SPFPP 396: What Herpes Taught Me About Sex
I’ve learned more from herpes about sex and intimacy than I’ve learned in any sex education class, porn video, or any of my more experienced partners.
SPFPP 396 Transcript
00:00:00
Courtney Brame: Hello, welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for Positive People is a nonprofit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma as well as advocating for better sexual health communication between patients and health care providers as well as between sexual partners. Um, quick intro and up to-date stuff. Uh, I'm going to try and keep this to just a couple of minutes so I can get into the content for today's podcast. What I want to talk about is what I've learned about sex uh throughout the course of my herpes diagnosis. We are approaching the 400th podcast episode which if you happen to be in New York City or the surrounding areas and you can make it to Brooklyn on November or I'm sorry on December 12th uh from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. I'm going to host a community karaoke. I'm looking forward to being able to seeing what people who just care about minimizing herpes stigma and getting to bring people together who all are connected through something positive for positive people to some capacity, right?
00:01:52
Courtney Brame: And in addition to that, uh I launched the herpes support new NYC landing page. Uh that is something that you'll find if you go to spf.org. If you are in New York, you'll easily be able to find it. on the popup window. Uh, and that offers you the opportunity to just give your email address for you to be uh sent uh information on local events. Like I'm a big uh karaoke person now. So, uh, if there are things happening and a group of us can get together and go out, it'd be cool to let this be a regular thing. Um, so that's something I'm trying out. If it's successful, cool. If it's not, then we just move on to the next thing. Uh, I am also hosting the herpes support group. So, with the holidays, the schedules are going to look a little funky. So, please contact me if you're interested in attending the support groups.
00:02:45
Courtney Brame: Generally, we will always meet on the 1st and third Monday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time for women. And then for men, it's the second and fourth Monday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. That's for men. Uh, but yeah, with the holidays, I've had to move some things around just with people's availability as well as my self-t traveling. And I want to be on top of that. So, if you are not subscribed to the something positive for positive people newsletter, please do so. Do subscribe. I send out one email a month. It's the early part of the month so that you get a recap of what's happened and an idea of what's to come. And then if you register for anything, then you'll be part of that. for the month of December. We have five Mondays uh in December. So, I want to figure out if I can make something happen for that last Monday and see if we can get people together.
00:03:34
Courtney Brame: Uh I don't know if that's New Year's Eve, though, because if it is New Year's Eve, that's going to change some things now that I'm thinking about it. Oh, it's not New Year's Eve. So, yeah, we'll have something uh planned for that last Monday of the month. I don't know exactly what, but I'm thinking maybe having a blended group or maybe even host some type of a practice dating scenarios or something because that's what we're getting into. Um, I have my fingers crossed. I'm 99% sure that this is going to happen. The only 1% of it not having happened is the uh delivery of the funds. But it's looking like we're going to get to do some sexual health conversation simulations uh personally. So we can make some videos that give you all real-time examples of what it'll look like for people in a variety of relationship styles and presentations, gender expressions, having conversations with partners in different scenarios about moving forward sexually with one another and dating and discussing different health conditions and diagnosis and just what comes up naturally when you're dating somebody.
00:04:48
Courtney Brame: Let's say dinner ends and you're wanting to take things back to your place. What does that conversation look like? How can that conversation look in a way that's not cheesy or that's going to ruin the mood or anything like that? So, I want to acknowledge that uh we are anticipating the resources to be able to do that and make it happen. And so I'll be putting out a casting call for people who can be patient actors or not patient actors who can be uh actors in these scenarios because I want it to be a variety of people with various representation uh between able-bodiness and gender and uh monogamy, nonmonogamy, negotiating kink scenes, maybe even sharing mental health conditions um and these things going well and them not going well. but for these to also be learning experiences that we can use and educate ourselves and teach from. That was not a couple of minutes and I'm sorry, but these are things that I'm very excited about. I recently gave a talk at Eastern Michigan University at their school of nursing program and this went really really well.
00:05:52
Courtney Brame: Uh we're in conversations about possibly working together in the future. Uh for those who don't know, one of the things that I do through something positive is create these simulated experiences with health care professionals and their clinics to be able to practice taking a sexual history and delivering a diagnosis with a patient actor so that they can get that real-time feedback from them on what it was like having them as a provider. So, uh I hadn't thought about conducting this with colleges or medical schools. So, if this is something that's on the radar and we make this happen, then we're looking at a massive shift in what's going to be happening here, something positive for positive people. I felt it was important for me to make these announcements because I recently got excited about the fact that I am no longer applying for grants. Uh, and since making that decision, that's where this this releasing like I talk about attachment attached release and I was very attached to getting funding for the work that I do because I do believe it's good work.
00:06:49
Courtney Brame: People tell me all the time how necessary it is, how helpful it is. And I've been looking for not the approval, but the money to be able to continue to do this to make it more sufficient. And in these grant applications, I put so much time, energy, the money that's not being made, I'm not putting money into it, but the hours that go into these applications, it's incredibly ridiculous how long you put into looking for grants, finding the right opportunities, presenting it in a way that meets their format. You kind of have to learn for each individual grant application what they're asking for and present the same information in their language. And I've done that so much over the years that I I decided this ain't for me no more. There's no herpes focused grants that exist and I've been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by trying to make it align with mental health or HIV prevention awareness and it just hasn't worked. So, I'm looking forward to being able to have finally released that.
00:07:46
Courtney Brame: And a couple of days after making that decision, I got reached out to by someone who's been a donor in the past. And this time, they have a significant amount of money for us to put together this pilot project. Well, a project um that allows for us to create these scenarios, which I think is going to be really valuable to the something positive for positive people community. And as we're coming up on our 400th podcast episode, uh, and I mentioned the celebration December 12th, uh, in Brooklyn, New York from 5:00 pm to 900 pm. As we get closer to this, um, I'm I'm leaning towards stopping podcasting for something positive for positive people. And it's not out of a place of um, like boredom or anything like that. It just feels like the right time. Uh, I have been struggling to get podcast guests and I recently had one and the conversation, you know, just left me feeling like, okay, like this was this was great and it's a conversation that I have so often on this platform that I don't think that there's really a need to go beyond 400 podcast episodes.
00:08:56
Courtney Brame: I like to think that people who come into this space, they show up, they listen to what they need to listen to, and then they go on about their business. I think that most topics have been covered. We've gone into some heavy conversations. We've gone into some light, playful conversations, but now something positive for positive people has evolved in such a way that the podcast is now there. I don't think there's a need for me to continue to put that three to five hours a week into that when I can release that uh the the the form that is the podcast and free up the raw material energy and allow for that to go into offering better support groups, offering uh better support calls and offering better yoga therapy and being able to complete my yoga therapy certification. Uh, and also maybe even to start applying for more speaking engagements, for more public speaking, sharing my experience, talking about dating and discussing our sexual health status and yeah, leaning into that that part of myself like I'm a published author now uh in the foundations uh book.
00:10:00
Courtney Brame: Uh, it's got a lengthy title. I'll link that in the show notes here. Um, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I'm presenting at conferences and I think that it's time for me to go ahead and step into that professional lens and not allow for me to pigeon hole myself into uh, oh, I'm a podcaster. My board members been on my ass about this for ever now. And they're just like, Courtney, you're not a podcaster. You're more than a podcaster. And now I'm in a space where I do have to release that identity. It's been eight years and it's something that I've wanted that I've become so attached to as part of my s my sense of self and in releasing that I look forward to see what takes form uh as a result of that raw material energy being freed up. So yeah, I hope that y'all stick around with me throughout that transition. But yeah, episode 400 is coming and I just want to leading up to it speak about what I've learned over the last 12 years from my herpes diagnosis.
00:11:00
Courtney Brame: And today, let's talk about what I've learned about sex. Now, when I first was diagnosed, I did not think that I would be able to have sex again because no one would want herpes. And I thought that that cluster of bumps on my penis would never go away. Uh, jokes on me, it went away. And people do want to have sex with me. But my relationship to sex prior to my diagnosis was it it came from a mindset of women don't like having sex. And I I know that this is because of an ex that I was dating at the time who told me we had a lot of sex. And she was like, "No one is ever going to want to have as much sex as you as I do." Uh and she really she got my ass cuz she was like, "Women don't like having sex. you found the one woman in the world who loves having sex as much as you do. And I believe that.
00:11:52
Courtney Brame: And um I I never challenged it. And there were times where um I would we would break up and then end up getting back together. And it would kind of be true. And it would be true in the sense that I would pursue a sexual relationship with somebody and we might have sex. And it's a new it's a new thing, right? And I would like to do round two, round three. Mind you, I was in college, college age, and uh like early 20s, right? So, we're talking about just a lot of sex with a new person. And it's exciting. It's invigorating. It's arousing. It's pleasurable, right? And she was right. She was right. the other women that I had sex with in between us, um they didn't seem to like having sex nearly as much as she did. And so this relationship was one where uh she to my knowledge doesn't have herpes.
00:12:51
Courtney Brame: And um at the time when we were getting back together, she just assumed that if I had it, we had it like she had it as well. But that ended up not being the case. And so yeah, we would constantly break up, get back together, and in between that whenever I would sleep with someone else, it would be different. It would be so different. Now, mind you, when you have a history with someone, yeah, there's more comfort. There's more rapport. You are used to each other. The jitters are kind of out of the way. And the only thing that uh is an obstacle that's I guess new communication. So we were very much in sync in those sexual relationships or in that sexual relationship we were very in sync but that came with a development of time and history and connection and intimacy and did I say intimacy twice? I might have said intimacy twice but uh our relationship was one of a lot of just comfort.
00:13:48
Courtney Brame: We had a lot of conflict. We worked through it. We didn't work through it and we just knew each other. And so the belief that she instilled in me was something that I never I I can't say I didn't challenge it because I did pursue other relationships and she was right. It was validated by that. But also my definition of what sex was, it was just intercourse. and the more intercourse that I would have, right? Like, you know, people get tired, people, you know, dry out. And there wasn't a lot of knowledge and information that I knew. It took for me stepping into the sex education world and learning about things like how women's bodies operate, their arousals, and the different types of sex that can be had. Because all I knew to that point was I needed to get my dick wet. I needed to catch as many bodies as I could, have sex with as many people as I could, with as many women as I could because that's what, you know, we were told and that's what everybody did.
00:14:53
Courtney Brame: There wasn't any emphasis on intimacy or demisexuality or emotional connection, none of that. It was just like my dick hard. I need to find somebody that's going to take care of this for me. And that I found somebody who took care of it for me all the time whenever I wanted, right? And I think that that relationship, what happened was that it set the expectation for me that this is what love is. And I don't mean just the sex, right? We're whole human beings. And if you look at a circle, there's 360 degrees in the circle. Our expression of sex is one degree of that circle. So the other 359 aspects of me were not okay to this person that I was in a relationship with. It was so much about who I was and not necessarily what I did. And that has played out to be a pattern from that relationship in college even to my most recent relationship where who I am is not okay and it overwrites what I do.
00:15:57
Courtney Brame: So, I look at my relationship to sex and I've I've been consistently met with that belief that nobody else is going to f****** like the person that I'm f******. And I I hate I'm angry at myself for how easily manipulated I was or can be, how vulnerable and susceptible I've been to manipulation just through my dick. And excuse my French, but you these last five podcast episodes like I'mma give y'all the raw essence of what y'all been getting whenever before I got all like professional and s***, right? I still got that, but I don't know that I need to really code switch on this platform. And I think that it's more effective when I just talk to y'all like like real people. Um, but that was the thing. my relationship to sex was exclusively limited to uh my dick. And through me getting herpes, there were times where I think I I don't know that I was ever really actively seeing anyone when I had an outbreak to have to say, "Hey, I'm having an outbreak. We can't have sex tonight.
00:17:06
Courtney Brame: Can we do something else?" I don't think that that was ever the case. Um, I've often been in long-distance relationships or there was some kind of space. And I think that works for me because I I am a very emotionally intense person. I think that that's probably the best way that I can put it. I know that I enjoy connecting early. I like vulnerability now. I want to go deep now. I want to know the worst thing that's ever happened to you. I want to know the best thing that's ever happened to you. I don't give a f*** what you do for a living. I don't give a f*** what your favorite color is, right? Like, tell me about you. And that intimacy has become so f****** attractive to me because I've spent so much of my life being objectified and limited to the performance and uh the performance of what I can do with my genitals.
00:17:56
Courtney Brame: And now through this relationship that I've had with herpes, that has shifted the way that I relate to women romantically and the some of the limitations of okay, well, I have to tell this person I have herpes, so I want to make sure that it's somebody worth me going through the emotional uh fatigue that comes with prepping for having that conversation that preps me for what the outcomes could be, the kinds of conversations that we'll need to have about it. And it made me pick people that I have more intimacy with. And intimacy doesn't necessarily have to be built over time. Like you don't need to know someone for 10 years to feel intimate with them. You don't need to know someone. You can know somebody for 10 seconds and feel like you know them. And in fact, I've experienced that before. And the more raw expression of myself, the more that I can lift my attachment to my form as this black man, lower middle, I say upper, lower class.
00:19:01
Courtney Brame: I got to stop doing that, too. Upper lower class black now 37 year old man with hair on his head, a beard, muscles. I think I'm attractive. I think that I'm decent at sex. I think that my penis size is decent as well. and I've got all of these things going for me. And when I release my attachment to all of these parts of myself, what am I left with? What I'm left with is what I want people to really see for me to be able to give them all of the my form. So, energetically, what it feels like is what intimacy people people say this thing of into me I see or into you I see. But that's what intimacy is. when you are in the presence of someone and you're able to experience yourself almost in your purest form. And I I'm going to take a little side step and hopefully I remember to come back to this, but I had an interaction today with someone that I hurt really f****** badly and had no f****** idea that I hurt her.
00:20:06
Courtney Brame: And this is somebody that we had that intimacy for years and getting into relationships like we've disconnected ourselves and life circumstances have brought us into each other's lives again. And during the time that she popped up into my life was while I was going through the ending struggles of my relationship and I was always, you know, respectful logically, verbally with the uh thinking that my ex and I were going to get back together. Like I was respectfully navigating this transition. But uh what ended up happening was I wasn't being a good person to her. I was honoring the part of myself that was in this relationship. And in doing so, it was minimizing and dismissing this person that was in front of me who I was actually experiencing intimacy with, but I was incapable of receiving it because I was preoccupied with someone else. My presence was not able to be there and with her. And in turn, she did for me what I've done for my relationships, which is give unconditionally.
00:21:15
Courtney Brame: And I got to experience through her telling me how it made her feel and me processing and being like, "Oh s***, I wasn't myself in February, March, April, May, June, July, August." Started to become this new version of myself and accepting it September, October, November. And I was able to sit down with that and apologize to her and take accountability for how I talked to her, how I treated her. And I don't mean so in like an overt s***** person way. It's she gave unconditionally to me, picked me up from the airport, helped me with my bags, drove me to places that I needed to be, got me food, asked me if I was okay, saw me uh and and witnessed me and just was f****** present with me. And I wasn't able to receive that. And I feel like such an a****** because I feel like more of an a****** because I identify myself as somebody who's emotionally aware and emotionally intelligent. And I couldn't I didn't know.
00:22:19
Courtney Brame: Not only did I not know that I was hurting her, it took me so long to know that I was hurting her. And then the fact that I didn't know how I was hurting her. Like I knew I was hurting her, but I didn't know understand like how or why. And now me being in this place of groundedness, of having my routine, being in tune with this atomic language that I use to be my life blueprint of how to live. I'm able to see that s*** so much more clearly. And I'm like, f***, dude. Like, I wasn't able to receive from you. And it felt like being taken from. And I know that feeling all too well because that's very similar to what I felt in my last relationship. Like in hindsight, in hindsight, giving unconditionally to someone that you just want to give to who can't receive it, that f****** hurts. And you may not realize the damage right away, but the damage is happening.
00:23:23
Courtney Brame: And for the other person to not even be able to realize that this person that you that means so much to you that you see in a way that they cannot f****** see themselves that hurts. And it was the connection point of sitting down face to face and me being like, "I hurt you. I now understand why I hurt you and I apologize not just for hurting you, but also for taking so f****** long to understand and realize why I hurt you." because that that that intimacy, me being able to see myself in her when it clicked, I couldn't unsee that s***. And the apology was genuine. The apology was real. It was authentic. It was coming from a place of knowing and believing like, I know I f***** you up. And I I think I got some more apologizing to do for people that came into my life around that time. I thought that I covered all my bases, but I I don't think I did.
00:24:21
Courtney Brame: and this one kind of taught me that. So there's there's somebody else I need to apologize to. I'm I'm going to send her a voice message and like explain that a little bit and hopefully it's received well. So the going back now, oh I I remember to go back. So the intimacy piece, the the the the there's not the. Let me let me stop doing that now. There's no the to like the one thing that I've learned. But I've learned that I can't let other people dictate what sex is to me like I have in the past. I had, you know, we'll take it back to that longest relationship that I had where she was like, "No one is ever going to want to f*** you as much as I want to f*** you or have sex with you as much as I'm going to want to have sex with you." That's b*******. That is absolute b*******. And I believed it up until I got to see for myself and challenge those beliefs that I had with my behavior with putting myself out there with asking for what I want and being like, "Hey, you know, I would like to I ain't saying it like this, but being able to ask for sex and ask for the kind of sex that I want." There was a
00:25:28
Courtney Brame: period where I got it and then it was like, hm, this isn't quite what it is that I'm looking for. What is that thing that I want? I want that f****** intimacy. And a lot of people ain't built for that. I was not built for that at the time that I was receiving it. And so it's important to me now to make sure that there's some understanding and uh compatibility around what intimacy is because the deeper the intimacy that I have and mind you me and this person have not had sex. The deeper the intimacy that I have, I think the greater the quality of the sex if when it does happen. I've met people in a day that we've had some really deep conversations and like inner like reflecting back and forth to one another and deleted her number. But um there's somebody else I need to apologize to. God damn, I I'm on a road to redemption. But also um that that immediate connection or the quick connection that doesn't carry any less weight.
00:26:33
Courtney Brame: It doesn't mean any It doesn't have any less value. I'm making sure my microphone on while I'm doing all this damn talking. Is this on? Yeah, it is. Okay. Green light. Cool. Um, sex has become a presence practice for intimacy. I'm able to connect with people at an intimate level. Like, I don't want to just put my dick in somebody. I can I can jack off of that. I can jack off of that. I've had some of the best non I've had some of the best phone sex has been better than some of the sex that I've had. And it's been a long time since I've had that like cookie cutter sex. I think the most recent time that I had it. Might have been after a drunk night. And I was like, I I don't want to drink anymore. I don't want to I don't want to have sex because I feel like I have to anymore.
00:27:17
Courtney Brame: I want intimacy. Like I know that that's what I want. That's what I'm built for. That's what I desire. That's what my soul is calling for. My nervous system is calling for intimate connections and relationships. And not only do I have that in my romantic and sexual relationships, I have intimacy in my friendships. I came in I'm I'm in St. Louis right now. I saw my buddy Carl. And the way that I left St. Louis, I can honestly say is kind of a parallel of how I know he was at the time like at that that intimate level because the people around us very much reflect our internal world. my internal world was at conflict and I I know that his was too. And now coming back with such clarity, having been in an environment where I've been able to ground myself and have some consistency and stability and build this way of living, this blueprint of how to live.
00:28:13
Courtney Brame: I come back and Carl has a relationship with God and the language that he used is from the Bible, you know, God, Christianity I want to say. And that language now more so aligns with me through the language that I've created around my my or not created but the language that I've used and the language that I've experienced through yoga meditation learning about the nervous system comparing it to the solar system and atoms same things. And so I'm I'm validated in my external environment by my internal world. So St. Louis hasn't changed. I left St. Louis and I changed and I came back and now like where I'm at is a direct reflection of that. I went to uh I went to a what was supposed to be some type of a play party thing last night. It was marketed very poorly because that was not a play party. A sex toy store uh had their theaters open and they just charged you $25 to go into the theater and maybe if you wanted to go to the other side there was a bed in the room and a glory hall.
00:29:16
Courtney Brame: I I I went I I saw like throwback p***. It was two p*** stars that I remember growing up on like the the first p*** stars that I saw when I was 17, 18 years old. Uh Havana Ginger, Khloe Dior, and I cannot remember the other lady's name, but I was like, I know y'all. And then LT and uh what's his name? Like Sean Shawn Michaels. I think it was Shawn Michaels. That's crazy. I remember their names. That's how much p*** I watched when I was a teenager. So, uh, I I just sat there and was like I went with a friend and, uh, his girl and I was just like, I'mma wait. I'mma wait to see if more people come. I was like, man, let me get up out of here. This ain't for me. This is not for me. And I realized that I I feel that way about a lot of the play parties and things that I go to.
00:30:03
Courtney Brame: Like, I I'm very curious and interested in sexual exploration. There's things that I want to do. And I think in order for me to have those experiences, I got to quit being a little b**** and just throw my own party and just ask for it and say, "Hey, this is the kind of experience I want to have. These are the people that I want to be here. I want to open it up to these kinds of people that meet these values and align in these ways. Let's make this s*** happen." And I'm I'm learning to communicate more about my sexual needs the more that I experience intimacy. I'm learning to not just ask for what I need in sex. Let me not say that. I'm learning to ask, hey, um, can I, oh, can I stay at your place? Can you take me to this place? Can I use that thing of yours? I'm learning so much about vulnerability the more I occupy this space of intimacy and vulnerability.
00:31:03
Courtney Brame: And in a women's support group, we were talking about this intersection of vulnerability and intimacy, which I thought was a really lovely conversation because also boundaries came up. And someone was expressing like a a conflict between being vulnerable and having boundaries because it's almost like the boundaries protect your vulnerability. And someone said this where the boundaries are more of like an entrance point. Uh it's not a limitation. It's more of a checkpoint of being able to proceed with deeper intimacy uh and vulnerability. I think I I don't know that that's how it was said exactly, but boundaries are not limitations. And I think that that's what we think of when we think boundaries. We think barriers. And that's not the case. Like that's that's what I thought for the longest. I thought, you know, if there's people that I need to have boundaries with, why don't I just disengage? Why don't I just distance myself from these people? But I'm I'm figuring it out.
00:32:04
Courtney Brame: The boundaries I I need I have boundaries for myself. And the boundaries for myself allow for me to engage in the world with the world in a way that does not compromise my core identity. And when I talk about, you know, uh Brock from God of War, I'm this is one of my favorite quotes. The nature of a thing is more important than the form of a thing. The nature of a thing is made up of the emotional investment that we pour into it. It is our money, our energy, attention, time. Shout out Coach Greg Adams for the MEA acronym. And all of those things that we pour into uh we pour into the world, they take form. And the form that it takes is a direct reflection of our inner world. So if we are uh believing exclusively that we are our genitals, we're going to manifest partners and relationships and circumstances that solidify that. And what we want is for ourselves to have like a fluid life, a fluid identification with the world around us and what uh identities, challenges, events uh present themselves around us.
00:33:13
Courtney Brame: We want to have a fluidity there so that when it does take form, unconsciously we are always pouring into something. There's an emotional investment. Consciously we have to release that attachment so that it's like it's like we cooking up something. We cooking it up. We cooking it up. We're cooking it up. And when it's time for it to release, it's time for it to release. Now, with people, if we're in an aligned relationship, we're constantly going to be changing and reflecting the change in the other person. And it's an attachment release and attachment release. And I think that these are the relationships that align for me are ones that there's a consciousness to it of attaching and releasing and understanding that we going to change. I'm not releasing you like get the f*** out of my life, but it's this version of you. It needs to now be released from me. And if you release my version of my form that I've taken uh from you, then that leaves room for if you still align.
00:34:13
Courtney Brame: And if I still align, for us to take new form in a way that creates that alignment for us to come together and create whatever the f*** it is that we create, whether that be an experience, whether that be uh a passion project, a a whatever it is that people create. and not just children, right? So the experiences can be had when we attach release and I find myself drawn to very released people, people who are not attached and not this isn't to say that they're like detached from the world entirely like f*** everything, but it's that they're open to what comes in and naturally flows. There's an attachment and then consciously there's the detachment. I love somebody that can do that. I love me a f****** being who is not someone who is so attached to an identity and that there's a fluidity to them. And the the more roles and identities that we begin to attach to and give form to, when we hold on tight to those, we allow for ourselves to become more rigid and calcified.
00:35:24
Courtney Brame: And I did this with my identity of wanting to have a family, wanting to be a family. In my last relationship, I created an identity of myself that was uh monogamous or possibly monogamous. Uh in a long-term relationship, I pictured what my kids looked like with this person. I pictured what growing old would look like, what the home would look like. I was ready. And I poured so much emotionally into that that when it released, everything that matched who I truly am began to just f****** flood into my life. People, finances, opportunities, career shifts, and the things that no longer align. There just wasn't room for. And you know, whatever the circumstances happened for me to be kind of nudged out of that community, I'm I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for it because it did in fact give my the the energy that was freed up a pathway for it to go in the direction of something that does more so align with me and it aligns with these identities that I carry that I don't want to you know I I identify with but I can't say that I'm so attached to that they're not me and I I have the roles that I maneuver through as necessary between being a podcaster right so now I've podcast
00:36:43
Courtney Brame: I've done podcasting, but I don't have to be a podcaster. I'm Courtney and the role of podcaster, you know, was something that suited. And now I think it's time for me to begin the process of letting go. I've loved podcasting. The same way that I loved the idea of getting a grant and being able to do this work and be paid for it, as I let go, I'm finding that there are so many more opportunities for me to earn income. and they've presented themselves uh in ways that do more so align with who I am now and where I'm at. I'm so much more comfortable educating and teaching. I had to do my first presentation by myself. I managed to do two of them by myself and I didn't die. And that was another thing like I became so attached to the idea of being able to work with my my partner, my my girlfriend, my my my person, right? And the first time that I did it without her, without that someone filling that role, because I even tried to fill the role with another talk that I gave.
00:37:41
Courtney Brame: I reached out to someone for help. And I realized from then I was like, damn, you know, I I I see that this wasn't something that was needed. It was something that I wanted. I wanted to bring my person into my life and have that that intimacy. People call this s*** a meshment, but like I I think that what I've been wanting is someone that's so aligned that we can do everything together. I used to every my last couple relationships, the idea was um I would say this like, "Oh yeah, we do everything together. Everything." Wink wink. Right. And I've I've I've fell for the trap. I've been told, hey, this is what this is what it's gonna be. We will do that only if dot dot dot. And the if was conditional on me changing. And even then, like it was just hoping that over time I change my mind or become somebody else. And that's I I got to stop needing to learn that f****** lesson.
00:38:48
Courtney Brame: And so it's been again just through sex, through intimacy, and the development of my identity. outside of sexuality that has changed what my relationship to sex is. So going to these conferences and being in these spaces of queer women, like I've been able to get this completely unique perspective on what my identities are outside of sex, being a man, being black, being fit, being attractive, being someone who does value sex. I love having intercourse and that's not exclusively what it is. like that. That's part of the package. But now there are the the the kinky things. There's the roleplay. I I think I've learned I said this. I was like, I ain't really a kinky person. I really do enjoy having sex. There are things that fall into the category of kink. Uh especially like roleplay. I tell everybody I got this fantasy about uh like a Chick-fil-A employee f****** on my order.
00:39:48
Courtney Brame: Now Chick-fil-A never f**** up your order, right? But the hottest thing, one of the hottest things that I want to do is role play like a scenario where the person, she forgets my Chick-fil-A sauce in the bag and I get to just be an a****** because I'm never an a****** to the people that handle my food, servers, uh, waitresses, hostess, whatever. And for me to just be an a****** for her to be like, "Oh, well, is there anything I can do to to make it right? I get off soon." Like that that is so hot to me. And lately I've felt a little bit more comfortable saying that and sharing that kind of thing. Um, but I think yeah, the role plays are what appealed to me the most uh out of the King stuff. And I feel so much more comfortable just like naming that and saying that like, hey, I I'm honestly not I don't care to like I'll try s***. Um, but there's nothing that appeals to me about like beating the s*** out of somebody.
00:40:43
Courtney Brame: Like I I've seen people with the boxing gloves and they do the boxing gloves or like the spankings. They can be so loving and caring, but there's just like a f****** evilness to it that I've seen. And I don't know. I don't I don't have like a desire for an expression of that. I got some toxic s*** in me that I think needs an outlet for me to be able to, you know, pour into whatever it is that I'm going to pour into. Um, and I think that kink is a good outlet for that. I was talking to a partner of mine about it. I was like, "Yo, everything is so healthy for me right now. I I wonder if I'm bored. I wonder if I'm like needing to find somebody who's toxic and like date somebody like that." And she was like, "Well, no." And we talked about just like maybe roleplay kink stuff and being able to negotiate that. And I got a little excited about that.
00:41:36
Courtney Brame: So, I'm I'm hoping to, you know, be able to find something like that. uh some kind of a relationship dynamic that works in that way. Um but I am very happy, content, satisfied, fulfilled everywhere else in my life. I I'm feeling a pull for some toxic s***. And the the toxic s*** is not intimacy. So maybe the intimacy is being able to roleplay and and just express like, hey, I'm having a craving for something toxic. And I don't want to unconsciously create that s*** if it's going to be something that because I feel like life is about balancing work, rest, and play. And maybe that that boredom that's coming because I'm in a peak work mode until like February. Maybe it's just like time for little little decompressions of that. So, what herpes has taught me about sex is that I value intimacy. What herpes has taught me about sex is that I value intimacy. I value vulnerability and the ability to express my insecurity and then be able to lean into that s***.
00:42:43
Courtney Brame: I love being able to lean into and talk about like, hey, you know, I have concerns that uh it's vulnerable to me to be open about my life because I haven't been in a long time because I feel like it put me in a position where someone can see how I show up, who I am, and then say, "Hey, Courtney, I'm going to give you everything that you want." And then I, you know, lean into that and believe it and then look up and they didn't really mean that s***. Because now, like looking back, it's happened enough times for me to be like, "Huh, I got a problem." And so, I'm doing what I got to do. I'm doing the work on myself to be able to sort through that and not be manipulated so easily by my dick or by someone who can just control my dick, right? Like, I I'm I'm having great sex, so there's not like a pursuit of better sex. And when I get it, I'll be like, "f*** everything and everybody else." Uh,
00:43:39
Courtney Brame: I'm I'm I'm done. I'm done with y'all. I found the best sex in my life. No, it's the the intimacy. And it does not have to be limited to one person or one outlet. You know, I have intimate relationships with people that I've had sex with less than a handful of times that carry so much more weight than somebody that I've had sex every day with. I've had intimacy with people that I've had sex with, I have sex with regularly, that I barely even talk to that we know each other on a much more intimate level whenever we do get to connect. And intimacy, I don't want to put any rigidness on it or any like this is what intimacy is, but I do want to encourage y'all see what that's like. Challenge your relationship to sex. Ask yourself, what is sex to me? What does it mean? And people will say s*** that sounds good. Oh, it's connecting.
00:44:32
Courtney Brame: It's love. It's passion. Sometimes it's just getting off. Sometimes it is intimacy. Sometimes it's it's a lot deeper. Like there was uh a friend of mine, well, someone that I thought we were friends and we were having sex with each other and she expressed not wanting to have sex anymore, but wanting to be friends. I said, "Okay, great. I'm fine with that, you know, but are you going to stop talking to me when you find a boyfriend and he doesn't like that me and you have had sex? And her response was, it was over text and I got to stop doing this s***. Don't have deep conversations over text. Because the way that I read it, her response was, well, if that if that's a problem for him, then I'm going to do what he wants. And that made me just feel so s*****. It was like, damn, you don't value this thing that I know and value about myself so much, my the emotional connection, the intimacy.
00:45:24
Courtney Brame: You are basically saying this new n**** that's come into my life for a short period of time is going to mean more to me than you as someone who is or will be or has been in my life as much as you have who gives unconditionally. And I'm I'm receiving or taking from I'm cutting that s*** off when this man expresses an insecurity. And I felt offended as f*** by that because like I know that I've she's expressed being treated very well by me even just in being friends or even outside of the sexual context. And what I heard was that don't mean s*** to me because when I get a man like that the person who gives me the title of girlfriend gets everything and I'm willing to cut people off. So we've since had a conversation and that wasn't the case. But that's how serious I am now about my intimacy, my intimate relationships, and the people that I allow, you know, myself to get close to. So, damn, this feel good.
00:46:22
Courtney Brame: This don't feel like venting. It feels very aligned with what I hope y'all take from this. I I keep saying, man, the herpes Oh, here come the fire truck. Sorry, y'all. Sorry. Ah, I'm sorry. All right, the fire truck going to be gone. Okay, herpes is so representative of so much other s***. Like, if you are willing to learn from it and ask the questions around it, because I wouldn't have looked at my relationship to sex if herpes wasn't on my dick and make me look at my relationship to sex. And it made me have to do so much work and self-exloration and be curious and ask these questions and be willing to interrogate myself in order for me to get here. And another thing that my herpes diagnosis has done is it's led me to a spiritual relationship to myself, a spiritual relationship uh relationship with God. Uh and I I'll talk about that on another one of the episodes.
00:47:29
Courtney Brame: But I feel like uh today I just felt more most called to talk about sex uh and that relationship because it has in fact evolved to being about intimacy. I can't just look at somebody and be like, "Damn, you bad." Or, "Damn, you got a fat ass." And I love I love me some thick eyebrows and a wide mouth, y'all. I don't know what it is. I I It's It's that f****** uh the painting. There's the woman that has like one eyebrow. I forget her name, but that that woman is like the most beautiful woman to me in the whole wide world. Like the most beautiful expression of art. Like I I ain't never said this like on a podcast, but the the it's the the full eyebrows and the wide mouth that does it for me. I don't know why, but other than that, like if I see that on somebody, I want to get to know you, right? That draws me in. Um, I still like nice butts.
00:48:24
Courtney Brame: But anyways, yeah. Um, I appreciate this space that I've created. I appreciate how intentional it has been. And I think, yeah, come episode 400, I look forward to being able to release my attachment to this from the last eight years. And it's been representative of 12 years of my life. And I it's kind of like cashing in on what I put into it. like breaking the piggy bank to see what comes out of it on the other side. Looking at who I've become, I think that me having these podcast interviews for the general population, I don't think that that is a reflection of who I am now on the inside. I think that what's a reflection of who I am on the inside now is to be determined. And it's going to come from me doing more of these public speaking engagements, me reaching out to colleges and universities, which I I keep getting this pull towards. And yeah, being able to speak beyond just sex and herpes and stigma and identity, but also consent, boundaries, and accountability and what it looks like to talk to your partners about sex at, you know, even the college age level because it ain't nobody that in the man, no man, I think is doing this.
00:49:35
Courtney Brame: A lot of people are f****** telling people what to do and ain't nobody asking, "Well, what do you want?" and helping them get to that place. So, I feel like there's been an evolution in my atom of purpose to really align more so with that that uh that that part of myself like I I'm I'm different. I'm different now. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have become different because I don't know I don't know what else I would have done. I don't know. I don't know who else to be now. This is this is me. This is me. So, thank y'all for listening. I'm gonna go ahead and upload this podcast episode. Now, if you notice, I wasn't looking at the camera. I was just kind of like looking off because it made it easier for me to be able to speak without having to second guessing of, "Oh my god, I'm saying this on the podcast. Oh no,
00:50:24
Courtney Brame: what if somebody listens to this? Oh, I'm be honest. I don't give a f***. I I I'm I've said what I said and I think I stand by everything that I say. I think I stand by everything I say. I do stand by everything that I say. And yeah, I'm I'm gonna go hard for these last few podcast episodes. I don't want it to feel like I'm forcefully squeezing the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube. I want this to feel like completion. My values I my my shell two of an atom. My my seeds are curiosity, creativity, connection, community, choice. And I think that the sixth one because electron shell two of an electron has six electrons before creating another orbit or before it goes the new electrons go to another orbit. The sixth one is completion. And I feel like I've brought something positive for positive people podcast to a place of completion.
00:51:20
Courtney Brame: And now it's just a matter of rounding out the edges for these last few episodes. Um I got an interview with a man lined up. We're going to talk about addiction. We're going to talk about uh his relationship to uh his diagnosis and what he's been experiencing. I feel like that's something worth, you know, closing this out with. We got the 400th episode, which uh I don't know. I don't know what to do for that, but I know we're going to have the event again December 12th, 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in Brooklyn, New York. The zip code is 11206 if that's something that's important to you. But when you register, I'll send out an email uh letting everybody know where the event is going to be if you registered for the event. All right. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all. I feel like my my f****** tone back and now I'm about to stop doing the podcast.
00:52:07
Courtney Brame: That's crazy. Uh but if you uh do care to continue to listen to me, I will be on self. Uh that's s. And that's where I'm going to just be talking more like this about my personal experiences. and it's kind of like my out loud journal where I process things. So, I did a little bit of that here, but not in the amount of detail that I do over on that podcast. So, if that's something of interest to you, you are more than welcome to come check that out. And I'll be exploring more of the atomic language and and like putting into practice what my spirituality is and hopefully being able to implement that and integrate that into my work as a yoga therapist and as an educator in the sexual health communication space. All right. So again, love y'all. Until next time, stay present. Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people who are navigating herpes stigma. Uh we're winding down to our 400th podcast episode, which if you are located in or near Brooklyn, New York, and you're a listener, I invite you to come check out Karaoke Night. We'll be celebrating our 400th podcast episode release and eight almost nine years. It's closer to eight and a half if I'm being honest. is close to eight and a half years of podcasting of interviewing people living with herpes about their experiences uh from diagnosis to dating and discussing this with their other partners. Um Mondays are for something positive for positive people. So every Monday evening 7:30 p.m. Eastern time um until something needs to change uh we have either the women's support group or the men's support group and these meet virtually.
