Something Positive for Positive People

Two straight black dudes talk about queerness with curiosity. We not only discuss our relationships to queerness, but also our blackness and our manliness. This episode is in a way, a bat signal for those who can relate to the topic of these intersecting and at the same time conflicting. Patric and I talk about being black but not the right kind of black, being men but not in the traditional sense of what expressions of manliness is experienced like, and then by what our initial thoughts of queerness were, feeling like we don’t belong in that space either. Follow Patric on Instagram @pbrown_the_aeon

Here's a practical exercise to get to the core of your being through challenging and chizzling away at the social norms projected onto us. These projected identities are not who we are but who others think we are, and we play the role accordingly, UNLESS we challenge these. When we begin to challenge them, we transcend the meaning of the labels and expectations. Trimming away others' expectations of us is how we get to our core of being. Identification comes with conflict of belonging and not belonging and that struggle ought to guide us in the direction of BEING rather than performing for approval to associate according to our identities.

This episode highlights the bigger picture for SPFPP and its audience, volunteers, supporters, and gives donors understanding of what’s happening as spoken by one of our partners, a therapist supporting people living with herpes. This is what our donations work towards. This is where my bigger picture effort goes. The day to day discipline, consistency, ups and downs that you may or may not see. . . This is what keeps my motivation high. I can blow through symptoms of burnout because I so clearly see a future for this organization that streamlines a process for individuals to dissolve stigma within themselves by taking their own conceptions of themselves, and be willing to look at, feel, and heal the perceived brokenness that comes with the trauma of a herpes diagnosis. Time doesn’t heal all. It simply mends what is as it is. Don’t outsource doing the work to doing nothing but letting the pain settle in. Use this as an opportunity to reconstruct your identity from the shattered pieces of your identity. You got this! For 65% off the yearly pass for our new sponsor, Beducated by following the link and entering coupon code SPFPP: http://beducate.me/spfpp

Kim has been an admin for some of the alternative social support groups you’ve heard me talk about, or you’ve seen me post footage of on Instagram whenever I’ve been able to make it out. She speaks to her experience not only serving the community behind the scenes as an administrator and event planner, but as a member of them as well. Some people don’t need the services offered by Something Positive for Positive People. Maybe they already listen to the podcast, have a therapist, don’t struggle with disclosure, but just need something they can’t speak to. I recommend checking into these social support communities. They’ve added to my own confidence being open about my status. They also contribute to my “why” in a way. Knowing so many people wish they could do more but can’t due to the chokehold stigma has on some of us. With every sharing of status, with every support system tapped into, we create allies. Those allies begin to advocate for us in spaces we don’t feel safe to. The greater the allyship, the softer the stigma. To get connected to these social support groups, hit me up. I’m most accessible via Instagram @honmychest.

When we stand against the stigmatization of people, that’s the win in itself. We neglect the win that comes from challenging our own internalized stigma when we do something as simple as putting a friend in their place for making an offensive joke perpetuating the negative mental health impacts of a person struggling with their sexuality and sexual health. This allyship extends in the media. When influencers, celebrities and media leaders make a joke that invalidates the identities and experiences of people facing the day to day challenges of stigma, each time we speak against that, we welcome in allyship. I genuinely believe allyship will be the thing that most minimizes the unknowing transmission of herpes, thus less people thrown off by social stigma to the point of poor mental health status. That’s another conversation though. Suzanne was married TEN YEARS and it was when she exited her marriage that she began a relationship with someone new that she discovered her status. Herpes didn’t make her lower her self-worth or standards. In fact it raised them for her. Being a high value, empowered woman in the dating world is a challenge, but when you have your standards high, you minimize your exposure to the BS. The question becomes not who accepts me, but who do I accept? The awareness of sexual health practices in a partner has now become a high priority in her relationship choices. The toxic potential of being with someone who just says “I’ll still sleep with you even though you have herpes” is through the roof, and we should be aware of more compatibilities before moving forward. What I love most about my talk with Suzanne is how she speaks to the green flags to look for after disclosure. Communication, directness, receptiveness to mature conversations like speaking about sexual health practices are some sure-fire signs for potential in a partner. There’s more communication to look to beyond herpes status. What other compatibilities do we have with one another? What are some incompatibilities? Don’t tell people what they want to hear in order to get what you want. Instead, be honest. Two people who don’t know what they want is better than two people acting like they do for the sake of the interaction.

Instagram’s own KLongFit joins us to share her experience diagnosed at 19 with HSV1 genitally. Having grown up in a religious, Christian household, Katelyn speaks to how hearing “don’t have sex” from her mom contributed to her own shame around sex and how it impacted her behavior. She went many sexual encounters not disclosing to partners unconsciously looking for the hero she found two years into her diagnosis who has now been her partners for 5 years and has not shown any symptoms of HSV. This wasn’t a smooth transition as he was also someone she hadn’t disclosed to initially. She was outed at the dinner table by her sister’s bitter ex boyfriend who happened to overhear when Katelyn disclosed to her sister. This led to a necessary, and long delayed disclosure to the man she’d been with for 2 years at this point. We speak to her evolution on how herpes was what changed the course of her life along with Shoshanna Raven’s Living Brave community. Self-reflecting, journaling, and being forced into having to confront not only not having disclosed to her partner, but also the underlying emotions associated with it all. You should listen to this podcast period. This isn’t FOR any particular group of people. I think this helps us empathize with those who struggle with disclosure and have compassion for them as they don’t have the know how or resources to navigate the sigma until someone is able to pull them in for support or point them in the right direction of community. Allyship is so key. Stigma prevents us from establishing this within our social circles and community settings. We can minimize or even prevent instances like Katelyn’s experience if we lean into that minor discomfort of sharing our HSV status with people and share some of what we’ve learned having to navigate the inconsistency of available resources. I’ll do my part being louder about this being a healing resource for people struggling with herpes stigma and welcome in allies. We reference her article on Elephant Journal. Here’s the link to that if you want to read her story: www.elephantjournal.com/?p=2548654

First thing’s first, I did end up not getting ghosted ha! Kelsy started her herpes journey on Herpbler and was inspired by Ella Dawson’s anonymous profile there. Kelsy became loud in her personal life and on social media about her herpes status. She shares a story about having flown out to meet with a guy she had been talking to. He introduced her to 25ish of his friends. They were intimate and the sex was average. Not getting oral is NOW a boundary for her, but she made an exception because he checked the boxes. He said he just needed time to be comfy with it. He got real quiet on her after the visit was over and she wondered why. He eventually shared he wasn’t comfortable with her having herpes and he’s a nurse too so he had the information. We discuss how to navigate people saying they’re okay with us having herpes and then later not being okay with it. Managing the emotional labor with boundaries is key. They might already have herpes, but they just don’t know because of how tricky testing is as well as all the misinformation that’s out there making it challenging. So how do we REALLY know who’s okay with us having herpes? We don’t, man. It’s unfortunate but we are always taking a chance with someone. So all we can do is measure people’s actions and the consistency of that alongside their words. People are willing to unlearn stigma for themselves. We have to trust that. What having herpes REALLY means is the same thing for any other condition. We learn to give our body the best opportunity to operate at its natural capacity. A health condition creates a baseline for us to work with. As herpes is a highlight to an underlying trigger, we speak to Kelsy’s suicide ideation after her diagnosis. We also speak to her fear of abandonment and the narrative “What’s wrong with me?” as the topic when not being chosen given one’s weight of your value as it relates to your herpes diagnosis. Having herpes added to her security in herself only because she was willing to explore this within herself. Accepting my status doesn’t mean you’re a good person, and rejecting my status doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t put all that weight onto someone accepting your diagnosis to the point where you overlook the red flags and other incompatibilities. Not wanting herpes is perfectly fine. Hell, I didn’t want herpes and here I am. It’s ok to not want herpes, what’s not ok is invalidating the wholeness of a person. I think this is an excellent follow up from episode 208 where I talk about '“lowering my voice” when it comes to having herpes and sharing what I do to keep those around me comfortable. It isn’t brave to be loud about our status, it’s confronting internalized stigma that is. I know I personally have some work to do around that for sure. Talking about sex is challenging and not “normal”. Filtering in people receptive to sexual health communication through sex positivity and people’s relationship to mental health leads to a higher likelihood of a positive disclosure and much more pleasant interaction. We get to a point where we have to stop caring so much about what other people think in the short term for the sake of our own bigger picture of wholeness. We discuss how we can benefit from communicating about past challenges in relationships. Having the sexual health talk should be just as normal as speaking about past relationships. Another thing to consider is how we look at compatibilities outside just herpes status? She also shared an experience she had disclosing her status to a health care worker who hadn’t known their herpes information. They were unaware that HSV1 can be genital story. WE ARE THE EXPERTS OF OUR EXPERIENCES! Take the opportunities to share experiences where it’s safe to do so for ya! Look at who has herpes that we’re NOT hearing from! Most people are okay with their status, don’t know or it just isn’t an issue for them. The younger folks navigating stigma correctly! They’re communicating, utilizing resources, becoming empowered far earlier than those before us. Now we have Safe Slut, Positively Positive, Shana Singleton, etc. TikTok… the list goes on. The end of stigma isn’t a universal ending of stigma. It comes at an individual level to be shared as needed and within the communities of those who’ve ended it within themselves. For Kelsy, it took 6-7 years to hit up a therapist in regards to the trauma that came from the relationship/person who gave her herpes. Empowerment and taking care of yourself is asking people about their status despite being someone positive in their status. Value yourself! Having a support system, their friend, and resources helped her not end her life. Follow Kelsy on Instagram @herp3tic Goddess

Adrial Dale has had herpes 10-15 years ( After a while you just kinda throw out a window) and he is the founder of H Opportunity. We actually connected back in 2019 at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Adrial made the slides for the “Making Disclosure Sexy” talk I did with Ashley Manta, the Cannasexual and Laura Aisha from the Ignite Intimacy podcast. We connected recently over this herpes stat sheet he created in 2014 that’s been circulating in the herpes support groups I’m part of. The information is clearly outdated and I challenged people to challenge that information when they come across it. Since then, Adrial has updated that information and it can be found on his site, H Opportunity. Swimming in stigma, Adrial sought out information that demonstrated the likelihood of him having a healthy sex-life post-diagnosis. He was cheated on by his partner and admits to being someone to make fun of people with herpes until he was diagnosed himself. His experience made him ask the question, “What stories are you telling yourself as a person with herpes?”. Alone, Googling herpes gives us a lot of assumptions and so many inconsistencies. During this episode, we look at a herpes diagnosis is the shovel that unearths what was already there for us! Self worth is associated with the feelings around our diagnosis. Courage is a choice. Those of us open about our status aren’t brave, we’re privileged. It’s those of us who choose to look at and deal with it are the brave ones. Hitting rock bottom can be motivation enough to begin to take a look at what it means to be courageous. Adrial’s journey really kicked off when he joined a support group THEN lead one. Seeing others like you makes navigating this a lot easier. I see people jump into offering support before having gotten it themselves and there’s a number of different ways that can go. It’s important to understand what people are going through before you try and say you have a solution for them. I often speak to this personally. I liked myself more around people who knew nothing about me except that I have herpes than I did around people who knew everything about me BUT that I had herpes. Take inventory on the version of yourself you like more. Do you like yourself more around those who KNOW you have herpes and nothing else about you or those who DON’T. Ask yourself this, “If herpes wasn’t what happened to you, then what would the trigger for change have been?”. Connection through pain/grief like “oh shit you too!?” offers a felt sense of deeper connection. Grieving our sexual selves after an STI diagnosis and the identity of our sexuality in the present and future or dwelling on what it used to be. We are all grieving when we’ve experienced intense emotion after a trauma. This healing can serve as rocket fuel for self-growth through acceptance. Embrace your WHOLE self, herpes and whatever else knowing it makes you stronger and more connected to yourself and those around you! The ideal time to disclose is where sex convo overlaps into what it looks like with one another. It applies to hookups and slower developing connections. Sometimes disclosing our herpes status can be a shortcut to vulnerability and surefire connection. Get clear on what info you want and look for that, but don’t get stuck on it. Look at the stats broken down and the impact it plays on your mental health until you find the aha moment. We need more information on barrier sex vs skin to skin contact sex rather than male to female sex as if we only do it for reproduction. Vulva to vulva sex is happening, and “use a condom” just doesn’t apply to this kind of sexual interaction. I really want to emphasize how importance it is to challenge the available information about HSV. While we ARE the resource, we’re not perfect. We only have what’s available to us and what others share with us, but challenge it to your lived experience and in spaces you feel safe to. Have some general foundational knowledge from the research as you look through/at stats for yourself. As we put our experiences out there, we learn the commonality. Connect with Adrial at https://www.herpesopportunity.com/

This episode we have Bekka from St. Louis who made it through 12 sessions of therapy. She shares her experience with learning how to disclose to partners, navigate her relationship new relationship since her diagnosis. As someone who was in a period of celibacy when she tested positive, she talks about the challenge of navigating that with limited support. She speaks to the benefits of therapy for her, and what so many others CAN get out of this. You can support our cause to get people navigating herpes stigma connected to mental health resources by donating today. My cash app and venmo are @CourtneyBrame. Paypal is just paypal.com/spfpp

Today someone reached out to me at an interesting time. I’m currently listening to a book called “Forces for Good - The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits”. In this book, I’m essentially experiencing validation that I’m doing 5 of the 6 things perfect. I’m on par with the top 12 Nonprofits in the United States. I do a lot with a little bit and to go from $1,200 in donations in 2019 to donations 2021 donations totaling more than $15,000, I realize just how much I missed focusing on what I haven’t done “well” (and I say that subjectively). The one area I lack in isn’t even an area I’m lacking. The one thing that keeps me from experiencing the success of larger Nonprofits is that they inspire action, advocacy, and people are loud and proud of the organization that serves them. I’m serving the most stigmatized group of people, those with herpes, and the very people I extend support to through Something Positive for Positive People are the very people so stigmatized that they literally cannot do what’s needed to make SPFPP what it needs to be in order to hit that next level. This kind of thinking is where my head was before Emily and I recorded this podcast episode. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing the way that I’m supposed to be. It’s more important to me that I have an impact than do everything by the books. When I heard these successful Nonprofits aren’t all super structured, civilized, professional, etc. I felt seen. I let people tell me to make things look a certain way. I’ve let myself think I need to have funding from people who have the money putting us good will organizations against one another to compete for the resources to do good. What the fuck is that about? I knew that was happening but to hear it here in this book, I realized that I’m damn capable of making an impact as I have for the last almost 5 years with minimal resources. If I get more resources, then imagine the impact then! This book is expanding my perspective on serving through a Nonprofit. It’s also validating my self trust. The success is in the consistency. I know there are people I’ve helped that I’ll never hear from and people will never know the impact SPFPP had on them. I accept that. But DAMN it’s so hard to see that I have 5/6 of what makes the most impactful Nonprofits what they are and I’m just an allyship campaign away from being at that tier. That’s ego talking though, because it isn’t about that at all. This reading and timing of this interview pulled me out of this inner conflict I’ve struggled with. I downplay the amazing impact I know I’m having on the people of the world because I don’t want to make people uncomfortable about me being open about my herpes status. Something Positive for Positive People will always be linked to herpes no matter how hard I try to connect it to mental health and suicide prevention. Me being open about my status is what’s allowed for us to touch as many people as I have so far. I thank my therapist who cut me off mid sentence when we spoke about my relationships being with people who seemed ashamed of the amazing work I do because it revolves around my openness about having herpes. He told me it’s not my responsibility to be less than for ANYONE. If me being who I am makes people uncomfortable, that’s for them to work through. I do have herpes. This is an important part of my life. I’m done turning that part of myself down. Emily shares with me the insight in her own experience just why it can be challenging for some people to be open about their status as it impacts their income directly. She pointed out something in reference to educators who work with children and how they aren’t allowed to be human. I think that’s where the brave people are. For her to repress her being to be able to do what she loves to me is brave. This made me reflect on just how privileged I am to be able to say I have herpes to the internet and be met with no consequences, whereas she navigates the world in such a way that she looks like a superhuman/hero to the kids and parents of the kids she educates. I see ya’ll. I see the educators and people having to navigate stigma so cautiously due to anything connected to a flawed aspect of sex for a person can ruin their career. Emily showed me the other side of this and gave me all the more reason to stop inhibiting myself from connecting with people authentically. I catch myself slipping into “I work in mental health” when I talk to new people. I’m going to keep making an impact and stop trying to separate herpes from Something Positive for Positive People to make people comfortable getting involved for the sake of growing like Nonprofits do. I’m going to make people MORE uncomfortable. I’m telling people who ask me this is exactly what I do. I’m 110% invested in SPFPP now. I disengaged from all external inhibitors of my ability to continue to create the impact I know I can. I’m invested. This wildfire of passion in my heart is now free to fuck shit up now! No more will I try keeping the flames at bay because a love interest doesn’t want anyone questioning their herpes status, or a friend hasn’t disclosed to a potential partner yet and they’re worried about how my disclosure will be received, and if someone is uncomfortable with associating with this impactful organization because of herpes, then I have to allow them to be there while I move onward expanding my messaging to reach those who need it. This’ll be what it’s supposed to be. It isn’t about growth for me anymore, it’s about consistency. *Revised to reflect that it was not $26k… I had the totals of each month included with the Excel formula in some months when I was getting totals and that ended up almost doubling the total lol.