysis of the 2024 HSV stigma survey. You've probably seen that I've been posting this all over the place trying to get people to take it, especially I am on dating sites. I'm on Positive Singles dating app and I am so aggressively looking for men to take this survey. I put in the sur I put in my profile the survey and I've got myself showing up to men who are interested in men and I am messaging people and I'm like hey take this survey like I'm matching with dudes and everything.
Courtney Brame: I need people taking this survey so that we can have more representation of men. Even if they're not straight men, I don't care. We need more men's perspective in this space. And so hopefully the nonstraight men showing up are going to have straight men "Wait a minute, that's not my experience. I'm going to get involved." So if we got to tap into that competitiveness, we can. But yeah, this is the episode that is exclusively for the conference. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. how to get in contact with me. I am Courtney spf.org and we are doing so much more through the website directly. If you haven't been seeing me on social media, please reach out and get subscribed to our monthly newsletter which has all of the updates for something for positive people coming to your inbox directly one time a month. All right'all, till next time. Thank you.
Meeting ended after 00:15:29
