SPFPP 407: Presence Over Performance
Are you trying to find a "magic script" to get someone to accept your STI status? This week on Something Positive for Positive People, Courtney Brame is setting the record straight on why dating requires presence, not performance.
Triggered by a frustrating support call with a listener who wanted a manipulative script to "get laid," Courtney breaks down why treating dating as a transactional performance is a guaranteed path to rejection. Tune in as he discusses the importance of aligning your beliefs with your behaviors to build genuine trust. Courtney also shares crucial SPFPP updates, including massive website growth, new boundaries for booking support calls, his upcoming presentation at the STI Prevention Conference in Atlanta, and why it is officially time to replace the isolating concept of a herpes "disclosure" with a collaborative "discussion."
Links & Resources Mentioned:
Subscribe to the SPFPP Newsletter: spfpp.org/herpes-newsletter
Get Tickets for the NYC Expo (Aug 29): spfpp.org/expo
Request a Donation-Based Support Call: spfpp.org/herpes-support-call
Full Transcript
Intro, Non-Profit Growth, and Social Media Struggles
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Yes. All right. Hello and welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supporting people who are navigating herpes stigma. In addition to that, we are teaching people how to discuss their herpes status with partners. We're also teaching people in the medical field how to deliver a diagnosis and to talk to their patients, not just about their herpes status or questions they may have, but also about how to communicate with partners about sex and sexual health in a way that is free of stigma.
If you're watching this, you'll notice that my background's different. I rented a little space in the library and I thought they had little studio rooms, but these are like classroom settings and I don't know if I like this. So today we are going to see what it looks like and go from there. I'm trying to orient myself in a way that doesn't make me look crazy, but I don't know that that's going to happen.
00:01:08 Courtney Brame: All right, so I got my notes, so I'm going to be able to stay on topic. I like setting the expectation of just one podcast recording per month because if I do two, yay, that's a bonus. And it just so happens that I have two. So, I'm recording this one now, which I had to reserve the space for in advance. And then someone reached out to me. We're going to be doing another recording today, this afternoon, and I'll release that in the middle of June, along with the newsletter.
If you are listening to this podcast episode and you have not signed up for the Something Positive for Positive People newsletter, please do. It's spfpp.org/herpes-newsletter. And if you even just Google "herpes newsletter," it'll be the first thing that comes up. Yay. Because it took a lot of work to get there as well.
So let's go through the housekeeping. Just so you know, the theme of this podcast episode is motivated and inspired by a recent support call that I had.
00:02:11 Courtney Brame: I had a call with a gentleman who I felt sad for. He hung up on me when we got towards the end of the call, after we finally got to the undercurrent of what he was reaching out for. Without revealing any information and making people feel like they can't come to me and share their stories without it being a podcast episode—I'm very careful in how I navigate how I'll talk about this—but yeah, the theme is really inconsistency, manipulation, and also getting rid of that word "disclosure." I use it for the sake of the people who have a relationship to the word being able to find what it is that they're looking for. If they look up "disclosure," "herpes disclosure," "how to date with herpes," and "disclosure status," I want them to be able to find these resources. So, I got to do that.
Okay, first, let's talk about the growth of Something Positive for Positive People. The first quarter of the year, we saw an 82% increase in website visitors.
00:03:12 Courtney Brame: This doesn't mean 82% more people are getting herpes year-over-year. It just means that the people who are looking for herpes support resources compared to last year who were able to find us has gone up by 82%. This is incredible. And then the donations that we received are also up 56%. Which means nothing for me personally because in New York state, while they haven't approved me to run Something Positive in New York, they still take the tax money. So those taxes were a very high amount. I paid more in taxes than I was able to pay myself. So it's a good thing I got a job because otherwise I'd be screwed.
So, that is very annoying in a way, but you know, I get to do this. I'm glad and proud that I get to continue to run this nonprofit organization, even if doing it by the books is killing me, but it is what it is. Social media sucks and there's really nothing more to say about that, but it's difficult for people to access the information that I put out.
Upcoming Events and Support Group Updates
00:04:27 Courtney Brame: If I host an event, like I just had to cancel something that I had planned for June 16th, 17th, and 18th. This was going to be a lunch and learn for mental health professionals where public health was a focus the second day, and then the third day I was going to focus on people with herpes specifically to be able to create this hour-and-a-half-long virtual event. I was going to bring in these presenters to speak to the mental health and then the public health aspect, but I didn't sell any tickets to it. And by selling tickets, I mean make donations for it.
Someone reached out the day I took it down and they were like, "Hey, I saw that there was an event. I was going to register for it." And I was like, ah, I took it down. It's Pride Month. It's Men's Mental Health Awareness Month. It just didn't seem like a good time or an appropriate placement for something herpes-focused, especially if the people that I want to come to the event who are in the health space are going to be prioritizing the themes for the month within their organization.
00:05:35 Courtney Brame: So, it made no sense for me to go ahead and go through with that and be more out of pocket in terms of paying the people that I was bringing in as well. So, I apologize. But if you didn't even know that that was a thing, it's because social media just doesn't show my s***. So, join the newsletter. You can just search "herpes newsletter" online and it'll take you directly to the page. Or anywhere on Something Positive's website, if you just scroll to the bottom, you'll see an option to donate. You'll also see an option to subscribe to the newsletter. I send one to one-and-a-half newsletters on average on a monthly basis. So you ain't got to worry about me spamming you. Even people who sign up for events, they're always like, "Where's the communication?" It's like, "Hey, I put it out once a month." And in the event that there is an event, you'll hear from me even more just to give you updates, right?
00:06:32 Courtney Brame: Speaking of events, August 29th, the Something Positive for Positive People Herpes Conference or Expo is going to be in New York City. The venue, if you were here in 2023 when I had the expo—because I was going to call it the Safe Sex Expo, but the wording on social media was getting a shadow ban—we had a good time. I think there were a total of 60 people altogether that came in and out of it. It's at that same space. So, if you were there, yay. Come to this one, too. Right now tickets are on sale for a recommended donation amount on the website if you go to spfpp.org/expo.
I'm also going to be presenting on August 30th at the STI Prevention Conference, which will be held in Atlanta from August 30th to September 2nd. So, we're going straight from the Expo to the public health space directly.
00:07:33 Courtney Brame: I let y'all know I'm serious about this. I'm taking this thing real seriously and I get to present in front of the people who can directly impact change. My presentation is on safe sex as communicative sex, and teaching that STD prevention really needs to go beyond "wear a condom, get tested, know your status" and more so into "here is how we go about communicating these things between partners so that we can make the most accurate decision when we're deciding to move forward with someone romantically." So I'm excited to be able to present that.
The support groups: the women's group meets the first and third Monday of each month, and then if there happens to be five Mondays in the month, that fifth one will be co-ed. So for the month of June, I am looking to bring in a guest or have a specific topic so that we can have a co-ed group of the men and women so that we can just engage with one another in that kind of a setting around a specific topic.
00:08:37Courtney Brame: So, if you're used to the support group format, think about that, but kind of dialed back a little bit from the relaxedness of it and more structured. There's going to be an integration of the two because I think that free flow of it is important, but I'm coming into this with something for us to free flow around, if that makes sense.
The women's group has really evolved into much more of an ongoing community. That's why we have a meeting on the first and the third Monday, and I'm currently working on a means of having a community space online where we can continue to engage with one another between the support group meetings. Whereas the men's group, I think it just feels more like out loud advice one-on-one. A lot of times guys will have a thing happen—they have an upcoming disclosure or they just got rejected—and they want to come in and know how to deal with this, get the information, and then we might not hear from him again. But so far, I mean, it's the first week of the month and we got four men registered for the men's support group.
00:09:46 Courtney Brame: So, I guess because it's getting hot outside, everybody trying to get back out in these streets. The women's group is very active. I got a lot of registrations for today as well. So, I'm hyped. I'm hyped to be able to present more of an ongoing supportive space. But "community" feels like a more accurate word. So, be on the lookout for us being able to have a community space that isn't Instagram or Facebook or TikTok, but something that can be a little bit more engaging. Hopefully, I'm going to try it out. I get like a 14-day pilot thing that we'll be working out. So, we'll see who's really interested.
Support Call Boundaries: Why You Must Donate
Courtney Brame: Oh, the support calls. This is the last thing and then we shift into the podcast episode. So, thank you for listening. The support call boundaries. Please understand: if you do not donate, you will not get a support call. And I'm finding that people won't donate for the support call for a variety of reasons.
00:10:54 Courtney Brame: They don't think that this is a real organization, they just want to vent and filling out the form is enough for them, or they changed their mind. Regardless of what the reason is, you will not hear from me unless you donate. That's the boundary. Too many times I've gone against that even after establishing it, and people don't make it for the call, or they show up late, or they get dismissive and blame me for not having had the call. So, I think that I just categorize in general people who don't want to donate as people who ain't serious. So, if you ain't serious, I can't work with you.
And I had the experience that motivated this podcast episode. This was a person who donated, but this is also a person who's getting their money back. So, I'm a man of integrity. In the event that this s*** ain't useful to you, or if you feel invalidated in any way, shape, or form, I'mma do the right thing, and I'm gonna give your money back right now.
00:11:50 Courtney Brame: Don't reach out to me, donate, and be like, "Yeah, this is good," and then, "I don't really like this. Can I have my money back?" Don't do that s***. We'll reestablish things as necessary, but for this particular situation that I'll speak to, I want to share it because I think it's a learning point. It's important for me to be able to say out loud, hey, you know, I can trust myself for the boundaries that I have and not feel like I need to change things solely based on one person's experience being bad.
The donation proves that you are most likely to show up to the call. And since doing that, the retention rate of attendance has been significantly greater. So, I'm going to keep that. And I want y'all to also understand that. Don't reach out to me to talk about the science and the data and the stats of herpes and the virus and transmission rates.
00:12:52 Courtney Brame: I don't touch that s***. If you want to talk about that, please reach out to your doctor or virologist. I don't even bother with it. Okay? My focus is on the stigma. My focus is on how you are navigating the communication components. How you are dealing with stigma in your own lens. How you're navigating stigma internally.
The data and science are already there. It's free. I don't talk about that because it's irrelevant to me. It's irrelevant that they're working on a cure. A vaccine should be worked on. I deal with what's in front of me. And I think that a lot of that really takes us out of the present. It takes us out of the now.
Neutralizing Stigma: The Power of the Present Moment
00:13:56 Courtney Brame: It takes us out of the moment of being able to get a grip on what can be influenced, what can be controlled. And a lot of times that's really how we experience the world through the lens of stigma. So, if it ain't about the stigma, if it ain't about identity, if it's not about navigating the stigma in a way that is healthy, I'm not going to be helpful to you. All right? And I think that that's what a lot of people want. They want to know when is there going to be a cure. Like, when are you gonna stop waiting on the cure? That's what my responsibility is.
I hope that doesn't deter anybody from reaching out about a support call. But oftentimes I'll ask people, "What do you think you need?" And more often than not, I hear a cure for this. It's like, okay, let's talk about why you feel like you need a cure for this.
00:14:53 Courtney Brame: And then just the curiosity of that and the exploration of that. Sometimes things come up that people didn't know was there. And other times, like what I'm about to talk about here, some people just don't want to hear that s***. It is what it is. All right.
There's a lot of chaos and friction that comes with running a business, a nonprofit. I just can't get legit. It's been all year I've been trying to do this and I keep getting pushback or a letter in the mail three months after I send them what they asked for telling me that something else is different, but then they still want their money by the deadline or else you get interest taxed. So, that's frustrating. But even with all of that, I'm at peace. I feel like I'm very locked in the fact that I recognize that my purpose in this space is to neutralize herpes stigma.
00:15:54 Courtney Brame: And I just want to remove the emotional charge that we have about it. Like if we think we need to be excited and like, "Oh my god, yeah, I have herpes." You don't see me living like that. You might see some of the women who are online who pridefully speak about having herpes and having an active sex life, which there's nothing wrong with that. But I think that also when we bring a charge into a space, whether it be positive or negative, we are going to naturally attract the other.
So the idea is to turn that s*** off completely by having a neutralized relationship to herpes stigma so that when we talk about it, we speak about it from a place of just neutrality. It doesn't matter how we feel about it. It just is what it is. Hey, my name's Courtney. Say you're getting to know somebody. You get to a place of wanting to move forward romantically, and this is an instance where you would want to initiate that conversation with somebody.
00:16:52 Courtney Brame: "Hey, you know, I'm thinking that things look like they're going in a direction of becoming more intimate. Am I picking up on that? Yeah. All right. Well, sexual health is something that's important to me. And it's important to me that I take care of my partners as well as myself. So, are you in a place to talk about our sexual health right now? Oh, you are? Great. I was last tested Friday, actually, at this health fair. I was tested for HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. The HIV test was a rapid one. It came back negative. I'll know the results about the chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis within 5 to 10 business days. I don't have any symptoms or anything. So I suspect that those are going to come back negative. But if that changes, I'll of course let you know and get treated. But I test positive for herpes. What about you?"
00:17:45 Courtney Brame: I don't know that I made anybody feel "oh my god excited" about it or anybody feel bad about it. And sometimes a lot of people don't know how to feel. They just don't. I had someone just disclose to me actually over the weekend and she was like, "Yeah, so I have HSV-2." I was so proud of her. I was like, "Damn right. That's how you do that." Then I was like, "Doesn't everybody have herpes?" That's so fun to me because people rarely tell me they have herpes and don't find some type of support resource, which tells me that this is a person who is in a healthy place with their diagnosis. And yeah, it's nice to not have to hold someone's hand through that, right?
It's really just about putting yourself in situations and around people to where you can present yourself to enough people to maybe get that response. And I share this story personally because that's a little bit about what is going into what the story is with the gentleman who reached out to me.
Presence Over Performance: The Truth About Rejection
00:19:04 Courtney Brame: "Gentleman" is a very kind word. But we'll leave it at that. All right. So, I think that what happens is that if we experience a rejection from someone that we're interested in, it can be very easy to say it's because of the herpes. It is not always because of the herpes. That can be an out. That can be a scapegoat. Just like for someone who can be like, "Oh, you know what? Because you have herpes, I don't know if I want to expose myself to that."
That person might be actually being a lot kinder about the fact that maybe you're an a******. Maybe you're not compatible. Maybe the fact that herpes is in fact more of a superficial thing because of the discomfort of having to have a deep conversation. If I don't want to have a deep conversation, if I'm just trying to hook up with somebody, I don't want to put myself in a position where I know I can avoid having to have a deep conversation and keep things superficial.
00:20:14 Courtney Brame: So, if I happen to move forward with someone who has herpes and I'm someone who gets it—let's say I don't have it and I get it—now, I have to have the same conversation that they had with me. And the way that that conversation was had with me is going to be a reflection of what I expect for it to be like. So, it's not fair to assume that just because you told someone that you have herpes that the perception of you has changed entirely. Especially if you've gone on a few dates, if you've spent time together, if you've laughed together and you've had meals and you've gotten a little bit personal. If you're getting to know someone, you tell them you have herpes and then they start to get weird or they decide that they don't want to sleep with you, right? That very well could be the case that it's because of the herpes, but also, where else are you aligning with one another?
00:21:19 Courtney Brame: Is that all there is? Because no, herpes is not worth it for just a hookup. Unless somebody finds you that f****** attractive or if they're going to get that much from you and that's where their values are. If where their values align is where your resources extend to them, is that a relationship that you want to be in? Is that somebody that you want to move forward with? Is that somebody you want to have sex with?
Sex can be a very vulnerable thing. It's as close as we can be together physically. Like our physical bodies are touching each other and depending on the kind of sex you're having, inside one another. Sex can also be a very vulnerable thing emotionally because sometimes certain movements, you hit that spot, you experience a certain emotion, the f****** floodgates can open. Somebody could cry. Somebody could just have a reaction in their body and have no idea what it's coming from. And to think that there are people out here who date very superficially and have no f****** idea what it is that they want.
00:22:31 Courtney Brame: They tell someone that they have herpes and then they think that the person just doesn't like them because they have herpes. That shocks me. And it also makes me deeply sad to think that there are people who exist who believe that women only want them for what it is that they have to offer them. And you know, I think that the title of this might be something along the lines of "Presence Over Performance" because I think that a lot of what men are being told, especially in the dating world, is that it's about what you got to offer to a woman in terms of resources that makes you valuable, that makes you likable, that makes you attractive. It ain't got s*** to do with what you got. Someone can cling to that. I gotta word this in a more mature way, but it's something that always stuck with me from when I was little. He was like,
00:23:27 Courtney Brame: "If you a whack ass dude and you get some money, you still a whack ass dude. You just got money now." With or without money, who you are is your identity, which is a direct reflection of an expression of your beliefs aligned with your behaviors. And so if your beliefs and behaviors don't align, then that's what your identity is. It's inconsistency. And I think that what people can trust and lean on is consistency. So if your beliefs and your behaviors are not in alignment, you're an inconsistent person.
So using the example, because I ask everybody this who struggles with dating: "What do you want?" And a lot of times people say, "I don't know." So then I have to ask, "Okay, do you want to date casually or do you want to date seriously? Are you looking for a long-term monogamous relationship or not?" Most people will say one of the two, right? But there are also times where someone might say both or they'll give me this long-winded answer and I'm hearing two things.
00:24:41 Courtney Brame: And these are two very different things that are inconsistent. And so if you're approaching dating and relationships and going on dates and you're saying, "I want a long-term monogamous relationship" and then you're communicating that "I want to casually date and just have sex with you," the other person's hearing both of those things. You can't trust that. I can't trust you.
So when you tell me I have herpes, all I have to match that up against is your consistency and inconsistencies. So I'm inherently thinking to myself, "Oh, this person is inconsistent. They don't know what they want. It's not worth it." When you weigh it out, I'm not going to put myself at risk for getting herpes from someone I don't know, especially if this person doesn't know themselves. So, if I don't know you, I can't trust you. And if you can't trust you, how can I trust you? And now you're telling me that you have this thing that you expect me to be okay with that could have a long-term impact on me physically and definitely emotionally or mentally.
00:25:57 Courtney Brame: Now, if you're the kind of person whose alignment, whose behaviors and beliefs do align, you know, and you're getting to that point, if you and the other person want the same things—all right, hey, right now I'm on my f*** boy s*** and I'm really just trying to get you home and get you naked. And the other person is like, "Oh, okay. All right. I know what this is. I can trust that." So when a trusting person who just wants to have a casual sexual relationship or just wants to have a hookup says, "I have herpes," the other person has that to measure up against. It's, "Oh, okay. We're aligned on this. He knows what he wants. I can trust that. I can trust him. He's consistent. Let's move forward."
Is more likely to be a thing than "No, I'm not okay with that." If you are someone who is saying that you do want a long-term monogamous committed relationship and you're communicating that consistently, that's what's on your dating profile.
00:27:03 Courtney Brame: You're on the apps that are generally geared towards that. You meet up, the conversation's good, you're talking about where you align, you're speaking about long-term goals. You're talking about what matters to you now, and you're seeing where things are aligning and your actions being taken to get you on the trajectory of what it is that you want long-term. And you're able to see, oh, okay, boom, we got connection here. We got chemistry. We've got compatibility. All right, I'm going to take my time and get to know this person. Or you can still hook up with the person, but you recognize that you can trust what that person's saying because they know what they want. They know what they want from you. You know what you want from them.
So now when you go into the conversation about, "Hey, sexual health is important to me. I test negative for HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea. I tested positive for herpes. What about you?"
00:28:06 Courtney Brame: Now this person is able to have that conversation from a place of "Damn, this confidence from this person that I'm compatible with and have chemistry with. Is herpes worth that? Or the possibility of getting herpes worth that?" Maybe. Or it'll be, "Let me find out. Let me get to know you a little bit more. Let me see if the possibility of ending my search, at least for the time being, for someone who's compatible and wants the same things as me—let me see if that's worth it. Let me see if this is somebody that I want to get to know."
And regardless of past experiences that we had, I tell people the ego is a monster first off, but there's no place for it in the present moment. It has no power in the present moment. The ego is always trying to get you to look at how things used to be and how things are supposed to be.
00:29:18 Courtney Brame: Those are two places that do not exist in the right now. And the ego's goal is to constantly pull you into that. When you make the decision to ground, when you make the decision to be present, when you make the decision to say, "You know what, everything that I do right now is with the intention of achieving a chosen outcome. So my output is going to be geared towards generating that outcome."
And thoughts tend to become reality. The energy that goes into a thought in repetition becomes a value. The values expressed continuously become beliefs. The beliefs begin to express in the form of behaviors. I've been hosting this podcast for nine years. You know how hard it is for me to stop doing this s***? I thought I was gonna stop doing this podcast many times, but it's become such an identity expression for me and solidified itself from just, "Damn, I'm curious about people's experiences with herpes. Why is it so negative? I want to make something positive for these positive people."
00:30:38 Courtney Brame: Look where we are. And nine years later, it's so firmly an extension of my identity. I can't get rid of this s***. And it's gotten to a place now where, you know, even financially, I don't worry about being able to pay for the $400 hosting per year for the website and then the additional stuff like whatever, $1,100, $1,200 a year. I don't have to worry about that anymore. It takes care of itself as long as I take care of it. Like I'm tending to my garden with presence. I am consistent in this. I choose to allow for my beliefs and my behaviors to align as a form of expression here.
And how we do one thing tends to be how we do all things. So, if someone tells me, "I want a serious relationship and I want to hook up and just be able to have sex. I want a monogamous relationship and I want to just get laid." I have to ask you more questions.
00:31:42 Courtney Brame: Okay. Well, if you had to pick one, what would it be? Okay. Now, are you doing the things? Are you on the dating apps for that? Because if you're telling me you want a long-term monogamous relationship and you're on Tinder, Tinder is not historically known for that. It's historically known for hookups and that's the environment of it. That's the branding of it. Regardless, some people may find loving long-term connections on there. I'm not saying it can't happen, but if you're saying you want one thing, why go the area of most resistance in order to get that thing? Or why invest energy and split it into two conflicting things?
A lot of times we have these conflicting beliefs and values that our behaviors become conflicting and inconsistent. And if that's what's happening, then what we're communicating that we might not even know we're communicating is more incongruencies, more inconsistencies. And people can't commit to that. Ain't nobody going to be willing to commit to the possibility of getting a lifelong viral infection from you, from me.
00:33:01 Courtney Brame: If they can't trust who you are, they can't trust who you are if you don't know who you are. And one of the fastest ways to know who you are is to know what you want and to communicate that. Do that even if you don't know. Knowing that you don't know what you want is so much better than lying and saying, "I want this. I want this. I know that what I want is f****** ridiculous."
And so when the conversation comes up, I have to have more of a conversation about it. It's not as simple as "I want monogamy. I want non-monogamy. I want a family." Right? That s*** sounds good, but it's vague. And that vagueness has gotten me in trouble because I do what I think I'm supposed to do and not what I know I'm supposed to do or what's true for me. And what's true for me is, hey, we got to talk about this because I need to know what your definition is of this thing because here's mine.
A Harsh Support Call and The Danger of Scripts
00:34:02 Courtney Brame: And I like simplicity. I simplify s*** as best I can. So I talk a lot, and in talking a lot, that is an extension of me being curious so that I can get to the real root of the language that you understand, the word choice, how your breathing changes when you hear certain information or when you communicate certain information. I look at all that s*** and I might not even see it with my eyes. I may just feel it in my body with how it's being said, how I'm receiving it, and then I inquire from there.
And that's what I do on these support calls with people. And if a person is not ready for that, first thing I ask, "If there was one thing you want to make sure we get out of our time together, what would it be?" If you come and you tell me you don't know, first off, that means you didn't read all of the description. So now we got to waste some of our 30 minutes with me giving you questions and information that you should have already thought about.
00:34:56 Courtney Brame: So if you don't know, now I have to ask questions. I need to know, okay, well, what made you reach out? "You reached out because... you're scared of dating in the future." Okay. All right. Well, now let me give you some real experiences that can challenge what you believe to be true about your future now as a person living with herpes. And then you tell me that that's not true. That's not reality because that's not been your experience. And then you tell me you've been rejected several times. You didn't give me that information. Now, it sounds like the purpose of the call is you're struggling with rejection. You've been rejected in the past and you would like to know how to move forward through that. Don't make me guess because if I get it wrong and you're not in a good place to be interrogated in a sense—because that's what I have to do. I have to ask questions, and then when you give me some b*******, I got to challenge that.
00:35:59 Courtney Brame: That's what I do. That's what makes this space different than Reddit or a Positive Singles Facebook group or a dating app is that you're going to be met with a real f****** person. And also, I'm a real f****** person. So, please don't not show up for the calls. And the way that I am on the podcast, the way that I am on the support calls, the way that I'm on the support groups, the way that I am on social media, in real life, I believe this is the same person.
You know, when I'm standing in front of a group of medical professionals, I have to carry myself a little bit more professionally. But overall, this is how I talk. This is how I would ideally dress. I just got back from the gym and I'm working and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be f****** doing. That's more important to me than anything else. So, when a person in nine years told me that this wasn't helpful, this wasn't useful and it feels like I date an entirely different species when I speak about the experience of just meeting women as f****** humans with values.
00:37:13 Courtney Brame: Dude told me that because I was like, "Hey, where are you meeting these people? How are you assessing if y'all even have the same goals or y'all share the same values or if you're aligned?" He said to me, "You're talking all this about alignment and values. It sounds like you date a completely different creature."
So it's like, damn, dude. You objectify women to this extent that you can't even see them as human beings. Like you just looking at their bodies. Like no wonder you're concerned about them using you or taking from you or wasting your time and you have this sense of entitlement to their bodies. And that s*** made me sad. And I think that what hurt me the most, not from an ego perspective, but from an empathy perspective, is that to have experienced as much rejection as he said he has after not telling me that and me having to be wrong in the direction that I go into with my questioning and offering what I think is being asked of me.
00:38:32 Courtney Brame: It just sounds like this person's dating people for what they have, what they look like. And I mean, yeah, ain't nothing wrong with that. Like, do it. But understand that that's the level of dating that you're doing. And to that extent, your reciprocity, what your give and take are, are measured on a scale of what's most important to that person. If what's most important to that person is to be able to continue to date superficially and you give them something that offers a little bit more seriousness than what they're willing to... Yeah, it's a no-brainer. "I'm not putting any value into this. I don't f****** know you. I don't owe you anything. No, I don't want her."
But when you challenge someone and you go, okay, well, how are your values? How are you asking these people about them? I don't know enough to be able to offer any kind of support. So to tell me that a support call is unsupportive when I have to guess, I have to ask more questions than we have time for.
00:39:45 Courtney Brame: No, it's not going to be helpful. So now I've also wasted my time. But by the end of that call and getting hung up on for the first time in nine years hearing, "this is not useful," it's invalidating to me. So, I had to consult with my people around me and get talked down because I was ready to change s***. I was like, "What the f*** am I doing wrong, man?" Like, for a person to come and say, "This wasn't helpful."
And you know what was validating to me? The very next call that I had with a man who came in and he was like, "You know what? I don't know what I need.
00:40:43 Courtney Brame: I think maybe I just need to talk to somebody." And we talked and I was like, "Hey, we don't feel like this was helpful to you at all." And he was like, "No, it was actually very helpful. I think that that was really all I needed." We got off the phone, and he emailed me later. He was like, "Hey, you know what? That was more helpful than I thought it was. I appreciate what you're doing. Keep it up."
And then for that to have come that same day after having this s***** call that f***** up my entire afternoon, that felt validating. That felt like, okay, I don't need to go into the website and change things and set these expectations. But I feel like there was a message in there. And the message in there is of course: presence over performance. Like you shouldn't be dating people off of the superficial components of "look what I can do for you."
00:41:34 Courtney Brame: "I can make you laugh. I can take you to these expensive places. I can take you to get good food." Because eventually that s*** has to stop. And eventually all that's left is when the superficiality is melting away just over the course of time through aging, through changes in life circumstances, through resources going away, all that's going to be left is who you are. And if who you are is an inconsistent m***********, ain't no money fix that. Can't no sex fix that. Ain't no piece of ass going to fix that, bro.
And that's what hurt me. Like I think that what he wanted from me was like, "What do I say to get laid?" And I don't do that. I've never done that. If you come here, you going to do some work. I mean, I can listen to you. I can point you in the right direction. But if you reach out to me and we're on the other side of these video calls, I'm going to meet you with curiosity.
00:42:42 Courtney Brame: I'm going to meet you with presence. I'm going to challenge you. So, with all that being said... yeah, we ain't doing the tips and tricks "here's how to get laid if you have herpes, right? Say these things and she'll be instantly attracted to you." Ain't none of that s*** happening over here. All right. I will support you in your output over outcome. But yeah, this s*** don't guarantee that somebody's going to like you. You may just be an unlikable person. And people will have sex with unlikable people. But if you're unlikable and you're not certain about what you want, the most unlikable person can be somebody who knows what the f*** they want. And that's trustworthy. You can trust that. But if you're untrustworthy and you tell me you have herpes, like, how can I trust that you're doing what it is that you need to be doing to keep me from possibly getting it?
00:43:50 Courtney Brame: How do I know that you're not trying to trap me into getting herpes too so that we can be together forever? We don't know this. People don't know that. Ah, so I mentioned stigma as an expression of ego. Because what does it do? It makes us think about how things were, how things should be, everything but now, everything but this moment. And that's not where we live life. We don't live life in the past or the future. That's what got us here.
You know, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. This is the first law of thermodynamics. It can be stored. There can be energetic input, but we're like storehouses of mass that contain energy. We're containers for it. So, we're constantly taking things in. We're constantly letting things out. But to consciously store and release said energy in the moment, when we can be present, that's authenticity. When our beliefs and behaviors align, the energy that we store in beliefs pushes out a frequency, whether conscious or unconscious, and our words begin to produce outcomes.
00:45:13 Courtney Brame: The output of our language, the output of what we say. Think about how I say, "Yeah, I have herpes. And I run this nonprofit supporting people with it." versus, "Yeah, I have herpes and I support I run this nonprofit supporting people with it." "Yeah, I got herpes and I run this nonprofit supporting people with it. What's up?" I said that s*** in three ways. A neutral way, a negative way, and a positive way. And I'm going to vote for you and say that the best one was the neutral one where I just stated it. "I have herpes. I run this nonprofit supporting people who are living with it." That's it. And that's authentic to me because I know that my mission is to neutralize herpes stigma. So if I can speak about it in a neutral way, I'm doing it. I'm doing it in how I live. I'm doing it in how I present this. You'll see on the podcast cover art that language has changed: "Neutralizing herpes stigma."
00:46:18 Courtney Brame: Our words contain a gravity just like our being does. Right? I walk into a room, people look at me a certain way. I speak, people look at me a certain way. I hate this one, but I hear it. I've heard it often throughout my life: "Oh, you're so well spoken." You wouldn't say that s*** if my skin was not black. You wouldn't say it if my hair looked different. You wouldn't say it if I was probably not muscular, right? But that's the weight of an example of the gravity of our word choice. Because if it's coming from a place of "I know who I am, my identity is in alignment of my beliefs and my behaviors." Everything that I speak from that place is authentic. People gravitate towards authenticity. People are attracted to polarity just naturally, but it's the gravity of neutrality. S***, that might be the podcast episode. The gravity of neutrality that shapes your reality and can increase your salary and energetic capacity.
00:47:31 Courtney Brame: Now, I'm just saying s***. All right. But yeah, you want to align your internal beliefs and your external behaviors, right? So the whole thing with this manipulation and entitlement that I felt came from this particular individual... First off, we can't create a magic formula and say the thing that's just going to get us laid. That s*** don't work. It's not real. It's not what I do and it's not what I support. I don't promote that s***. I support being who you are. I tell people all the time, I ain't got no game. And multiple times I've heard, "Courtney, that is your game. No game is your game." And I to this day have no f****** idea what that means. But the closest thing I got to it is authenticity. If I'm willing to tell you, hey, I ain't got no game. But I remember also the first time I was real with somebody, this was a model, y'all.
00:48:25 Courtney Brame: She was looking at me. She was flirting with me. She was outside. She grabbed on to me and like, "Oh, let's go." I was chosen. I don't know what I did. I have no idea. But she was on me. And I remember we went out that night. It was a group of us. And I was just in my head. I was thinking about it. I was like, "Man, I need to get this girl humbled." I said, "Hey." She's like, "Yeah, sweet." Put her hands on me and everything. I remember her name. I can say it now. Mackenzie. Mackenzie was her name. I was like, "Hey, I don't even know what to say. Can I get your number?" She laughed. She put her number in my phone. It was the right one, too. And she said, "Call me when you think of something better to say." I said,
00:49:04 Courtney Brame: "Oh, at least I got it." Yeah. She ain't never answered the phone, though. But I know it was the right number because I got a voicemail. But this was before free texting, I think. Oh, I'm old. But I say that to say like that's a thing that I had to let go of and dismantle because I would have gone on through my entire adulthood thinking that I needed scripts, that I needed to say the right thing. And not knowing the right thing to say or not having game, not having a smooth ass pickup line has gotten me more genuine connection than any other thing I would have said. I remember in college I might have told this story. I said to somebody as I was leaving the place, "Damn, girl, you thick as a Harry Potter book," and I walked off, just left. I don't know how much further later she was like, "Hey, hey, I remember you." I was like, "What the f*** you talking about?" She was like,
00:50:00 Courtney Brame: "You told me I was thick as a Harry Potter book." I said, "I did?" And then I remembered. I was like, "Oh, I was drinking that night." But like that's who I am. I say weird s***. I'm a weird person. I've accepted that. I've embraced that more so recently over the past couple of months than anything else. I'm a walking contradiction, right? I'm a well-spoken black dude. I had a black woman tell me the other day, she was like, "Oh, you're black." I was like, "The f*** that's supposed to be?" Because we were in a shared atmosphere where we were two of the few darker skinned people and there was music playing and she knows my taste in music. I got a diverse palette of song selection but she was like, "You know who this is." I was like, "Nope." She was like, "Oh yeah you black."
00:50:55 Courtney Brame: I was like damn. Well that's kind of a compliment I guess because for a lot of time I was told I wasn't black enough. Right. So that authenticity and that weirdness that I've adopted over the years, that's become what my truth is, that's become attractive. My identity is in alignment with my behaviors and my beliefs. And the more I lean into that reality for myself, the more I'm able to demonstrate it and speak from that place to hopefully support people in leading a life that is one that is from their identity. But we don't need scripts. And one of these hard realities is that if you're looking for a magic thing to say, then that's manipulation. You ain't gonna be in no f****** relationship. That's abuse. That's manipulation. And to have the entitlement of thinking that if I say these things and you owe me some ass, that's trash. Should nobody be out here living that way. I don't give a f*** what you read on the internet, what you hear or say.
00:51:58 Courtney Brame: Ain't nobody entitled to nobody's bodies. And if you think that way, this ain't the space for you. And I hope you get the help that you need because it damn sure ain't going to be me if you're unwilling to hear the reality of how s***** that is and how that sounds. But that's not connection. That's manipulation. And I don't teach that s*** here. So just wanted to make that known there. All right.
Disclosure vs. Discussion: Co-Creating an Experience
Courtney Brame: I say this: disclosure versus discussion. The internet algorithms, I have to continue to use the word "disclosure" for that reason. But if you meet me and we end up having a conversation, I am going to invite you to use the word "discussion" over the word "disclosure" because—and I wrote about this on the herpes blog spfpp.org/herpes-blog. If you Google herpes blog, it'll be one of the first things that comes up since the SEO is SEOing, baby. All this time that I've been not doing weekly podcast episodes and not really being on social media, things have had a much greater consistency and professionalism to an extent.
00:53:12 Courtney Brame: But yeah, I don't like disclosure because it inherently prioritizes this "you versus me" dynamic. Whereas discussion is a "we/us" dynamic. It's not "I have to tell you about my herpes status and you have to accept or reject it." It's "we, you and I, are having a discussion about our sexual health status." It's not a confession, it's a conversation. It's not a disclosure. It's a discussion. And that's what I try and get people to realize is that that's what we want to do. I'm not giving you a script. I'm giving you an outline for covering the things that need to be covered for the conversation. You use your own language. So environmentally makes a difference. Contextually makes a difference. What y'all want makes a difference. Who you are, the attraction, right? There are a lot of factors that go into there. But ultimately, if you can say, "Hey, you know, I see things getting sexual with us. Am I picking up on that right?"
00:54:08 Courtney Brame: "Yeah? Great. Well, sexual health is important to me and it's important that I take care of mine and my partners. Are you in a place to talk about that? Yeah? Great. I was tested this long ago. Here's what I was tested for. These things came back negative. Here's what came back positive. What about you?" That's a discussion. And if you feel like that's too much at one time, then chunk it out. "I was tested for these things. What about you? Oh, yeah. These things came back negative. What about you? Here's what came back positive. What about you?" Simple as that. So, in that, we create the standard. We set the standard for being able to co-create an experience through dialogue and the discussion, right? We shift from confession to conversation. It removes the ego out of, okay, if I say these things, this is the outcome I'm going to get based on my past experiences.
00:55:00 Courtney Brame: No, the outline that you use in the moment and you show that you're f****** present, right? Like let's say somebody's eating a corn dog. "Yeah, hey, I'm trying to turn into that corn dog. But before we do, let's have this conversation, right?" So, I don't teach people how to have transactional relationships. I don't do that s***. So, I can't teach you that. Like, good luck finding what it is that you're looking for, but I want people to be able to come here and live their truth. Even if your truth is you decide that you don't want to have this conversation with people, right? Know that I'm not going to support it. I'm not going to endorse it. I'm going to give you the information. I'm going to challenge you and you're going to make the choice that aligns most authentically with who you are and be prepared to deal with whatever the possible outcomes are. My focus is on the output, harm reduction.
00:55:58 Courtney Brame: That includes harm to yourself and others. So I will do everything that I can, and authenticity to me is a pathway to that, because if you are who you are and people make the choice to engage with who you are, then I did my job. Satya is one of the Yamas or Niyamas—Yama is external, Niyama is internal, I want to say—but Satya is truth, truthfulness. When you live an authentic life, it's almost like your actions and your words become truth, become reality. So living in an authentic way like, "Yeah, you know I choose to share my status with people." All right, if that's true, I'm going to be put in situations where I have to share my status with people. And if I'm talking all this "make it a conversation and discussion s***" and I'm not doing that, I'm not being authentic. I'm inauthentic. How can I do that? I can't co-create from an inauthentic place. And so being able to have this conversation is kind of like co-creating.
00:57:04 Courtney Brame: And I value that. I value the ability to create because this sexual energy, right? Maybe I don't want to have sex. Maybe it's just an inherent drive to create. Maybe we do something together and maybe we have sex, right? But it's the use of that energy in a collaborative and exploratory way.
Outro and Volunteer Call to Action
Courtney Brame: All right, so wrapping this all up, speaking of sex and sexual health, the next recording that I do is going to be with Tamar Weir, who runs Pomegranate Pleasure on Instagram. Follow her. She was on the podcast before about polyamory, non-monogamy, and living with herpes and she talked a little bit about pleasure as well. But we connected last year for that podcast episode and then we got to meet in person and we're going to talk about Ureaplasma and being able to communicate that to partners because we were partners and she had sent me a text of, "Hey, I was exposed to Ureaplasma." We talked about it and we're going to do a podcast episode.
00:58:08 Courtney Brame: We're going to record today. So, be on the lookout for that as the next podcast episode. And yeah, please subscribe to the newsletter. The algorithm sucks. So, in order for me to appease the algorithm, I have to speak in a certain way, and I don't want to play that s***. So, I'm going to say what I got to say the way that I say it, and we're going to put it out there, except for with the word "disclosure," because that's how people find me. So, I'm trying to be consistent and I want to continue to express in a way that is truthful and not do the gimmicky s***. I ain't got it.
If anybody does want to be a podcast guest, you have to be willing to be on camera. I don't want to continue to fuel stigma by hiding people and having to go back later and remove podcast episodes because over time people realize, "Oh s***, I'm on the internet about this." I can't take everything off the internet.
00:59:09 Courtney Brame: Once I hit publish on that podcast episode, I don't know where this s*** ends up. I know it's on the feed and I can remove it from the feed, but you're gonna reach out to me and say, "Hey, this other podcast hosting site..." I don't have time for that. So unless you are absolutely certain that you want to be a podcast guest, don't. We don't need to. Some people say they want to be podcast guests, but really you need a support call. I say that with the utmost respect. But please don't submit the podcast guest intake form if you are not willing to actually be a podcast guest and if you're not at an okay place with your status to at least be able to talk about it, y'all, please.
And then the last thing I have as far as collaborations go, I'm looking for people who want to be on camera talking about sexual health and relationships. I would love to be able to start here and branch out and be able to do these things.
01:00:04 Courtney Brame: However, I got a time limit. I need this by August 29th. I need to know if people want to do this. I'm located in Brooklyn, New York. I have a videographer. If you're somebody who wants to volunteer your time to help me do these things and create this video library on how to discuss your sexual health status and relationships with partners, please reach out to me. I'm available for that in those conversations. I'm currently reaching out to local sexual health organizations, the Department of Health, to co-create a social media campaign where we're able to show people what it's like to talk about sex with partners, what it's like to discuss sex and sexual health in a clinical setting as a provider, as a mental health professional, or even as a patient to initiate that conversation. So, that's what we're working on.
And yeah, please check the newsletter for blogs and upcoming events. And also, yeah, I want to teach y'all this thing that I'm teaching about nurturing your nature, which is identifying the intangible aspects of yourself, your values, beliefs, and being able to nurture those and validate them through your expression of identity. All right, till next time, stay present, y'all, and thank you for watching or listening or whatever it is that you're doing. I appreciate it and look forward to hopefully connecting with people at some of the events. This was me trying to stall while I hit the stop record button, but it ain't happening. Here we go. Bam.
Transcription ended after 01:01:35
