CHEM SESSIONS N°12

[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Tina Burner, and you're listening to ChemSessions at PauseVibed Podcast. Here are your hosts, Veda Lady, the most beautiful woman in the world, Interpreter Range, and Ireland's fastest lover, Dr. Robbie Lugler. Welcome back to another ChemSession. I'm your co-host, Robbie Lugler. And I'm Veda. And it's funny every time you do that, I think, damn, what am I going to say? I have to easy part. I just have to say my name. You're the funny one. Well, not today. I'm not clearly. I'm Veda, the most beautiful woman in the world in my prize range. And you already know that. And today is very special day for us, because we are finishing our journey. We're finishing our recording journey very soon. And we're doing our last couple of episodes today. And it's just a great achievement to have this guest with us, because it's someone who I adore. And I've been dying to work with, especially on this project of a ChemSession. Well, it's not-- who I also adore and have do it for many, many years-- Not too many years, just in the-- [INTERPOSING VOICES] I'm still a baby. Everyone, give it up to BabyK, Michael Othey. Thank you so much. I'm just a little girl, trapped inside this body, you know? I know the feeling. So Michael, you were on the Puzzved Podcast. Like a few years ago, a couple of years ago, talking about a little major. But you have really gotten into kind of HIV activism, but also you work within the area of ChemSex. So let's just go straight off the bat and go in front. Before we started, I know you and BabyKiki before. And Baby told me something amazing, that blew my mind, that as part of your work, you go into ChemSessions before the session begins to talk to everyone. If it happens, tell us more about that. Yeah. This is like a really recent and really random development that has happened in my life. So yeah, like as you mentioned over the last few years, I've been diving deep into my activism and exploring really ChemSex as the important topic that it is. And through my work, I've obviously started to establish my name. It's a really small field. So it's really easy to establish your name. But I just like cornered an elite, and dominated it. You know? Let's get off. Yeah, but recently through my work, and I guess through my involvement in Nightlife and the party scene, this closed ChemSex network in Amsterdam made up of 70 men in a WhatsApp group. I've started to reach out to me to host private ChemSex workshops at the start of ChemSex parties. So it's really bizarre. Like I'm basically the keynote speaker at ChemSex party. I'm like, excuse me. I'm like, I deliver them like basically what I think as the chills they would need to maintain a recreational relationship with ChemSex. And yeah, so far it's been a really rewarding and hopefully effective intervention in really reaching people before they got to that really problematic stage of ChemSex, which I would actually have a lot more experience dealing with. Okay, can I ask, what's the reception of the people? Because you know, people might want to go straight into the party. Yeah, that's a lecturers supposed. But what's it like? I think that at the start, people are often quite hesitant. It took like a little bit of coaching to first of all get the event running. It's held inside somebody's house. And it's like a closed group. So it's only available for people who are part of this ChemSex network. And yeah, so there's that hesitancy at the start, but I really find that if you meet people where they're at and you're not trying to be like, you need to be stopped gang banging on the weekends and you need to be stopped doing the drugs. Like that's not really gonna help. You know, so it's really about meeting them where they're at and you're not judging them for their relationship with ChemSex. No matter how problematic I might view it as like a professional, that's not really my job in the situation. So yeah, it's about gentle coaxing into having a conversation. And I think once people start talking to each other about these things like boundaries and the relationship with different substances and the relationship with sex, you find that people find a little bit more meaning in their relationship with ChemSex. I absolutely love it. It's so eyes wide shut. It sounds quite posh. Yeah. I pay gaze. Eyes wide shut. I swear I don't pay. Yeah. (laughing) It's the name of the network. Yeah. Do a mask. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I wish. Give me an other debate like. Of course. But it's really nice. So how did you get into ChemSex? You said that you recognized that as one of the big issues in community. I don't know if you've been in the queer community, or HIV community or maybe both, but you're introduced to it from the night, like seeing how are you seeing ChemSex really, how did it affect your life? Yeah, it's a bit of a funny story because I don't have a huge history with ChemSex myself. Really? Because when I was 17 years old, I went to my first ChemSex party, which was a bit of an accident. That kind of scarred me for a while as I was like, you know, it's a really intense scene to find yourself in, so that kind of like pushed me off it. And then knowing my relationship with sex and drugs, they also know that if I get too deep into that, I will find myself lost. So really what happened was I was preparing on successful PhD proposal. And I was talking to my professor at the time in Master's at the University of the Netherlands. And I was like, what will I do with my PhD on? And he was like, yeah, tell me. And I was like, hey, J.V., of course, my life, my work. And he looked at me, deadpan, and he was like, babe, that's such old news. And he was like, you need to think about your career going forward. And I want you to ask me to reflect on my passions and my interests and to come up with a more pressing issue. Something that could fuel research for the next 10 years. And I did that. I reflected on my life. And at that time, I was living in Amsterdam. And it was just the end of the COVID pandemic. And I had found myself in this really vibrant queer circle of nightlife creatures and freaks. And unfortunately, with the pandemic, all those really vibrant creatures found themselves out of their usual rhythm without work, without their usual routine. And I saw a lot of those people that I grew to love fall into a really problematic relationship with camps and sex, where they got to the point that they started to lose touch with those things in life that might give you true rewards and a sense of achievement, like your family, your friends, your social life, your work. And yeah, seeing that happen, yeah, really urged me and encouraged me to start pursuing campsites as kind of, I guess, the core of my activism, you know. So moved largely away from HIV, only doing kind of inverted commas, small projects. And although they make me a lot of work, into more campsite related stuff. And that's how I ended up running the National Campsite Service for Terence Hickens Trust for two years. Yeah, that was a real pinch for some moments. Yeah, I don't think they do that I was 22. I heard it. I was just like really given my big girl energy. It worked. It was a steep learning curve, but it has taught me so much about how to work within the system to meet the needs of those who are often most marginalized and stigmatized, which is definitely people who use drugs. And do you think that young people on the campsite scene are more vulnerable than as rival queens? I have a mixed opinion about this, because often I see it as the most vulnerable people are those who are newcomers. And a newcomer can be of any age, like it can be that they're 18, moving up to Dublin and starting college for the first time. Or they could be 65, and they have been in an anonymous relationship for the last 20 years. Their partners either maybe passed away, or they're broken up, and they find themselves on this new scene as well. So it's not something that can necessarily be reduced to age, but it can definitely be reduced to that naïve, maybe, and that not having a super clue in understanding of what the queer sex scene looks like today, which is ultimately a digital jungle of drugs and sex. But I definitely see a growing trend of younger people gravitating towards kind of sex. Oh really? Yeah, it's funny, because running the campsite service in Terence Hickens Trust, it was like a six week support group. And often I'd ask people this trick question when I was either doing workshops or having conversations, where I'd say, what do you think is the age range of people? accessing the service. And people would always jump to, oh my god, 19 to like 28. But in reality, the people who were in the most problematic stage of Ken's use or who were reaching out to support from me and my team was, yeah, people between the ages of 45 and 70. You know, so that's why I was wondering about that because, you know, I feel like Ken sex is a lot to do with the growing sense of isolation, though, a lot of older. Yeah. Queens are experiencing. But I was mentioned to Robbie earlier, when we get approached from people who are up for sharing their story, even just with us, it tends to be people who are a little bit older because they're in a place in their life where they're made peace with it maybe or they feel that it's going to help them to share. Yeah. I feel like the younger people are more guarded. Therefore harder to reach. Yeah. And a lot of what I hear from younger people is that they learn on the job when it comes to Ken's sex. They don't really think about Ken's sex until they're having Ken's sex. I mean, why would they? Yeah. Like as in despite the progress we've made in Ireland or in sex education, most of these queer youths enter in the scene are completely clueless about what queer sexual landscapes actually look like. You know, you're entering this world of, you know, where seduction and sex is negotiated in drug and party and complex environments, you know. And then on top of that, like nobody really talks about drugs in Ireland in a very accessible way. You know, before I moved to Dublin, I was like, rich people do cocaine and poor people do heroin and there's nothing in between. And then I came to Dublin and then I was like, oh my god, everybody's doing disco pill. Disco bus kids everywhere. You know? And I can't mean to do this. Yeah. Nobody's doing anything anymore. What's the story about that? I'm joking. Ireland is such a brother. I make jokes of I'm a girl. Oh my god. I bring the lag. Three for two. But like you come to Dublin and you're suddenly exposed and confronted with the fact that everybody does drugs. Oh yeah. I can take a menu out right now but I got sent today and the what. And I don't know what half the things on it are. Yeah. So it's generally the wrong. Still don't know what they are. I'm taking notes here. Yeah, but definitely on that point of like taking stuff that you don't know. I think that's the situation that many young people are finding themselves in. Like you go for a hook up and it can be with the group or it could be just one to one. You know, sex is not just group sex. It's also like all varieties of sex and drugs. But you find yourself as young person in these situations. Sometimes often coerced into a tent of these situations with the information that you would need and then somebody offers them G or Tina. And oh sure you've only been in college for a few months because you've seen everybody else in ecstasy. You don't quite realize that G and Tina is not the same game that everybody else been playing. You know, the thing about crimes and this is not to stigmatize it or like to further place any judgment on the band. So like people want to do comes like all like a power to your baby. You know what I mean? As they know, when people to have the best sex that they can have. But the truth is is that crimes are being wrapped up in the fluffy recreational package of the love and ecstasy and the social cocaine. When in reality they are not quite the same. The risks and the harms associated with them are exponentially higher particularly for a G and Tina. Yeah, there's so much to talk about and their one is everyone's doing drugs but no one's talking about it. I just talked a few podcasts ago about how we're talking about under radio. But everyone was talking about it from like a kind of more medical side or pathology side rather than taking about it from to not the pleasure side or just the lay person side. And it's just really, it's like this is what we're really getting out there because there is so much misinformation or non-information. And in a few of the case studies that we've seen ice, it's always funny that people are like, oh I talked Tina because I didn't know it was met and I got to frighten my life. And I was like, actually that's so easy to happen if you think about it. And I never really connected it to when everyone's going to take ecstasy, why can't I just take this tea, whatever it is? It's shockingly a story that I've heard so much. And it's really easy to be as somebody in the know to be like, oh Jesus, what did you not know that it was crystal meth? Like in reality, like first of all the day Tina, sexy name for a drug. Exactly how somebody's asking you to slam what a sexy action, it's like fucking you know, it's easy to be allured into it. And who in the end of the day doesn't want to fuck all night and not stop? You know, like get something very attractive about it. Or get fisted for like you know, it was in the room. I was just talking to somebody like this yesterday. I was like one fist is all the takes, right? Then your heart, then your heart is like, do the leap back. Yeah, that is me. It's actually my new sick girl coming out. It's trying to slam the head. Okay, so Tina is meth folks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do like this because we, the are different classes of drugs as we know, but like how we are lumped up together in terms of these pleasure drugs means very different things. Customers have different harms associated with both. So I really take your point there. I know what Terrence Higgins to us here, you're very not preachy about when people come to your workshops. If you want to stop or if you want some cessation around your drug use, there's supports here. But if you just want to stop drugs for six weeks or whatever feels right for you, you can help support people in that. For Adam, Helen Denham, how long to stop taking the drug. Is that correct? Like it's okay. Yeah, so that was that was our proletarian sex trust. Unfortunately, the cam sex services have been caught from the Terrence Higgins Trust. It's a correlated era that we're living in where there is massive cuts happening to funding and it's made it really difficult to find funding to support cam sex related initiatives. Because luckily we're on cut. Well, you know, well, I'm sorry to hear that sweetheart. But we're seeing that in all this face and trying to get funding for cam sex is particularly tricky in the UK. Yeah, it's difficult. So, funding is, becomes a really big part of your life as an activist when you really want to make something happen. Unfortunately, like you can scream at the system as much as you want, but if you cannot engage with it effectively, you are ultimately doing your community a disservice. And fortunately, there's people who can live outside the system and criticize it, which is super helpful, but that's not the direction I've taken. Getting funding for cam sex is difficult because it's not like HIV where the big pharmaceutical companies have like this guilt around the price of most HIV medications. So, they try to displace that guilt by funding different HIV related projects. Cam sex does not necessarily have that particular tie with the big corporate body with lots of money. So, often, I mean, you're relying on government funding to make it happen. And then on top of that, it's even more difficult because cam sex falls in this little gap between sexual health and drugs and alcohol services. And I always say the cam sex is a little bit like the hot potato of services because I was like, the jokes around alcohol services are like, "Oh my god, that's way too sexy for us." And then the sexual health services are like, "Oh my god, that's way too addiction for us." And then it results in it not necessarily getting the attention that it deserves. And the people, of course, are made up of all of those things. So, all of those things need to be addressed. The reasons that you're engaging in cam sex. You're not just drug addiction. Yeah. You can even sexual addiction. I mean, and this goes back to what you were saying about turns against trust and the group that we ran, which was like, it was so little about the drugs anyway. Like, cam sex is much more much better defined by the factors that facilitate this phenomenon within the community. You know? As in, like, what is the things that are encouraging this health disparity among gang bisexual men? Why is it that we feel the need to utilize substances to facilitate our sexual experience? And my kind of teams really came out to you to try to do work. I mean, I think ultimately, like, a lot of it has to do with things that make it more difficult for people to enjoy gay sex. You know? So, what are the things that are barrier for queer men to enjoy gay sex? Some things like, you know, hemorrhoids. You know? A little fishers. Yeah. So, we're talking about shame. Yeah. Shame and the apps are really important to body issues. Body issues. You know, to be a sexual dysfunction, neurodivergence. These are all things that we found quite heavily linked. with, you have no more problematic relationship with cancer, not just using cancer, but then falling into that. I'm not saying that action is not really. Pinnancy. I say, "Retualized comfort seeking." So you're not doing that? "Retualized comfort seeking." "Retualized comfort seeking." So people utilize the substances to self-medicate and achieve really fundamental human needs, like belonging and validation. Yeah, and then. so when we were talking to Graeme, right, he was like that. He basically said something similar, just not so ridiculous. I think that's a really great way of thinking about it. And people can stay in this scope of feeling that it's comfort. What the ritual can be twice a year or, you know, every three months. But what he sees is he sees the people who do it going to more problematic. Yeah. So the comfort, it doesn't become comfort anymore than, unfortunately. Yeah, I think it's like now that I've laughed, turned, taken trials, and I know, like, I work for a charity, I call men as well. We focus on sexual violence, one game of sexual men. Obviously there's a huge intersection there with sex. And then I do my own freelance projects around sex. And it's like the first time in my career in sex that I'm now meeting people who are more in that recreational stage. Definitely when you run a support service, you get like a really skewed image of, of sex. Because you have to just find that it's a problem that we need to fund, you know. And that you need to constantly challenge yourself that there is a lot of people out there having a really good time, you know. And that's totally fair. And that's, I like to hear people having a good time. And I'm never going to take that away from people. And I guess it's just like having an understanding of like what is the difference between a recreational and a problematic relationship. And for me, that is like a recreational relationship is when the benefits, like the sexual exploration or those, those needs that you're getting like belonging or sense of community, outweigh the harms, like the calm down or the financial impact. And I find that type of spec drama, I would call it, is a really nice way to check in with yourself as well when you're thinking about going to a party or thinking about hookin' off with somebody and using cans. It's kind of half of that check in with yourself and thinking, is the benefits away in the harms in this situation. And now there's different things that we can implement in our lives that can bring us closer to that recreational stage. Okay, sure. There is things that will bring us more to that problematic phase, but the things that will keep you in that recreational phase, I know. But are these protective factors like having an understanding of harm reduction strategies, you know, so knowing how to measure your G, knowing your doses correctly, not sharing needles if you are a slamming. Then the next one would be, "Understands in your boundaries." This is really like my buzzword for 2024, is boundaries. And so like that is like being able to reflect in yourself, reflect in words and know what your limits are and be able to communicate those to people around you. And the last thing would be an appreciation for sober, nipping and activities. Now this is probably the most important factor of all of them. And that means to me at least is not losing touch with the things that give you a true sense of reward. So maybe the things that are not going to give you that massive dope of being rushed on the weekends, but will ultimately feed yourself like having hobbies. You know, it sounds very trivial, but having hobbies, having a full life, volunteering, enjoying in the work that you do, spending time with your family or your chosen family, creating a strong network of friends around you. These are the things of the long term that will benefit you the most. It's great we actually haven't heard so much of the other side of things to stay in the fun zone for this very good. Yeah, I mean this is like, I guess, my new direction, like I've done the really problematic demographic and now I'm just really interested about how do I reach people before they get to that problem on stage, you know. And that really speaks to kind of the conversation we've made that were happened before at the podcast about young people engaged in the gamessex, which is like, yeah, you don't have a lot of them talking to you, it's because about this is stigma around it so they don't necessarily want to share openly about their jockies. But then there's also to say the fact that many of those young people are still in the fun stage. They're still having a really good time. So how do we create the message in a way that it will help them understand the harms associated with gamessex but not encourage them to do it too much but hopefully prevent them from getting into that really problematic stage? To tricky one. And to kind of go on to boundaries with young people, like when you're not a gay sex or just sex to get a good one, gay sex. I'm not sure. I can't remember the last time I had gay sex. I've all tried to get a good one. Wait, sorry, are you guys gay? I totally missed some nervousness. When you have great anal sex for the first time or when it's new to you, well this is new to you. You don't know what your boundaries are, you don't know what you like or you don't like, you're kind of creating the boundaries as you go along and that's kind of navigating so often you want to do the sex that you have is like the internal boundaries as well as the external boundaries and then we can go, I want to go on to the violence part of your work as well just because it's interesting, we don't talk about so much. Like growing up queer, a lot of it is making your own boundaries up as you go along. Oh, Jesus. So like, I know I'm just saying back to you what you said. But I just really struggle with how can we intervene because we're nothing. We can't get it in schools, universities, you might have, I've given lots of talks to universities and you might get 10 really interested people to know from the community. So like how do we really get it in there? So difficult. I just want to go back to one thing that's out about how queer young people find themselves in this child and error type of phase in their lives where they are entering situations, in the harms and then drawing the boundaries, you know, which is ultimately like a lot of life has learned that way. You know, you touch the iron once and you get burned and then you don't do it again. But it's like some of the harms and traumas that you might find yourself experiencing through that process will stay with you, you know. And like I had bow like a wonderful but also like really challenging relationship with sex as a teenager, you know, that like being a child of Grinderm, sex is so valuable to me and it's so easy to enter this queer scene and yeah, you find yourself out of your depth very easily. So I think it's like, yeah, we might not be able to go into schools and be like talk about fisting and cam sex, but we could go into schools and talk about boundaries when it comes to your sexual well being. And I guess I'm going to say sexual well being because it goes beyond just your sexual health. It's about like, yeah, what is going to be the mental health ramifications of certain sex and certain practices, you know, or finding yourself in a coerce of situation or finding yourself using jokes that you're not familiar with. Like, you know, boundaries, yeah, it's not something that we get taught in the school and it's such an important skill for life full stock and I guess to give you a level 5 point, how do we set up our boundaries? We are your students. Yeah. I need to learn. They just sound like just like reading off slides, but I swear I listen to it as a stop the case. I just talk about this last. The first one would be like having the ability to reflect in and yourself and know what your limits are, what your limits are is thinking about when it's just no longer going to be fun for me. Yeah. No, when I'm no longer going to enjoy this. The next one is the reading important skill as well, which is being able to communicate assertively. So now when when you're fun and then being able to communicate that to the people you're having sex with, the next one that you'd be having is, the next one you'd be having is an escape plan is basically how I would describe it. If you go into any situation, having a next strategy is a really empowering tool for your boundaries. You know, knowing that this is no longer fun for me, I'm out of here. That can often be the most difficult thing for people to do in these situations. We're payfully polite as Irish people and that means you often end up doing things that you don't want to do, you know. And that's also a big part of why so many people find themselves experiencing sexual violence in these situations, particularly when those cams involved. We did the study with Taryn Seagalst, it was actually just before I joined and it was with Buzzfeed News and they did. a research survey on about 2007 hundreds at GBMSM in the UK. And they found that among people who engaged in CAMSEX 3 out of 5 have been sexually assaulted and further 4 out of 5 knew somebody who had been sexually assaulted. So it's just like. It's a bit of the topic and issue that I don't find people talking about a huge amount, you know, the fact that that sexual assault and rape is a really big part of our sexual landscapes right now. And people blame themselves really. That's why. I mean that's what I did too. You know, people blame themselves and go on blaming themselves. Yeah. And it's because we live in a society, we live in a society full-stop. That's right. Yeah. That's right. We have gay people. We live in a gay society. We don't have. Yeah. I don't think it's gonna get any more profiles. That's right. Okay, that's wrong. So basically like we live in a society that's totally like a shames victims for being victims, you know, and we are taught that you should be responsible for yourself and that is important. And we use humor to help ourselves and cope with it like we just did. Yeah. Because we both acknowledge that we experience it. Yeah. And then you find yourself in these situations and you come out the other side of it and now you can think to yourself, "Oh, why did I do this?" You know what I mean? And that's why something that I found really helpful was that I met this person at a conference in Malta. And so that's very like Lavares. That's just like Lavares and Balas and Balta. And they explained to me a different concept of consent that was really, really helpful, which was went beyond this like, "Yes, means yes, no means no." Which I have found really unhelpful because to be honest, I do not really have those conversations in the sexual encounter where I can't be like, "Yes, means yes, no means no." It's so much more grey than that, you know, like it's so much more complex. And the way that they framed it was that there is certain factors which will influence your capacity to act in that situation. And I find that helped me develop a more compassionate view of myself, which was understanding that, "Yeah, there's factors that will make it more difficult for you to say no." I.e. that person is your boss. Or that person is older than you. Or that person is supplying you with drugs or that person paid for dinner on the day, so you feel obliged, you know? Understand and consent within this wider context actually helps us understand why it's so difficult to navigate. And that's only made more difficult when you're a queer man, you know, because I'll tell you a, I got it, I was sorry. Jesus, I'm put a story. Yeah, I was reading a research paper that, that compared to Swingers' parties and Kim's sex parties was really, really interesting. Yeah, super, I'll say it to that too. I didn't just do. Because like, yeah, Swingers' parties and Kim's sex parties. And I think as queer people we often are like, "Oh my God, straight people know fuck all about sex." You know what I mean? Where they're truly sexually liberated. And what they described in this research paper is that within the Swingers' party there was really set rules about how consent was to be negotiated. Basically house rules, you know? And in this research paper there was about a page outlining all of the consent measurements within the Swingers' party. Now obviously it's a business, you know, and it's a close space, so they can't implement these rules a little bit more effectively. But then when they went on to talk about the kind of sex parties it was basically. No phone. Described. Yeah. It was basically described in one line which was silent eye contact and body language. You know? Wow. Like as in, and how do you expect young queer people to enter these situations and to be able to pick up that silent language? Just like that, you know? I think the big issue. I don't have the big. Well, it is a big issue is that we've, for many years now, right before we saw we've talked about the dynamic. The paradigmic between a man and a woman, the talk of a new system. But we never talked about the different paradynamics within queer sexual acts at all. And therefore it's almost like we don't place enough emphasis on consent there. Or it could be a major two men in a room basically. And it's this kind of idea that has filtered into our approach to talking about boundaries within sex. It's also this weird thing of like making everything not feel real. So if people talk that kind of breaks this fantasy, this weird porn atmosphere, especially if that person happens to sound queer or a female, and then the whole old everyone's lost their erection. Oh my god. Oh my god. I tell you that the two men are the silence is what pisses me off the most, you know? I like making my missions like have a gig of a deal. And it's our crew. I've gotten booed. It has only been no way. I have all seen the divinig on it. It's the shadow of a darker one. I love that. I love that one. It's club church. Because we're having too much fun. Oh my god. That's like the same as me and my bestie. Claudia, we always find ourselves in the shadow of like sister. I like you all find that out. Most people don't appreciate that. But like in these like cruise areas, like you could literally drop a pen in here as because like it's so silent. And like I think that does speak to some level of discomfort. Yeah. The aunt is comfort. I feel so happy. In a vanity like, you know? And also it just makes connections so much harder. Yeah. Because even if you're like going to this place where there's physically other people, the lack of expression or, you know, or exchange. Yeah. It's just really sad. Yeah. You touched upon something that I thought was really interesting and something that I really believe is part of the problem, which is like this level of fantasy that we engage in as queer people and our sexuality. No, this is actually the first time I've ever said this in life. So this could be a dodgy theory. But let's see how it goes. Well, we're dealing with the fly. Yeah. This is so different than the one I had. It's just a totally different journey. It's like, you know, we live in a fantasy world as queer children often, you know, trying to escape from our realities, which are often quite difficult or lonely. And I think we continue that practice a little bit through our sex life. I found it really confronting in my own sex life to challenge this role of fantasy in sex because I found that when I actually got to know people, I found it much more difficult to have sex with them. It was so much easier for me to have anonymous, stranger sex because I could just protect on a story line. I wanted, you know, and I didn't really have to think about myself. Do you think that's why I championed it? I love it. But do you think that's why there's a big trend towards open relationships for. Hmm. That is really tough because having sex with people you don't know, it's very different to. Yeah. I do think that it could be part of this, you know? I don't know. The open relationship thing is complicated. That's the word of the day. You're going to be like, "Give me some real answers!" But it's like for me, it's like, you know, we've already broken so many rules. It's easier to break another one. You know, I think we've reject tradition in many ways. But I do think that there's aspects of open relationship culture that are linked to these more problematic norms or problematic papers. It's like the kind of constant seeking the next big thing. Me too. And I think we tend to make ourselves more palatable to the wider community by not naming things like that. You know, that actually, you know, our sex is more about not knowing each other. And that, like you just said, the next big dick. You know, and that's not my marriage, it's nothing to do with that. Yeah. Like, it's. I've been my partner now for. coming up to four years. Little Casper. It was the kid who got in the world. And he's the red list ghost. But he's a little bit more tant. Yeah, it's something that I think about really often, you know? Sex is not easy in a long-term relationship, as something that requires, I think, constant effort and attention to foster that erotic connection between you. Especially once they have the visa. Expresion. Expresion. The girls can't help it. Okay, okay, okay, I'm joking with my husband. With Brazilian people. Oh my god, we're just going to edit that. - Right. - To make the towers. (laughing) - But I do think that you're right that there's like a hesitancy in our community to recognize these less glamorous sides of what we engage in. And I think that is because we have fast for so long to be accepted in wider society, wider Irish society, and we finally have, oh my god, how amazing, we're seeing this normal in vertical mus, but also because of that, we try to sweep under the carpet, all of those things that what identify us as not normal or as a problem again. - And then when you lift up the carpet, not wanting again to stigmatize anyone, you find out that there can be a lot of negative stuff thriving in there, that the things that we're not talking about, especially camps and sex, I think. - Yeah, yeah. I think it's just that often the question is like, or not a question, but something I say very often, is life is a series of coping mechanisms, like we are constantly employing behavior into this world, hoping to receive certain rewards, and I think that, I think if we see our behaviors like these certain strategies and coping mechanisms that we're implementing, it benefits you to ask a question before you employ these coping mechanisms, which is why am I going towards this? And that can be a really confronting question for people. - So I therapy's great. Go into therapy people. - I have to really kind of dig into the question of why for a lot of the things. And not to put like so much, I feel like we're shitting an open relationship there when sex re-aliberations have just so much beauty to work. I think some of the negative stuff is when it comes towards the likes of us not being able to create boundaries, or communicate boundaries, and that can create hardships and hard emotions for people. And it's a hard thing to navigate, 'cause you're trying to unplug this idea of meladomy that has been drilled into us since we were young. And so we're like, how do you feel liberated? How do I feel sexually liberated? How do I make sure that my sexual experiences are good, but also they're healthy from our relationship? These are hard things when you don't have a template to go by. Again, it goes back to the trial and error. And sometimes the trials can be beautiful and great, but that errors could break up a relationship or give you trust issues in the future, or create more issues around sex, or can make you engage in sex and maybe that can go worse. And get that. So yeah, there's so many different things around open relationships that need to be talked about. I don't think there is a perfect template, but it needs to be spoken though. Yeah, it's different for everybody, for every relationship. And I think if you really want your partner to be happy as well, and you're gonna have each other's back, have love of anyone else that becomes involved in this scenario, I don't think there's much to worry about. Yeah, yeah. I mean mutual respect is a really powerful thing, you know, and having that at the core of relationship, at least for myself, it's the first time I've really found it. And yeah, it's really helped me foster my own confidence, and I think it's really a great way to create when we're monogamous or when we're in an open relationship, both they're challenging in their own ways. But I think like you said, Robbie, about the trial and error stuff, I think the issue with this whole trial and error pattern is that for some people, they will engage in the trial and receive the error. And they might consistently start receiving these errors, these core beliefs that really influence their relationships with sex and cans and dating, which is like things like, oh my goodness, nobody in the gay community wants a relationship. That's what I really hear all the time. Oh, Grindr's the Sass Pilly can never find a relationship on Grindr. I have found all my relationships on Grindr. Like I said, it's a lot more, maybe, about what you are putting out into the world, not to place all the responsibility on you, but you might, like if you reflect on it or true therapy, work true, that you might find that the coping strategies or the trial that you're engaged in will always bring you back to the same error, you know? And yeah, it's like a flaw in the program. And you know, we all have them. And but I know exactly what I mean. I can think of people specifically who I adore, but like they engage with men in a certain way. And then they're worrying or wondering why, you know, it's not working for them. And you just like, do you, it might be glaringly obvious. You know, it's just that you're in a pattern of maybe pursuing people and people know that about you, you know? Yeah, I think that's particularly true among older queer men in our community. I think many of them have probably been done a bit of a disservice in the Grand Skiing with things, especially, you know, seeing how difficult it was for them. Get this fucking generation of like young ones who don't necessarily appreciate what you lived through. And you're all on your own and you don't have this vibrant social life that would benefit you, you know? And then you get into these problematic cycles of trial and error. And then you start developing these beliefs and it only further isolates you, you know? Yeah. And power dynamics that maybe can employ as well. That don't really serve anyone. What's it mean by that? I mean, like that with the older queens, I feel like there can be a preventing to offer more than you really comfortable with in terms of the relationship, maybe by laying some move in with you or giving them money or buying them gifts or always picking up the tab when you go out and do your dinner. But then you are also taking a lot of power in that relationship as well. And you sign up a dynamic that could lead to something abusive. Yeah, you know? Yeah. And that's why I really like, I don't reject. I make the jokes about visas. And then I'm just saying, "You know, you see how the dynamics. " Yeah, and it's the humor used to cope with these things, you know? But it's like, I like the way they framed up because the power dynamic can go either way, you know? Like I said, much of what it means to be vulnerable to abuse or coercion is really a low self-esteem, you know, the value and the worth that you place upon yourself and you can be any age. You can be experiencing thus. And we're coming up towards the end of this podcast, but I really want. I know you have other projects that you've been working on and you're launching soon, so do you want to talk to me? So do you want to be in the album? Plug the app. So while I might have disappeared from the Irish queer community, I'd like on the surface level in the backgrounds I have been continuing my work. And over the last year and a half, me and my wonderful team of Amir Bakari and Alan Conlon have been developing Arlen's first ever HIV stigma module for healthcare professionals and medical students. My God. Yeah, so we. Yeah, oh my God. I mean, like it's nice and hard because we're so far behind that there's still lots of work to be done, so it keeps me in business. But it's also been a really nice opportunity to have like a medical educational module that is entirely shaped by people of a HIV. Yeah, and what's in this module? It gives a teedra. Yeah, so basically the module. It's a super module. (Laughter) Basically the module utilizes a story telling to communicate learning objectives around HIV and stigma and healthcare. The goal of it is to reduce stigma within the healthcare system. If people are not familiar with it already, HIV and stigma has quite rife in the medical community. And so we aimed to kind of really combat that so by attacking false beliefs and misunderstanding it's around HIV. But then also ultimately humanizing the face of HIV through the inclusion of five interviews with various people living with HIV. Some of whom you might be familiar with. (Laughter) They do wonderful e-phocomans. Yes! You know? Lewis is in it. Yeah, so it's a really star-steded line-up. And basically they utilize their own experience too. Yeah, tell future doctors and nurses or current doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals about things like disclosure or about being an immigrant or about being a woman and living with HIV or about being older and living with HIV. And for anybody who's sensitive to this, we might be a doctor or a nurse. Now that we have the module created and we've launched it, now it is your time to help. We need to get this to everybody who needs to see us. You know, so it's really easy to get the people who are interested in HIV to do modules like this. But how do we make this mandatory going forward? We get a few councillors and psychotherapists listen to this plot too. Is that open today? We're just purity for-- It is ready for anybody. It's because we got a grant for it from Gilead, Big Evil Farma. Yeah. I'm going to save my guilt about that. later. It means that it's free for anybody to use. So yeah, feel free, you can find it on our Instagram @RiseArland. Congratulations. Congratulations. Before we end, I just want to give a give a bit of a gillian for two seconds if you can just say just a kind of balance the gill there a little bit. And gillian have this new drole call in a cup of her and it's going to be an injection twice a year and it's for prep, right? So we have cabelae in Ireland, although we can't afford it. That's a V1, so that's a year go to the clinic every twice a month, but that's for the treatment of HIV, okay? We also have cabelae for prep in Ireland and I know we don't have a cause it's just too expensive. V1 put the price to what I need to do and it's shown to be suit even more effective than taking daily prep, purely because people don't take prep as prescribed. But if you take prep as prescribed, you're not going to get HIV. And so we have these game change and drugs for the two month one and in the pipeline the six month one lena capover which is gillian. So we know one person dies every minute of AIDS. We know that we now have this amazing medical advancements and we know that there's a huge need around the world for them to stop new HIV infections and these drugs are being turned into treatments. But yeah, we don't have access to them. So we now have we don't have a vaccine, but these things are as close to vaccines as we're going to get. There are many different reasons why people can't take daily prep around the world. In Brazil for example, 13,000 people died last year of AIDS alone. And they used people in Brazil for the cabelae clinical trials, but they're not given them cheap cabelae. So they used them as guinea pigs, these Brazilian people, get these market authorization, go to the regulatory approvals out of this and then only high income countries gain access to it and not even our land gains access to it because Viva and Gillian are pure evil. The issue here is we know how much it makes to produce these drugs. They cost less than $100 for a one person per year. And we know that lots of have gone into research in development, but even if we do a small cost price on top of the production price that will ensure they get a good profit, it would be affordable and effective and we'd have no new HB infections. I think in the United States, to do 22,000 dollars for one year of cabelae for people for prep, rather than what could be $200. So it's just complete greed. People are still dying. People are still getting unnecessarily affected by HIV when they don't need to. And now we have the tools not to. So it's just we can be part of the system talking very nicely to Gillian or and not or and or we need to show outside because we have as in terms of social movements of HIV and climate change and all of this, there's too much endurization. What we know is once you become a civil society organization, you go away for a confrontational contentious politics and more towards conventional politics and FUKAL happens when that's the only thing. Well, only it does is it works in kind of gradualism or incrementalism, meaning that we only kind of chip away at the scoliot of the pharmaceutical lobby. If you're not banging those pots and yes, you may be under resource, yes, you may be eating beans and toast, you're gonna get FUKAL done and so this is always a call to action from me and this is Jose J.B. We're not talking about hepatitis C, well, any health condition CB. Any team T.B. You name, oh don't even get me started on T.B. You name it because we are so focused on policy and not bringing people along and actually making some noise. People are dying in their toes every day. So that's what I just want to say about Giliad. They do give lots of money towards H.B. projects because Giliad want to be seen or the firms that would come to be seen as an industry that wants to be seen as indispensable. Most patient organization groups are paid by firemen and they do amazing work but we don't buy the hands that feed us. So that's just a complex reality of the world. There's no easy way to do because we need money to get meetings happen but at the same time we need to be radical in our approach to making sure that equity is a real thing. So that's all I want to say. Well it's probably month Robbie and you are sensational when you go on. Yeah like sensational well said and congratulations sincerely. Oh yeah thank you so much. Everyone's going to come to your party no matter what he's saying. No no no no I'm so sorry Michael and this is what I'm saying this but the fun thing is we're going to be amazing because this is really needed and I really really implore anyone who's listening who can available to available and thank you so much. No problem. Stigma is wife and health care you're right we see now I've seen a person you know from the status right so thank you for being a trialblazer in the serial and everyone else who's powered to team and Marin Allen. Thank you so much. Before we finish can I say just on that note this is something that's a little bit of a recurring theme for us with various people who are working in the space for NGOs or doing the wrong projects and whether there's farm and money involved or whether there's gatekeeping going on it's not personal it's just drag. Yeah I love you all. I love you all but we have to have opinions and not everything is right and until it is we have to be able to talk about it. We did a great job here today ladies. I'm bulged I love you both. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure. Oh always. And we're going to have fun tonight. Yes now. We're going to have fun tonight. Until next time. Remember to stay powerful. Stay positive. Bye. Bye. I'm Tina Werner. Thank you for listening to Chem Sessions by Paws by Podcast. Please tune in again soon and in the meantime don't mess with my man. Loads of love. Bye.