PS077 - Roadside Stories and Communication
LeePS077
Just home from a tour that covered 11 states in 16 days, Lee takes us on a journey through small town America and big events alike. From race and black women’s body autonomy in Atlanta to BDSM and assault laws in Fargo, we dance through how language plays into sharing our truths with others. Let us look at our shared experiences, no matter our histories, building a shared humanity while learning some easy bondage techniques too.
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Announcer:
BDSM and Non-Standard Relationships, Power Exchange and Polyamory, Sacred Sexuality and Fetishes, as well as Simply Fun Kink.
You're listening to the Erotic Awakening Podcast Network.
Welcome to the Passion in Soul Podcast, an exploration of personal and interpersonal desire, faith, and connection.
Your host, international sexuality and spirituality author and educator, Lee Harrington of passioninsoul.com, will take you on a sultry and intellectual journey through the soul of intimate experience.
Take a moment and breathe deep, and get ready for an adventure.
This podcast is a chance to glimpse into the ever-increasing diverse world of alternative life.
The Passion and Soul podcast is intended for mature audiences.
If you are offended by adult topics or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.
Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to the Passion and Soul podcast with Lee Harrington of passioninsoul.com.
Halloween has just passed, another thin night between the realms, having turned to the next day.
Up here in Alaska, we are already covered in snow.
Sleeping Lady, the beautiful mountains to one side, already wearing an icy negligee, teasing everyone around her.
It's cold, but in that still refreshing way, not in the nose wants to peel off with bleeding kind of way.
And it was a delight to get to break in recently, my beautiful new coyote fur hat that was trapped and crafted by John and Sarah up here in Anchorage, who helped run the Alaska Center for Alternative Lifestyles.
Coming up this weekend is actually going to be Northern Exposure Lite, which is going to be a fun little mini conference up here that I'm looking forward to and is the partner event to the big yearly conference we have up here, Northern Exposure, which is every summer.
It's a good rockin little town, a good rockin little event, you know?
And when I say little, I mean it's pretty good size.
It's 150 or so people every year, the big one.
And compared to some other events I've been to, that's pretty darn good size.
And it's one of the challenges I have sometimes, having been to a lot of really big events, is that my scale gets a little skewed sometimes.
That's why I'm really glad I got to travel around a lot recently, that I got to do this crazy 11 states in 16 days road trip that was all part of me having this wacky project I'm working on where I'm trying to teach in all 50 states.
And after this trip I now have two states left.
That's right, if you are in Delaware or Maine, please contact me.
I would love to come out and teach for your group and be involved in your local community.
And luckily up in Portland, Maine I already have a venue waiting for me.
I just have to show up.
But in Delaware I would love leads and contacts.
But this entire trip was a trip.
My leather brother Scotty, who's been on this podcast before when he and Katie and Jay, we were talking about leather protocols and leather culture on this podcast a while back, that idea of earning your leathers and finding your place in community.
He and I did the first segment of the road trip together in his very shiny new vehicle and drove from Minneapolis and St.
Paul down to South Dakota, North Dakota, over to Montana, down to Wyoming, across to Nebraska, ending in Iowa before looping back to his place in Minneapolis, and then I flew off to the East Coast.
Now, part of why I love the sexuality communities of all sorts and spirituality communities of all sorts is the number of places that there is diversity and yet the number of places there are profound similarities.
In diversities, yeah, when I'm in, you know, if I'm at a big convention center for a kink fest, like I'll be in March in Portland, Oregon, or we're taking over a huge part of the State of Oregon Convention Center, it's a very different feel than in Watertown, South Dakota, teaching in a barn in the middle of a cornfield.
Well, that sounds a little bit more rustic than it was because it was a clearing in a cornfield large enough for a house, a couple of barn structures, and all of the cars that were parking.
But nonetheless, a barn out in the cornfields.
They're very different environments.
They're very different moods.
The first one people have been coming to for educational opportunities for over 20 years.
And the second one didn't tend to have a lot of classes.
It was the space that they had occasional play parties at.
It was rustic and fun, and both had good people, though.
And both of them had certain personalities.
That formal DS couple who stays off to the side and watches everything with a beautiful, critiquing, clear eye.
That guy who throws around a whip and takes up two or three play spaces because he needs them for the work that he's going to be doing.
Every community has it.
That brand new, overly excited, usually submissive woman who just has to see it all, and oh my god, can I try that?
Because every community experiences them.
And I would say because they're all archetypes of things within our own spirit.
I have certainly been every single one of those.
And therefore it is easy to see them everywhere we go because parts of our life experience we want to believe.
We want to believe we're special and unique little snowflakes.
And yet parts of us are everywhere.
We are one giant being called the human race, or called humanity, or called Earth.
These personality traits are everywhere.
These styles of being-ness are everywhere.
It's really neat to me, though, how different places took similar conversations in different ways, or have over the years.
In Fargo, North Dakota, where a sentence I never thought I'd say, but now I'm choosing to say it all of the time, Fargo has a fantastic vegetarian and vegan-available cafe and wine bar.
Yep, vegan wine bar.
And it's good.
It's really good.
I want to go back to Fargo.
First, I'm amazing people, as a first note.
But second, because I want to go back to that wine bar, like I only got to go for the cafe half of it, and I feel somehow cheated.
But Fargo had some really cool people, and there was also some awesome rock out from the House Canadians who came on down, which I am so delighted for.
But what I loved is in a class that Scotty was teaching on doing impact play, focusing mostly on floggers, but in general working on rhythm and beat and connection with him and I doing some demos, but a lot of it being discussion and people sharing examples and a really multifaceted approach to an educational opportunity, it ended up turning into a discussion about legalities and kink.
There are many states around the United States where it is illegal to consent to being assaulted.
It is impossible to consent to assault.
And that seems like such a little thing, like, well, yeah, how could I obey consent to assault?
But a spanking is assault.
And therefore, someone consenting to be spanked puts them as an accomplice to their own assault, making both partners liable for illegal activity through the act of enjoying sexuality in their bedroom.
This is, of course, absurd.
And there's, I think it was Barak of Winter Wickedness who said something akin to the notion, and I've heard this heard from a couple of places now, but that abuse doesn't tend to be symmetrical.
It just doesn't.
And so it's a quick and easy way that medical providers can look and be like, okay, well, if it was a whip that was very, I mean, clearly it's evenly distributed.
It's really not huge, giant bloody gashes down the back.
If you're not talking about a single punch to the face, you're not talking about assaults and bruises, like you're talking about even symmetrical distributions of marks and whatnot, and you're talking to somebody who has a smile, there's a good chance it's not what one would consider assault.
In a legal context.
But when you are living in states that this is a legal part of your reality, there's a reason that SM clubs are still underground.
That parties require meeting someone for coffee first before they find out where the munch or social gathering is, and going to a few of those munches or social gatherings before they decide whether you're a good fit for their party that is being held at their house, and therefore they aren't required to invite you.
It's not a requirement.
Because at the end of the day, it's their house.
It is them as individuals who is being held responsible legally, as well as socially and morally in some ways.
Because if people find out, even if you're not arrested, but people find out that you're running salacious events down in your garage or your basement, there can be even community shunning, especially in small towns.
Therefore, when I hear big-town folks in states that don't have these issues say, well, I don't know why there has to be all this shame about it.
Some of it's shame, but some of it's just legal realities, social realities.
There is a distinct difference between being out in Chicago and being out in Watertown, South Dakota.
They might not seem like too big of a deal, but they are, which is what made it so profound when I got to go to Billings, Montana, and we did a class on understanding consensual non-egalitarian relationships and power exchange relationships through the filter of understanding power in our culture and how power and energy flow.
Now, I love this class.
I've only gotten to do it a couple of times now, but I am so delighted by it because we get people to talk about what's hot about power exchange and why would people get into it, but also really look at the notion that power is only there when there is some sort of power holdover one another and when there is power to exchange.
That might sound really obvious, but it's not always.
In a world where we say, you know, that person is nothing but a powerless whore that I'm going to use, well, it takes power to hand over power.
And so we also need to have an awareness that every single human interaction has power involved.
When I go to the grocery store, there is a power dynamic that is present with the person I am giving money to to buy these groceries.
Their power, the ability to deny me my food, my power, the fact that I have the capital to potentially have them lose their job, which means their livelihood and their ability to get food.
Power is everywhere.
But what was amazing is that we got to do all of this at the Billings Public Library.
Now Billings is a surprisingly hopping town.
Now surprising to me because I haven't been back to Billings since I was literally like seven, I think, if I even went to Billings.
I know I had been to Butte a number of times because I got family there.
But like there was, you know, lots of tattoo shops and a great little, you know, tiny cupcake area and a really, really good organic grocery store that we, you know, Scotty and I fell in love with, really tasty, tasty raw food options and vegan options.
And there was a restaurant named CiCi's that if it were in a big city, it would be called a locally sourced diner.
Instead, it was a Montana Pride diner where they had, you know, like little grown in Montana, like happy little stickers in this mostly red state.
Because at the end of the day, locally grown and local pride are the same movement.
One, though, with a blue slant and one with a red slant.
But really what both movements are talking about is the ability and idea to support your local economy, as well as spending less money and environmental resources on bringing in resources from further away.
It is having a sustainable economy, both of the planet and of the dollar.
But when one is viewed more from the dollar side, it's considered to be republican.
And when it's considered more from an environmental standpoint, it's considered to be democratic or liberal.
But the reality is they're the same movement and they're smart when you look at it all from the same side.
We get to win on both sides.
So here we are in this awesome town and getting to do this beautiful class, hanging out with a really amazing blind little dog at the place that we are staying at.
And on our way out of town, having eaten breakfast at CiCi's where I got to have diverse local grains made into a oat and friends meal, right?
So like oatmeal, but with lots of other complicated grains available locally, with local raisins and all kinds of other tasty, tasty stuff.
And on our way out of town, we see this sign that looks vaguely like Jesus.
Now, okay, fine.
And by Jesus, I mean white Jesus.
You know, the classical Caucasian man with like brown hair, slightly flowy down past the shoulders, who has an etheric glow around him.
That's what I thought I was looking at as I see this billboard.
And then I look again and it says, Do you know your status?
Had giant check on it and said like HIV something of Montana.
And I just stopped.
And I wish I'd gotten to go back for a picture.
But it was a really beautiful for its region HIV awareness campaign.
And it delighted me so much.
It's really important to reach people where and how they are and how they are as people.
I think it is inappropriate personally to say to a total stranger you just met on the bus when they say where are you off to, to say a hardcore kinky SM event where I'm going to be throwing giant spikes through my lover's tits.
Okay, even if that does happen to be your personal truth, you've just non-consensually done a shock experience with someone else.
You weren't doing that for them.
You weren't actually sharing information.
You were doing shock tactics.
You were in some ways being an emotional sadist, not even a consensual one.
And so that's my personal experience and personal belief.
And so instead, when I'm on a bus with someone who wants to know, well, where are you off to this weekend with all these bags?
Well, we're going off to a retreat or to a conference that's for couples to get better at communication within their relationship and having stronger relationships.
Oh, well, what are the bags for?
Costume parties and all of that kind of stuff.
Because you know what?
SM conferences are for people who want to get to know themselves or be in relationships that have stronger communication and authenticity with where they want to be and who they are.
And they happen to have fancy costume parties.
None of this is a lie.
Not a single job.
All of it is true.
If you're going to a pagan conference, if you're hanging out with a whole bunch of other pagans, fantastic.
Then feel free to use insider language or be explicit or whatnot.
But we look at, I find, when we're creating kindness and creating the opportunity for shared experience, we need to also work with people that we're sharing with and at their level.
And so therefore, there is a difference between saying.
I'm going to a huge pagan conference that's going to have 2,500 people at it from every single pagan tradition around the world.
Pantheacon, where I'll be in February.
And there's a difference between that and saying, well, you know, I'm really looking forward to this event I'm going to this weekend.
It's about different people's approaches to spirituality and self-exploration and how different people do ritual and all of those sorts of things from around the world.
Because when I use the word pagan, whether I like it or not, people are thinking about bad 70s horror films.
They really are.
And, oh my God, I just saw one last weekend that Alucarda?
No.
I'm going to have to find it.
I'll link it.
It starts with an A and it's by this artist out of South America.
It was shot back in the 70s.
I don't want to say 70s.
It might have been late 60s.
It's all about this woman who is abandoned as an orphan in her late teens.
She's dropped off at this orphanage where all of the nuns are dressed in white with stained red all over them, like menstrual blood and also the blood of people who splashed on them.
And there's demons and the demons are invoked into her and this other girl.
And there's lots of screaming and there's orgies and gypsies with giant hair and a lot of stuff.
But when people hear, you know, pagan, that's what they think.
In a currently predominantly monotheistic culture, and within that Christ-based monotheistic culture, if I am living in that in the United States, though I am working daily for advocacy for myself and my qualities, there is a difference between saying, I am going to the Sabba, the big gathering tonight for invoking the goddess Hecate, which if people look up then the word Hecate, they get a whole lot of information that might scare them.
A woman dressed in all black, holding giant torches with beasts behind her, holding the darkness of the gateway.
Well, that could be really scary.
Or saying, I work with Baphomet, because people think Baphomet and they think giant scary evil Satanist who sacrifices babies.
Okay.
And though that is not my reality, and that is not what it means to me, I get to know that there are certain stories in culture.
I am making choices with how I share every day, in every way.
Now, there is a line here though between hiding who you are and sharing from a place of love and compassion.
If I am unwilling to say the notion that I don't believe in Christ to the point that I am saying every single prayer and I am even actively lying about my beliefs, that's very different.
But the reality is I do love Christ.
I am touched profoundly by his message.
I, however, do not consider Christ to be my primary deity of inspiration.
I'd say I am down with Jesus, but Jesus isn't my boyfriend, if we were to go from playful partnership terminology.
And I make light of these things sometimes because laughing is a way for us to be able to think, as a way for us to blow off a little steam around serious topics, while still letting them say serious even if they are not staying solemn.
So consider what you share and don't share and how you share it, because we have ways to have success by building allyship.
When I am talking with the little old lady on the bus, I had this happen on the way to the TNG conference years ago.
I was in New York and this little old lady, because that's what she was, this little old lady was waiting there at the bus stop and she said, well, where are you kids going off to?
Because we were kids at the end of the day, teens, early 20s, and with our roller bags.
Then somebody was about to pop up and start talking about the Kinky Sex Conference and I said, well, we're on our way to go to a conference that's going to be about being in partnership and relationship and how to make everything even spicier and better for long-term stuff as well as the short-term stuff.
And she went, oh, good for you!
And she started talking about her husband and how she, you know, wished that they'd done that earlier on in their marriage and good for us for learning those skills earlier on she wished she had to.
What she was looking for was to know that we were safe and that we were okay both for her to be sitting next to, that we were okay for her to sit next to, and that we were okay and not in danger.
She was looking that we were other people on this planet who were good people, that she didn't have to be scared for us or about us.
That's all she wanted!
When your coworker is asking, so what did you get up to this weekend?
They're looking for conversation starters and to make you human.
That's all they're looking to do.
Or if they're even looking for that much.
They might just be asking so that they can do the obligatory, what did you get up to, so that they can then have an excuse for them to talk about what they got up to.
And they want things in common with their fellow coworker.
They want to be able to say, you know, oh my gosh, I've gone camping too.
What's your favorite part?
Oh, I love those conversations with friends too.
I love it when...
They weren't looking for the greasy details and juicy details.
I say greasy because, you know, sometimes at sex conferences.
They weren't looking for the salacious.
They were looking for allyship.
And by creating allies, we know that we're not alone.
That even if they...
At the end of the day, honestly, we don't know what they get up to on their campouts.
I know people who, you know, like Harry, who's the owner of Ramblewood.
It's a venue that a lot of Pagan and sacred sexuality and kinky and all kinds of other nudist events and music festivals and all kinds of things happen out on the East Coast.
He was saying that sometimes he finds more condom wrappers after the Christian youth camps than he does after the kinky events where we at least don't have shame in throwing them away.
He wishes he could put out free bowls of condoms because he'd hate to think about the sheer number of people who didn't use something while they were there at youth camp.
People have adventures in the most unlikely places and just because they don't label it kinky doesn't mean they're not having adventurous sex.
And just because they don't say they're pagan doesn't mean they don't have a deeply reverent spirituality rooted in the earth and its turning of its cycles.
And perhaps they've even seen visions of gods and goddesses and speak their holy names, they just don't like those words.
Or they don't empathize with those words.
Last night I got to watch a movie called The Image, which is from the 1970s as well, and it's profound for all the power exchange people out there.
Woof!
It's sexy.
And it's about a gentleman who hasn't seen his friend Claire in years.
And Claire has a new girl with her.
Who is this woman?
I've never seen her before.
And it unfolds that this is Claire's girl.
And Claire can tell her girl to do anything.
And so they're out at a rose garden, and has her lift up her skirt after picking a rose illegally and putting it in her garter belt.
And carry it around there with the petals brushing against her bits.
And then asks her girl to pee out in the rose garden while he watches.
And she's protesting no, but Claire just looks at her with a more strong eye.
And it unfolds from there about development of sexual desire and what are the layers of what these different activities mean and what do they mean to this couple and all of the psychological role playing they're in.
And it was really funny to me as I watched it again because I went, oh yeah, Whips and Chains.
We often refer to BDSM as, you know, all of that Whips and Chains stuff.
But Whips and Chains isn't that common in the current kink aesthetic, right?
In that movie, it was single-tail Whips and Chains wrapped around wrists and piss and head dunking underwater and lots of public, near-public sex or like fear of being caught sex.
Like that was the thing in that movie.
And of course, you know, hot, shameful lesbian, whatever, not shame, bashfulness, stuff.
Like those were the things.
And nowadays, though, I see a lot of stuff on the internet that I would joke that fetlife.com should be renamed Bondage and Butts, right?
Because it seems to all be butts and bondage, all of it.
And that's fine and well and good.
But you know what?
Chains can be hot.
Oh my god.
The feel of a cold chain dragging across your skin.
The sensation of it biting into the flesh as it's looped around twice, three times, locked in place.
A chain wrapped around the waist, locked, run through the legs, and locked.
And worn under the clothing.
Because people do that with rope bondage.
But doing it with a chain, there is no comfortable sitting.
It is all a form of sadism.
Every motion, every movement.
Whips and the artfulness it takes to learn them.
Whichever style you are learning.
There is an art.
Now, fantastic.
Both are sexy.
Because I am pro rope bondage.
I am pro metal bondage.
As long as everyone is getting what they want out of it.
As long as everyone has an awareness of human physiology and safety.
Fantastic.
We learn.
We play.
We explore.
We grow.
Right now, I have been hooked on bandana bondage, in all honesty.
I have been hooked, and it's mostly because I got to teach it like 7,000 times.
Okay, probably more like 30 or 40.
It feels like 7,000.
And literally, I mean 30 or 40 times at Iowa Leather Weekend in Des Moines, Iowa, where there was a shirt, seriously, that I thought about buying that said, Des Moines, let us exceed your incredibly low expectations.
Which, oh, that and more.
That and more.
Oh my God.
I want to go back to Des Moines.
They have one of the largest, like, their farmers markets can get to have up to 100,000 people at them in one weekend.
They have a place called Zombie Burger that is so tasty, whether you are vegetarian, vegan, or all the way up through wanting a deep-fried bun made out of mac and cheese.
Because clearly that's what everyone needs.
And their event, the Mr.
and Ms.
Iowa Leather Weekend, their contest is huge.
It's 850, 900 attendees, you know, professionally staged event that is really beautifully community-driven, really fun play parties throughout it.
I tended to bow out earlier in the evening because there also tended to be a fair amount of drinking, which is in some parts of the men's community, period.
But up until I'd say 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, I loved the events, morning, noon, and into the night, and really good people.
But while I was there, it was really fun that I did a class on rope bondage for sex, or as I call it, rope for fucking.
And it was stuff like, you know, how to make leashes for people's cocks and balls, and how to do head cages, and I changed that class up over time.
But I ended up adding a new one to it, which is how to take a bandana.
And if you got a bandana, feel free to follow along with these step-by-step instructions.
You take a bandana and you fold it at the opposite corner so you have a giant triangle.
You roll the thing up or twist it up so that you end one long thin column.
You have two wrists laying parallel to each other one inch apart in front of the person's body.
You then lay that twisted bandana on top of both wrists.
You bring it around to the bottom.
You twist that bandana 90 degrees just enough so they can get up a tail between the hands and a tail between the forearms.
So it's over, wrap around, twist and pull up to the top.
Once you're up to the top, tie a big old square knot, a big old knot that will hold still while tightening it down.
You're done.
Everywhere you go by having a bandana in your back pocket, you have the ability to tie someone up or blindfold them or gag them, right?
Or simply have a hanky in your back pocket for being able to flag a specific statement or interest that you have to allure and draw such a partner.
And so right now, just the fact that I can carry around a hanky in my back pocket makes it so easy and accessible.
And at the end of the day, I want accessibility for everyone.
I want us to be able to get our desires met.
And sometimes that's around, you know, conceptual accessibility.
That if I use nothing but insider terminology and say BDSM and CBT and DS and TPE and 24-7 and those are all acronyms that not everybody knows.
BDSM, bondage and discipline, dominant submission, sadism and masochism.
SM, sadism and masochism.
But in both of those, as a note, people mean people who enjoy giving intense sensation and receiving intense sensation, not sadism, in the I'd like to rip off the wings of butterflies kind of ways.
Those are fair for what they are, but they are profoundly few between.
CBT, Cock and Ball Torment or Cock and Ball Torture, not cognitive behavioral therapy or computer-based training.
TBE, Total Power Exchange, DS, Dominant Submission, 24-7, Living a Dominant Submissive Lifestyle, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These are all acronyms, and people don't know what they are, nor should they have to memorize them.
It's useful to memorize them if you're trying to flirt and cruise and connect with and have conversations with people who are into similar subjects.
Or if you're going to be around a community that uses these acronyms on a regular basis, you should absolutely know what they are.
But if you're talking about your own sex life, do you like intense sensation?
What kinds of intense sensation do you like?
Tell me more.
What makes that hot?
Because sometimes people think I'm kinky, and what they think is whips and chains.
And if you don't like either whips or chains, then what message are you accidentally sending to a partner?
Because they might be thinking you're saying, I want you to be whipped.
I want you to chain me up in a basement and kick me.
And what you're trying to say is, I want to be blindfolded and have a feather dragged over my flesh.
You're not going to get your needs met.
And neither are they and they're just going to be scared.
And perhaps convinced that they can't ever do it right.
But they can do it right if they know what needs to be done and what you're looking for.
Because everybody has sexual fantasies and interests and specific things that they like.
And maybe they don't like lingerie and bras.
But maybe they're really into girls in hiking boots.
Everybody has things that they like.
Even if what they like is intelligence and intense conversation.
We just don't always call them fetishes.
Are you a tits guy or an ass guy?
You're asking what people like.
And people might not like either of those, or all of the above.
Different people like different things.
And so it is with our spiritual evolution as well.
If I say, I'm a Buddhist, and you say, you're a Buddhist, it's very easy to believe that we have similar practices and interests.
I recently got to go to a class on Tibetan tantra.
And it was really interesting that they, at least the person in their teachings, have been taught that there were six major chakrak centers in the body, six major wheels of energy, and the rest were smaller ones, and that in other forms of tantra there are seven, and in others there I believe are up to thirteen.
So even by saying, I have learned a lot with tantra, I have studied for years, doesn't mean we know the same stuff.
Doesn't mean we even have a shared language.
This happens all the time with Christianity.
This happens all the time with Islam.
That just because somebody says, I follow Islam, just because somebody says I am a Christian, doesn't mean that they like or follow or believe in the same things all the way across.
Just because somebody is deeply inspired by Mohammed the Prophet and all he has taught and brought, does not mean he believes in death to all Americans.
These are different things.
Just because somebody believes in Christ and their message does not mean that they sit quietly every day in prayer.
Might or might not mean that they speak in tongues or have chosen to give up all of their worldly goods to live in a monastery.
These are all different approaches to something that we thought we had a shared language on.
I believe in Christ and his message.
Now it seems at times like this is so monotonous of, oh my god, do I have to talk about communication one more time?
And the answer is, yeah.
Every day, in every way, we are becoming greater and more beautiful in all that we are.
And that includes in the communications with others.
More and more beautiful and touched and inspired every day.
And sometimes it's hard.
And I know I have times, I might even argue on a regular basis, where I just want it all to stop.
Just make it all obvious.
Just make it all clear.
Just make it all easy.
And then I go to an event, like Sex Down South, where I was blessed, so profoundly blessed, to be one of the few Caucasian individuals in attendance when it comes to percentages of the event.
And so blessed to get to sit in a room, let alone a white guy.
It was an amazing event, because I don't go to nearly enough sex-positive events where I am around more than a handful of people of color, and I hate saying it.
I hate it, because I end up feeling like a bigot for even acknowledging it and seeing it, and it looks like I'm somehow fetishizing it, and I'm not.
I'm just so frustrated and blown away all at the same time that it shouldn't be amazing.
God, it shouldn't be amazing.
And yet, here I am, sitting and going.
I'm so glad, because these events need to exist, because we also need to make all events as accessible as this one was, as physically accessible, as energetically accessible, as culturally and racially accessible and diverse.
But I got to sit on a class where I was the only white guy in the room.
In fact, I might have been the only guy in the room, but I know two people in the room's specific realities.
But either way, I was the only white guy in the room, and I was one of very few white people in the room.
When it was a discussion on the autonomy and valuableness of black women's bodies in culture and sex.
It was on Am I a Goddess?
And it was that notion, or I think that was the title, where it was that notion of the difference between a swimsuit model cover of Sports Illustrated and the Nicki Minaj album cover.
And the idea of how black women portray themselves and how the patriarchy affects black bodies.
And where does the current selfie culture come into play of women oppressing themselves and displaying themselves visually for the consumption of others?
Is this for self-pride and self-distribution of image?
Or is this around the idea of ingrained corruption of how we are seen?
What is this?
And having this powerful talk, including a moment where one of the Caucasian women in the room just stopped and we were having this whole conversation, or they were having a whole conversation, I just showed up and watched because that was the right thing to do in that room.
And I was glad for being able to do so.
And one of the Caucasian women in the room, we'd been talking for a while about the slut walks, about the slut walk movement.
And one of the white women in the room said, do any of you actually identify with the word slut?
Because we've been talking about how there are a lot of women out there who are empowered by it, blah, blah, blah, but it's a pretty much white movement, et cetera.
And this was a room packed full, packed full of sex-positive, powerful black women.
And they, and no one responded.
You could hear a pin drop in that room.
No one responded.
And that white woman said, isn't that interesting?
Something worth considering.
And so I am, and I'm considering.
And so to me, those days where I get frustrated by communication, I have a moment like that.
Or I have a rich conversation around spirituality and sexuality and gender and race and everything with a random human being who comes to one of my smaller classes.
And he and I end up finding coffees and sitting down and talking for two hours and developing a friendship out of the air that was static and charged in that space.
Because everyone was there knowing that they might blip every once in a while.
Knowing that we're all here to love and grow and change and evolve and breathe.
And we're all here for each other.
And I think we can do that for every human being on this planet.
I think in our sex lives we can learn how to be there for one another and just shut our mouths and open our hearts and listen.
Ask questions without waiting for it to be just your turn to talk.
Honestly ask people at the office, so what did you get up to this weekend?
Without it having to be just your excuse to get to share your story.
Asking your family member how they're doing with an open heart and meaning it, not just as a way to fill up the empty space that hurts in the air between your past traumas.
What if we lived in a world where we traveled around to all of these different states and found beauty?
Because I did.
In 11 states in 16 days, I found beauty.
To find the rest of our podcasts and the show notes, please go over to passionandsoul.com and from the podcast page there, you'll be able to link to every single one of our past podcasts as well.
For people who are listening on iTunes, you can search with Lee, L-E-E, Harrington, and be able to find all of our shows that way and subscribe as well.
We're available through an RSS feed, Stitcher, and all kinds of other modes as well, so feel free to find that information over on the show notes.
I'm going to be doing a lot of upcoming appearances as well, and you can read about various other adventures I've had along the way by going over to my blog that's been running since 1998, and in general, finding all the other things that I've been up to as well.
For people who didn't know, I also had a poetry book come out about a little less than a month ago, which is pretty exciting, called On Starry Thighs, Sacred and Sensual Poetry.
So we'll be featuring some of that stuff in a little audio blurb online as well, so feel free to go and keep your eyes open for that.
Thank you all for joining us.
Until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically you, and embrace your dreams.
[music outro]
Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9912
Passion And Soul Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-and-soul-podcast-by-lee-harrington/id840372122
RSS Feed: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/660e243b2f834f0017de9181
Links, Events, People and Movies Mentioned:
Alaska Center for Alternative Lifestyles (ACAL): https://www.facebook.com/TheAlaskaCenter
Northern Exposure June 17-19 2016 (Anchorage, AK): https://fetlife.com/events/353862
Scotty: https://fetlife.com/users/63099
Podcast 23 - Earned Leather, Gifted Leather, Leather Identity (with Scott Thomson and Katie Fulcrum): https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d994a
KinkFest March 25-27 2016 (Portland, OR): http://kinkfest.org/
People’s Organic Café/Bar (Fargo, ND): http://peoplesorganic.com/
State-by-State Assault Laws: https://ncsfreedom.org/key-programs/consent-counts/consent-counts/item/673-state-by-state-assault-laws.html
Barak: https://fetlife.com/users/53452
Winter Wickedness Feb 5-7, 2016 (Columbus, OH): http://www.adventuresinsexuality.org/WICKED/index.html
Good Earth Margaret Coop (Billings, MT): http://goodearthmarket.coop/
CiCi’s diner is actually… Stella’s Diner! (Billings, MT): http://www.yelp.com/biz/stellas-kitchen-and-bakery-billings-2
Pantheacon Feb 12-15 2016 (San Jose, CA): http://pantheacon.com/
Alucarda, Movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075666/
Hecate: http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/greek_goddess_hecate.htm
The Image, Movie: http://www.bdsmmoviereview.com/movie0002/movie127.htm
FetLife Social Network for BDSM/Fetish Community: http://www.fetlife.com
Iowa Leather Weekend (Des Moines, Iowa): https://www.facebook.com/iowaleatherweekend
Zombie Burger (Des Monies, Iowa): http://zombieburgerdm.com/
Hanky Code: http://user.xmission.com/~trevin/hanky.html
Kink and BDSM Glossary: http://passionandsoul.com/faq/kink-glossary
Tibetan Tantra by Devi Ward: http://deviwardtantra.com/
Sex Down South: http://sexdownsouth.com/
Frenchie Davis, teacher from “Goddess Bodies, Mortal Minds: The Intersectionality of Black Sexuality and Respectability”: http://www.octavus.us/0000169/bio.html
Slut Walk Movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlutWalk
Lee’s Upcoming Events/Appearances:
http://passionandsoul.com/appearances/
Lee Harrington Contact Information:
http://www.FetLife.com/passionandsoul
http://twitter.com/#!/PassionAndSoul
https://www.facebook.com/lee.harringon
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