Something Positive for Positive People

To this day, a Pandemic, a new baby, and ongoing sexual relations with a herpes positive partner are all seemingly nothing in the grand scheme of being clear on his values and bigger picture. Knowing what you want, AND being confident enough to say whether or not someone has the potential of providing that for you is really where the magic is. Are YOU willing to do something different to get something you’ve never had before? Does the person in front of you presenting this disclosure support your values and integrity? Do you want the same things over the same time frame? Is this about short term or ongoing engagement? Take these kinds of things into consideration when choosing a partner PERIOD. This isn’t about herpes, this is about decisiveness. It’s about clarity on remaining integral to your values and beliefs. No one “has it all together”. But we can damn sure align ourselves with people who WANT to.

Here we have the first of what I hope to be many shared experiences of people who have dated someone living with herpes while not having had symptoms or tested positive themselves. Our guest Laura shares what her experience has been dating someone non monogamously for more than a year. On this episode we chat about how she received her partner’s status share as something sexy given the vulnerability that comes with sharing something so intimate. We also speak to how his confidence and communication skills may have contributed heavily to her decision to move forward compared to if he wasn’t confident disclosing his status to her. Another thing that came up in this portion of the podcast is her placing more value on their compatibility with one another as a whole rather than just on the potential limitations herpes may put on their potential for uninhibited sex. It’s cool to hear Laura’s side of things and I hope this podcast can serve as a useful resource to discordantly dating couples where one person is positive for HSV whereas the other is negative or unaware of their status. Laura also speaks to advocating for her health with her doctor. As someone who is knowledgeable of health care providers’ resistance to herpes testing thanks to Dr. Evelin Dacker’s resources, Laura knew what to say and how to say it in order to get a herpes test for herself regardless of its accuracy. Laura’s experience is not to be reflective of every negative person in a discordant relationship. This is just something to expand our perspective. I hope the cluster of stories and experiences put together in this series not only encourage confidence for those who have a positive status to share, but also for people who are gathering information after having a positive status shared with them to just be receptive to allyship when it comes to herpes stigma.

Knowing what it means to date outside your race/culture including how social dynamics play a role in how we interact with one another is something that can be assessed over time, or it can be discussed through direct communication. Jennifer speaks to developing an apathetic attitude toward some of the ignorance she’s experienced over the years, and decides who’s worth the emotional labor to call in for a conversation about why some things said are not okay. We also discuss revisiting a herpes disclosure after a person has made the choice to move forward. Jennifer shares the perspective of having to acknowledge the realness of herpes which means having to tell partners she’s having an outbreak. Think of the comfort created over time. You’ve worked through the nerves that come with sharing your status to this potential partner. Time passes and you’re both in a good place about it then you have to pause sexual activities. The conversation kind of has to come up again. Jennifer shares how she’s navigated that with partners as well. For 65% off the yearly pass for our new sponsor, Beducated by following the link and entering coupon code SPFPP: http://beducate.me/spfpp

As I've been applying for grants/funding and experiencing rejection on a regular basis, I've come to realize through this series of recordings that I'm trying to fit in to places where I'm not blank enough. I'm not queer enough, black enough, or manly enough to belong in those spaces. This translates into SPFPP because it isn't enough about sex, mental health, or herpes to receive funding from places that on the surface make sense for it. It isn't blank enough to fit in because I'm not blank enough to fit in. And it took for me to realize this in order to once again reconnect with MY core and allow what radiates from it to be focused into the core of what I invest energy into. The Question mark in the center of the triangle graphic for this "Belonging Series" represents who I am. I'm someone who's lived experiences that covered that core. My healing process is deconstructing those identifiers and labels so that I can reconnect with my core and therefore let what aligns with it align with it. SPFPP is a suicide prevention resource at its core. I keep applying for sex/mental health/herpes related grants and the rejections are invalidating to me because they are. I keep trying to find community in herpes spaces, with men, in queer spaces, with other black people seeking out where my identity will be validated, and I'm only finding myself realizing I'm not blank enough to belong. Support our sponsors please: Visit http://beducate.me/spfpp and use code SPFPP to get 65% off your yearly subscription starting at just $9.99 a month!

Dr. Rob joins us in this series of Belonging as I just decided to name it. We discuss aspects of identity from a bit of a clinical perspective, in addition to my sharing of my experiences as I make out what Queerness means to me in relation to my Blackness. The title of Performative Blackness comes into place as a representation of MY Black experience, and is NOT to be assumed as every person of Blackness’ experience, so as you listen, please keep that in mind. I mention that I do believe people sometimes forget I’m a Black man and that while I wish I could reject society’s expectations and stereotypes for what that means, I still present in this way which means no matter what you hope for me, there are certain survival mechanisms I have to implement in order to be considered nonthreatening. As someone who dates outside my race, I have to be mindful that my partners are aware of MY Blackness not being the same kind of experience they may have had with other partners who have Black skin. It’s different but the same in many ways. We speak more to this in the podcast episode.

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.