…and I don’t mean slash fiction. I have been slowly meandering my way through Brené Brown’s book “The Gifts Of Imperfection” for the past four months. The book makes me think, has me chewing on my own spirit and my own perceptions of reality. I find myself asking “what is this thing called life I [...]
Epiphany can be intoxicating. It can feel like an aha, strike on high from the Gods, a lightbulb being turned on and shining light into the shadows of a fearful existence. Wake me up, slap across the face… but what do you do about it in the morning? Time and time again I see individuals, [...]
Our bodies have profound wisdom. This skin suit we have is so full of information, capacity, knowledge… it picks up things we could never hear, never see. It understands things our conscious mind is never aware of. I am blessed by my body, blessed for my body. And yet, how often have I not listened? [...]
“Why is the sky blue?” “Why are people starving in the world?” “Why did they die?” The child mind wants to know and understand the world. Why, why, why? Tell me more, let me absorb knowledge, let me understand. And yet, when the adult mind hears the question Why, it seems as if it triggers [...]
So often in our culture, we stumble into our relationships. We meet, greet, fall in love- and simply expect it to work. Relationships that are built on dominance, submission, power exchange, control and surrender are profoundly radical not because they are non-egalitarian. Non-egalitarian relationships are as old as time itself, and as someone who was [...]
There is this thing called negotiation in the BDSM and kink communities. I’m often fairly crap at it. At least- that’s what I have thought for some time. But today, talking with sexuality educator Scott Thomson, I realized that no- I am really quite good at actually negotiating. Getting my needs and desires out on [...]
Come out, come out, wherever you are. As a young queer creature in the 90s, and an active one in the 00s, I grew up with this mantra. Come out of your shells, declare your differentness, have your family of choice take you in with big open gay arms. At 13 I came out to [...]
On Saturday, November 20th, it was my absolute delight to get to deliver the keynote speech for the Transcending Boundaries Conference, in Worcester, MA. This amazing conference was a three-day event with both academic and profoundly personal conversations ranging in topics from Asexuality to Bisexuality, Kinky to Polyamorous, Transgender to Intersex to Genderqueer… and all [...]
I like food. I was really blessed that my first fianceé, Max, forced me to pay attention to it. Here I was in his apartment, scarfing down food like a wildebeest before him, and he yelled- “Stop!” I froze mid-bite, staring at him wide-eyed. Stop and taste it, he instructed me. Slow down and let [...]
“My grandfather never took foodstamps, they did not have them back then. He pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.” This story is pervasive in our culture, a hubris of not wanting or needing to take handouts from the world. That we stand up on our own, are self-sufficient, worlds unto ourselves. Self-reliant, independent, strong [...]