SPFPP Episode 143: How Men Herpe
We answer some listener questions about men and HSV. Some men wrote in and asked some questions and I answer those as well. We discuss masculinity and how we deal with a herpes diagnosis differently that those in touch with their femininity, disclosure leading to 'me too', who has more outbreaks between penis and vulva owners, and the importance of communication as a herpes diagnosis changes the way we do sex. I hope you enjoy this episode and if you found it useful, please consider leaving a donation to SPFPP so that we can pay for people's therapy services and provide support for them after their diagnosis.
Episode 143 Transcript
Intro, Therapy Network, and Asking for Support
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides support resources to people who are navigating STI stigma. You can find on the podcast interviews with people who are living with herpes. You can find interviews with people who've dated people with herpes.
Courtney Brame: You can find interviews with people who are living with HIV, sex educators, therapists, mental health professionals, health care providers, and the more is very vague mainly because that's where I come in and I kind of talk about my own personal experiences navigating this and my experiences with therapy are probably what's going to be most highlighted right now because that is something that I'm focused on with Something Positive for Positive People as an organization. So we now have a therapist in our network.
Courtney Brame: We're able to support people who are living in Missouri and Georgia, I believe, based on where our therapists are located, who are part of the network. So, if you're someone who is needing a therapist that is queer friendly, sex positive, and someone that you can speak to about your diagnosis, feel free to reach out and we'll get the ball rolling. The process isn't perfect. We're just now starting it. I just got a couple of people who are on board and a therapist who's going to be facilitating this with me. So fingers crossed that this process goes smoothly and when we're able to get people to say whether or not it was useful, then that means the fundraisers and the money that we raise is going to be through the roof and we've got something that's really really going to help people.
Courtney Brame: And hopefully it's something that the people who are struggling the most, if they can afford it, then they'll be able to get this support without having to pay for it. I do ask that people pay it forward. If there's someone who can afford to pay for therapy, I just ask that they leave a donation. We've been very fortunate over the past couple of weeks. and part of this I thank Melissa from Sex Positive Families who told me “you need to start asking for money”. I do a terrible job of that. And I'm so thankful to them for making that appointment in our last board meeting. They're one of my board of directors that serve as advisors. I'm not outside, I promise.
Courtney Brame: But we're at that time of the day where those bugs that go re r are out. So you're going to hear that from time to time and you're going to hear a dog walking around upstairs, but those should be the only interference. All right. So, with all that said, if you have benefited from any of the content, from Something Positive for Positive People, from me personally, from the H on my chest Instagram account, from a conversation that we've had, I ask that please consider leaving a donation because it is supporting the efforts of Big Picture. It's going to look like a network of sex positive therapists and organizations that people are going to be able to go to in relation to receiving sexual health treatment and testing and education.
Courtney Brame: So this is where I'm feeling called to drive this especially after the experience that I shared on episode 142 when I encountered health care providers who weren't comfortable talking about sex and probably could have prevented my reinfection of chlamydia. So that's episode 142 if you want to check that out. And so now we're going to get into this episode. This doesn't have a title yet, so maybe at some point I'll say something that becomes the podcast title. I'm recording in my living room. and it's kind of open, so hopefully my tone is good enough. This is going to be a one take thing. I'm not editing this. I got to get ready to leave for San Diego. in what will be at the time of this release yesterday. That was so complicated. I'm leaving Thursday to go to San Diego, y'all.
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: That's it. So, I won't be active on Instagram over the course of this weekend of the release of this podcast, but feel free to still reach out. Let me know what you think of this podcast episode and donations can be made through Something Positive for Positive People website at www.spfpp.org. And on the homepage, you'll see options to become a Patreon subscriber. You can donate via PayPal and you can also donate via Vinmo and all of that is linked on the homepage once you scroll down a little bit. Let's get into it. This episode is about and for men.
A Listener's Email: Oral Sex and Feeling Limited
Courtney Brame: A few weeks ago I took questions from people who follow the H on my chest Instagram page in regards to what they wanted to know about men with herpes. And I also have some statements and questions here from men who can also give us perspective. So, it's not just all mine. And I know that I have not really been big on sharing my own experience as a man with herpes on my own podcast just because it just seems kind of like it was something that never really crossed my mind because it's mine and I'm facilitating the conversations and I do this thing where I try not to make things about me and I try to keep it about the guests but with the way that the questions came in and how common some of them are
Courtney Brame: and some of the private messages that I get that seem to be really consistent across the board. I thought it was useful to put together an episode exclusively about that and for that. Not to say that this topic won't come up again ever on Something Positive for Positive People. But there will be space here for dudes with herpes, to All right. So here I got an email from I'm not going to say his name but it was a guy. He says, "Hey Courtney, I saw you are doing a podcast on herpes and discussing with other guys who also have it and how they deal with it. Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you as there really is not enough of this type of content available to men and I personally feel left in the dark over a lot of issues surrounding it.
Courtney Brame: One of the biggest things I struggle with having herpes is the feeling of being so limited with sex. Not just myself, but my partners also feel this way. I recently had a girlfriend and although we broke up because of other reasons, she desperately wanted to give me oral sex and would regularly ask me stuff like, "Will your herpes really never disappear?" or "You've not had any symptoms for a long time. It must be safe now." But I really wasn't sure what I can and can't do. Whenever I would look up advice on the internet, there was little to no information other than wear a condom or don't do it. For a long time, I figured it was something I would get over. But after meeting several girls who really wanted to do it, I not only felt upset, I couldn't receive it. I also felt like I let my partners down as they couldn't do something they really wanted to do.
Courtney Brame: Can you please ask the guys on your podcast, how do they overcome or handle the feeling of being limited in their sex lives? And if they do, include oral sex in their sex lives, specifically b******. How do they go about it? Are there times when it's safer to do it, or must I always wear a condom? Also, how can I access your podcast? I wouldn't want to miss it for the world and would love to listen as soon as it's ready. Again, thank you and the guys we'll be discussing this topic with. It's so amazing that finally I can find a group of guys who have a similar issue as me and I won't feel alone by it. I really appreciate it. And then he closes with his name. So, first off, I want to thank you for this email. it was very well and congratulations to you for meeting people who are enthusiastic about wanting to give you a b******.
Communication, Informed Consent, and Overcoming Limitations
Courtney Brame: Man, that's exciting. It's unfortunate that the topic of transmission and the possibility of the partner contracting it, is something that halts progression for you psychologically as well as for them psychologically. So, going through this email, I want to start at the beginning. First off, thank you for reaching out again. Now, being limited with sex, let's talk about that first. When we look at sex, pre herpes versus post herpes, I think the main difference is communication.
00:10:00 Courtney Brame: I know for nine out of every 10 people that I speak with, they talk about having not talked about sexual health prior to their diagnosis. It's like now that we have herpes, we really need to be the leader, the responsible one in progressing the discussion about sexual health because we have to ethically disclose to our potential sexual partner, right?
Courtney Brame: And so that to me, and I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say this, but the communication piece has been one of the most important things that's changed since my herpes diagnosis. Everything else has really been the same until I began exploring. So when we talk about the limitations of you being able to receive oral sex, what other ways can you be with someone? So guys still do receive oral sex. People receive and give oral sex with herpes. But this is a choice.
Courtney Brame: And I think that it's very important that you understand that the line here between what makes it ethical or unethical or right or wrong, however it is that you see it in your mind, is that you are giving someone all of the information and allowing them to make the choice on what they want to do with it, whether or not they want to move forward. So, if you're still uncomfortable with possibly passing this on to a partner, then do what you need to do in order to feel safe. There's barrier methods. There's the antivirals that you can take. and with what we're learning about COVID or from COVID, what we're learning is that viruses, wash your hands, wear a mask, translate that over to sex, and it's wear a condom and practice good hygiene. That's the way I see it.
Courtney Brame: And if the people are informed and you are exchanging consent with one another then that's up to you all like being able to negotiate this and what the other person is comfortable with based on the precautions that you're taking. So it's really important for you to take care of your body. The guys that I've spoken with all say the same thing: eat better nutrition wise, move your body. So that may include working out. That may be yoga. But some sort of movement on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be hitting the gym and lifting heavy weights and chest day three days a week and one leg day. No, it doesn't have to be that. It can just be something as simple as doing some movement. You can go for a hike. You can go for a bike ride. Those kinds of things. And then really managing your mental health. I'm sorry that these stigmatizing statements were made to you like, "Will your herpes ever disappear?"
Courtney Brame: or you haven't had any symptoms for a long time. It must be safe now. And yeah, I'm sorry that you're dealing with that. I wish that there were more resources of education for people who don't have herpes, but there's really no incentive for them to look up the information unless they either have symptoms or they've been disclosed to by someone, right? I think back to when I didn't know that I had herpes and the only thing that made me really look into it was the fact that I had a scare. And that scare made me a freaking herpesologist. Wait a minute. No, that's a reptile thing, I think. But you know what I mean. It really made me understand everything I needed to know about the virus, which is that it's so misunderstood and it's a virus. That's ultimately what you have to do.
Courtney Brame: So, speaking for myself, what I would do is just practice good hygiene, take care of my mental health. I move and I've eaten significantly better than I have before. Not to say I'm perfect, but I make it a point to now, this was something that's new to me, but I don't buy meat to cook at home. So, at home, I have to eat my vegetables. I'm eating black beans. I mean, brown rice, broccoli, different vegetables, and a whole lot of fruit like oranges, bananas, and I'll eat oatmeal for breakfast. Despite how much I dislike oatmeal, and I dislike bananas, when I put them together with a little bit of peanut butter and vanilla, almond milk with no sugar added, it's tolerable. All right, so those are a couple of things.
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: And as far as overcoming handling the feeling of being limited I hope that I was able to answer that question which is just with Communication has become the most powerful tool in my sex life. Being able to communicate fosters an environment for that trust shows respect and that respect allows you to be as respectful or disrespectful in the bedroom as you both consent to being to one another and one another's genitals. So there's also different ways of being with one another. Perhaps you can use your hands. Perhaps if you're feeling any tingling sensation in your body, if you feel that an outbreak may be coming on, you would want to avoid that. So things like that are what's going to help here. Okay.
Courtney Brame: And as far as safer times, again, it's just going to be whenever you learn your body, you will begin to understand when you're having an outbreak coming on when you're not. And also, I think this is really important here because I've made this mistake. I've gotten drunk. I've had too much to drink and then had sex and not all of the precautions have always been taken, So, try to leave alcohol out of the equation. If you meet someone and you hit it off, try not to have sex. Don't hook up drunk. wait till the next morning when everybody's semihung over and be like, "Hey, what's up? You want to do this?" And they had a conversation. But, you can also have these conversations ahead of time. All right. The podcast is available on all podcast listening platforms, Spotify, Google Podcast.
Courtney Brame: Now they changed the name iTunes, Apple Podcast, iHeart Radio, anywhere that you can download podcast or you can just go to the website www.spfpp.org, click on the podcast tab and you'll see the latest episode and then it'll go down from reverse chronological order. cool. So I think that covered it. That was a really really long one. So, since we're at this point right now, I think it's also important that we talk about getting tested and one of our podcast sponsors is let's get checked. So, if you visit www.trylgc.com/spfpp, you will see several different options for different health test kits, right?
Sponsor Break: Let's Get Checked
Courtney Brame: The one that I want to speak on is the STI testing kit. So, there's options to get tested for everything from here we go. I'm gonna try this again. HIV, trick, it's called trick, vaginosis, some kind of vaginosis. I know chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, type one and two. Now, with the herpes test, this test will just tell you if you are. It's a urine test. They look for any signs of shedding. So, I am positive for genital HSV2. I tested positive eight years ago. I got tested five years ago and it was three years ago when it was the same thing. Generally, right? So, when I got my test results back, it said non-reactive for herpes type two. So, I was like, "What do you mean non-reactive?" And I saw that they checked my pee.
Courtney Brame: It's like, I thought you had to check blood or an outbreak in order to know this. But the customer service was really cool because I had more questions after that and they were able to answer everything and put things in a way that I was able to understand and articulate to you all. So, when you take this kind of a test, it took two or three days to get to me and then I had to prick my finger for blood samples for the HIV and syphilis, I believe, test and perhaps a couple of others were tested through the blood and then I had to pee in a vial or in this little box with a plastic bag in it that was perfectly set to where I could pour it into the vial. It was innovative to say the least.
Courtney Brame: And I sent that off and in about 3 to 5 days I believe I got my test results back through the app. It was secure, it was fast, it was safe and it was really easy. The hardest part was me… I worked out before I did the test and it was hard for me to get blood. So I got down to my last little pricker on my finger and had to just let it drip into the vial. And that was so adrenaline rushing for me because it's like man this is it. If I don't get enough blood out of this one, I'm going to have to call them and get another one. So, yeah, that's again, you'll get 30% off when you go to www.trlgc.com, but the trilogic doesn't have vowels in it. It's trlgc.com/spfpp.
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: And when you pick which test you want, you'll get 30% off at checkout. When you enter the code SPFP when you're checking out, it's important to get tested. All right, here someone left a comment actually on episode 116, which was with Stephanie Boyd. the spiritual significance of herpes, So the comment goes, "The conversation about asking in quotations about STI status at around the 49 to 50 minute mark in itself does not solve any problems. Most people in the heat of the moment are going to say no unless there is a serious relationship developing. Human nature is not to abandon instant sexual gratification in order to get tested and wait for results. I'm like Stephanie. I'm the person who of course would tell the truth.
Disclosure in the Heat of the Moment vs. Honest Negotiation
Courtney Brame: I can't tell you how many women I have disclosed my HSV status and they responded to me, I have it, too. This was after, in some cases, six or more dates. Were they going to tell me in parenthesis if I didn't tell them first? I don't think so, there's a couple of things here, including that I probably should have plugged in what was said at the 49-50 minute mark, but I thought that he did a pretty good job explaining what we're talking about here. And it's a matter of disclosing, And not disclosing in the moment. And when is it a good time to disclose?
Courtney Brame: For me, I like to do it early. When I was on dating sites, I'm on Tinder, Bumble, I've put it in my profile. I've recently taken it off just to see what can happen or what will happen if a little bit of conversation happens. And then I'm disclosing my HSV status, just talking about what I do and things like that to see what kind of a response I would get. But I can't agree here. I don't agree. Most people in the heat of the moment are going to say no. So, I'm assuming that the question is, what we talked about was, hey, asking a person about their sexual health and their recent STI. I've done it and it's been since I've had herpes and since I started to follow more of the sex positive accounts on social media and learning about consent negotiations, it's become very easy for me to have the conversation.
Courtney Brame: After my partner and I ended things, one of my first relationships was with someone... we met in real life at a conference and then she and I exchanged contact information and at some point she expressed interest. I was like, I didn't know that this was a thing. I didn't think you like me." And that started a conversation that started negotiations. It was like, "Hey, I have genital HSV2. My last time I was tested. Here's where I was tested for." And it's all in a text exchange as well. And she was able to say, I understand herpes. I'm aware of what the risks are." And she also got tested right before we were able to meet up. She was able to get her results. And I make an effort to get tested every three months.
Courtney Brame: So, I had just gotten my test results back in and both of us knew what the other person's status or most recent status was. And yeah, from there we negotiated condom use. We negotiated what people were allergic to as far as skin touching, what kinds of lubes and oils were okay and it was like even when I told my therapist about this experience, he was like, "What? You actually had that conversation. It's like, and that was a lot more sexy than it sounds, but it also set the foundation for a safe fun environment. You don't often get fun and safe unless you have communication and you have trust there.
Courtney Brame: So, yeah, human nature is going to abandon instant sexual gratification for some people. For others, human nature is going to be to do the right thing and be honest. And then for other people, it could be flat out lying. And I believe that when you do disclose to someone, perhaps you will shock them with that piece of the conversation, especially if you're about to be intimate. No one's expecting that. And if there's hesitance there or anything, then I think that it's safe to say we probably shouldn't move forward.
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: if you're not an enthusiastic yes after me disclosing and wanting to talk to you about sexual health, then It's a no. yeah, I've had this conversation with all of my partners and it's important to one thing I've learned understand their frequency of testing or perhaps the most recent time they were tested. And I'm not saying you have to ask, "when's the last time you slept with anyone unprotected?" you don't have to go into that kind of detail, but this is a very accurate depiction of how aware they are of their sexual health. I'm at a point now where if you don't want to talk to me about sex and sexual health, we don't need to be doing sex because our sexual health is going to be affected by what either of us do and don't know about our statuses.
Courtney Brame: And not only are we putting the other person at risk we're putting ourselves at risk, but anyone outside of us, if we come together, do our thing, and we go elsewhere unaware of what our statuses are, how many other people could we potentially be putting at risk. So, I think that human nature is naturally to do the right thing. I think it's natural to be honest, and under the right circumstances that isn't the case. But I don't know that we can just say everyone's going to be like, "No, I don't have an STD." After you disclose to them or after you ask them if they have any STDs. I think more people are likely to give you an answer than they are to just flat out say no, give you the real answer or say I don't know. All right.
Courtney Brame: And then when you got to the point about going on so many dates and then hearing I have it too, that would really bum me out. I don't know how I would take that, but I know that I had an experience with someone who, my buddy told me that she knew I had herpes and she had reached out to me, on her own and we began conversing and, we started seeing each other and at some point I just asked, I was like, "Hey, did you know I had herpes before you and I started talking?" She was like, "No." I was like, " okay." Left it at that. And then one day I saw my buddy and I asked him. I was like, "Hey, did she know that I had herpes?" And he was like, " yeah. I told her best friend and her best friend told her." And that just completely turned me off that she lied to me. I don't do well with that. Don't lie to me. Please don't. Because that's a huge boundary breaker for me. If you're going to lie to me, you better be surprising me with something.
Courtney Brame: Tell me we going one place and then we end up at one of my favorite food places. Those are the acceptable lies to me at least. So, yeah, that kind of thing ends relationships. And I understand your hesitancy there. You're on all these dates and I'm sure that you want to impress whoever it is that you're taking out. I know I sense that you're wanting to take things in a way that you both feel safe with one another. and you want to do all of the dating the right things as far as dating goes. So, this works for you and then they tell you, "I have it, too." I'd be curious about that, too, I really would be.
Courtney Brame: I don't know that I understand that there is a best time for you to disclose, And that's on you as the chooser to be able to make that choice of when you're going to do it and how you're going to do it. But we have to be able to lead the conversations and initiate the conversations. That willingness to do so is going to be much more useful to you throughout the dating process and when you go through the process of disclosing because you have the power when you're able to confidently initiate and say, "Hey, let's talk about our sexual health and let it go however it's supposed to go." I hope that this answers your question here. I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next one.
Courtney Brame: So, here's not a question, just thanks for your work. Also, your voice is quite soothing. I used to really hate my aunt who's seven years older than me, my dad's sister. She used to make fun of me all the time because I talked with a lip and she was like, "You sound like Daffy Duck." And be laughing at me And I will never forget that. So, I would go out of my way to keep my tongue in my mouth whenever I spoke. I always thought I sounded like a girl when I was young. I'm a pretty late bloomer as far as I can't believe I just said that. I'm not editing it. But as far as my voice sounding the way it is, in seventh grade I used to do a really good Luda. We prank call people and say that they won something on the radio and that was always fun.
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: But I think that more so talking from the diaphragm for me has given my voice some kind of resonance and it feels better to speak this way than talking from my throat. Whatever that This would be how I sound if I'm talking from my throat. So I'm letting it just kind of do its own thing. Man, that's a big difference. So I think I appreciate that. Someone else wrote in, "How do we find y'all today?" I'm reading it just like that, too. So, she was just asking, "How do you find men with HSV to date?" there's a number of resources there. I'll tell you, we're on Instagram for sure. We're on inder. We're in the real world. We're out exploring our interest. So many people have herpes. Not many of us have a need to put it out there that we have herpes, but we're out there. We're everywhere.
How to Find Men with HSV to Date
Courtney Brame: It's unfortunate that you have to be willing to put yourself out there first and risk the possibility of rejection, of having your feelings hurt, of someone not being into you because of your diagnosis or for other reasons. But this is how we find people. We have to put ourselves out there. And I really don't like using that phrase because there's so many definitions of putting yourself out there. And what I mean by that is expressing yourself, expressing your creativity, what's unique about you. I see so many Instagram pages of various forms of activism, education, and just people really being in tune with their passion. It comes a point where you don't have to find a date. People are going to find you because they want to date you. Because y'all have common interests because you connect through that passion.
Courtney Brame: You connect through your curiosity for the world, your mutual interest. And that's where we connect there. And from there, it can turn into friendship. It can turn into relationships. It can turn into marriage. It can turn into heartbreak. It can turn into a lot of different things. The more people that you are willing to connect with authentically, the more likely you are to welcome in the right people who are for you. So, it's really all about realness. Be real with yourself about what you want, what you have to offer, where you're willing to go in order to find what it is that you're looking for. So, there's also the dating sites and then the ones that are specifically for people who are living with HSV. So, those are options. And then, the secret support groups that are on Facebook and other social media platforms.
Courtney Brame: These are really good for socializing, connecting, and building and creating community. And they're safe. If you're someone who has herpes and you're wanting to connect with other people who have herpes in a way that it doesn't really seem like people have herpes, I just went to Indianapolis maybe three, four weeks ago and we had an event There were maybe a hundred people there. We had a hotel block. We had a night party. There were day games, like speed dating, social events, and the crowd was about 5050. It was pretty even between males and females. And yeah, it was just overall a good time. And I wish that more people were able to see that, but we have to maintain anonymity for people just because stigma really sucks.
Courtney Brame: And so the way that we navigate this stigma is just by getting people together who are just... it's all about being social. We play flag football. We hooped a little bit. and what's interesting is I probably shouldn't say this, but please don't get the wrong idea, but someone made a joke about, CO's a virus, herpes is a virus, or maybe like us having taken antivirals is the reason that no one who came to this place from all over the world got COVID. So, that's something that hasn't been proven. I'm not a medical professional.
00:35:00 Courtney Brame: I can't say that that's the case, but that happened. No one got co just saying. So yeah, that's how you find us in the groups, find us in the streets. I ain't saying, maybe you could wear a t-shirt, ask me about my herpes and perhaps you'll find somebody that way. You got to wear a mask so it's not like anyone's going to see your face. I got to stop with these jokes. So yeah, if you want to do something like that, now's the ideal time. We got to social distance, so perhaps something like that would be acceptable. What's funny is now I'm thinking about this kid who made a YouTube video wearing a breathing mask to cover up his face as he talked about herpes. And I was just like, that's so stigmatizing. Here I am telling you to do it. Next question.
Overcompensating and Society's Definition of Masculinity
Courtney Brame: curious about how men deal with society's definition of men now with an HSV diagnosis. I like this question. I think that we need to talk about how mainstream society says men are tough, men are leaders, men are right, men are superior. That's what stream mainstream society says I think that the real society understands that the woman like that duality doesn't necessarily exist because there are people who sometimes feel more masculine sometimes feel more feminine and they express this in a way
Courtney Brame: that creates their gender identity or their gender. I don't know if identity is appropriate to use there, but looking at what it means to be masculine a leader, a thinker, planner, and then with feminine, it's more compassion, feeling something else. I should have pulled up a chart or something so that I could look that up. But yeah, I think it's an understanding that there's masculine and feminine in everything. I think that the herpes diagnosis more so amplifies what we think we need to do. So, for men, I know that we've tried to make more money. We've tried to make ourselves more attractive by being in the gym, starting to change up our diet. All of a sudden, we want to go running all the time. That's what it makes us do.
Courtney Brame: It makes us have to overcompensate by being hot or being attractive in another way to where you just completely would overlook the fact that we have HSV. So now we have to become better providers. We have to have more money. We have to find a way to make ourselves taller. We need the big truck. We need a new car. We need fancy things. We need to impress our potential partners. whatever gender. That's what it makes us do. Men are supposed to be impressive. Women want a man who is dominant, who is confident, who has high social status, who has a lot of money. That's the kind of s*** mainstream society pumps into our heads. And so now, what's being challenged with HSV is highlighting the reality behind that in that it's not sustainable. It's not what we want for ourselves most of the time.
Courtney Brame: And honestly, when we do pursue these things and get them, we're feeling way more empty because we didn't listen to what our intuition was for us. We're listening to everybody else rather than ourselves. And s***, I'm guilty of this too. Even at this point, at one point I felt like I was queer because I was attracted to a non-binary person. And this non-binary person talked a lot about their sex toys and clearly had a vagina. And I was like, when I found out that they use them they pronouns, I was like, " my god, what the f*** does this mean for me?" Do I like a gender that's not women? What does that mean for me? And so my masculinity became in question from my manliness and what that meant for me.
Courtney Brame: And so after doing some research, it made me educate myself and learn about queerness and learn about what it meant to be non-binary and other gender identities in a way that was like, I just had my sexual identity reaffirmed for me through this experience." And that didn't have anything to do with HSV. It's just an example of my personal experience with having to look at what it means to be a man, right? So, dealing with this and HSV, it just means that you have to overcompensate and unfortunately repress the feminine inside of you because in order to amplify your masculine, you've got to repress the feminine. That's what they
00:40:00 Courtney Brame: That's what we're told by mainstream society. Whereas the underground society or the reality here is that the more feminine you are, the more masculine you can be. And that's just my opinion and vice versa. So for me in doing this podcast, I have to turn both up. I have to be able to listen. I have to be able to hear people. I have to be compassionate. But I also have to take charge and take initiative. And if I'm the better I'm able to do one, the better I'm able to do the other. I don't think there should be a repression of one in order to amplify the other because that's where I believe we get into the toxicity of it. It's toxic to exert masculinity in a way that is domineering, demeaning, etc. But when it's leading, when it's safe, when it's, what's another good word? It's disciplined. It's got integrity.
Courtney Brame: I think that that's where we need to see ourselves after our HSV diagnosis. It needs to bring us to reality and that's what it does. I think that this has brought a lot of us to reality and the reality is that mainstream doesn't work for us anymore. We have to be unconventional. Hopefully that answers your question there too. Speaking of, I mentioned therapy a little bit earlier. My therapist has been super helpful for me. When you feel that you are ready for therapy, if you don't want to go through Something Positive for Positive People, I strongly encourage you to check out Go to www.gethelp.com/spfpp and you'll get 10% off of your first month of counseling services. My therapist and I have talked about HSV.
Courtney Brame: We talked about my relationship with rejection, my relationship with my dad and my younger brothers. I bet a lot of y'all probably didn't know that, but I'm the oldest of five siblings. I am technically an only child because I'm my only child. My dad had two more boys. My mom had a girl and a boy after me. So, this is a very unique situation to describe the people, but they're all my brothers and my sister. I love them all the same. The relationship was the way that I view my dad. It's the way that potentially my younger siblings view me. And after talking with my younger siblings after having had a therapist, we do have a much closer relationship. and I understand that there was no harbored resentment towards me for growing up and not being there with them because I'm much older than they are.
Courtney Brame: and they weren't upset. And I think part of me needed that because I was definitely avoiding a conversation with one of my younger brothers to see how he felt because he's very expressive in his anger. And I don't really care for confrontation. If you want to yell, I'll just be like, "All right, say what you going to say. I'm not about to just f****** sit here and tolerate this s***." But it was good for me to hear him speak and use his anger in a way that was very articulate and I got to watch how he's matured through our interaction with one another. So I went into therapy thinking that I was just struggling with compassion fatigue. I wanted to prepare myself so that I could continue to provide all of you all with support and those who are going to come in the future and those who've been here in the past.
Courtney Brame: being able to be here for you all in a way that doesn't drain me. So, this was another one of the things that we talked about. I recently talked to him about my experience with chlamydia, my impostor syndrome, my insecurities around my self-worth. This is a deep one I'm going to share here and this will probably come up at some other point, but my self-worth is tied to my ability to provide. So, there's a direct correlation between my identity, my self-worth, my self- value, and how much money I make, and that causes me to have an extreme level of insecurity. And now that that's come to surface, that's something that we're going to work on. So, you can get to this point as well. Therapy isn't just exclusively about telling the therapist you have herpes and then figuring out how to navigate stigma. No, it's way deeper than that.
Courtney Brame: All the work that I've done on myself, the journaling, the conversations, the research, the reading, the YouTube videos, the podcast, the documentaries, all of that got me to a point where I could once something happened let's use the example of a big event happening in my life that makes me feel an intense emotion, I'm able to name the emotion and then be able to deal with it so that I can heal with it. That event probably had smaller events that led up to it that I just completely overlooked. And There's patterns that are repeated. There's lessons. And what my therapist is doing for me is challenging me to challenge myself to go back and look at those little things that I thought were insignificant. So, www.ethelp.comfppp if you can afford therapy.
The Integrated Male and Black Masculinity
00:45:00 Courtney Brame: And then if you can't, please feel free to reach out to me so that we can get you some sort of assistance there. Again, for 10% off your first month of counseling services, visit www.ethelp.comfp and that's the next question. Curious about how men deal with society's definition. wait. I just read that.
Courtney Brame: You have your outlooks on masculinity and disclosure changed? And then they said, "Rep SCL St. Louis." Woo woo. My outlooks on masculinity and disclosure have definitely changed. I don't know if this is masculinity disclosure as in one thing if we're putting them together or separating them. But I want to answer this question in a way that my masculinity has definitely changed. And part of that is thanks to the Let's Talk Bra podcast. Shout out to Jeremy. They have done a really good job on this podcast breaking down masculinity in a way for a Black man to understand because my examples of masculinity are what it means to be a white man, not what it means to be a man of color. Right? So, when we talk about masculinity, it looks different in white men versus Black men, right?
Courtney Brame: So yes, but we have to provide in different ways. A white man might have been given certain privileges and advantages that I as a Black man, I don't have. So if you compare their masculinity to my masculinity, then it blows mine out of the water, so to speak, because theirs is more than mine due to the privileges they've been granted. Now, not having had those privileges, not having any advantages or having to work with what I got and make something out of it, do a lot with a little bit. When you look at it that way as far as making something out of nothing, that's a completely different aspect of masculinity. So, on culture. It looks different based on your environment. It looks different based on your experiences and where your masculinity needs to show up.
Courtney Brame: when we talk about this in regards to disclosure, I think that for me, it definitely makes me lead the conversation. I'm not timid or hesitant to have the conversation. I initiate the conversation 100% of the time. And so, it wasn't there a few times after my diagnosis. I'm not disclosed to people. And over time, when I decided, all right, I want to be a whole human. I want to be an integrated male. They talk about this in No More Mr. Nice Guy by Donald Glover. I don't think It's Dr. Robert Glover. and he talks about this concept in integrated male. He's not masculine only. He's balanced.
Courtney Brame: He's a healthy masculine because there's feminine and masculine energy that flows through him and you see that in his behavior. And in terms of that it's definitely made me more solid, powerful, strong in leading the conversation around my sexual health. Thank you for that question from St. Louis. Is it true that males have less outbreaks than females? apparently because the penis or male genitalia skin is thicker or more resilient than females.This is a person who may have a compromised immune system may not be able to combat the virus when it sheds and has outbreaks compared to someone with a good immune system.
Outbreak Frequency and Men Avoiding Their Feelings
Courtney Brame: to someone who may be into fitness, who manages their stress and who eats well and they've got antioxidants and anti- inflammatory type foods, their likelihood of having fewer outbreaks is significantly higher than someone who is not making that conscious decision about their health choices, their food choices. Right? So that's something that we have to take into consideration, not whether or not a penis or a vagina gets more outbreaks. What I will say is that I hear from far more women who do have outbreaks generally, let me say that generally around their menstrual cycle due to fluctuations and changes of the hormones probably like mood and things like that. I haven't done any research on it.
00:50:00 Courtney Brame: from the conversations that I've had, it's very common for women to get outbreaks around the time of their menstrual cycle. So, that would be the better answer there than, if you have a penis, you get fewer outbreaks, but if you have a vagina, you don't, or vice versa. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. Let me see if there's anything else here. I covered all of the questions. We got a little bit of time. So, one thing that I've noticed about men with HSV that I feel is important here is that we're very ready to do something about it now and then forget about it. We're almost avoidant when dealing with the feelings. We don't want to feel the feelings. We don't want to cry. We don't want to be sad. And this kind of goes back. What it means to be a man in our mainstream society is to be avoidant.
Courtney Brame: It means to avoid emotions. Get those out of here. We don't need that. We don't have space to be emotional. We need to get s*** done. We don't have time to be emotional. It's kind of what the message is bringing to us. How this shows up in terms of herpes is when it's time for me to get my diagnosis, I may go into All right, doctor. What do I need to do and the doctor just says, " just wear condoms. All right, cool." And then we go on about our business. We're not dealing with our feelings around it. We're not asking the questions of a compassionate person "Okay, if I have an outbreak at the base of my penis, where my pelvis is, and the condom doesn't protect that, and you told me where we're not rationalizing in a compassionate way, right? Because if that were the case, then we know that a condom isn't going to always protect a person. So, we get the information. What they give us is what we hold on to.
Courtney Brame: And then when it comes to disclosure, the way that men seem to do it is I don't want to say everybody doesn't, but it seems to not be a thing for a lot of women I've talked to because they've just not been disclosed to. So, I'm finding out through the women what these men have said for the most part, and it was, " I was told I just needed to wear a condom. I haven't had an outbreak in forever. That's herpes. and that's what's happening. And they confess at times that they knew they had it or that they got it from a previous partner who had it, they dated someone who's had herpes before. and there's just seems to be no responsibility there or any compassion at all,
Outro: Commending Men Who Seek Support
Courtney Brame: So, while primarily women will, receive their diagnosis and kind of lose their s***, guys just kind of go into shock about it and they're like, "All right, what do I want to do?" And the guys who reach out to me, thankfully, are taking a major first step for themselves because they're seeking support. And that requires a little bit of that feminine energy because you recognize that you need something and you're putting yourself out there in a position to ask for it. So, I commend all of the men who followed up and touched base with me during the time of their diagnosis and they were looking for resources and that they were able to find this. That's so amazing that so many people have come through Something Positive for Positive People and got what they needed and then been able to go on with their life and refer people back here whenever they need to. leaving reviews and supporting the podcast as best they can in whatever way they can.
Courtney Brame: It has been a lovely experience and I look forward to being able to do this ongoingly. Like I said before in other episodes, interviews are being postponed until I can meet people in person. I don't have the same recording equipment that I had before. So, this podcast episode may sound different than other podcast episodes for that reason. And I'm also in my living room where it's wide open space and the sound quality isn't the same as at the gym because they're doing construction across the street and next door and there's just a lot of hammering and drilling and everything and y'all don't need to hear all of that. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, subscribe to this podcast on whatever listening platform you use. It means a lot to us.
00:55:00 Courtney Brame: It's helping us with being able to get us more visibility to people. And we're going to be offering therapy, this was just something spoken into existence. I want to get therapy for people who are struggling with herpes. And here we are. We've got the first one set up for next week, and all I got to do is just finalize some paperwork and make the payment. And thank you all for your donations, for making this happen. Till next time, stay sex positive.
Transcript ended after 00:55:25
