All right hello and welcome to Something Positive for Positive
People. I'm Courtney Brown.
Something Positive for Positive People is A5O1C3 nonprofit
organization supporting people who are navigating herpes
statement. 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 the 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 like little, little rooms,
little studio rooms. But these are like classroom
settings and I don't know if I like this.
So today we going to see what it looks like and go from there.
I'm trying to worry at myself in a way that don't make me look
crazy, but I don't know that that's going to happen.
All right, so I got my notes, so I'm going to be able to stay on
topic. I like this setting the
expectation of just one podcast recording per month because if I
do 2, 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 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 SP fpp.org/herpes Dash newsletter and if you even just
Google herpes newsletter, it'll be the first thing that comes
up. Yay 'cause 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. 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.
And without, you know, revealing any information and making
people feel like they can't come to me and share their stories
without it being a podcast episode.
Like, 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. OK, 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. 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 from you 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.
Like I pay 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 yeah, that is very annoying.
So in in in a way. But you know, I get to do this
like I'm I'm glad and proud that I get to continue to run this
non proud of the organization, even if doing it by the books
is, you know, killing me. But it is what it is.
Yeah, the social media, it 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.
So if I host an event, like I just had to cancel something
that I had planned for June 16th, 17th, 18th.
This was going to be lunch and learn for mental health
professionals where the focus on one day, 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 for people to
be able to register for. 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
made 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, I took it down and it's pride month, it's men's
mental health awareness month. That just, it didn't seem like a
good time or a good 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. So it made no sense for me to go
ahead and go through with that and have be 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 shit. So showing the newsletter, you
can just search herpes newsletter online and it'll take
you directly to the page or anywhere on something positive
the 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 1 to 1 1/2 on average newsletter letters on a monthly
basis, so you ain't got to worry about me spamming you with shit.
Even people who sign up for events, they're always like,
where's the communication? Where's the the communications?
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? Speaking of events, August 29th
there's something positive for positive people herpes get in
the conference they are Expo is going to be in New York City and
the venue. If you were here in 2023, was it
23 or 24 when I had the Something Positive for Positive
People Expo because I was going to call it the Safe Sex Expo,
but the wording on social media was getting a shadow banned and
we had a good time. I think there were a total of 60
people all together that came in and out of it.
But 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 spfbp.org/expo. I'm also going to be presenting
on August 30th, somewhere between August 30th and
September 2nd at the SCI 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. I'll let y'all know.
Like I'm, I'm, I'm serious about this.
I'm taking this thing real serious and I get to present in
front of the people who can directly impact change.
And my presentation is on safe sex as commutative sex and
teaching that STD prevention really needs to go beyond where
a condom get tested, know your status and more so into well
here is how we go about communicating these things in
between partners so that we can make most accurate of a 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 1st
and 3rd Monday of each month. And then if there happened to be
5 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.
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. So like there's going to be an
integration of the two because I think that 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. So that's why we have a meeting
on the 1st and the 3rd 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.
Like 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 do I deal with this thing, get the
the information and then we might not hear from them 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.
So I guess because it's getting hot outside, everybody trying to
get back out in the streets. The women's group is very
active. I got a lot of registrations for
today as well. So I might I might to be able to
present, you know, more of an ongoing supportive space, but
community feels like a more accurate word.
So be on the lookout for, you know, 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 will be working out.
So we'll see who's really interested.
Oh, the support calls. This is the last thing.
And then we shipped into the podcast.
It was so so thank you for listening the support call
boundaries. So 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. They don't think that this is a
real organization. They just want to vent and
filling out performance enough for them, but 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 miss they they don't make it for the call or
they show up late or they get dismissive and blame me for like
not having had the cause. 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 a 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 shit
ain't useful to you or if you feel invalidated in any way,
shape or form, I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to
get your money back. All right?
Now, don't reach out to me. Donate and be like, yeah,
Courtney, you know, it's good. And then, I don't know.
I don't really like this. Can I have my money back?
Don't do that shit that we will re establish.
We'll re establish things as necessary.
But for this particular situation that I'll speak to
like I want to share because I think it's a learning point and
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 I feel like I need to change things solely based on one
person's experience being bad. All right, OK, so yeah, the
donation proves that you are most likely to show up to the
call. And since you're doing that, the
retention rate of attendance has been significantly greater.
So I'm going to keep that. I'm going to keep that there.
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.
I don't touch that shit. If you want to talk about that,
please reach out to your doctor or virologist.
I don't even bother with it, OK? 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 are. It's OK how you are navigating
the stigma, how you're navigating stigma internally,
how engaged you are with. And I fucked up my whole train
of thought. Good thing I got notes.
Yeah, the data and science are already there.
It's free. Like I don't talk about that
because it's irrelevant to me. It's irrelevant that, you know,
they're working on a cure, that a vaccine should be worked on.
Like I deal with what's, you know, 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.
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 being able to navigate the stigma in a way
that is healthy, I'm not going to be helpful to you, right?
And I think that that's what a lot of people, you know, want.
They want to know when is there going to be a cure like I have?
When are you going to stop waiting on the cure?
Like that's what my responsibility is.
And I hope that that doesn't, you know, deter anybody from
reaching out about a support call.
But often times, like I'll ask people, you know, what do you
think you need? And more often than not, I hear
a cure for this. It's like, OK, let's talk about
why you feel like you need a cure for this.
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 shit. It is what it is right now.
I think I already talked about this like I'm I'm there's a lot
of chaos and friction that comes with running a business, a non
profit. I just can't get legit like they
it's been all year I've been trying to do this and I keep
getting pushed back 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 tax.
So that's frustrating. But even with all of that, like
I'm at peace. I feel like I'm very locked in
in the fact that I recognize that my purpose in this space is
to neutralize herpes stigma. 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 you might see, you know,
some of the women who are online who you know, proud, pridefully
speak about, you know, 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 shit
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 is Courtney.
Well, I don't know why I needed to say that, but, you know,
let's 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. Hey, you know, I'm thinking that
things look like they're going in the direction of becoming
more intimate. And 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.
When it came back negative, I'll know the results about the
chlamydia, HIV and or chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, they said
within 5 to 10 business days. So I don't have any symptoms or
anything. So I suspect that those are
going to come back negative. But if that changes, like I'll
of course let you know and get treated.
But I test positive for herpes. What about you?
That's it. Like, I don't know that I made
anybody feel, Oh my God, excited about it or anybody feel, oh, I
don't know about that, about it. And sometimes a lot of people
don't know how to feel. They, they just don't.
I had someone disclosed to me actually over the weekend and
she's like, yeah, so I have HSV too.
I was so proud of her. I was like, damn right.
Like that's how you do that. And then I, I, I was like,
doesn't everybody have herpes? That's like, so fun to me
because people rarely, you know, 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 like, hold someone's hand through that, right?
And 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, you know, what the story
is with the gentleman who reached out to me.
Gentleman is a very kind word, but I, I, 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 don't, because you have herpes.
I don't know if I want to, you know, expose myself to that.
That person might be actually being a lot kinder about the
fact that maybe you're an asshole, maybe you're not
compatible. Maybe the fact that, you know,
herpes is in fact like 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. And I want to have to, I want to
put myself in a position where I know I can avoid having to have
a deep conversation and keep things superficial.
So if I happen to move forward with someone who has herpes and
I'm someone who gets it, you know, let's say I don't have it
and then I get it. Now I have to have the same
conversation that they had with me.
And the way that that conversation was having me is
going to be a reflection of how what I expect for it to be like.
So it's not fair to assume that just because you told someone
that they have herpes, that you have herpes, that the perception
of you has changed entirely. Especially if you've gone on a
few dates, if you spent time together, if you could laugh
together and you've had meals and you've gotten a little bit
personal and you getting to know somebody.
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 be with or sleep with you, right?
That very well could be the case that it's because of the herpes.
But also like what? Where else are you aligning with
one another? Is that all there is?
Because no, herpes is not worth it for just a hookup unless
somebody finds you that fucking 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 what 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 fucking floodgates can open. Somebody could cry.
Somebody could, you know, 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 day very
superficially and have no fucking idea what it is that
they want Tell someone that they have herpes and then they think
that, you know, that the person just doesn't like them because
they have herpes. That stalks me.
And it also makes me deeply sad to think that there are people
who exist who believe that people, 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 shit to do with
what you got. If someone can cling to that,
somebody can. I, I remember Carl.
What did Carl say to me? Carl said to me, if you I, I got
to word this in a more mature way, but it's something that
always stuck with me from when I was little.
He was like, if you a whack ass dude and you get some money, you
still a whack ass dude. You just got money now.
And 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 of, because
I ask everybody this who you know, struggles with dating,
what do you want? And a lot of times people say, I
don't know. So then I have to ask, OK, 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 would 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. 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
saying or communicating that I want to casually date and just
have sex with you and not a long term monogamous relationship.
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 get herpes from someone I don't know or 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 OK with that could have a long term impact on
me physically and definitely emotionally or mentally.
Now, if you're the kind of person whose alignment or whose
behaviors and beliefs do align, you know when you're getting to
that point, if you and the other person want the same things, all
right, you know, I'm right. Now I'm on my fuck boy shit and
I'm really just trying to get you home and get you naked.
Shout out to Mr. Lucario. I took that that line from him.
And the other person is like, oh, OK, 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, OK, 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 Nah.
I'm not OK 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.
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, you know, 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 to and on
the trajectory of what it is that you want long term.
And you're able to see, oh, OK, 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 look 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, you know,
hey, you know, sexual health is important to me.
I test negative for HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea.
I tested positive for herpes. What about you?
Now this person is able to have that conversation from a place
of damn, there's 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. Let me see if the 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 you know this is
somebody that I want to get to know.
And regardless of past experiences that we had, like I,
I tell people the ego is a monster, First off, but the ego,
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.
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, 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, I've been hosting this podcast for nine years.
You know how hard it is for me to stop doing this shit.
I thought I was going to stop doing this podcast many times,
but it's become such a an identity expression for me and
solidified itself from just damn.
You know, I'm, I'm curious about people's experiences with
herpes. Why is it so negative?
I want to make something positive for these positive
people. Look where we are.
And nine years later, it's so firmly an extension of my
identity, I can't get rid of this shit.
And it's gotten to a place now where, you know, even
financially, like I don't worry about being able to pay for the
fucking $400.00 hosting per year, I think for the website.
And then the additional stuff like whatever, 1100, twelve,
$100 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 presents.
I am consistent in this. I choose to, excuse me, 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.
Yeah. OK.
Well, if you had to pick one, what would it be?
OK, 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, Tender 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, you know, 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, 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 way to know who you are is to know what
you want and to communicate that you know, 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
fucking 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? Like that should sound 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 a we got to talk about this because I
didn't know what your definition is of this thing because here's
mine. And I like simplicity.
I simplify shit 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, the how your breathing changes when
you hear certain information, when you communicate certain
information. I look at all that shit and I
might not even see it with my eyes.
I mean, just feel it in my body with how it's being said, how
I'm receiving it. And then I inquire from that.
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 you should already done thought about.
So if you don't know, now I have to ask questions I need to know.
OK, what? What made you reach out?
So, OK, then when you reached out because, all right, like you
were scared of dating in the future.
OK, 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 been not 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 the sense
because that's what I have to do.
I have to ask questions. And then when you give me some
bullshit, I got to challenge that.
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
fucking person. And also I'm a real fucking
person. So like, please don't not show
up for the calls. And like the way that I am on a
podcast, the way that I am on the support calls, the way that
I'm on the support groups, the way that I am shit 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, it's how I talk.
This is how I would ideally dress.
I just got back from the gym and I'm working and I'm I'm doing
what I'm supposed to be fucking doing.
That's more important to me than anything else.
So when people tell me, when a person in nine years has 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 fucking humans with values,
Excuse me, fans, just cut on. I guess it's the AC or
dehumidifier. But yeah, dude told me that.
I guess that's probably the most, you know, specific I'll
get. But yeah, dude told me that
because I was like, hey, where are you?
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 like you.
It sounds like you did a completely different creature.
So it's like, damn, dude, you only, like 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 shit 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, you know,
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. 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, like 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.
Like I'm not putting any value into this.
Like I don't fucking know you. I don't owe you anything.
No, I don't want herpes. But when you challenge someone
and you go, OK, well, what are your values?
How are you asking these people about them?
Like 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 probably that we have time for.
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 that you
said that you've had one rejection in the entire time,
which which tells me he wasn't even listening to me because I
didn't say that. Said I can probably count on one
hand the number of times that I've experienced rejection and
there are some people out there who they go on and the next
person that they share their status with is who they end up
in a relationship with. So I had to consult with my
people around me and get talked down because I was ready to like
change shit. I was like, what the fuck am I
doing wrong man? Like for a person to come and
say like 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. I think maybe I just need to
talk to somebody. And we talked and I was like,
Hey, I 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, you know, and he he, he emailed me.
He emailed me later. He was like, Hey, you know what,
That was more helpful than I thought it was.
I appreciate what you doing. Keep it up.
And then for that to have come that same day after having this
shitty call that fucked up my entire afternoon, that felt
validated, that felt like, OK, I don't need to go onto the
website and change things and set these expectations.
But I, I feel like there was a message in there.
And the message in there is of course, like the presence over
performance, like you shouldn't be dating people off of the
superficial components of look what I can do for you.
I can make you laugh. I can make you.
I can take you to these expensive places.
I can take you to get good food. Because eventually that shit 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 of who you are as an inconsistent
mother fucker. Can'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 he 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're 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'll meet you with curiosity, I'll meet you with
presence. I'm going to challenge you.
So with all that being said, let me see, what do we put here?
Yeah, we we ain't doing the tips and tricks.
How? Here's how to get laid.
If you have Irvings, right? Say these things and she'll be
instantly attracted to you. Ain't none of that shit
happening over here. All right, I will support you
in, you know, your output over outcome.
But yeah, this shit 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, like the most unlikable person can be somebody
who knows what the fuck they want and that's trustworthy.
You can trust that. But if you're untrustworthy and
you tell me you have herpes, like I cannot trust that you're
going, that you're doing what it is, that you need to be doing it
to keep me from possibly getting it.
How do I know that you're not trying to, You're going to try
and trap me into getting herpes too, so that we can be together
forever? We don't know this.
People don't know that. 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
and the future. That's what got us here.
You know, energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
This is what the first law of thermodynamics.
It can be stored, it can be there can be energetic input,
but we're like store houses 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
and release pushes out a frequency, whether conscious or
unconscious, and our words begin to produce outcomes, the output
of our language, 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 shit in three ways,
a neutral way, a negative way, and a positive way.
And I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to vote for you and
say that the best one was the neutral one where I just stayed
in it. I have herpes.
I'm running 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. 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 state. 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. Like I, oh, 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 shit 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 and an
expression 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. Oh shit, that might be the, that
might be the podcast episode. The gravity of neutrality that
shapes your reality and can increase your salary and
energetic capacity. Now I'm just saying shit, all
right? But yeah, you want to align your
internal beliefs and your external behaviors, right?
So the, the, 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 shit 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 shit. 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
fucking 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, like the
first time I was like real with somebody, it was this was a
model Y'all. She was looking at me, she was
flirting with me, was outside. She like grabbed on to me and
like, oh, let's go. Like I, 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 and I was like, Nah, I need to get
this girl Bumble. I said, hey, she's like, yes,
sweetie, 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 know
what to say, but can I get your number?
She was like, 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, oh, at least I got it. Yeah.
She never answered the phone, though, but I know it was the
right number because I got a voicemail.
But this is before. This is before free texting, I
think. Oh, but I say that to say like
that's the 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
like a smooth ass pick up line has gotten me more genuine
connection than any other thing I would have said.
I told, I remember in college, I might have told this story I
said to somebody as I was leaving the place.
I was like, damn girl, you think it's a Harry Potter book?
And I walked off, just left. I don't know how much further
later that she was like, hey, hey, I remember you.
I was out. I was like, fucking tell them
all. She was like, 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, that's who I
am. I say like weird shit.
I'm a weird person. I 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 fuck that's
supposed to be because we we're we're in an atmosphere.
I ain't gonna, like give too much away about it, but we were
in a shared atmosphere where we were two of the few were darker
skinned people and there was music playing and, you know, 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's like, oh, yeah, you black, black.
I was like, damn. But that's kind of a compliment,
I guess because, you know, from 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 an alignment of 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 going to be in no fucking relationship.
That's abuse. That's manipulation.
And I 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?
Like, I don't give a fuck what you read on the Internet, what
you hear say. 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 it.
It's not going to be me if you're unwilling to hear the
reality of how shitty that is and how that sounds.
But that's not connection, that's manipulation.
And I don't teach that shit here, So just wanted to make
that known there. All right, But I say this
disclosure versus discussion. But the Internet algorithms, I
have to continue to use the word 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,
SP fpp.org/herpes Dash blog. If you Google herpes blog, it'll
be one of the first days that comes up since the SEO is SEO.
And maybe all this time that I've been having like not doing
weekly podcast episodes and not really being on social media,
things have been like, I feel like a much greater consistency
and professionalism to an extent.
But yeah, I, I don't like disclosure because it, 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 Herbie status and you have to accept or reject it.
It's a 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, hey, you know, I see things getting sexual with us.
Is that am I picking up on that? Right.
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 testing 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 testing 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 and experience through dialogue and the
discussion, right? We shift from confession to
conversation. It removes the ego out of, OK,
if I say these things, this is the outcome I'm going to get
based on my past experiences. No, the outline that you use in
the moment and you show that you're fucking present, right?
Like let's say somebody's eating a corn dog.
Like, 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 shit.
So I can't, I can't teach you that.
Like, good luck finding you know 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. That includes harm to yourself
and others. So I will do everything that I
can. And authenticity to me is the
pathway to that. Because if you are who you are
and people make the choice to engage with who you are, then I,
I did my job. Satya is one of the, Oh my God,
Yamas or Niyama's Yama is external.
Niyama is internal, I want to say.
But Satya, truth, truthfulness. When you live in authentic life,
it's almost like your actions and your words become true,
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 shit. And I'm not doing that.
I'm not being authentic. I'm inauthentic.
How can I, 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.
And I value that. I value the ability to create
because it's sexual energy, right?
Maybe I don't want to have sex. Maybe I, I, 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.
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 nominogamy 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 urea plasma
and being able to communicate that to partners because we were
partners and she had, you know, sent me a text of hey, I was
exposed to area plasma. We talked about it and we're
going to do a podcast episode. 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 shit. 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 I'm trying to be, I want
to be consistent and I want to continue to express in a way
that is truthful and not do the gimmicky shit.
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 feel stigma about hiding people and
having to go back later and remove podcast episodes because
over time people realize, oh shit, I'm on the Internet about
this. I, I can't take everything off
the Internet. Once I hit publish on that
podcast episode, I don't know where this shit ends up.
I know it's on the feed and I can remove it from the feed, but
you going to reach out to me and say, hey, this new, this other
podcast posting site, I, I don't have time for that.
So unless you are absolutely certain that you want to be a
podcast guest, don't we? We don't need to.
Some people say they want to be podcast guest, 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 OK place with your status.
So 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 or would love to be able to
start here and branch out and be able to do these things.
However. You know, if I got to like I got
a time limit, like I, I need this by August 29th.
I need to know if people want to do this.
I'm located in Brooklyn, NY. 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, I, 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 is me trying to stall while
I hit the stop record button, but it ain't happening.
Here we go, Bam.