Ep 11: What Happened at Consider This 2019
In this penultimate episode of the year, we recap our annual conference Consider This: A Day of Challenging the Status Quo in Love, Sex and Relationships 2019.
With speakers and panelists covering topics from living with an incurable STI to the impact of porn in our society to adoption and family, Consider This was bigger and bolder this year. Listen as Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla take you through a summary of each talk and panel and bring you the insights from the day.
You can see the videos from the day on our Patreon: patreon.com/wearecuriousfoxes
Follow all of our amazing speakers, panelists, and performers on Instagram:Alexandra Fine - Co-Founder of Dame: @afinehuman
Alison Falk - Founder of Women In Tech Pittsburgh and Sex Tech Space: @falkyou
Ayesha Hussain - Sexuality Activist and Conscious Entrepreneur: @theviolet_bk
Cassandra Rosebeetle - Burlesque Dancer: @cassandrarosebeetle
Hila the Killa - Hip Hop & Comedy Performer: @hilathekilla
Krystyna Hutchinson - Stand Up Comedian and Writer/ Host of Guys We F*cked: @krystynahutch
Mahx Capacity - Creative Director of AORTA films: @MahxCapacityIV
Maria Heinegg - Comedian, Writer, and Actress: @mariaheinegg
Ryan DiMartino - GM East for the Pleasure Chest: @coreyxmore
Sari Cooper - AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and Founder of Sex Esteem® LLC: @saricoopersexesteem
SX Noir - Thot Leader for Sex Tech: @sxnoir
Thomas Whitfield - Therapist, Researcher, Writer, and YouTuber: @thomaswhitfield84
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla on Instagram.
If you have a question that you would like to explore on the show, reach out to us and we may answer your question on one of our upcoming episodes. Leave us a voicemail at 646-450-9079 or email us at listening@wearecuriousfoxes.com
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Join the conversation: fb.com/groups/CuriousFox
TRANSCRIPT:
Effy
Curious Fox episode 11 Consider this 2019 recap
My job here is done. Technical head, I'm sorry, my technical head and actually show up on the podcast
Welcome to Episode 11 of the curious Fox podcast. It's a podcast for those who challenge the status quo in love, sex and relationships. My name is Effy Blue. We are keeping up with our intention to do episodes a month, we have this one. And we have one more to go and we will live fulfilled our promise to you doing an episode a month. And it's been an exciting journey. And this month, we are going to give you a bit of a recap on our annual conference. Consider this, which happened November 17, a couple of weeks ago feels like forever ago, just a couple of weeks ago. And it was if we say so ourselves the success of us. Yes, exactly. I'm pretty bad. But for the rest of us. Just to give you a quick background on Consider This, this is the third time we're doing this. And it is essentially a condensed version of our year round programming. So all year round, curious Fox has programming for those who challenge the status quo and love sex and relationships. And this programming looks like pure panel discussions and expert led events and workshops and seminars and gatherings and parties and connection, heavy experiences. And for one day a year we condense all of that into a single event. We start early, we finished late. And we have panels and speakers and connection and entertainer entertainers. And we do it all in one day. We just did that. And it was awesome.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And so we thought that we so in addition to planning events, we also do podcast which you're listening to. And so we thought we'd share all the details from that day. I am Jacqueline missa. I am the chief operator of the foxes here at curious Fox. Blue is the founder of curious Fox. And it we are a few days away from Thanksgiving here in the States. And I think that we are in holiday mode a little bit. And I think that we finished up the event. And we're thrilled and excited and have been doing a post mortem and have been planning for 2020. And so our head is like in the future. And so we have decided that we're going to bring you along in that journey and tell you about the experience of consider this tell you about the day and give you a snapshot into what's going to happen next year. And so in case you missed it, if you were there, it was fantastic. It was amazing. And you'll be able to access the videos online. And we'll tell you at the end of the podcast how, if you missed it, we're gonna walk you through what happened that day, we're gonna give you some behind the scenes and tell you about some of the highlights that happened for us. We started off the day by talking about the fact that actually last year I was a participant sitting on the other side of consider this, I was had yet to join the curious Fox family. And I remember feeling nervous and hopeful as I walked into the consider this space. I'd never been to a conference like that before. Consider this, as if he said as a day of challenging the status quo and love sex and relationships. And so I didn't know what that meant. And what that would look like. We've talked about it as if Ted and sex Expo had a baby, it would be considered this. And so while that's intriguing, you have no idea what that means when you walk in. And I remember also feeling really hopeful. I was on the opening up my journey at that point, and was really hoping that I would hear and see and connect with something that would help me and feed me in that journey. And it did. And so we started off the day by giving that context by acknowledging that people in the audience, some folks, this was the first thing that they've ever been to like this and other folks that are part of this community and come to all of our events. And so acknowledging all forms of folks who showed up and why. And then Fe led us in some movement activity.
Effy
Right. Right. I think it was important for me to acknowledge that. Most of the people in that room who chose to be in that room on a Sunday from noon till six interested in listening to talks and panels about the stuff is, inevitably you can almost guarantee that they're all intellectuals that they live in their heads, and they use their bodies mean included, to essentially carry their heads around. Because that's the type of folk that you know is going to be in that space. And for me, that was the case for a long time. And I then discovered movement, intentional movements and movement meditation for me. And that changed things for me, I really was able to connect my intellectual muscles with my actual muscles, and that elevated things for me. And I was able to tap into myself more. And I think I just wanted to bring that into the room for just for a few minutes. And so we start with fun. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Jacqueline
Yeah, exactly.
Effy
So we did some shaking around, it's shaking and wiggling. And it was fun. Yeah, it was fun. And we got to get unified. And it was fun. It was good. It was waiting is a good way to get into your body. And I also find that when you sort of sit down at a conference, you like immediately start fidgeting, and it's hard to settle. But I feel like if you get up and like do some very intentional movement, when you sit back on your chair, it's like, ah, and you're like, settled, and you're like, Okay, now I can focus. Yeah.
Jacqueline
And it's interesting, because you as a part of being intentional and having fun. We wanted to make sure that we had a guide through this experience that would bring that energy and that fun. And so in your journeys in this work, you came upon this incredible comedian, who we then quickly asked to join us and be a part of it and continue that on that that movement and that fun and that creativity throughout the course of the day for sure.
Effy
Her energy was amazing. Maria, Maria Hi, Nang. I met Maria well as a part of her show. My body my jokes that she does is it's a serious show that she does, and it's about, she takes current issues, especially mostly women's issues, but current current issues. And then she combines comedians and experts on a you know, a brief show she, she holds it a caveat. And she asked me to be a panelist on she asked me to an expert on on breakups. She was talking about breakups. And she got she somebody connected to her and she was like, Would you do this? And I was like, Okay, fine. Yes. Is intimidating, because I'm not, I'm not a comedian, you know, and she was like, come on to my stage of comedians. I'm like, right, you don't want to be the joke. Exactly, exactly. Um, and my experience with her was that she was super helpful. Like, I went on that stage, I felt very supported by her very, like, I wasn't going to be the joke that she was, like, just come and do your thing. Like, we just need your expertise. We'll do the funny. And so it was, it was great. So when we decided to do that, and looking for a fancy, I was like, yeah, that woman, she's gonna be super, like, best energy on stage that we're gonna have.
Jacqueline
She did. She helped carry it and did great transitions and was amazing. We got to have her back doing something.
Effy
Yeah. And look her up. She also does a podcast called The worst thing, the worst thing podcast, it's on iTunes, and everywhere else you find. And she's, she has a bunch of shows. As I said, your your buddy, you're my buddy. My jokes is also another thing. So catch her wherever you can. She's awesome.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And so then, our next our first presenter that started us off with Sarah Cooper, she is a certified sex therapist, she actually founded sex esteem. She's the founder and director and was our sponsor, which was the center for love and sex. And she has a really interesting concept that she explored for us as we started off, which was about how do we build our sex esteem. And in it, she talks about these five C's that really are the foundation for that work, which is calm, confidence, curiosity, communication, and creativity. And she talked and went through each of those and explored kind of through some storytelling, what those how those different things took place in our relationships, and how we can benefit from leaning into those things. And what was really interesting for me was this idea of reclaiming the word selfish, and thinking about how for us to be selfish, even though it's a word that we reject, often, in our intimacy in knowing our needs, that actually will improve our sex life, improve our intimacy. And you and I talked about that a little bit to that you really that resonated with you? reclaiming that word?
Effy
Absolutely, absolutely. And like you said, we, you know, we never we never, you know, being a selfish lover is not a good thing. Nobody goes around saying I'm a selfish lover. I'm amazing, right? So it's kind of initially when you hear this idea of what she's saying, which is about you know, she's really bringing this word selfish into the way that you might want to think about your sex life and so it really makes you like, oh, what's what's you're talking about? And when you listen in and essentially what she's saying, you know, it's being self centric and not an exclusive way but so that you show up knowing yourself and knowing what you want and what you need, and being able to express all that stuff and when you when you can be like that when you can show up like that. Then you can align with your lover.
Jacqueline
Exactly right and within She was talking at some point about being like sure footed and feeling balanced. And she talked about and she actually demonstrated this on stage when you are leaning too far into a relationship, or when you are trying to pull away from a relationship in either those cases, you are not balanced, like you can fall down essentially, at any moment. And I thought that that was an interesting visual like that. I think that helped connect me to those moments when I feel like I'm either leaning in too much because I There are wounds that I am not addressing internally, and I'm leveraging my relationship too heavily to fix those wounds, or the opposite of that, where I'm trying to protect myself and really not addressing things and pulling away that and neither of those states, can I be balanced, which means that I can't be thoughtful about what I need, which means that I can't have sex esteem and really have true intimacy. And so all those denotes those dots with what we're really interested in.
Effy
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And then, you know, you can't really show up for a relationship unless you show up for yourself first. And I would even argue that, that sort of the selfish that we know, sort of like only think of yourself and not others, if you if you're not in tune with yourself, if you're not self aware. And if you're not self reflecting, then actually you're showing it was selfish, because you're not available to give direction, you're not available to guide people in you know, towards your pleasure, you kind of saying, Well, you figure it out, or, you know, like you're not guiding you're not meeting the person in the middle. So I would, I really liked that that sort of shifting of the word selfish and really using it to encourage people to look within first and get centered using the five models that she talks about the five pillars that she talks about calm confidence, curiosity, communication and creativity, and end up being a great lover through through having a almost a selfish attitude.
Jacqueline
Yeah, absolutely. So same. Check her out. She's a sex therapist, founder of sex esteem, and the center of love and sex, and so on, who I believe will continue to work with in the coming New York. She has really interesting ideas. Then she was followed by Thomas Whitfield. Thomas is he's a YouTube star. So he has a show on YouTube called it should they want to talk to you in sex ed. He has a column and get out which talks a is Thomas talk.
Effy
Thomas talks. Thomas talks about? Yes, that's right. Get on migraine.
Jacqueline
He's a therapist. He's a researcher. He's a writer, really interesting person. really dynamic? Yes. Funny.
Effy
Yes. Yes. Yeah, exactly funny and amazing to work with. You know, let's, let's give you a bit of a peek behind the scenes of how we pull this thing together. There's like a ton of people, we have to coordinate. We had four speakers, nine panelists on stage, and we had backstage crew, we had volunteers, we have performers to performance. So this is an army of people we're trying to coordinate. So I have to say Thomas was probably the easiest person to work with. He was on time with everything that we needed from him. It was detailed. He got it straight away. He showed up on time. I'm super pro, big fan, big fan. And his content was his talk was amazing.
Jacqueline
Yeah, it was interesting. So he was talking about STIs. And his experience with that and his body, and essentially how STIs improved his life. Yeah, which is not something that we would ever think...
Effy
Not at all, not at all. And even in the work that I actively do through the Play party educate work that I do all about. Really, it's about how to navigate sex parties, but the content of the knowledge that is in that work is about how to really be a safe and consensual lover and and think about your your sexual health and your desire and have good communication around that. And a lot of I talk about destigmatizing STIs in that work all the time and even give the you know the anecdote of how nobody really dies from herpes. And if somebody gave you herpes, you would, you know, hate them for the rest of your life. But if somebody gave you the flu, you would forget them by the time your fever breaks, and people die from influenza every year. And it's just just a clear stigma. It's not really a real threat. And so I do a lot of D stigmatization around work around around STIs. What I loved about Thomas's work, was he took it to a step further and he was like, You know what, it might even just be a growth opportunity. It might be a way to like Salman to intimacy in relationships, it might really be a good way to like practice, like courage to speak up in relationships. I thought it was it was really smart.
Jacqueline
Yeah, those are two key. So part of what he talked about was in the pain and the ongoing cost of holding a secret. He found out at some point, I think he was in his early 20s that he had HPV and then didn't say anything about it didn't go actually didn't go check it out, didn't go to the doctor or didn't deal with it. And it wasn't until he was a relationship a few years later and his partner really encouraged him to go check it out and go through the steps that he realized that holding on to that secret and that shame was actually holding back his growth and holding back lack the level of physical and emotional intimacy that he could have with his partners. And that when he finally accepted it, when he named it several years later, then he went on to his podcast, and his YouTube channel, and he talked about it. And that how freeing that was both how terrifying it was, but then how freeing, and I thought that that was really interesting. And certainly that resonated with me around all of the times that we are so scared to say the thing. And we hold that so tight, and that burden weighs us down. And finally, when you walk through the fire, and you see the thing, and the relief of it, and even if the worst thing happens, and you know, you do feel shame, or there is like there's still a lightness there that you're not carrying carrying with you. And I think that was one of the things that he said, was really important to him in his journey. And actually, why made hit this SDI experience impactful and positive for him is that it taught him how to say the thing and how to release the burden than the shame.
Effy
Absolutely. And absolutely. And I think I can totally imagine also, once you have that conversation with the person, there really isn't any conversation that you can't have, yeah, it really sets a solid foundation of, you know, what I'm going to hear, here's how we have difficult conversation, you know, here's a really difficult thing that I have to address with you pretty early on in a relationship, you know, he's an ethical guy, he doesn't want to risk anybody else. He doesn't want to spread, you know, me wants to make sure that it's it's informed consent with the people that he's having sex with. So he was governed by the fact that he's governed by these ethics puts him in a situation where he has to have that difficult conversation right at the top of the relationship, right.
Jacqueline
And it gives you some context of other people he's with to right, right, totally hands off. And in that conversation, their willingness to participate and continue on in the relationship. Right, right.
Effy
And so it is definitely, you know, it's a superpower. Right, once you get it out of the way you your relationship is like, you know, unblocked and you have foundation for hard conversations. And so I thought that was really interesting. And he was funny.
Jacqueline
He was really funny. At some point he shared because there was, you know, with all the speakers, they shared little like notes of wisdom and knowledge. And he said that I think it's like four to 10 people or something of HPV, if something like 40%. I remember that. What was funny about a takeaway was he said, essentially, as many people have have an iPhone have HPV, and yet, they're still again, there's such shame around and no one is talking about it. But it's such it's something that's really common. So there's a lot of people walking around either not knowing and not going through the process of getting tested and figuring out or not not acknowledging it or not sharing and talking about it.
Effy
Yeah, absolutely. And all the shame that that can carry around with it. It's so limiting to everybody. So that was super interesting. And it was nice to have that perspective. It was a real consider this moment, you know, just like is there this might actually not be a good thing, you know? Yeah. And yeah, I really, I mean, he's talk was great. And we're going to tell you at the end how you can actually listen to these things. yourself. We recorded them, and we'll be publishing them. And we'll let you know how you can. And I really, I mean, every every talk, every panel was great. We're just giving you like our takeaways. There's so much more there. And we also giving you summaries, the talks themselves were just funny and entertaining and engaging. So I'd really recommend you actually kind of, you know, spend some time sit down and watch them, put them in the background. Them Yeah.
Jacqueline
And then Thomas joined us for the next event, which was a panel on porn. So again, talk about stigmatizing talk about shame, and talk about, you know, things. So it was Thomas, join us on the panel, the panel moderator was led by Aisha was saying, She's a sexuality activist, a conscious entrepreneur, she is the founder of the violet, which does pop up porn and cinema, which the intention of that is to and rape culture. And she's a co creator of past the porn, again, a cinematic experience to help make porn a part of the social conversation. And so this is deeply a part of her work. And in our work with her, this was something that she brought to us as something that we shouldn't be included and consider this, and immediately struck us as interesting because everybody has an opinion about porn, everybody. And so wherever your opinion lies on the topic, and we got to see some of that diversity and perspective on the stage, and Effie and I've, I've had many conversations before and since and I'm sure on this podcast, anymore conversations about porn and about the good, the bad, and the ugly, for sure. And so I was joined by max capacity, who is the creative director of aorta films, and Max, so they Max does experimental and kind of DIY performances within aorta films, and really was amazing around giving context about indie versus kind of general consumption. Warren, yeah, about talking about their experience, both as a user and as producer of the poor and talking about some of the good bad and the ugly within the industry. And so you know, we'll give all the information for you to films in our in the bio of this podcast, you can follow because it's really fantastic work that they're doing. Then it was Alison Faulk, who is the founder of Women Tech, Pittsburgh, and Also the managing director of women in tech sex in sex tech. And Alison talked about deep fake and will tell a little bit more about that as we get into some of our highlights, but really talked about some of the cybersecurity risks that happen in porn, but also the impact of porn on the internet. Yes. Which I had no idea.
Effy
For sure. Yeah. Allison's background is technology. Yeah. And they really brought that side of it. You know, it was it was that's what I think that's what interesting, the panel was so balanced, you know, Allison brought the the tech side of it, and how both the negative and the negative and the positive impacts of porn in technology, right, and the internet itself, right.
Jacqueline
So Max talked about it from a creation and user point of view. Allison talked about it from the point of view of the tech. And then Tom has joined to talk about it from the point of view of research, Thomas has done research around pornography and around the impact of that on people's or the, the correlation if it exists between depression, between use of condoms, things like that. And so he explores some of the research that he's been doing in the space of porn on this panel. And I, you should lead this dialogue that, at times was deeply personal, she asked them about the type of porn that they watch, and when they first experienced foreign At what age and then also really talked about kind of some bigger social issues that we're trying to tackle as it relates to this topic.
Effy
Yeah, and it's a big topic, you know, I mean, the porn, the panels were 45 minutes. And you can kind of keep going, and especially with with a topic like porn, and when, like you said, everybody has an opinion. And it's interesting, it was probably one of the topics that we discussed the most, as we're gearing up to it in the office,
Jacqueline
And maybe even since
Effy
We still, you know, we listened back to the panels several times, and we're, you know, every time we listened to it, were like, oh, yeah, this bit, you know, how about this perspective about this? It just seems endless.
Jacqueline
And so, let me give some context first, and Thomas mentioned, and it was information for me was really helpful. He based on the research to find porn as a media that's produced to arouse with the distinction being that many things may arouse, right. So if you have a shoe fetish than a shoe commercial is going to turn you on. But that wasn't the intention of that shoe commercial, that pornography is something that is created with the intention of turning someone on of arousing them. And I just thought that that context was really helpful. Because as we dove into the topic, we started to start to figure out what is that porn? Or is that indie? Is that DIY? Is that mainstream? Is that Gonzo? Is that like, what are all the terms that get thrown around?
Effy
Is it art house that it's gonna get an Oscar? Where's that line?
Jacqueline
So that was really interesting. And then Alison gave some context around porns impact online. So for example, that, you know, porn really funds online innovation, I had no idea.
Effy
For sure. Yeah. I mean, I had, I had a bit of an idea about that. It's kind of crazy, a lot of video technology, file compression and how we transfer files now. And this, the speed of the Internet, and all that kind of stuff has been pushed along by the porn industry. That's why the fast how fast the video has grown in the internet is all porn related. Yeah, if you remember how it was like, we'd load up images for like, forever. Yeah, right. And look at how we aren't where we are now with not only video by video, photos video,
Jacqueline
I talked about that, at some point he about when he was younger, and he would have like the AOL or like dialog, and it would like stay and it would take an hour for a photo to like, download, and then you realize the person's like in their underwear, wasted already. Know. And so you're right. About the speed of it. And yeah, so interesting.
Effy
Yeah, that's all that's all porn is doing. Same with security, cyber security, same with payment, paywalls. All that kind of stuff is rooted in porn,
Jacqueline
Who knew? And what was interested in talking about the technology piece and talking about the innovation that exists there. One of the dangerous ways in which innovation is making its way into online pornography is this idea of deep fake, which Allison talked about, which again, I had a sense of, but the severity around what is possible, there was new for me. And so essentially, what she was describing was the fact that other people's faces can be embedded on different people's bodies. And so if you and I, for example, if you're in a relationship and I and we have a bad breakup, and I decide to use your face, and I have the technological technological means to do so, to put your face on someone else's body, I can now distribute that out I can make sure that it is tagged in such a way that when someone Google's you, this video will come out and no one will know that that is not you, right for everyone who's watching they're going to think that he made porn and it exists there. And that that number one is revenge porn, which is illegal in many places, and it's something that needs to be prosecuted more and number two has multiple victims for certainly you for being but all So the person who was actually in the film and the people who are part of that process and, and so that was really interesting.
Effy
For sure. Yeah. And it's, um, I mean, it hasn't been multiple layers, right? The fact that revenge porn is a thing is because porn itself and because sex is stigmatized, because porn is stigmatized, so that you can leverage it to be to be of revenge.
Jacqueline
We're seeing that now in our political system, right? We're seeing people having to step down now because of photographs and other things. And
Effy
Yeah, so I mean, the fact that there's all this stuff is stigmatized as like, that's sort of layer run on top of that, absolutely. Like technology is now that it used to be that you needed to, like record the stuff with your partner, who then breaks up with you, then then we'll distribute that footage. Now you don't even even if you don't do any of that, right. If they have some videos on their phone of you just like doing anything, they can use that to teach AI, put your face on to some existing video. And that's it, you're out there and average person is not going to tell the difference. And that's, that's the scary Yeah, that's scary. And like you said, the exploitation, it's like exploitation of the person, but then the body who's being used being used as, as your like, body double or whatever. Yeah, we don't think about that. Yeah, we don't think about that. She also talked about, you know, the murky waters of child pornography. Yeah. Right. It might like putting children's faces onto, you know, young looking bodies. And like is that child porn is that you know, is that pedophilia gets very murky very, very quickly.
Jacqueline
And our legal systems and our all of our systems around that have not caught up to the technology. And we continue to find this. And later on, we'll talk about this as relates to censorship. But the systems that we have in place in order to regulate and have conversations and have laws are not in line with and not catching up to the technological aspects of what we're seeing.
Effy
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we know that the laws are so misaligned and these topics anyway, and one of the topics that we talked about is the law that the bill that passes the foster system. And it was really good that we had the opportunity to bring everybody up to speed of what what foster sister is, do you want to we'll cover that?
Jacqueline
Let me tell you two things that I think stood out for me as so first, it was Thomas giving us some context, in terms of the research, it was certainly Allison telling us some of the things that we should be seeing and keeping an eye on in terms of technology. And then Max would have was having conversation around the part of the what's beautiful, as she said, or what they said around the industry in the indie porn industry was representation. And so they talked about the power of seeing yourself your gender identity, your body shape your skin color, represented on screen now that there's more of that with indie porn, it's happening as opposed to what was being put out there in terms of mainstream. And that was something that I hadn't considered before.
Effy
No, no, I to be honest, I hadn't even considered these distinct genres of porn. I think when it when you think of genres of porn, you think of like, what you'd like to see in the porn. I think it was interesting to have at least some insight to mainstream porn versus indie porn, where they described it as, you know, essentially, social commentary, you know, artistic social commentary.
Jacqueline
Yeah. So one distinction being kind of the mass produced, but indie and ethical porn being I think it's twofold. How what's the business behind it? So is it consensual? Are people treated? Right? Are they paid fairly? And then the content that's being shown? How does it relate to our current state of affairs? Is it relevant, etc.
Effy
Right. Right, exactly. And, you know, and what I loved about it is that they weren't, they didn't have a value judgment of one is better than the other one. They weren't like independent is always ethical, and mainstream porn is always bad. I think the distinction that we're making is, both of those genres can be ethical or poorly handled. And so just be aware of what you're consuming. You know, there was there was definitely continuous reminded that you should pay for your porn, right? Which will then pay for the performers and the crew and everybody else who's actually making the porn. So pay for your porn was a message that we got over and over again, and just be mindful of the porn that you're consuming?
Jacqueline
Yeah. And I remember being a young person at that point, I wasn't, it wasn't watching pornography, but maybe it was like Cinemax, or HBO at night or something. And seeing bodies that didn't look like mine and seeing, you know, colors of the skin or shapes of things. It didn't look like mine. And feeling like I was different. And so there was something that resonated I think, when Max talked about being able to see some version of yourself, again, your weight, your color, your body, type your presentation on screen, and see that person be sexual and think, okay, that's like me. Now what was interesting is you and I debriefed about it, and you had a very different takeaway than I did from that.
Effy
Yeah. I guess I'm curious. Right. And I am considering honestly my the jury is out for me about important. I totally see why it is an artistic medium and how he can be inspiration. And the sort of the positive sides that that, you know, this panel talked about, and they see that I also am finding that I can't be ignorant to the damage that but it can't cause right. And this particular thing that you talked about representation, I can't help but wonder if what may look like representation in one way? Can it be also exploitation or fitness isolation, fetishization of, you know, a specific look, or a specific person or a specific identity? Right. So one of the things that we talked about is, you know, seeing, you know, disability, you know, on the screen is a part of porn, right? It My question is, is it really being celebrated? Or is it being fetishized? In? You know, and I'm not sure, I don't know, I don't know, the answer is right. I think my guess is that both of those exists, though, there's porn exists that really celebrates diversity, and celebrates, represented, you know, cares about representation through celebration. I also am sure there's porn out that that exploits this diversity and exploits these identities. And it's just murky. It's just more if this is no clear, clear lines for me.
Jacqueline
I agree. I think that's fair, in that, to your point is a representation is it objectification because one of the things that you had talked about as we continue to debrief in this battle, is that when you are even searching for something you're searching, generally, under, I want to see a Latino woman, I want to see an Asian woman, I want to see a black man, I want to see that the characteristics of who we are as a part of what we're searching for. And so at that point, again, is it about representation? Or is it are you objectifying different bodies, different perceptions around how different people show up based on their culture? And so they just feel murky?
Effy
Yeah, it gets murky. And, you know, the porn that I show shows that as a part of past the porn and the porn that max capacity make, this is, you know, very thought through artistic, ethical, you know, what, you know what I would call like, couture of porn, right? And when you do watch, and I've seen, I've been to ISIS events, when you do watch that point, it is it is an experience and artistic experience. It's a, you know, they even talked about going to porn festivals, which I've been to a couple of times, also, it is a different experience than the porn that you put on your, you know, phone screen or your computer screen to get off on. And I think that, you know, the panel touched on it a little bit. I do think that there's a distinction there. There's a difference between the different these different types of porn, I think, the more I think about it, the now the more information that I have. I'm realizing like, porn is such a broad segment or genre of film, or arts or whatever you want to call it, it's really hard to nail it down to like this one thing, and therefore it's good. Or this one thing that for us bad, right? When you say porn, I think before this panel before we did the research for it, and listen to it, and since then, we've been talking about it. I just had one idea of what porn is I kind of like was a reductive idea of this people fucking on film. It's kind of what I had in mind. And now that I've thought about it more, I'm realizing it's just not that easy.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And I think again, layered on top of that, what was what was fascinating for me, was that it was complicated, even for the people who are experts in this field to onstage because the folks who are producing, creating and showing the more outhouse art house in the porn set, at the end of the day, when they go home at night, they go into Pornhub. And to get the thing done, and that was fascinating. We joked about you, you reference, which I thought was hilarious. The fact that, you know, like, like a Paris Fashion Week designer than wearing h&m on like, the weekends, like you're really, on the one hand, you're creating something that's beautiful. But is that the same thing that you were using and doing in your everyday life?
Effy
Yeah, it's these are the nuances of it all. And I think with that there's, you know, the consumption of porn, you know, let's get back to this fashion example. Right? We know that h&m is bad for the environment, we know that it is not environmentally sustainable, yet we consume it knowing it's bad. And I feel like this this is same with porn, like there is porn that is beautiful couture handmade sustainably, you know, sustainable fetch in a fair trade, beautiful gowns that I would love to wear every day. But that's just not that's just not what we consume. We still go and consume h&m And to say that h&m is the same as you know, an Alexander McQueen gown and to treat it the same and then have a sort of decision on whether it's good bad, you know, healthy, unhealthy, then I'm not convinced like there's a lot of dissonance there and I'm gonna have to, you know, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna be thinking about that for a long time. If you like porn will never be the same for me. Every time I watch porn, I'm gonna switch the beginning of
Jacqueline
Performers as well. Does it feel like a safe? consensual? It's true, it's true. Well, you know, again, what I love about this stuff, and I think the things that we create for consider this and just curious Fox in general, is that what we have to say in these spaces are never the final word. They are just opportunities to spark curiosity and dialogue. And that it did.
Effy
Yeah. And you know, as I said, like, it's a whole new, you know, I never only file in my brain for like, okay, let's think about porn, you know, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be thinking about that a little more. And I think this discussion will go on.
Jacqueline
Yeah, yeah. And so once our heads were filled with porn, we had to figure out we sent everyone to lunch. Get out of here, get something to eat. Right, clean yourself off, get your mind off. So come back to the business of some of this the work that we were doing. And then when everyone came back, we had Hilah the killer.
Effy
Oh, my God, she was we just say yes. Is healer and Nate. And they were hilarious.
Jacqueline
So entertaining, so funny, and thoughtful and smart. Yeah. And I honestly truly did not know Hilah. beforehand. So he'll aperi of Hilah. Mikayla combines hip hop and comedy, and energy and lyricism and freestyling and costume. And, you know, if he introduced me to, and I saw the bio, certainly put it out there, but I was a little skeptical. I'm like, what, what is this thing that we're gonna? Do? We're amazing. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, he'll have performed three songs. One about small penises, and how, again, this theme of like, should not be stigmatized, it goes across the day, they should not be stigmatized, certainly have a place about body hair, which I loved, and her embracing her body hair and not trying to shave everything unless she wanted to. And then this idea of making love like a fish,
Effy
That was hilarious, so good. And we know we can talk about this. But again, it's something that you have this one you definitely have to see for yourself. Um, it's hilarious. And I think my other than just the brilliance of the performance. One thing that I do take away from the performance itself is that it was, so he was a killer, he doesn't her own content, as you know, the killer. And then she and her partner, Nate have a collaborative relationship. And they do this thing as a healer and night. And we had them both on stage. And it was just nice to see a couple with, with a little creative collaboration. Yeah, I talk a lot about how relationships are, you know, creative collaborations, and they are co creations and they require creativity and, you know, thinking things through together, and this was them doing it literally on a creative project. Yeah, it was really cool to see that.
Jacqueline
Yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And then we had this little known person named Effie blue go up on stage. And truly, and I will say this, you know, I've shared this with me, I'll share this now with the world, like blew people's minds away. I think as it relates to understanding how the patterns that were created and embedded with us as children, we take form, again, I'm trying to even think of the language, how they essentially become a part of the way we interact as adults in our relationships. And the way that you described it around these echoes of the past that we believe are in our childhood, we really exist in the present and exist in the way that we interact with our partners. Afterwards, people kept going up to Fe and saying, like, oh, my god, that was me, you're talking about my story, and the way that you did it was beautiful in engaging story and the research and so I thought you did a fantastic job. And I think you should summarize it. So people have a sense of what it was you spoke about, for sure.
Effy
Um, it was important to me, because this is something that come I come up against, again, and again, in my practice, and often when I talk to people, it really those who haven't done the work and who haven't had the, you know, the, the fortune to come across this stuff. The thing that they run up against, is that the way that we handle our relationships today are often echoes of that initial the first relationship of our lives, which is our relationship with our parents. And I think if you you know, if you if you listen to talk, I do sort of explain, give you some examples of what that looks like. Just the way that I think about it is that that initial relationship with our parents, our primary caregivers, it doesn't necessarily have to be our birth parents, right? It's the people who have taken care of us in those really first very, very vulnerable first years of our lives. It's like up to four, where we are essentially blobs and the human infant is is very unsophisticated when it's born. Unlike a dog or a horse that can walk fine which way to water and food We'd really quite quickly can get cues from, you know, cues from a parent really quickly. And human infants essentially a blob and knows it, that we, we know that we need to survive, and we know that we are 100% vulnerable, and that we cannot survive unless we attach ourselves to a caregiver. So in those first four years, we are absolutely dependent, we, we create that first most crucial relationships of our lives, that is intrinsically we've woven into our survival, I think of it as like the fresh snow, you know, like, that's the first to know, that is our relationship. And as the relationship is enacted, so the way that, you know, our parents handle us, the way they change our diapers, the way they treat us, when we cry, the way they you know, the way they tolerate risk around us, like were we allowed to run around free in the house was somebody hovering over us the whole time, were they, you know, were they available when he wanted to tell them about our, you know, make believe, you know, thing that we make up, we made up or were they unavailable and just we're, you know, engrossed in something else, you and these are the mild kinds, right, or you go to the other extreme end, when, you know, was there a sick parent and the other parent was focused on taking care of that parent or grandparent, and they weren't available? Did they have mental health issues, and they weren't available, or there are many, many reasons, the way that the relationship has been enacted, and then think about that is then this fresh tracks that are being laid on to fresh snow. And then once the the tracks lead, you kind of keep going down the same tracks going down the same tracks, right. So if you look at like a ski slope, you see the tracks, right, because everyone's kind of following the same tracks. And then you then go out into the world. And those are the tracks that you know, and those are the tracks you recognize. So when you see love out in the world, when you see what looks like that initial relationship, you recognize it and you go, Oh, I know this, I know this, I know that this is low, I know that this is a relationship, because that's the prototype that I've been given. And then depending on the quality and the health of those relationships, then you go on, to repeat them, right. And if they happen to be, if you happen to have healthy, resilient dynamic, that first prototype, then you go on there, and you go, you go off into the world, and you have similar healthy, dynamic, resilient relationships. If for some reason, that's not the case, then this the malfunctioning or the I should say them. The unhealthy version is what you recognize. And that's what you reenact over and over again. And for me, that's what's really important is just to know that that's a thing that you that once you know that you can like pause and take stock, you can look at your current relationship with looking at past relationships, if you can see patterns, that's super important. And if you find yourself that you're just doing the same thing over and over again, that you the chances are you are operating from an old, you're the tracks that you know, or an echo of what you already experienced in your in your home in those first few years. And if it's not working for you, this is an opportunity for you to change.
Jacqueline
I think that's what felt the most empowering about what you shared. And I think I was first introduced to attachment theory a year ago when you're my relationship coach, and I learned it as part of my dynamic within my relationship, and then became obsessed and like read everything that had to do with it. And I did find that to be really empowering to understand that these were patterns that were created, and that we are reenacting these things. And so if you've ever been in relationship, and you felt like you show a very clingy and overly emotional, overly attached smothering or at least that's the feedback that you're getting from your partner, or you show up as the opposite, you show up as incredibly aloof and distant and disengaged, and non committal. Those are things that it sounds like the tracks of which were laid when you were a child. And with consciousness and thought and work, you can work around those things and show up as healthy and show up as engaged and balanced as opposed to showing up as either trying to hold on too tight or trying to push away. And so it sounded like afterwards, as people were we were hearing the feedback from folks. That's what resonated so much was number one, identifying the patterns from the stories that you shared and saying, Oh, that was my mom. That was my dad. That's, that's why I'm like this now and thinking oh, well, there's something I can do about it.
Effy
Yes, I think I really haven't met anybody who haven't responded didn't have a reaction to once explained, or when suggested that it might, you might that might be coming coming. They might be enacting an old pattern. Once they kind of see it. You really see people's you see it in people's eyes like you see paradigm literal paradigm shift in their eyes and these like new piece of knowledge opens and their lives just shifts and they have a new perspective on their parents. They have a new perspective on their current relationships. They Have a new perspective and on their own the way that they show up in relationships. So I think it's really, really important. And I, personally, I want to make it more of the thing that I talk about publicly. I focus on, you know, non monogamy. And that's my you know that that is my expert topic. And I want to keep talking about that. And I want to, I want to have those conversations with more with attachment informed
Jacqueline
And as somebody certainly as an individual as a personal relationship. And as a parent, that's been incredibly important information. For me, if you are a parent, you should read about attachment theory, if you want to become a parent, if you are a significant adult in a child's life, understanding how these tracks are formed from the ages of zero to four. And what we can do to make sure that a young person is receiving healthy attachment styles and healthy relationship bonds is very important. And then understanding once that I mean, I think I learned about this when my daughter was six or seven, and reflecting back like, oh, no, no, no tracks are laid. But now I have time to readjust some things. And as I continue to grow, certainly I grow as a parent as well. And so I just think that the generational impact, and the breaking of the chains of patterns that can be learned from understanding things like this has deep impact.
Effy
for sure. And I think that the really important thing that you said that I really want to echo is the generational, it gets passed down. Yeah, the person who's you know, not available for their child is showing up that way, not because they're malicious, or they don't care is because they are reacting to something in their past. So you can really quite, you know, if you if you know, I've done work with people who have actually, you know, get to know, multigenerational I happen to I happen to know my great granddad. So I got to know and I was you know, I have a big family, people like telling stories. So I have, you know, I have insight into how well my granddad showed up for my mom, who then whom on how my mom showed up for me, and, you know, and then all the other way around on my dad's side. So you can see that these patterns are getting just coming down the line coming down the line coming down mine, and it's just worth becoming aware of those things for yourself. And definitely, if you're going to have a child.
Jacqueline
Yeah absolutely right. Absolutely. And so I think it was like a blown away moment for everybody. It could feel there were there were definitely moments within the event. And we'll talk about the ending of our event, which I think was a part of that, where you could just feel the shift in the room and feel, I think the way that we laid it out again, in the spirit of just bragging for us on behalf of us, I do think that we laid it out well, that there were opportunities for people to laugh and to be thoughtful. And I think this was a real moment where people were sitting in this and, and really being reflected about the relationships. And so it was exciting to be an audience for that.
Effy
Yeah no thank you. Thank you for the support. Yeah, it's always for me. It's always a little nerve wracking to be on stage. You know, I'm sure it's same for everyone. I really am. I'm I feel very fortunate that I have a little platform and a little estate literalists day to talk about this stuff, because I genuinely believe it's really, really important.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And then following you, I got to go up on stage with some badass lady.
Effy
Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. Your panel was so old. The panels were amazing. Yeah, um, your panel was really heavyweight.
Jacqueline
Yeah, it was good. But so I did. I moderated a panel on censorship. And we discussed the impact of censorship on advertising on the internet and media, and essentially asked the question, what should be censored and who gets to decide. And this was an important topic for me, because a lot of my work within curious Fox and within crafting your path, the organization that I found and run outside of curious fox, a lot of that is around external expectations, and internal fear and doubt. And a lot of external expectations that we receive around how we should show up in the world is rooted in what we are allowed to consume. And so there are people who are making decisions around what we are allowed to see and hear and read. And what we are allowed to consume creates a narrative which then we ingest, and then that helps us figure out as we grow a Why should be this should be that and so when you see women being over sexualized in advertisements, that sends a message to girls that that is the way that I'm supposed to show up in the world, when we are allowed to read certain books or see certain things or not, that again, gives us information around what we should feel ashamed of what is bad, what is good. And those types of things, again, reinforce for us who we should be in the world. And so I was interested in exploring the role of censorship as it relates to these three different mediums. And so we had an incredible panel Fluffle, smart, amazing women who spoke about censorship in these three different worlds. We had Alexandra Fein, who is the co founder of Dane products, who she has a master's degree in clinical psychology and as a sex therapist from Columbia and decided that she was going to leverage her passion around the topic to create and her expertise in sex tech to create these incredible products. And so Dame that creates that cuz toys started with they did what was it? They didn't go guess. And they did a crowdsourcing.
Effy
Yes crowdsourcing on IndieGoGo and they weren't allowed to be on Kickstarter.
Jacqueline
Right. And we'll talk more about that. But they got like, some crazy amount of money for their first product, which really talked again about the need. And she's just super smart. And she's funny, she talks about herself as a capitalist, determined activist as a result of some of this work, but really came to it from a business point of view and realize that women and pleasure and sexuality and education for women was something that was really important in a field that she wanted to be in. So she talked to us about advertising. And then we had sex noir, who identifies himself as a midwestern brat hacking the conversation on sex, love and dating in the digital space. And a thought leader, T H. O T leader, leader, and sex tech, really, again, someone who is incredibly smart and engaged in the work and knowledgeable not only around the law, and will talk about this as it relates to censorship in the internet, but understands it from an experiential point of view. So understands the research of it understands the impact of it is engaged in the community, and so spoken all those behalfs. And then lastly, to talk about censorship in the media, we had Christina Hutchinson, who is the co host of guys, we Fox, which is a wildly popular podcast, the anti anti slut shaming podcast. She's a comedian, she's been featured on Comedy Central, and she has a solo show the voices in our head, really funny, again, really smart, somebody who has been really thoughtful about the role of censorship in in her work. She has a large platform, both on social media and certainly through the podcast, and has been thoughtful about how to engage that platform and leverage it to support people and to bring conversations to the table that other people don't want to have.
Effy
Absolutely. And had to fight this fight.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And so so we went into it with each and so Alex from from Dame talked about how Dame products were not allowed to be, first of all, they can't have ads on Facebook, they we are in New York City, and they cannot have advertisements in our train system in the MTA. And as a part of the panel I on the in the background was showing photos of advertisements that are allowed to be put up in all these different places, have scantily clad ladies of there's a Dolce and Gabbana ad where a woman is being held down by a group of men and they're all wearing like couture out, you know, Dolce Gabbana outfits. There is one an American Apparel of a guy just holding open this woman's legs, there's a liquor ad of a woman sitting on the couch with bruised knees, alluding to you know what will happen if you get her drunk enough so right and and then juxtaposed to these Dame ads, which is like this millennial pink background, with these kind of tiny, soft, what they look like children's toys, especially they happen to be vibrators and other toys for women.
Effy
Spider what
Jacqueline
they look like little like kind of Yes, just a little too, and that we weren't they're not allowed to advertise it and allowed to put up those ads. And so we began the conversation with that around. Why is it that women and sex have been used to sell? But we cannot sell things about sex for women?
Effy
Right? Absolutely. I mean, it's so potent. And I have I will, we'll gonna put the images that Jackie share on our blog, that we are curious fox.com, which is the website is developing, we're gonna just kick things off with the blog. I thought it was just to see that, you know, the descriptions that you've just heard are great, and but just to see it in front of you and see these ads, one after another after another. They are you know, they're not suggestive, they are their own words. You know, it's not some coy suggestion, like very overt, sexual, you know, often from you know, sexualizing the female body, and then you see, you see the dame ads, right. And there's nothing sexy or phallic or suggestive about them, and they're kind of they kind of tell you what they are. It's the I think the the strap line is toys for sex, right?
Jacqueline
Like, this is what it is or you buy it. It's pretty direct. There's no it's completely true. And again, you know, we talked about that old adage in the marketing world of sex sells, and yet, despite how pervasive sexes in marketing that the rules of advertising just aren't equitable.
Effy
Absolutely. Absolutely. And they and we talked also about how not only that it's not then the amount of extra effort, extra money extra time that goes into their marketing team to have these workarounds to figure out ways that they can fit into these like narrow yet vague classifications what they Can't say and they constantly advertising and it's frankly it's offensive when you sit next to a Heineken ad with a, you know, a bikini clad, you know, woman like hugging the bottle or whatever. So to see that
Jacqueline
And so here in New York with the MTA part of what Diem is fighting in the conversations they're having around censorship is that there are, there's a brand called hims that sells erectile dysfunction,
Effy
its products for men. So the products
Jacqueline
got it and woke so because one of the ads that they have up or if several, the ads they have up in the train station are cactuses, or cacti that are again, not only in the shape of a penis, and is not like that, like like, it's a dome, it's literally just a penis disguised as
Effy
its phallic as you can ever get. There's no beating around the bush.
Jacqueline
And so that is not a that is approved, and is hanging in train stations all over New York. Right? And James is not it. And when they inquired about this, what they what they heard back was that men need to have erections, it's a medical issue, and that women do not need to feel pleasure when they're having sex. And so pleasurable sex is not necessary, and erections are. And so we had a little bit of a conversation about this, because I think it's nuanced.
Effy
Sure, sure, sure. I have a personal, you know, I have a take on it, because I don't necessarily disagree. We talked about this earlier, I don't necessarily disagree that we need directions, right? And that on a big macro species level, I do agree that we need erections to continue the species. And we don't necessarily need orgasms for species for the for for on a species level, right? So I'll buy it. At that level. If they they explained to me at that level, I'll buy it. However, the advertising for erectile dysfunction or you know, these drugs are not for couples who are struggling to conceive, right, which means it's a medical issue that is about a need for for erection, but they are actually marketing it to like older men, right. Can't get it up anymore, or like for fun reason.
Jacqueline
Right. Exactly, exactly. It's like empty nesters now, or you know reinvested in the relationship. Right. Exactly, exactly.
Effy
So, so yes, it is a medical condition, but the prescription for it, or the marketing for it is for pleasure. So now it puts these ads in the same bucket as demons.
Jacqueline
Right. Right. Exactly. Right. And so, again, that was part of that's where we started, the conversation was, since the 1800s, that women have been used to sell sex. And yet, we went, it's time now to sell sex pleasure toys to women, that's being censored. And so that started off the dialogue. And we continue down kind of our love and obsession of sex. And I read off some some interesting statistics. And we talked about Pornhub earlier. So in Pornhub, in 2008, and their annual report revealed that there were over 30 billion searches that year, each minute translated to 64,000 new visitors, 207,000 videos, and 58,000 searches per minute.
Effy
That's crazy. Perfect. That is crazy. That's why That's why it's the backbone of the internet.
Jacqueline
Yes, that's exactly what else is being searched that much. And so even though our search histories are filled with sexy URLs, is becoming more and more difficult to navigate through the internet as a sex educator or sex worker. And so we start to explore sesta Foster, which Fe referenced earlier, which was a law that was put into place and I should note, a bipartisan law that was heavily backed on all sides, everyone thought it was a great idea, and really is rooted in or is to explain to be rooted in ending sex trafficking.
Effy
Right? And by the way, it passed in a heartbeat. Yes, it was considered for a second and before people can even like, whoa, let us explain to you what it's going to do. It was passed.
Jacqueline
Because everybody wants to end sex traffic, right? I mean, that's clear. So let's, let's put that out there that we all want to integrate.
Effy
It was it was child pornography, and sex trafficking is what this bill was supposed to be fighting
Jacqueline
Exactly right. Now, because as all things as it relates to sex or the Internet are, there's so much ambiguity in what that means how things are stopped, prevented censored whose responsibility that is that it became it spun out to something that has become incredibly, not only murky, but also dangerous. And what as a part of this, it puts the onus on the platforms to self censor what the content was. So for example, it became now Facebook's responsibility or Instagrams responsibility or Yahoo's responsibility to censor what were the mediums and what was the content that was going to be put out, and because certainly there's not the capacity to read through every single post and photo to determine whether or not that is actually sex education, that is sex work, that is sex trafficking, those trouble for anything that looks like sex, anything that in some cases have the word sex was being censored? Absolutely, absolutely. And so part of the challenge of that, of course, is that there are there are sex workers in this world who have chosen to run their business online, because that is a safer space to do, there's more control, they don't need to now worry about being out in the street, they don't need to worry about working with somebody else who's going to manage them. And they're exactly right. And, and by taking away this opportunity for them to have market and to dialogue with folks in this way, that certainly impacted their safety that impacted the work that they were doing. This is same true for sex educators, we have been censored. They're the emails that we send out, go into spam, they're their posts that go out, there was a conversation, SX noir talked about shadow banning, which essentially means that you can post something, and you think it's fine, you don't get any messages saying that it's not being posted. But on the other side, it is actually not posting it. And so you realize you're not getting likes, you're not getting followers, nothing is happening with this content. And this is doesn't make sense to you. And what you later on realize is that they have censored it from being seen by anyone, but have not told you. That it is being censored.
Effy
It's crazy. It's crazy. It's it's we were having this conversation where I posted something that was for Midori, one of our, you know, an amazing sex educator, someone that we have featured as an educator as a speaker. And she was doing an exhibition, an art exhibition at a museum, and it was about sex workers. It was about an almost an own homage to sex work and sex workers. And she, you know, I posted I pass it on I posted on my on my and this is not even our page on our profile, not a single like, it's impossible. I have 1000s of friends, people like the most ridiculous things that I put, you know, these one person is like, Oh, yes, funny. Not a single like, that's not that's not that's not real. That is what they're talking about. shadowbanned is like, it looks like I've posted it's like happily sitting on my feed, but it's been suppressed in anybody else's feed, right? And then you get a hangover from that too, then then your next few feeds or your next few posts are also kind of suppressed a little bit. Exactly. And when you're when this is what you do all the time. It has a direct impact.
Jacqueline
Yes. And so honestly, regardless of how you feel about sex work, regardless of how you feel about what you should be saying the internet, I think that one of the things that we talked about and is important for us, particularly if you're listening to this podcast, Effie and I are deeply engaged in being able to have conversation and believe in the power that dialogue and conversation and education has in freeing people both in their mind and in their lived experience. And the fact that we live in a world where sex can be found in our movies and our television shows in our music, or literature or art or advertising, our internet searches, but not in our education system, and not around our dinner table conversations and not in with with real sex education. And that things like sesta Foster, which then unintentionally or perhaps intentionally depends on who you're talking to, has now led to censorship on in many, many forms of being able to have conversations around sex as it relates to education is incredibly damaging.
Effy
For sure. And sex as it relates to pleasure too. I'm so sure I can I can buy some of that censorship towards, you know, I can definitely get behind censoring child pornography, I can definitely get behind, you know, things that are, obviously you know, Tofino sex trafficking. But that's just not how these, that's not how it plays out, you know, you, Facebook doesn't really care about nuance, and they, they just can't handle that the amount of posts so they just block it, there's blocker entirely. So, you know, Dame ad, or a Dean Post, or a post about art, can't be censored in the same way that you may be censored. So that's a solicitation. I'm not saying so I'm not saying censor, so to say so station as well. It's not what I'm saying. And I'm just saying you just can't put those things in the same bucket. Right, you know, yes. And right now, everything's going bucket. We're saying sex is forbidden.
Jacqueline
And and that and that's why I started this conversation by giving us the the Pornhub statistics, because there is this dual reality of sex is bad and needs to be censored. Would also 30 billion searches within a year, every every minute, 58,000 searches. There was when I was doing research around the preparation for this topic. I read about this court case that happened about 15 years ago in in Utah, and it was talking about what is obscene and what's not obscene. And I can go over some of that those rules and how interesting that is in this conversation as well. In that dialogue, there was somebody who owned a video store and they were selling corn in the back of the video store, as many video stores did when video stores existed. And this particular town in Utah really praised themselves as being very conservative and very religious and shut them down and wanted to end the bid. Isn't this and the lawyers were able to argue to keep that man out of jail, because he was going to be arrested for selling things that were obscene by doing research for the local hotel, and found that the local hotel had a disproportionately large amount of pay per view viewings than any other state in the country. So this particular county in Utah was saying, we are incredibly conservative, and we will not let that smart happen in our neighborhoods. But in the local hotels, there were more people watching Pay Per View porn in that community than in most other communities across the city and across the country. And so that I think it was a beautiful illustration of where in lies the conflict where we are having conversation around how long sex is how long sex work is in sex dialogue and sex pleasure and sex education. At the same time, if you check anyone's URL histories are sure there sex everywhere, of course. And so you know, I think that we I, I'm amused as I'm listening to it. But it's also heartbreaking, and really hard. And SX Noir's is a real advocate for the sex work community and talked about the personal damage that's that's doing to people in terms of their safety and their livelihoods, and how it's a class issue in many cases. And so, you know, I thought that they did a beautiful job of of explaining that to us and to the audience. These were things that I didn't know, and really now feel appreciative to be able to understand better.
Effy
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Again, it was a heavyweight panel, and this is a huge topic, we've definitely picked the topics this year. And, you know, I again, I really encourage you to listen to the full the full panel and get into the nuance of it, we barely scratched the surface, there are definitely, you know, areas that I encourage you to look at, to really understand. Jackie did a really good sort of little bit of research at the beginning that put context and definitions, which will post on our blog as well. And I guess, our call to action for you, the thing that would really would like you to consider is to be mindful about to to to notice where where things where you might be getting censored or where you might be on the other side of censorship, you know, the things that are controlled for you. Yes, you know, think about what you're not seeing. Yes, yes. Which is really hard, which is something that came up.
Jacqueline
We're hearing as well. I mean, we didn't mention Christina, from we fought to who does that podcast, talked about the fact that they were not able to have their podcasts on iTunes. And when asked about it, you know, Apple, give them some reason as to why that couldn't happen. And so they engage their audience, they engage their community, and they started tweeting at Apple and all this. And then finally, they caved. And they're like, Oh, of course, that was just the you know, administrative error. Of course, you can join as part of that, and how they've been censored on Facebook and other platforms as well. And they're trying to have important dialogues about things like they talked about having dialogues around pedophilia, they talked about having dialogues around sexual trauma and talking about. And so again, they're trying to have these dialogues, and even though they have kind of a catchy name, and that's why they're being censored in many spaces, they're trying to have some deep conversation around things that will remove shame and allow people to live more true to who they are and explore topics that they're free to explore in other places. And, and there are two are being censored.
Effy
Yeah, yeah, you know, what might be a fun exercise every now and then check your spam folder to see what's in there. I mean, I definitely go in there and be in there. Of course, curious, I find Curious Fox emails in there, I find Bay bland emails in there, I find legitimate businesses, sending legitimate emails in my spam folder, and I take an i takes a little bit of time when I do and whitelist them because I think it's important, I think it's important so little bit of thinking a little bit of thing you can do is just like spend a few minutes on your spam folder and whitelist whitelist some brands that you want to hear from you know, going going subscribe to Dame commons, you know, subscribe to curious Fox can subscribe to all these awesome people and and, you know, tune into guys, we fucked and sign up to our newsletter and make sure they don't end up in your spam folder.
Jacqueline
It's true. And in the same way that we talked about with the porn panel. The same is true with censorship. There's no clear right or wrong to this. We had conversations around, you know, what do we need to protect children from seeing what do we need to be protected from seeing ourselves and as it relates to sex and violence? We you know, we've had this conversation that sex is censored, but you can see a preview for a movie that's incredibly violent on your feed without accepting it without consenting for sure. And so there is there's no right or wrong answer. It really is about being informed. And it's about just having the consciousness and being woke to the idea that you are that someone is making decisions around what you have access to. And as a result of that, you are you are unintentionally a part of a narrative that is creating an internal narrative for you around what is possible and how you need to show up in the world and what you should feel shame around and just be thoughtful about it.
Effy
Yeah, changes noise, my friend. Change the noise.
Jacqueline
Hashtag change the noise.
Effy
So yeah, that was an intense and super interesting and topic. Like, and we took a bit of a break from it, I think we needed a break, we needed a break from it everyone was so riled up. Everybody was like, we want to see you. It was definitely the fennel had attention, you know, at the end, and it really like people were riled up and had to do a round two. Yeah, I'm interested, do you know what might be actually good is for us to revisit each speaker, and each topic just on an episode, just dedicate a whole episode to it, because there's just so much there. And we're, this is like digest. And we already, you know, so far in and people are like patiently listening
Jacqueline
And out there in the world. If you are an expert in any of these fields of any of the things that we're talking about, we would love to engage in the conversation. He and I are coming at this as two really curious people who are also in the process of learning. And so we want to have conversations with people who are educated in this work.
Effy
Absolutely. Reach out to us. Right now, you can reach out to us on Aloha at if you blue.com. We are working on our brand new website with our brand new communication channels. But for now, don't wait for that. Don't wait for us to finish our stuff. Reach out to us Aloha at Effie blue.com. If you're an expert, about the stuff if you have you know, solid opinions, and this is like your your passion, we want to hear from you.
Jacqueline
Yeah. And so then we took a shift in the program and Ryan came out to speak. So Ryan is the general manager east of a pleasure chest and they manage the the programming there specifically in New York and Chicago and other locations. And they've had a decade in the sex industry career, they have a passion for finding ways to teach the intersection between justice and joy, and finding body autonomy and sex and workers rights and gender expansion and relationship and family building. And we were introduced, we had a long conversation with Ryan, because we did a podcast about them. And their fascinating story. And I know we keep teasing you with their story. And we promise 2020 is the year that that same podcast is going to come out. But Ryan is the birth parent for two children it within an open adoption. And they came to talk about what that journey was like. And the biggest highlight or that takeaway for me was how real and emotional and intimate that sharing was. And the powerful impact that it had in the room. At the end of the of the event, we asked the audience you know, to share out some of the highlights. And over and over people kept saying Ryan's story Ryan's story, it was really powerful.
Effy
It was and the way they shed to the story is super interesting. You can make you can make a movie out of it easily. You don't even need to do any kind of like, you know, based on a true story, you can just tell the story and it'll be good enough. I love the way they the way they share it the way they like you said so intimately so closely, so articulately. So calmly share the story and they carry you as you go through the highs and lows of of what they've experienced. And bring the quick recap of it is Ryan was emits a sex emits a transition female to male transition on testosterone to therapy. Eight years in, as they're going through this, they were told that it's not possible for them to bury children that, you know, testosterone means that they're not fertile anymore. And they're not to bear children. So with this knowledge, they carry on they they've made their mind up and they want to go through transition. And they've been taking testosterone for eight years, and they fall pregnant. Extremely unexpectable extremely unexpected, they fall pregnant. And this whole bunch of new decisions have to be made. And they decide that they want to carry the baby full term and give it up for adoption. And the story which we will publish next year is incredible the way that they go about adoption and or divorce or the adoption system is like that how it's mostly it's mostly operated by religious organizations and in a very heteronormative way and they you know, the what they had to go through as a you know, trans person who bought you know, fell pregnant on testosterone
Jacqueline
who at that point was presenting as male so you present as male but now you're pregnant you're with your partner who's also identifies as male they think that their partner's a baby you're getting congratulated when you go out to eat for this bait. It's
Effy
it's, I mean, it's a mind factory and the way you know the way they tell it is incredible. So I mean, the story takes twists and turns and I own almost don't want to give away like the spoilers because there's some amazing twists and turns. The part of it they were sharing with us at considered this this year, was really about the point of view of the birth parents, which is something that we don't hear a lot from, we don't really hear people sharing about their experience as a birth parent and the decisions they've had to make and what it is like to be a part of an open adoption, and what that's like for you. And I definitely had misconceptions. And there's definitely something that they talked about that was that I hadn't thought of, which is the stigma and the shame that we project onto birth parents who at some point, decide to fall off the child's life, and that they are stigmatized, and they are shamed for doing that. And people sort of go around saying, I can't, I can't, I just can't understand why somebody would fall off the
Jacqueline
give up their child. Yes. And Ryan even helped us really redefine that language. They did not give up their child, right adoption, right, that they they gave their child into, they wanted them to have a new family, they wanted to be able to and still be in their lives. I think that was part of what they were talking about, too, is being able to be still in their lives, and helped us to your point, if we understand what are some of the constrictions in the system that don't actually allow our parents to do that.
Effy
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that now that they're in a situation where Oh, yeah, okay. So the thing that I, the thing that I didn't know is that we talk about open adoption. And we think that adoption is something that you just come and go, actually, it's not open adoption, open adoption, pretty much limits you to one or two visits a year, some letters which have to be read before they passed on, and a birthday card here and a holiday card there. That's essentially what an open adoption looks like. And the parents, the birth parents who eventually let go of their kids with or sort of decrease the contact is not because they don't care, and they don't want to, but because it's so painful to have such limited and controlled access to their child, they do it because it's too hard. There's something that they just can't sustain is too heartbreaking. It's too far in between, and they just carry that hurt with them at all times. And at some point, it becomes too much. And they let it go.
Jacqueline
And why and talked about the importance when they were finding a family for the child that they were carrying, that it was important for them to craft an open adoption that allowed them to have access more than just a card and actually be a part of this family. And that was really the call to action for them for us to all consider is to redefine the family looks like and to say I'm the birth champ parent of this of this child and and it's not the the primary parents, I'm not there every day, I don't put them to bed every day. And they talked in a very deep and emotional way about how painful that is to not be there for bedtimes and those things. But knowing that this was the right decision for the child, knowing that they have built now this amazing relationship with the family and that they are part of that family. And it really I believe number one helped us rethink what parenting looks like and what family dynamics are. But also they did a beautiful job of connecting their experience with polyamory and open adoption, which I again, I would not have made those connections without that storytelling, but talked about how they leveraged their the lessons that they learned in Pali, to navigate through this painful process of loving without ownership, of battling through jealousy, of communication, of compromise, of understanding that multiple people can love someone, and that needs are met with different people and that you want a community of people. And so you know, talking about that in the hardest times remembering what their experience has been like in polyamory and really leaning on that, and actually choosing a family that the the adoptive parents are in an open relationship so that all of those folks were leaning on the lessons learned through these relationships in order to navigate through this somewhat unprecedented new dynamic for them, I thought was powerful.
Effy
Absolutely, absolutely. And I, you know, I, I do what I do, and I still hadn't connected those dots and just sitting there listening to them, go through it and connect the dots and say it's, you know, it's what's allowing us well, it's what those ideas, those believes those skills and tools and those practices that we've, you know, we've engaged in all this time is now allowing us to have this flexible, healthy, dynamic family that is very much outside the norm, but works.
Jacqueline
Yes. And I remember, you know, and in talking about this, you said, one of the things that made sense to me was that there was a happy ending and that and that doesn't always happen with stories like stories that are complicated and stories that are nuanced and stories where the protagonist is not and it is not a romanticized happy ending and it is does not mean that it is not still have pain and hardship. But it is still a happy ending.
Effy
Unless Yeah, it doesn't look like what you think it's gonna look like what it is joyful. Yeah. And it works. And it's, there's a lot to learn from them. There's a lot to learn from them. There's a lot to reflect on. And it was an it was a great note to to end the speakers on.
Jacqueline
Yeah, Ryan's a fantastic human being. Yeah. And then of course, we had to end with something a little fun because that was I think that brought everyone to like this emotional plays and then we wanted to kind of close out the night and the in the event in a fun way. And so we had Cassandra rose beetle.
Effy
Yes. I have only one word hot.
Jacqueline
Yes. Gotta see the video. Yeah, so a burlesque dancer and performer who did something, a performance that was both certainly sexy and provocative, but also just really political and poignant. And I don't know how much detail you want to share, we want to give a sneak peek.
Effy
So I just want to set the scene. So the song they perform to is called ball and chain. They were wearing this beautiful vintage wedding dress to start the performance of it was beautiful, I got to see a closer look at it backstage. It's handmade handlist Like it beautiful wedding dress. And the whole thing was essentially disrobing from this, you know, this, this wedding dress as the music, you know, it's a ball and chain and the whole thing ended with them. The last thing they took off was their wedding ring and tossed it. You have to see the brilliant the grace the sexiness of this whole performance. But I'm hoping what I've just shared with you gives you an idea of like the message. We're you know, it's not to say that we're not, we think that marriage is bad.
Jacqueline
because when I saw beforehand, we saw the video and I remember thinking like, Okay, I don't want this to be I'm married happily, to be a commentary. But I think it was a commentary on systems on standards on prescription.
Effy
Yeah. Yeah. And it was, you know, it was it was it was amazing. It was hot. Everyone was transfixed. I was transfixed. Like, it was I was right at the front row, just like I think I remember. I remember Jackie going, we should put this on on social media. And I was like, I don't want to even become like, I was like, yeah, no, I need to watch this. It was hot. It was amazing. It was a good way to end it. And, you know, it was a lot of stress organizing this was, you know, it was we had, we didn't have that much time, and we have a staff change in the middle of it all. There were some, you know, highs and lows, some people had to drop out last minute. You know, it was one thing after another, and on the day, all that was forgotten.
Jacqueline
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, we close out the event. And I shared out that while this took, you know, two months potentially to plan it was actually more than 30 years in the making. And that Fe and I spent the majority of our lives following a prescribed path that was promised to make us happy and successful. And we worked really hard to stay on that path and exceed expectations, which led to success for each of us, but not happiness. And that we did the work of accepting that that life didn't did not work for us. And f&i separately deconstructed our old lives and built new ones that were rooted in personal truth, and created careers that were aligned with that truth. And though we navigated through those journeys, in our own ways, at some point, our paths crossed, and we found another kindred spirit. And now we work really hard to create spaces where others can explore their truth, and figure out how to untangle their lives, and figure out how to be around other trailblazers who are no longer willing to accept what is prescribed. And so I think for me personally, while it I felt really proud of the fact that we pulled together this beautiful event in not very long notice and had great impact in the room. And hopefully, for all the folks who who watch the video and listen to it. But even deeper than that, the fact that you and I are continued to be able to create spaces for these dialogues and create spaces where people have opportunities to be thoughtful around what they have been told versus the path that they choose to take. And I feel really grateful to have been able to do that.
Effy
Absolutely, absolutely. It's all and gratitude is pretty much how I ended up in most of the things that we do. And also kind of amazement that we managed to pull it off. Like, we manage that we did that well. Okay.
Jacqueline
And then onto the neck. And literally the next day we're like, All right, what's the
Effy
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think this also is a good opportunity for us to think about what we are, you know, what we are considering? What are the things that we are considering? For ourselves? What is like, what is our consider this moments of this year? You want to go?
Jacqueline
Sure. Actually, I think this ties in with the event, I think that I'm considering or maybe reconsidering that I need to give myself permission to continue to grow and change my perspectives and evolve my thinking. The irony, of course, and that is that I am a trained strategist. So I focus on change all day, every day with the folks that I coach and the organizations that I work with. And yet still I think that I need to continue to be empathetic with myself when my the information that I have and the perspective and the exposure Rance changes for me. And what I thought and felt five years ago is not true for me, in any case, and so I need to consider that I want to be in a space where I don't have to control the outcome, and control my future perspective and just allow myself to grow.
Effy
Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. And for me, it's similar actually, I, you know, I say, I'm in the knowing business, meaning I'm in a position of, you know, guidance and coaching and or organizing and CO production. And so I find myself often in a place where I need to be the note the person who knows and unknowing place. And sometimes I, you know, that takes up a lot of space and there isn't much left for curiosity, right, you can't be knowing and curious at the same time, you need to lean into the ambiguity you need in lean into what you don't know, and be comfortable not knowing. So that you can tap into curiosity to be curious. And I, for me, it's definitely making sure that I actively and consciously cultivate curiosity, and, you know, not be knowing when needed, but also make space like, I just don't know, I need to learn to
Jacqueline
Yeah, I love that. I love that I'm a facilitator. Also, I train a lot in front of the room. And when I train other people to train, one of the things that I share out is that it's hard to stand in front of the room and feel like you don't know the answer. And then an easy out, hopefully, for that is to say, That's a great question. Which essentially means I don't know, that you didn't go about the work of getting the answer. And I think that's part of what you're saying is, is be curious and explore and then allow yourself to, like, follow your curiosity and get to know the thing. Right, right. Exactly.
Effy
And, and echo what you're saying, which is, be okay to change your mind, like having having and be vocal about that, you know, I thought this I think this now, you know, and and just be in the path of curiosity, as I think we're, we're, it wishes that we stay on the path of curiosities.
Jacqueline
Yes, yeah. And I think that's gonna be what continues to drive us into 2020 is we're gonna explore, keep 2020 from a place of curiosity, we're going to try new things, we're gonna expand out to new cities, we are going to try different types of events and different models and structures, we're going to be building out this online platform. And so we're doing this in the spirit of adventure. In the spirit of meeting the need that we get, you know, one of the biggest highlights that that we received at the end of the event was someone saying that they listened to every podcast episode, and it was a pleasure to meet us and kind of see us in person and they drove from Maine, they drove for me, yeah, you know who you are. We are grateful for you, we have talked about you and feel so grateful for the fact that you and many others do listen and are engaged and send us emails and DMS and tell us about how these conversations are impacting you wherever you are. And so we feel really have such gratitude around having this platform, and are going to continue to enter into these spaces with curiosity. And so the things that you want us to talk about in 2020, because we're in the spirit, we're right now we're gearing up for that. And, and we're going to be doing some new events and some new educator led events. And we're gonna be exploring the space of webinars and lots of other things now moving forward in the coming years. We want to hear what it is that you want from us as well. And so please let us know what you are curious about. So we can tap into that as well. And so we have a few call to actions for you. And on top of letting us know what you're curious about. If you are listening and you enjoy what you hear, please rate and review and share this podcast. It not only helps us understand that that people are listening and that this is good work. But certainly it allows us then to talk with other folks about this work because the more folks that we have reading it, the more folks that we have sharing it and leaving reviews around what works then we can have begun to expand this workout. Check out the previous episodes if you haven't already, join our Facebook group and follow us on Instagram so that you can be a part of the conversation and see what we have in store for the coming year. Join us on Patreon if you want access to all the consider this videos if you want to see like what it was that we're talking about and you want to see Hilah the killers sing that song about making love like a fish. Then you got to watch the video, the highlight to watch the video you got to get on Patreon and then again just you know, please rate and review and share this podcast.
Effy
Thank you for listening friends and stay curious Stay curious. Curious Fox podcast is not and will never be the final word on any topic. We solely aim to encourage curiosity and provide a space for exploration through connection and story. We encourage you to listen with an open and curious mind and we'll look forward to your feedback. Stay curious friends.
Curious Fox
Stay curious, curious, curious and curious. Stay curious. Stay curious.
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