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Hello to everybody who sometimes needs a simple explanation of BDSM terms.
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It s Beautiful Anonymous.
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One hour.
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One phone call.
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No names.
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No holds barred.
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I d rather go one-on-one.
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I think it ll be more fun.
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And I ll get to know you, and you ll get to know me.
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Hi, everybody.
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Chris Gethard here.
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I hope you re thinking about signing up at beautifulanonymous.com for all kinds of great bonus stuff.
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Who knows?
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What I do know is that if you re not into the long intros and you want to get right to the phone call, skip about seven minutes.
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If you skip about seven minutes, it puts you right towards the beginning of the phone call.
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And I hope you enjoy it.
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Thanks, everybody.
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Hey everybody, it s Chris Gethard and welcome to another episode of Beautiful Anonymous.
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I feel so lucky to be here today.
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I feel so lucky to do this show.
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I feel so lucky to keep building this growing archive, this library of unfiltered human conversation that maybe someday, maybe someday, humanity will be erased from Earth due to who knows what, asteroid,
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relentless ignoring of global warming.
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Who s to say what s going to wipe us out?
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An addiction to war and divisiveness.
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Who s to say?
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And then maybe many millennia from now, another species will arrive from space and they will discover iTunes and they will stumble upon this and they will have a glimpse into what humanity has been like for
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a number of years in the late 2000s.
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Hello, aliens of the future.
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Feel free to enjoy the archive.
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My name s Chris Gethard, and I m your host, a guy who just kind of unexpectedly stumbled into what this show is.
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There s actually a new version of www.chrisgethard.com, which is my website and has been for a long time.
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I m working with this new site.
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It s really streamlining everything.
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I m hoping that you ll go check it out.
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If you go to chrisgeth.com, it ll redirect you to punchup.live slash chrisgethard.
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And punchup is a great new service that a lot of comedians are using to organize their shows and their ticket links and whatnot.
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And you can go there right now.
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So if chrisgeth.com doesn t take you there, which it should, punchup.live slash chrisgethard.
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And it ll tell you when I m coming near you.
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And it ll show you all my dates, including upcoming dates in Newark, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York, which is New York, Brooklyn, June 13th.
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That s a Laughing Together Benefits show.
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It s going to be great.
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Me, John Marcos-Cerezi, Christy Ciello, Millie Tamarez, Michael Cruz-Cain.
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Great, great show.
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Raising money for mental health services in schools.
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It s going to be awesome.
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And I m touring with Eddie Pepitone in Woodstock, New York, Garwood, New Jersey, Hamden, Connecticut.
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Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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Kansas City, Missouri.
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St.
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Louis, Missouri.
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Kootahai, Wisconsin.
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I think I pronounced it right this time.
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Ferndale, Michigan.
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Somerville, Mass.
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Garwood, New Jersey.
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Baltimore, Maryland.
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Hamden, Connecticut.
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So many good shows out there.
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You can go get tickets for all those right now.
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And you can also, if you go to the site, you put in your email address, I believe, it ll let you watch a special I did called Half My Life.
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I put this out a couple of years ago and you ve had to pay for it up until now.
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And you can go watch it for free at punchup.live.com.
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And I super appreciate anybody who goes and signs up to be informed of when I m coming to their town.
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And if I m not coming to your town, there s also a way you can input that I should come to your town.
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And enough people say that I should, then I ll go there.
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And that s a nice helpful thing.
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And this is going to be the hub for all my standup shows, which all of these shows that I m currently announcing are standup.
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But in the future, any beautiful anonymous touring will also factor through the site.
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And if you ever want to be informed of if a Beautiful Anonymous live taping is coming near you, you re going to want to go there and be a part of things and check it out and maybe put in your email address to just make it easy for me to inform you when I m coming to a town near you.
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That s a good plug.
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Here s another good plug.
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Beautifulanonymous.com.
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This gets you extra bonus content every single week.
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And the people who have signed up are loving it.
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Things have stalled out.
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I m hoping to get to 2,000.
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We re stalled out at 765.
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A respectable number, but not huge by anyone s standards.
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So if you re into it, you can sign up, get extra bonus content at the end of every episode, probably like 15 to 20 minutes extra.
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And then if you sign up at the higher tier, you also get a once a month taping where only people at that tier get the number.
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And you also get a follow-up episode with a past classic caller and it s very good and I m proud of it.
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And I m psyched.
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And thank you.
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So sincerely.
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Hope everybody s doing well.
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I m doing pretty good.
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I got to get my sleep better.
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Slept four hours last night.
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I think you can kind of hear that.
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Got to get it together.
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Got to work on the health.
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We all do.
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Everybody does.
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Everybody does.
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And one thing that I m happy about, a lot of people tell me that Beautiful Anonymous is a show that they like to fall asleep to.
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And I m jealous because I m having sleep issues and maybe you ll fall asleep to this week s episode.
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But I bet not because this one is one that s prone to keeping you awake.
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It is a really good episode.
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It comes down to basically this.
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How many life changes can happen in a short period of time?
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You re going to hear about who our caller was just a few short years ago, the lifestyle she was raised in, the life she was living.
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And when you hear who she is today compared to that person,
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It s kind of unbelievable and shocking to know that that s the same human being.
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And if it s shocking for me and you, people who are hearing about it, imagine how shocking it s been to live it.
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And this caller was so charming and so open and so willing to talk about what it is like to go from a life
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that a lot of people would quote unquote approve of to a life that is simply put more true to oneself, whether or not other people have an opinion.
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I think that s really beautiful.
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And I will say this, Colin was so open and says, there s no such thing as TMI with me.
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But I think because of that casualness, the conversation felt easy.
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But I want to put out there, this doesn t sound easy.
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It sounds tumultuous and shocking.
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But to hear that the caller gets to where they re at, where they can now speak about it in a way where I go, they made it sound easy when I know it s not.
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In that sense, it s such a good reminder that living truthfully is incredibly healthy.
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and incredibly important.
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And I hope everybody out there feels the freedom to find that for themselves in life.
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Enjoy this call, everybody.
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I know I did.
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Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous.
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A beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host.
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Hi.
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How s it going?
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Good.
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This is the this is the shock of my life.
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I told your producer because I I
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I ve been, well, not consistently, but I was super, super religiously listening to the show when it first came on.
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And, you know, off and on over the years, I ve followed you on Twitter and whenever you tweeted out the phone number, you know, I ve tried to get in and this is the first time and I was totally not expecting it.
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So what a surprise.
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Well, I m so glad to have you.
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I m psyched it finally worked out.
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Yeah, glad to be here.
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When did you, when did you, I m not mad about it.
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Just curious.
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When did you stop listening?
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When did we lose you?
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I, it was probably during COVID at some point because mostly I listened to podcasts in the car and you know, when COVID happened, I was
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doing a lot less driving.
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Yeah, that s fair, that s fair.
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But also, it s kind of funny too, the timing, because when I was first listening to it religiously, it was something that, so I found out about the show through This American Life, and then it was something that my ex-husband and I would listen to all the time, and
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That ll do it.
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And so it s every, every possible thing has changed in my life since then.
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And, uh, it s, he would have been the one person that I would have told about this and we re still on really good terms, but, uh, potentially among the things that we could potentially talk about, some of them are going to be things that I just don t need him to know.
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And so, you know, he s the one person I would have said, Hey, look, I, I finally made it onto the show.
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And he would have been excited about it and understood it.
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And now I m like, no, we re just going to we re going to keep this completely.
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Do you know if he still listens to the show?
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Like, did he did he keep Beautiful Anonymous in the divorce effectively?
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Or do you think he s fallen off as well?
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I have absolutely no idea.
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I think he mostly listens to Dungeons and Dragons podcasts these days.
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That s fair.
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Our producer, Andrea, doesn t play Dungeons and Dragons, but religiously listens to some Dungeons and Dragons podcasts.
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And I ll tell you, I still listen to Criminal religiously.
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And then 90% of what I listen to now are podcasts where queer people talk about the X-Men.
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That s most of what I listen to.
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That kind of sounds amazing, actually.
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Oh, there s a whole subculture of queer hosted X-Men themed podcasts right now, and they are all brilliant.
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And I am deeply in love with Queer Lens X-Men podcast-verse.
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As a queer person myself, which is part of the thing that has changed since 2016, or was it 2016 that the show started?
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Part of the thing that s changed has been me coming out.
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But as somebody who is very queer and very immersed in nerd culture, this actually doesn t surprise me whatsoever that there s so many X-Men podcasts.
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The analogs are perfect, and I can imagine in particular a lot of trans metaphors.
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Oh, queer metaphors, you know, civil rights metaphors, pretty much anyone who s ever been an outsider.
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And I think shifting more and more in recent years towards some non-binary trans story analogs.
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And it s great.
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And then of course, I also listen to my, probably the podcast I listen to the most is actually called Screw It.
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We re just going to talk about comics, which is also a comics podcast, but it s not hosted.
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That one doesn t have queer hosts.
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That s just my grumpy friends, Kevin and Will Hines, but also a great podcast.
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But yes, Cerebro, Best Issue Ever, Jay and Miles, Explain the X-Men.
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These are all brilliant, brilliant podcasts.
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Anyway, welcome to Beautiful Names, the show where you stop listening and then we talk about other podcasts we like instead.
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Um, indeed.
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Well, it s so good to talk to you.
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I m not sure what you want to discuss.
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You ve already put out some, some things that are very interesting.
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I don t know how much you want to talk about your life changes.
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Um, or if there s other things you want to focus on.
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Well, okay.
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So I m, I m really good at telling like, uh, specifically packaged narratives about certain things in my life.
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And so part of what s appealing to me about having this conversation is going into it with
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No particular end point that i m trying to get to or no particular theme.
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So i m gonna all Also, i m a completely open book which is part of why?
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I will not tell anybody in my actual life about this because it will be very identifying if I get into certain details Um, and that would defeat the anonymity of it Um, yeah, so i ll i ll just give you like kind of a recap of everything that has changed since you know I was first listening to the show all the time
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um okay 2016 i was a relative newlywed in a in a straight marriage i was uh i was pretty devoutly christian i was starting to not deconstruct i don t like that word because it feels like uh i didn t i didn t i wasn t that active about it but i was a christian i was becoming more progressive um i was i don t know fairly unaffiliated uh politically and um so
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You know everything in my life looked fairly traditional at the time.
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I had a desk job and everything um, and now uh I am In my mid 30s.
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I haven t had a desk job in a couple of years because it just My adhd made me oh, which I also wasn t diagnosed with yet at the time um my adhd it became clear was making that just not a thing I was able to do and I kept getting fired and I kind of decided you know, what actually
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I love not working at a desk and I m going to do anything else I can possibly do.
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So right now I m mostly doing pet sitting and then cobbling together all kinds of other random shit.
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I help paint murals sometimes.
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I won a Jenga tournament at some point.
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Most importantly, I love that you list that amongst all these changes, winning a Jenga tournament.
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Also right up there, worth mentioning.
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No, it was a big deal.
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It was a big deal.
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That was one of my proudest accomplishments in the last year, honestly.
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Let s see, what else?
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So I m like opting out of trying to have a traditional job structure whatsoever.
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I am in seminary.
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I never, ever, ever thought I was going to go back to grad, to school whatsoever after I graduated with my undergrad.
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um but i m in seminary working towards becoming a hospice chaplain um but interfaith because i m i m no longer a christian but uh i don t not in the sense that i like i don t feel like i specifically walked away from anything um but it s more like the whole world just kept expanding around me and so i m uh just a broadly
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spiritually curious and enjoying learning things, and I believe spirituality and religion have very important roles in humanity in general, especially when it comes to confronting our mortality.
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I am becoming more socialist by the day.
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Oh, and I m polyamorous.
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I m technically polyamorous now.
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I m only dating one person.
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But first of all, it s a girl and I have, she s, she s got other partners and I could have other partners if I wasn t too lazy to go out and find them.
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But I definitely went through, you know, a little slut era, which I had been a virgin when I got married.
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So that was also a big change.
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And there s probably other things in there too, but there s a lot to go off of already.
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So I don t know what,
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so much.
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We can talk about any and all of it.
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And I, the, the, the concept of too much information doesn t exist in my framework of conversation.
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So you are welcome to ask about literally anything.
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So I guess the first, I guess the first thing I want to know is how would I, how do I phrase this?
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Cause it s a question that I have had sometimes.
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when you see radical changes like that, right?
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This is a radical amount of change in a real short burst of your life.
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How surprised would 2016 you really be by 2024 you?
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Or how much would you go- Oh, 2016 me would probably be kind of appalled.
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Appalled.
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And you feel that that s, and that s truthful.
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So this was not like,
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Because my question is, to go through this amount of radical change, if you go, you would be appalled.
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Where s that from?
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Because that denotes that this was all, this doesn t sound then like it was information or something that was in you that you were avoiding.
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sounds like it would be shocking to 2016 you, if you d be appalled by it, unless you feel like that there was some programming there of some sort.
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So I want to, I want to hear about that.
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Well, so, so I mean the, it, it kind of, yeah, it does, it does sound that way.
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Literally everything that I ve mentioned in this last list, I, it was all stuff that had been kind of,
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bubbling under the surface for a really, really, really long time.
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And I don t know, the geyser just broke or something.
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And it was once one thing started to change, all the rest of it changed too.
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And that s one thing that I ve come to realize about myself that has also kind of become my whole philosophy on the world is the recognition of just how completely intertwined a lot of things are.
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So there, I could, I,
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If i m really looking at it, I could go back and I could trace almost all these changes I could go back as far as I want to and recognize.
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Oh, here s where that thing started.
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Oh, there s where that thing started uh, but really, um the first super concrete, um, I guess domino that started falling in the series was um I think it was ferguson.
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Um it s Well the black lives matter movement started and I
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This is such a depressing thing to say, but I don t even remember specifically which shooting happened first But it you know, there s a short time frame in which there was You know a lot of really terrible police shootings and like I said the black lives matter movement really took off and it was about during that era um that a mentor of mine, um Who I d known for years, um, and who was kind of a spiritual mentor to me in a lot of ways.
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Um, that person Was becoming a lot more.
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Um
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racially and socially progressive, and he had a really compelling and informative and understandable way of explaining why we should care about other people that... Sorry, I ve got a chihuahua here with me.
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He had a very good way of helping people who were not necessarily predisposed to
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Understanding other people s worldviews for example white evangelical christians like myself helping to understand In a way that was both challenging, but also like digestible why these things mattered um, and I started to understand, um how uh The the power structures of whiteness that are just kind of So deeply baked into american culture in ways that we don t understand.
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I started to have a lot more sympathy for um
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for the disenfranchisement of black people in the 2000s.
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And it s not just a thing that died off with the civil rights movement.
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And so that was really kind of the first thing.
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And I started learning about from there, like specifically black theology, liberation theology.
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And I had never realized just how much of a difference up until this, how much of a difference
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like racial and cultural background can make in your understanding of religion, God, God s relationship to humanity and all that sort of thing.
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And all this, all these new frameworks that I was learning were like, oh, wait, this actually makes sense to this makes at least as much sense of the white theology that I grew up with.
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And that was kind of a pivotal turning point because I started to become a lot more aware of how many other narratives and ways of making meaning about every possible thing in existence.
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There s so many other ways of seeing, you know, there s so many other ways of being.
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And I ve always been inclined toward curiosity, but I was raised in a way that was kind of, I was kind of raised to be judgmental and to put a lot of pride in being right about everything.
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And I started finding in myself, oh, you know what?
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Maybe it s not actually that satisfying to just feel like I have the right answers all the time.
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It s actually really exhausting to be this drunk on my own mugness all the time.
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And, you know, where once I would have, you know, somebody has,
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a lifestyle or an opinion or whatever that I don t understand, my first reaction is no longer, oh, that s ridiculous or that s stupid or that s wrong.
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It s, oh, that s interesting.
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That s very different than how I think about this thing.
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And I m curious about knowing more.
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And so I kept applying more and more of that curiosity to myself, which
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I ve been writing about this in seminary recently.
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Actually, several things that were intertwined in me are the fact that I am queer, the fact that I have ADHD, and the fact that I m whatever sort of description you might call me, very spiritually curious, but can t be tied down to one particular faith tradition.
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All of those things are kind of the same thing in me.
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I I really can t pick any one of them apart from the other because they all inform each other and Actually the thing that sort of unlocked those three for me was poetry I Have completely lost my train of thought but somewhere I was getting at like, you know It was it was you had asked about the radical change And it s really if I m gonna actually do the the distilled version of my answer to that question is just
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I learned to practice curiosity.
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I d always kind of been, you know, naturally passively curious, and I learned to actually be very intentional about being curious.
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And my world has become so much more fulfilling and richer and beautiful since I ve started doing that.
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Now, this awakening being spurred by some of the racial reckoning in America,
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is really inspiring.
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And I think there s probably a lot of people whose lives changed by a whole lot of factors that were swirling around in those times.
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It still does, it still does break down.
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I still love a brief timeline of how you go, you know, I m in a culture that is maybe being dismissive of these protests where I m actually finding myself very curious.
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And the more I look into people s experiences that they re putting out there, and then also to hear that you also,
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looked at other people s spirituality, religion, churches that you looked at specifically, I believe you said black theology and spirituality as part of it and going, oh, there s a whole other dialogue there that doesn t bump with my values.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in fact, I don t want to close out.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s really fascinating and beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s still a pretty wild ride to now I m divorced and dating a woman in a polycule.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I do want to just hear the brief timeline of how we get from like, hey, I think I actually want to step up and be as best an ally as I can figure out how to be to my black neighbors.
2
SPEAKER_00
To something where, I ll save the other comment for later, but yeah, those lifestyle changes don t always go hand in hand.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I see how they can snowball.
2
SPEAKER_00
I just want the brief bullet point of how they snowballed for you.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
2
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So, well,
2
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the dating a woman thing was obviously, well, maybe not obviously, but it was the, you know, inevitable outcome probably of me finally having, I guess, the right frameworks for understanding myself and realizing, Oh, I m queer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m, you know, I, I, I am no longer a Christian and these things, you know, because of these things, it s really not fair to either of us stay married.
2
SPEAKER_01
Um, I,
2
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First of all, just understanding myself as a queer person rather than a straight person, that didn t necessarily mean that I was going to go out and start pursuing relationships.
2
SPEAKER_01
I did want to go have my little slot era just to explore, oh, I have only ever slept with one person in one way.
3
SPEAKER_01
I kind of wanted to find out, okay, is it actually that I just don t like having, you know, traditional heterosex?
3
SPEAKER_01
Or is it that, you know, I, yeah, and it turned out, yes, indeed.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sex with the penis doesn t really do anything for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s so much more fulfilling to have queer sex.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that was
3
SPEAKER_01
So I wanted to have the sexuality specific exploration period.
3
SPEAKER_01
I, I have never been somebody who felt like I was wired to pursue relationships necessarily.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, growing up and looking at my sisters, the two of them, you know, always imagined being married, having husbands.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I, I m, I m a fairly independent person, which is part of why polyamory works for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause I, um,
3
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I would not change my marriage.
3
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It was great for what it was.
3
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And I think it served both of us in a way that it needed to in that period of our lives.
3
SPEAKER_01
But in general, um, at this time, I don t see myself ever like cohabitating with somebody anymore.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, so I love the independence that I have of like, you know, I know that the person that I m dating has somebody else who s her primary person who, you know, is, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
the person that she really has her whole life intertwined with and she and I can just take detours to visit each other s lives.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I kind of like polyamory gives me a lot of freedom in that way.
3
SPEAKER_01
I love her and it s an absolute joy to support her in any way, but also I really like my solitude.
3
SPEAKER_01
I really like my independence and I don t see giving that up anytime soon.
3
SPEAKER_01
All that to say, I was never going to go out and try to find a relationship necessarily.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this one is one that kind of just happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
I, uh, we started when she and I started talking, like there, it was really no intention of it becoming anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
We started talking about like writing, um, because I, both of us have different kinds of backgrounds as writers and,
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, Oh my God, we think about writing the same way.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is, we were really clicking on that conversation and we kind of just never stopped talking and it turned into the most surprising thing of my life.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, Oh, um, and it just so happened that she was already polyamorous and I did not know anything about, I barely knew the word polyamory when I met her.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when she was, you know, telling me about her experiences, my initial response was, wow, that s really weird.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I can t imagine doing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um,
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and uh but with you know all everything else in my life changing and my curiosity it was partly you know the curiosity of you know what uh fuck it let s try this i don t really say no to a lot of things anymore um and partly just the way i felt about her i connected with her in a way that i have never ever connected with anyone else in my life ever and i don t expect i will connect with anyone else in my life like that ever and i was like i can t imagine not being in a relationship with this person
3
SPEAKER_01
And so if that means learning a completely new way of being in a relationship, then yeah, let s do that.
3
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And it s been, um, you know, not without its learning curves, but it s been, it s been beautiful and challenging and amazing.
3
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And I ve learned so much about myself in ways that I wouldn t have in monogamous relationship structures, which isn t to say that it s a superior relationship structure, but it works really, really well for me personally.
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And she was a lot more experienced in it and has been an incredibly gracious and understanding presence with me as I ve kind of learned to be in this new kind of world that she s in.
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And yeah, here we are.
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I m very interested and I don t want to dwell too much on the shock value stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to dwell on the lascivious details too much, but it does make me laugh to hear you just say like, turns out sex with a penis, not fulfilling for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you had been with one guy.
3
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So there s a world in which none of these revelations happen and you d just be having penis sex.
3
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And you would think that s what sex was.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I also have to imagine to go from growing up in what sound, you know, you ve you ve described it as not just evangelical Christian, but also you yourself have said a particular culture that where you were raised to judge others, to close out others, to go from that.
3
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I have to imagine the first time you re hooking up with a woman.
3
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And again, I m not trying to be gross here, I just find this fascinating, I m like,
3
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There must be so many thoughts in your head of like, I don t know if I m gonna understand how to navigate this woman s body parts or have her navigate mine.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you said that queer sex is so much better.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just want to know what the analogy is.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that like you finally, like your whole, like your sex life was, you didn t even realize it was cloudy until the sun came through?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or is it like you were listening?
3
SPEAKER_00
Was it like when Bob Dylan went from acoustic to electric?
3
SPEAKER_00
Was it, I have to imagine when you go, oh, there s a whole other type of sex that works for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I only, when I discovered it, did I find out that the other type of sex just doesn t work for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s the sex I ve been having.
3
SPEAKER_00
That almost sounds like, did you just discover that candy exists?
3
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when you re like 13 years old and you ve only been eating vegetables and someone s like, try candy.
3
SPEAKER_00
Check this out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Have a soda.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve only had water your whole life.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is fizzy and sweet.
3
SPEAKER_00
To find out that there s good sex in this world and only then retroactively realize that the sex you d been having wasn t getting you where you needed to go, that must be a pretty shocking experience in a sensory way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, it totally was in sensory and, you know, a very holistic way.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it wasn t I didn t go into it like, you know, completely ignorant because, you know, I m I m an adult.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was at least sexually progressive enough that I had watched porn off and on since I was a teenager and should have been a clue that I was only ever interested in girl on girl.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, at least in terms of the basic mechanics of how it was supposed to work, you know, I kind of had an idea and I, I had that fantasy for years.
3
SPEAKER_01
There, there are two experiences that I ve had in my life where I had this long standing fantasy of what something was going to be like to experience in person.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it, it exceeded the fantasy.
3
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The first time was going to England.
3
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And the second time was having lesbian sex.
3
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And it was just like, Oh my God, like I just,
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I get why sex is a big deal to everybody.
3
SPEAKER_01
I had been so like just ambivalent about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was like, you know, it was a thing that we did and had to do and go on with life.
3
SPEAKER_01
And honestly, neither of us were that into it in my marriage.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, and, uh, and it was like, I just, I, it was, it was, it was totally thrilled.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I can t believe this is happening.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s everything that I thought it was going to be.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then some,
3
SPEAKER_01
And the other thing, too, was like the next morning, I was like sitting there wondering, like, am I going to feel guilty about this?
3
SPEAKER_01
I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was waiting to feel convicted because I ve been a very guilt prone person all my life and feeling convicted about things because I being evangelical and being a millennial, I got to grow up with the fever pitch of the purity culture movement.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was shocking to me how much I did not have to do any work to overcome guilt and shame once I got there.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think maybe it was just a timing thing that I was already at a point in terms of becoming more open spiritually, ethically, blah, blah, blah.
3
SPEAKER_01
If it had happened sooner, maybe I would have felt more convicted.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the next morning, I was just sitting there waiting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m going to feel bad about this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m going to feel bad about this.
3
SPEAKER_01
When is the shame going to set in?
3
SPEAKER_01
And it never did.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s pause there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Waiting for the shame to kick in, first of all, sounds like the name of a great album.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then, and it never did.
3
SPEAKER_00
What a beautiful thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I will say this, no matter what your political views, no matter how you feel about social shifts throughout our lifetime, for people who are my age and older,
3
SPEAKER_00
The idea that there s so many people out there discovering that they can let go of shame.
3
SPEAKER_00
What a beautiful thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Beautiful thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, I ve disrupted the momentum.
3
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Let s do some ads.
3
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We ll be right back.
3
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So happy to tell you about Talkspace, our longest standing advertiser, the biggest supporter of this show over
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the years, and especially right now, happy to talk about Talkspace, because we are in May, and May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
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But the one thing that it s certain to do is this.
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everyone who listens to this show knows that I was just actually talking today with Hallie.
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SPEAKER_01
She asked me, how long have you been talking to Barb, your therapist?
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s been almost 20 years.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think I added it up.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was 17 years.
4
SPEAKER_01
17 years with the same therapist.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had other therapists before that too.
4
SPEAKER_01
Changed my life for the positive.
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SPEAKER_01
And 17 years ago, it wasn t easy.
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SPEAKER_01
I had to find
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Barb through back channels, through phone calls, to people I trusted, who I knew might have insight into where therapists were.
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SPEAKER_01
It was scary.
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It was intimidating.
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SPEAKER_01
It was stigmatized.
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SPEAKER_01
And I m so happy those walls are being torn down and Talkspace is a forward-thinking platform.
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That usually happens within 48 hours.
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You can also send messages to your therapist, so you don t even have to wait for your next session, which I am amazed by that because I remember
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SPEAKER_01
years ago, going, oh, I want to talk about that in therapy.
4
SPEAKER_01
I can t forget that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do I write it down?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do I have little notes in my pocket?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do I put it on my phone?
4
SPEAKER_01
No.
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Thanks to all of our advertisers.
4
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Now let s get back to the phone call.
4
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maybe it was just a timing thing that I was already at a point in terms of becoming more open spiritually, ethically, blah, blah, blah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Um, if it had happened sooner, maybe, maybe I would have felt more convicted, but like the next morning I was just sitting there waiting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to feel bad about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to feel bad about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
When is the shame going to set in and it never did.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then that continued to be the case with, um, I had, uh,
4
SPEAKER_00
probably like a dozen or so hookups with just randoms in a fairly short period of time because again, I was trying to find out, okay, uh, I was trying to find out exactly what it was about heterosex that, you know, if it was a, you know, the context specific thing or yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you did like a scientific method experimentation.
4
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You were like, let me go scientific at this time.
4
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And did you have sex with some more men just to be like, was it just our vibe with my ex or are there other penises that might get into the rhythm?
4
SPEAKER_01
So you did when you, cause I m not, you have said you had a slutty phase, which everybody probably should have in their life.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had a couple along the way, nothing too crazy, but I went out and you were like, I will try a few penises.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ll see how those go.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ll try some things.
4
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have only seen in porn, and we ll see how those go, and just ding, ding, ding for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re like, oh, you must be sitting there going, oh, thank the heavens.
4
SPEAKER_01
I tried, because discovering a more fulfilling orgasm is pretty cool, to say the least.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the most juvenile, the most basic elementary thing I ve ever said in eight years of doing this show.
4
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Orgasms are cool.
4
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Orgasms are cool, everybody.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, yes, and also that s not the only thing about it, though.
4
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It s like the whole experience for me of having sex with another woman is the whole thing is just there s a degree of connection there and it s just like understanding and relating to each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
And most things go hand in hand, obviously, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so not just about the orgasm.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, but the connection.
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SPEAKER_01
Hand in hand and hand in other things.
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Hand in hand and hand in other things.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well done.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well done.
4
SPEAKER_01
But yes, they all go hand in hand, right?
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Like you, you get to more fulfilling sex.
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And I m an idiot going, orgasms are good.
4
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But it s like, right, if you feel a certain level of comfort, trust, connection,
4
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then naturally it will lead to a climax that feels more fulfilling.
4
SPEAKER_01
Whereas if your sex feels awkward or obligatory or you re ambivalent towards it, yes, those things all dovetail into each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, totally.
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
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And then, so the other thing that I was getting to about the shame with the slut phase is I never experienced that.
4
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I had, I, it was a very interesting thing for me to learn about myself that I can have casual, you know,
4
SPEAKER_00
random hookups with people whose names I don t remember anymore.
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SPEAKER_00
First of all, I can forget their names.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t have thought I could do that.
4
SPEAKER_00
You told me in 2016, I was still thinking that every sexual connection, you re going to form some sort of connection with the person and you re going to have feelings about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was like, nope, I can go pop in and out of bed with somebody and they re a stranger to me and I have absolutely no feelings about it whatsoever, other than that s a data point for one reason or another.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s useful information.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t have thought that I was the sort of person who could have casual sex, and it turns out I am.
4
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And I don t really, you know, make use of this information because again, I m just, I don t, who has the time?
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SPEAKER_00
Who has the energy?
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SPEAKER_00
But, you know, knowing it s a thing that I can do if I want, that s cool to know about myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
It is.
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And I love, you know what I love about you even saying that is going like, I don t necessarily have the time or the energy to put that into play, but it,
4
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It s a piece of your personality and it s a piece of your parameters and boundaries that just being aware of them, I have to imagine, can only give you a little more self-knowledge and confidence and knowledge on how you navigate the world, which is born out of experience and not ignorance.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I love that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s, I mean, I guess, you know, maybe, maybe that s kind of the theme of everything is it s, I ve just become more aware of possibilities for both myself and for everything else that exists beyond myself is there s so much more that s possible than I ever, that I had ever thought in the, in the particular life that I was living before.
4
SPEAKER_01
What a cool thing to get to.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, and, you know, we went from, and along the way I got into kink even, so, you know, life is full of surprises.
4
SPEAKER_01
And can I ask, you don t have to, again, I m not asking to dive too deep.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can I ask any particular kinks that you re like, this one got a big thumbs up and 2016 me never would have seen that coming.
5
SPEAKER_01
coming?
5
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Well, first of all, I never would have thought I was a kinky person at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was also a surprise to me.
5
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I went to like, it was in June, June of what, 2021, when we all had new vaccines, and it felt like the world was suddenly going to get safe again.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it happened to coincide with Pride Month.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I found out about like a kink demo party.
5
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And I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting.
5
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I ll just go and do some people watching.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I ended up trying a few of the demo stations.
5
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I was like, Oh, wait a second.
5
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Maybe this is something I might like, which is that, you know, as I said earlier, I m not really saying no to things anymore, because stuff I said no to before, turns out maybe I should have been saying yes all along.
5
SPEAKER_01
So, but like, I, turns out I m very into impact.
5
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I, I like, I,
5
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When I first started exploring kink, I thought I never, ever would have enjoyed being on the receiving end.
5
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Cause I kind of like being on control and it turns out I ve got both in me.
5
SPEAKER_00
Um, impact.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know if there s a whole lot.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ve never heard impact.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I can, I can guess, but maybe you should maybe rather than me guessing, I can just ask for clarification.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_01
I, I, I love a flogger.
5
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I love both, you know, using and receiving it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, and I would have guessed.
5
SPEAKER_00
This is amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like the, the, there s, so kink is, kink is an incredibly, incredibly broad world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like it s, it s, I, there are things that people do that I like, you would never, never know.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, and impact is literally like the, like, that s like BDSM 101.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, and there s just so many.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I guess it s just sensory seeking.
5
SPEAKER_01
The thing is for me, when I first started getting into kink, it was, it was only in the context of like parties and that sort of thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, and, and it was never, there was never a sexual element to it, but I really liked the sensory intensity of it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, and so it s, it s really anything that s like, you know, really kind of fucking with your senses and, you know, making, uh, like the contrast of, you know,
5
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you re experiencing something one second and then you re experiencing either nothing or something else in the next.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like that s, that s, that s really exciting to me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And, um, I am somebody who has always had trouble getting out of my head and into my body, which is partly an ADHD thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
I now know a lot of it was a purity culture thing really was a way of getting me into my body.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to ask, because you re talking about kink, flogging, and then you brought up purity culture again.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to ask a question.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s been on my mind for a while.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s either a question that I think is going to make you giggle, or you re going to go, this is actually a question that has messed with me over the past few years.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be only one or the other, I would imagine.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe both, but definitely not like, oh, I ve never thought about it.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s no way.
5
SPEAKER_00
2016 you, you said would be appalled.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this also suggests that there s probably a lot of people who knew you in 2016 who would be appalled today.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there s probably people from your past who, if they heard how you re living based on what you said your upbringing was like and your culture was like, would say that you ve been corrupted by Satan.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s probably a thing people might say about you if they are from your past and they know about your present.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m wondering if you ve thought about that, and how that feels, because you re still spiritual, you re still religious.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re just not religious in that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
But there s probably people out there going, tsk, tsk, tsk.
5
SPEAKER_00
Did you know that she fell into the grip of the Dark Lord?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like that s a thing people you know, from your past might be saying about you right now.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
uh gone off the deep end is the term that other people would have used about people in my situation back in the day and it s the term i would have used um i i think so at least in my like adulthood as a christian people were not it christianity was almost we weren t like of the super you know intense the forces of demons and satan la la la not not quite in that area of christianity anymore at that point fortunately and so you know i ve
5
SPEAKER_01
I would have thought I, you know, had gone off the deep end looking at me now, but it wouldn t have been like, Oh, she has been claimed by Satan and her soul is imprisoned by the devil or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, definitely knowing I would be subject to judgment and I m sure there are people who are, um, I know who some of them are.
5
SPEAKER_01
Um, it s been interesting to see the responses because actually on the whole people from my, um, the before times, so to speak, people have mostly been, um,
5
SPEAKER_01
a lot more compassionate, I think, than I was expecting.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was totally prepared before I came out and everything.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really thought that I was gonna pretty much lose everybody from beforehand, and it turns out I wasn t giving people enough credit for having a sense of compassion, and that s how I would put it.
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SPEAKER_01
I wouldn t necessarily say that everybody is accepting.
5
SPEAKER_01
Some people have been totally accepting.
5
SPEAKER_01
Some people, I would say, they would probably rather not,
5
SPEAKER_01
That I was, you know, having the life experiences that I am now probably would rather not that I m making some of the choices that I have, but they ve had at the very least.
5
SPEAKER_01
Most of them have had some degree of compassion for the fact that I didn t get to this point easily.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, it came with a lot of suffering and depression and.
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SPEAKER_00
I bet, I bet.
5
SPEAKER_00
For as casual as you re speaking now, this doesn t sound like an easy stretch of life, but is there some aunt, some uncle that you re like, oh, this person, their head is gonna explode, who s actually been like, cool, go do you?
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Do you have anybody who really blew your mind with their positivity about it?
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know that I d go that far.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would say it s more of a, it s kind of just a general, like a very kind of quiet, understated relief and gratitude, I think.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because, you know, honestly, I,
5
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I am not, I m not an absolutist in anything.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I do not believe that pre-changes, I still don t believe that I hated gay people.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I still don t believe that anybody else I know who s still a Christian, I don t believe that anybody in my personal sphere hates gay people.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I really do believe that there s still a genuine struggle there.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t expect some of the people in my life to ever fully, to love these things about me.
5
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, I m very grateful for the people who are kind of willing to be uncomfortable with it, you know, rather than just like saying, oh, we re not going to associate with you anymore.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m grateful for people who are, you know, there they are.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was back in the day and people who are in my life now, people are genuinely still trying to love the people that they believe are, you know, in sin in some way.
5
SPEAKER_01
You know, I don t think it s as simple as saying, you know, they
5
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they think homosexuality is a sin and therefore they hate me and they, you know, um, I, I just, that, that doesn t ring true with my own experiences.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think people are trying to figure out how to love most of the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And, um, I wouldn t have gotten to this point if everybody I encountered had said, Oh, you think homosexuality is a sin and you hate people.
5
SPEAKER_01
I, I m really lucky in the encounters that I had in the conversations I had where a lot of people were kind of having,
5
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similar growth trajectories to me, I think, in the ways that we were learning things.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m lucky that most of my social circle for my adult life has been kind of intellectual, which I don t like, not to say people have been pretentious, not like, you know, book nerdy, smarter than thou, but people who are thoughtful and very intentionally engaged with trying to think things through.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s the case for both the people I know who are still in Christianity and the people who are, you know, people like me who have kind of divested from it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And my, you know, more queer, radical, kinky, freaky communities, it s all people who care a lot about thinking through things, even when it s difficult.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I m, you know, I don t want to dismiss anybody in my life who still has qualms.
5
SPEAKER_01
It, you know, it s kind of hard and sad sometimes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like the main thing right now,
6
SPEAKER_01
I think most of my family at this point has the various degrees of comfort come to accept, oh, okay, this is her, she s queer, and she s not married to that person that was part of our family before.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think most of them have more or less made their peace with that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the fact that I m dating somebody and it s a polyamorous relationship, that s the newest thing that everybody knows about and it s much harder.
6
SPEAKER_01
Only one person in my family actually asks questions about my relationship.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s the greatest source of sadness for me at this point is that, you know, before when I was, you know, with my husband, you know, anytime we d talk, he d be like, oh, how is he doing?
6
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, how are things?
6
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, he s part of the family.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think there is one person in my family who will probably want to meet my girlfriend at some point.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the rest of the family kind of just doesn t even ask.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s just sad because it just sort of feels like it s a lack of caring about something that s very important to me.
6
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, maybe it ll get there.
6
SPEAKER_01
I am not sure if I answered your question or if I totally rambled off in a different direction.
6
SPEAKER_00
Listen, you and I have established a vibe where I ask the questions and then you let the kite go.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then at some point the kite string breaks, the kite flies somewhere else.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I just sit back and listen and enjoy it.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s our vibe.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m going to say this, though, for anybody out there.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s the point of the show, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And listen, I think I think there over the years, I have to imagine that anybody who has hate in their heart
6
SPEAKER_00
towards queer people has probably been driven away from listening to this show, and I don t mind that.
6
SPEAKER_00
But if there s anybody out there listening who does feel like they hate gay people, hate queer people,
6
SPEAKER_00
Just put this out there, your life is less cool and fun because queer people tend to be queer and fun.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re fun and cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
So often, so often your life has less coolness and fun in it than if you had some queer friends, some gay friends.
6
SPEAKER_00
So step up, be open-minded and let some fun into your life.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s pause there.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s pause right there.
6
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That is a fact.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is not subjective.
6
SPEAKER_00
That is objective.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay, everybody?
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not me trying to be woke.
6
SPEAKER_00
Stop shutting people out from your life.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not fun.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let the fun in.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let the people in.
6
SPEAKER_00
The people bring the fun.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not rocket science.
6
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, we ll be right back.
6
SPEAKER_00
Mother s Day is coming up and maybe you re looking for the perfect gift for the mom in your life.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, guess what?
6
SPEAKER_00
Aura Frames.
6
SPEAKER_00
I shout to the hilltops about the Aura Frame.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love my Aura Frame.
6
SPEAKER_00
We have one on our mantel right when you enter our house.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s one of the first things you see.
6
SPEAKER_00
My parents have two of them.
6
SPEAKER_00
My mother-in-law has one of them.
6
SPEAKER_00
Our whole family
6
SPEAKER_00
has gotten into the Aura frame, and it s a really great gift for families.
6
SPEAKER_00
And for Mother s Day, you will not go wrong.
6
SPEAKER_00
Killer gift, really great.
6
SPEAKER_00
They re beautiful Wi-Fi connected digital picture frames.
6
SPEAKER_00
or a frame to allow you to share and display unlimited photos.
6
SPEAKER_00
So for example, my brother, his son Rory is 17 days younger than Cal.
6
SPEAKER_00
I have the app, my brother has the app, my parents have their frames.
6
SPEAKER_00
I can use the app and just load pictures of Cal onto their frame.
6
SPEAKER_00
My brother does the same thing with my nephew Rory.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then my parents have a frame where without them having to lift a finger, they re just seeing a cycling of new images of their grandkids show up.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they sit there, they get surprised by them.
6
SPEAKER_00
My mom has told me she sometimes will just turn off the TV and just kind of zone out and check out the RFrame to see what grandkid picture is coming next.
6
SPEAKER_00
Isn t that a beautiful thing?
6
SPEAKER_00
Isn t that a beautiful thing right there?
6
SPEAKER_00
If you re giving an aura as a gift, by the way, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just really love it.
6
SPEAKER_00
My whole family loves it.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I ve given them actually as gifts to friends.
6
SPEAKER_00
I have some friends who live down the block.
6
SPEAKER_00
Their first grandkid was just born.
6
SPEAKER_00
I gave them two aura frames.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to sell it too hard and you know I don t do this all the time but for AuraFrames I will.
6
SPEAKER_00
I sit here and I go man, the AuraFrame legitimately has been a big part of my family s experience with my kid being born and I kind of can t imagine what it would have been like without it because everybody loves it so much.
6
SPEAKER_00
My mom in particular loves it so much.
6
SPEAKER_00
From grandmas to new mothers, aunts, friends in your life, every mom loves an Aura frame.
6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
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6
SPEAKER_00
Thanks again to all the advertisers who allow this show to happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now let s finish off the phone call.
6
SPEAKER_00
Your life has less coolness and fun in it than if you had some clear.
6
SPEAKER_00
So step up, be open minded and let some fun into your life.
6
SPEAKER_00
I
6
SPEAKER_00
am amazed at the head-spinning change.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you mentioned that you re still studying to be a chaplain, I believe?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, because actually the funny thing is, you know, even as I ve vaguely alluded to this at some point, even as I ve departed from one specific faith tradition, I ve
6
SPEAKER_01
Like I said, I didn t feel like I was leaving something.
6
SPEAKER_01
In all of this, it s the case that I never felt like I was intentionally leaving any particular thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just that I got more information and I was like, oh, wow, it s a lot cool if we allow for really diverse plurality and possibilities in all things.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I don t hate how some people choose to practice and live out their Christianity, but I don t hate Christianity.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t hate any religion.
6
SPEAKER_01
Um, I think religion is really fucking cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
Uh, even if we re just talking from like a narrative standpoint, I, I, like I said, I m a writer.
6
SPEAKER_01
I love thinking about how people tell narratives and I love how, um, all the cool different ways that religions can help us all make a narrative, you know, some kind of meaningful narrative out of our experience of the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
And, um, everybody is ultimately trying to tell themselves a story about their own mortality, whether they realize it or not.
6
SPEAKER_01
um how I got to the point of realizing I wanted to go into hospice as a chaplain specifically uh is a whole other thing but it s you know similar to everything else that I ve recapped in that actually the factors that led me here were kind of there under the surface a little time it is just there were a few things that culminated in the realization of oh this is what I want to do with those things um but I m I m really fascinated with mortality with death death as a process you know in
6
SPEAKER_01
philosophically, biologically, and I think chaplaincy is, it s a really good way of being with people in a really significant threshold.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think spirituality is kind of just like a playground, I think.
6
SPEAKER_01
We don t know anything about any of this stuff, and it s really cool to poke around at, oh, here is different ways that we can tell a story about these things that we will actually never be able to understand.
6
SPEAKER_01
So that s why I m in seminary.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m floundering my way through it because nothing about academia is made for the way that an ADHD brain works.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I m in C s get degrees mode, but I am doing it.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m having a lot of fun, even if it doesn t show on paper.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s what we re doing.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re going to be with people as they pass.
6
SPEAKER_01
And with their loved ones who are experiencing that loss as well.
6
SPEAKER_01
And even supporting to the health care and social workers and really supporting everybody who s involved in that transition.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think that that s such an unexpected part of this life awakening that you ve had.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s really layered to me.
7
SPEAKER_01
And again, it s funny, because even though we were talking about it before, I do see the logic of how, okay, getting invested in Black Lives Matter awakens this progressivism in you.
7
SPEAKER_01
The progressivism
7
SPEAKER_01
doesn t create anything, but helps lead you towards being more open-minded towards all sorts of types of people.
7
SPEAKER_01
That helps you eventually embrace your own queerness, your comfort with polyamory.
7
SPEAKER_01
I see how all of those things do kind of dovetail culturally into one another, how that s a cultural shift that seems to all be headed in the same direction.
7
SPEAKER_01
At the same time, investing yourself towards
7
SPEAKER_01
chaplaincy and specifically chaplaincy that leads you to service surrounding death, that one I find, is that something that was always of interest in you?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or is that something that also developed in this stretch of life?
7
SPEAKER_01
Because that one, I don t see the dots as easy to connect.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I m very fascinated by that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that s actually one of the things that I realized is deeply intertwined with the other stuff.
7
SPEAKER_00
me being queer, um, me having ADHD, me caring a lot about death are actually all very closely related in ways it would take probably a couple more hours to connect, but short version is on a, on an intellectual level, like, uh, you know, I think here s the, like the philosophy of death since I read, I believe it was Marcus Aurelius  fault reading his meditation my freshman year of college that kind of got me philosophically interested in death.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then over the years became more interested in,
7
SPEAKER_00
you know, what is it, what is the actual, like the practicalities of the dying process within the body?
7
SPEAKER_00
Um, cause a lot of my growth has been investing more in embodiment, you know, physical experiences, both mine and everybody else s.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think I m kind of just realizing this right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
I think the way that, um, that it s actually one of, well, one of the big ways that it s related to the fact that in most ways, you know, I m, I ve become a lot more open and curious to,
7
SPEAKER_00
all the possible ways that people are different and how that makes just such a an incredibly rich tapestry of existence and but the one thing that everybody you know everybody has in common the one and only thing is that we are all going to die and I think it s really fascinating to both lean all the way into um
7
SPEAKER_00
all the differences from human to human, and also this one thing that is the one common factor that we all have, which is also, even as it s the one thing that we all have in common, it s the only thing that none of us can share our specific experience with somebody else.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna die and the dying person can t, nobody s telling us from the other side, hey, this is what this was like.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the only place that we re all going completely on our own.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s a fascinating tension to be in with someone.
7
SPEAKER_00
I cannot go with you, but I m also going to be here with you as you go.
7
SPEAKER_01
It seems in a way, I m not sure if you ve talked about what you did professionally before your life s great awakening.
7
SPEAKER_00
Nothing related whatsoever.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s odd, isn t it?
7
SPEAKER_01
It s odd to hear that you are, by the definition of a lot of the people you grew up with, probably less Christian than ever, but it s also very easy to argue that this side of your life is in many ways more Christian than anything you were doing or would have wound up doing had you stayed in the faith in the exact way you grew up with.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I know, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
I kind of love that.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve had that thought in almost exactly those words.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I kind of love that about myself.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like if anybody ever gives you a hard time, and I m, I m gonna make a joke.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m not trying to be insensitive.
7
SPEAKER_01
But there s truth to it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Like if anyone from your past ever confronts you and is like, starts giving you shit about aspects of your life, you can be like, Yeah, I sleep with women now.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I enjoy getting flogged.
7
SPEAKER_01
But
7
SPEAKER_01
I also help people stay comfortable and feel safe and secure as they go through the ultimate endpoint of life s journey.
7
SPEAKER_01
What are you doing exactly?
7
SPEAKER_01
What are you doing exactly?
7
SPEAKER_01
Judging sitting back and judging?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I thought so.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no, I think that s hilarious.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t think most almost nobody in my life has really known what to make of the fact that you know, me at the point that I m at I m going
7
SPEAKER_00
and, you know, pursuing some religious studies, the people who are still religious are like, wait a second, I thought you weren t doing that anymore.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the people who have never been religious are like, wait, you re doing what?
7
SPEAKER_00
And it s, I think it s very funny to be, it s a very queer thing, you know, to always be surprising people and not quite fitting into any sort of expectations.
7
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I tell you, one thing you probably didn t hear based on when you stopped listening to the show is I did have a stretch where I had a midlife crisis and applied to grad school.
7
SPEAKER_01
And as part of grad school.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh, what for?
7
SPEAKER_01
For social work.
7
SPEAKER_01
I got in, didn t wind up going because I wound up working for a non-profit mental health organization instead.
7
SPEAKER_01
These are some updates that you ve missed.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s all good.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m not mad at you.
7
SPEAKER_01
But the reason I bring it up is I had to get my college transcript, which
7
SPEAKER_01
I applied at Rutgers where I also got my BA.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I was like, can you guys just send it to the grad school, the social work grad school?
7
SPEAKER_01
They were like, no, it s a thing where we have to mail it to you and then you have to give it to them.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s whatever, it s policy, legal, blah, blah, blah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I had to look at my transcript.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I took this class called Death and Dying.
7
SPEAKER_01
And if I remember right, it was a philosophy class.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I remember loving this class.
7
SPEAKER_01
I hated college.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, that class though, where they taught us about how different cultures look at death.
7
SPEAKER_01
We watched the movie Akiru, which I talked about on the very first episode of Beautiful Anonymous.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s this really amazing movie about how death shines a spotlight on life.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s a beautiful film that everyone should watch.
7
SPEAKER_01
Everyone should watch it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I remember loving this class.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I ve actually had the thought too, where I m like, man, I really hated college.
7
SPEAKER_01
I had such a hard time.
7
SPEAKER_01
But that class was also, I got a C minus in the class.
7
SPEAKER_01
I did shitty.
7
SPEAKER_01
I had a shitty, I didn t do good.
7
SPEAKER_01
It was shitty in that class.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I remember it so fondly, but I did poorly.
7
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, your, your recent efforts to help people that s what my seminary is gonna look like.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re not crushing it with the grades.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, I m, it s I m in constant conversations with my professors, then academic advisors and the Dean of academics about like, I ve been on academic probation the whole time I m there, because I really struggled with the submitting things part of it.
7
SPEAKER_00
But like, everybody knows,
7
SPEAKER_00
that I love that I m there and I am very active participating in class and I m getting a lot out of it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I know that I m getting out of it what I actually need to.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s just, you know, the, and the thing is like the academic part of it has nothing to do with what actually being a chaplain will look like in practice.
7
SPEAKER_00
So in that sense, I mean, you know,
7
SPEAKER_00
Grades are just a formality that I have to conclude along the way, even though I really don t care.
7
SPEAKER_01
What s it like to be a grown-up and get put on academic probation?
7
SPEAKER_01
Like, do you keep a straight face?
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you like, okay, I ll pick up the pace.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
7
SPEAKER_01
Or are you just like, ah, yeah, I mean, I m like, come on, I m, this is, I m going to move forward.
7
SPEAKER_00
How do you deal with that?
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I kind of just had to, I just kind of had to laugh.
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I was like, you know what?
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I knew I wasn t cut out for academia.
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I m only here because I absolutely have to be to get to the thing that I actually want to be doing.
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So, whatever.
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That would have been my.
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If there is a way to become a chaplain without going through school first, that s what I would be doing.
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But I have to go through the school.
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And so, you know, oh, well, I will not do it with style, but it will get done.
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That s kind of where I landed.
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I m able to do a lot of work.
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That s the type of thing I would have wanted to go get that social work degree for.
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And I did not need to go to grad school for it.
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And I m lucky because I would be a 43 year old man on academic probation right now.
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and having to navigate that and how to keep a straight face throughout that process.
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And it would not go well.
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It would not go well for me.
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Here s a question.
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It would have been a very humbling thing for me if it, it would have been very humbling if I had had any ego left to humble, but I have been such a dumpster fire of a human being for the last like five, six years that there was no ego there in the first place.
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So I can t, you know, there s nothing left to break.
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There you go.
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That s both a dismal and hopeful way to put it.
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I m left wondering, you ve talked so much.
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At one point you even said something that I found really striking.
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You said something along the lines of how part of queerness for you is being open to possibilities that you didn t used to be open to before.
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Have you thought about
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what the other life changes are that might be coming, because I would have to imagine part of that is being open to other potential massive life changes, but five, six years of a dumpster fire, and it sounds like you ve landed on your feet.
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I mean, you speak so clearly about how all this went down.
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No, I haven t.
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I am not on my feet at all.
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You are really good at faking it till you make it then, because you sound so at peace.
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You sound so at peace.
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Do you feel like you re still in the middle of the tumultuous part?
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Are there other life changes you re anticipating?
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Other things you re looking to explore?
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Oh, I don t anticipate anything anymore because never in my life, or at least in my adult life, have I anticipated something and then been correct.
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So me being at peace is me just like, I have somewhat been forced to, but also learned to,
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intentionally just kind of accept that everything is so completely out of my control.
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So yeah, no, I m not on my feet.
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I don t know how I m paying my rent in a few days.
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I don t know how long it s going to take me to get through seminary when I have failed a few classes.
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I don t know, like hostage chaplaincy is, you know, there s not a lot of like full-time jobs.
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I may end up supplementing with something else.
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I don t know what that s going to look like.
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And I have become very okay with having no idea what s going on.
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at any point.
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I know what I m doing right this second.
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I don t know what I ll be doing tomorrow.
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So I ve learned to instead of letting myself drown in angst, trying to swim upstream against the current of anxiety, I ve just kind of learned to go, well, I have learned and I have been medicated to go, all right,
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We re just going to float and wherever the current s going, we re not going to fight it because that s not helpful and that s not getting anywhere.
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And we ll end up somewhere and we ll figure it out when we get there.
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And if that connects to, you know, queerness in some way, it probably does.
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Why I think that I have often said to people in the last few years is that for me, my definition of queerness is just queerness is expansiveness.
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It s allowing for possibilities.
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and um just kind of a sense of humility about you never know what all the possibilities are going to be in anything and um for both i don t know what is possible for myself i m looking forward to continuing to find out over and over again um i m 30 what 4 34 um and i have
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potentially a whole lot of life left and a whole lot of things that I m going to find out about.
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And, um, and so does everybody else, everybody else is going to be continuing to find out about things and just, and I will, the only thing that I do know is that I will be continuing to practice curiosity.
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Cause I, I ve practiced it enough that I don t even really have to try anymore.
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It s just curiosity is my default setting.
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Are there any goals you have right now where you go?
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Kate, you were just laughing, saying, no, I have not landed on my feet at all.
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Are there any things that you go, if I could nail down this and this, I would feel firmer footing?
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Or is firmer footing a thing you re just not as interested in anymore?
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Kind of both.
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I think I mentioned at some point earlier, I m not trying to go back to a desk job, partly because, well, I m going into chaplaincy, and I m not in a desk job currently, and I don t plan to be in the next few years until I get to becoming a chaplain.
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I ve been realizing the last few years, I have been by far the most broke and financially desperate that I ve ever been in my life, and yet I am so much happier than I ve ever been in my life because
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Money is stressful, but I also have I have the whole rest of myself that is not being drained trying to you know be a corporate worker be every day and So I feel more alive so Yeah, so I m not I m kind of the like in terms of financial security and everything like I wish I could I would love universal basic income I wish I knew
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that every month, if I could guarantee one thing, I wish I could just know for sure that I m going to be able to pay my bills each month.
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But beyond that, I don t really need any particular stability in any way.
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I m kind of liking this is so early on when I went, I think when I when I first started realizing that, oh, no, I can t call myself Christian anymore.
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It was really terrifying because I felt I wasn t used to feeling untethered.
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And, you know, it feels like you re
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It feels really insecure.
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It feels scary and it s very unknown, but eventually the unknown starts to feel just like freedom and possibilities and Yeah, so that s kind of that s kind of permeated how I think about pretty much everything what a beautiful note to end
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the general call on.
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We re going to say goodbye to everybody who s been listening for free and then call her if you have a few more minutes.
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We now do this thing on the show where we have a thing people can sign up at beautifulanonymous.com and I get to ask you five random questions from a list that s generated by our fan base and we get to know more about you.
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So we ll say goodbye and thanks for listening to everybody who s been listening thus far.
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And for everybody at beautifulanonymous.com, guess what?
8
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Now it just belongs to you.
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Caller, thank you so much for calling and telling us about this explosion of changes in your life.
8
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It sounds like it has not been easy, and yet somehow you talk so calmly and casually about it.
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And I m super psyched to hear that you re living a life that feels closer to your true self.
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I think that s amazing.
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Well done.
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Thank you to Andrea Quinn for producing the show.
8
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Thank you to Shell Shag for our theme music.
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If you want to know more about me, go to ChrisGeth.com.
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includes my tour dates.
8
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I ve got a lot of them coming up.
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Voicemail number is 973-306-4676.
8
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Maybe we record at times that don t work for you.
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Maybe you have a story and you feel like it s not showing up on the show.
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I want this to be a place for every type of story I can imagine.
8
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So please let us know.
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We will listen to the voicemails and we will get back to you.
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You can follow us on Instagram at Beautiful Anonymous Pod.
8
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You can join the Facebook group at Beautiful Anonymous The Community.
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Don t forget about BeautifulAnonymous.com where you can get extra bonus content.
8
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Thanks so much, everybody.
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I didn t do Halloween.
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My family was that kind of Christian.
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And we would turn off the porch lights and cover the doorbell and go watch movies in the basement instead.
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So because, you know, Halloween was the devil s holiday.
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And then in college, people would go trick or treating in the neighborhood nearby.
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It always happened to fall during the time of the semester when we I had papers due and so I couldn t afford the time to go trick-or-treating because I had to finish writing my papers.
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So I Yeah, I don t I don t have I don t have an answer to that one Sadly, I love Halloween so much if I grew up in a faith that disallowed Halloween I would have left the faith when I was seven years old because Halloween s the best and I m furious There s other things you probably dealt with
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in what sounded like a sort of intense and judgmental upbringing that was at least somewhat related to faith that should make me more mad.
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Hearing that you didn t get to do Halloween as a kid, aka the greatest day in childhood, has me furious.
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Don t forget to sign up for Beautiful Anonymous Plus at beautifulanonymous.com.