Luis is a trainer, educator and consultant. Learn more about his work @ LouKnows.com

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LOU READS:

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love - bell hooks

All About Love - bell hooks

Emergent Strategy - adrienne maree brown

A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle

Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change - Sherri Mitchell

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TRANSCRIPT:

LOU: So. my name is Luis Alejandro Tapia. I'm a son of Dominican immigrants. My pronouns are he him and you might hear some folks call me Lou!

ZAK: In his job as a facilitator, Lou organizes difficult conversations.

LOU: So, most recently I've been supporting conversations around consent, around accountability, around toxic masculinity, around machismo in our culture. Right? And, and really it was in response to, um, some call outs in our neighborhood. You know, our loved ones, our partners, being like, yo, like y'all gotta do something. You gotta speak up because women don't feel safe. Uh, and we, we don't feel safe around cis/het men in our neighborhood. And so this was like a voluntary reaction to like, yo, we need to do something. Let's meet.

ZAK: And inside these meetings of cisgender, heterosexual men, Lou encourages the participants to think about and engage in, what he calls, the practice of truth-telling. Especially when it comes to sex and relationships.

You can name your intention. Right? And you can talk about what it is that you want and talk about what it is that you'd like. Right? And do that in a conversation with a person and also hear what they want want and they like, and we don't have those conversations. Right. We kind of play this game of like, well, I'm going to try this and see if it backfires on me. Right. And at that point it's too late. Then we have to figure out like, Ooh, what are the cues and how would I know. Right? But imagine a situation where you're being honest and be like, Hey, this is, this is how I feel. This is what I would like. This is what feels good to me. This is my love language. This is what I love. And I'd love to hear from you how you feel about that. Right?

ZAK: And, it's not like this is the end of romanticism, right?

LOU: No, no. Because you know, that's like the thing is like, Oh, that doesn't feel right. Patriarchy, machismo tells us like, ah, that's not, that's not seduction. Like bro, like stop. Right. I think there's, there's so much more pleasure available, uh, at the other side of that conversation where it's like, Hey, are you sure you're ready for this? Are you, how far, how far do you want to go? What do you want? Because when that is a yes, it's a yes. There's no in between. And when it's a no, it's a no. Yes. No.

ZAK: Lou is a great follow on Instagram. Find him @LouKnowsGood. You've been listening to the Best Advice Show. To offer your own advice, give me a call on the hotline at 844-935-BEST. And as always, if you're finding this show helpful, think about some other folks you know who might also find it helpful and send them a link, BestAdvice.show. Thanks.

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