Last week, you heard my conversation with Doctor Robyn. Today, we’re going back in the vault to hear the Intersections interview with them four years ago.
It was the second interview I’d ever done, so it was a little rough, but it was a thrill to talk with them and learn so much about gender and sexuality from someone with real professional and personal expertise.
Back then, Dr. Robyn was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethics at Pacific School of Religion and a published author in the fields of queer studies in religion, ethics, and Latin@ studies. They shared their life and views on gender, sexuality, marriage, and how race can inform sexuality. I was fascinated back then and I hope you will be just as fascinated today.
I’m still working out some of the hiccups with the podcast posting to the cloud, but I had to make sure to get this episode out today: the day after National Coming Out Day.
That’s because I had a chance to catch up again with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. We talked four years ago during my Intersections project, which you can catch on the Intersections YouTube channel, or listen to it on this podcast later this week.
Doctor Robyn is a nonbinary, Latinx, deep switch, theological activist, and once again we had an amazing conversation. Yesterday, they came out in a new way on their own podcast with Rev Anna Gollady (Gall-a-DAY): the Activist Theology Podcast. If you listen to their podcast, you know about it, but if not, well — it’s pretty exciting.
Before that, though, we also talked about getting into their body, radical consent, prescriptive vs descriptive sexuality, the BDSM community, how they have learned more about their own kink identity, the importance of having a relationship with pleasure — whether eating, having sex, or living life, and so much more!
I think I’ve got the “kinks” worked out of the podcast, too, so you should see the rest of the season coming to your favorite podcast feed now. If not, please let me know!
In this episode, I talked with Moniqa, who you heard in the first half of the last From the Vault episode. We had a great conversation this time catching up and talking about her bisexual, demisexual, and poly identity, how poly is a choice for her, her chosen family, how she discovered polyamory through a circus community, and a whole lot of other stuff!
You may have noticed that the podcast hasn’t had a new episode in a couple weeks, because I was running into some technical issues with my feeds. Everything should be back up and running now, and hopefully you’ll start seeing new episodes start coming to your favorite podcast place real soon now!
I haven’t been idle, though! I’ve got a few new interviews ready to go, starting with Moniqa and Michael, who you heard in the September 11th From the Vault Episode. Eight more episodes in total, with awesome conversation with amazing humans, who you really need to hear from! Since we’ve queued up a little more than I planned, new episodes will be dropping twice a week until we’re caught up.
After that, who knows? I really want to hear from you and find out how this podcast is impacting you. I’d love to hear from you! Whether we chat over DM or on the podcast, this thing is all about starting conversations, so please join in! You can reach me here on the website, or on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr.
I’ve also been learning about a concept called “Learning in Public”. It comes from the programming world, but I think it’s a valuable concept for life in general, and I intend to do more of it in my life. So, you’ll see more posts about what I’m learning through this podcast and from living life in general. They’ll show up here and on my personal blog. A very wise person once told me that writers write, and I learn by writing, so hopefully over the next little while I release my inner writer again! And of course, I’d love to hear your thoughts and what you’re learning, too.
Stay tuned tomorrow when I catch up with Moniqa and find out the amazing things she’s been up to! Let’s keep the conversation going!
This week we’re going back in time again with two interviews I recorded for the Intersections Project — the predecessor to The Human Tapestry Podcast.
Our first from-the-vault Intersections interview was with Moniqa: a bisexual, demisexual and questioning demi/gray-romantic woman. Through our conversation, I learned how important the word “woman” is to her, and what it means to be demisexual.
Next is Michael: a gay married man who has remained married but separated. We discussed the effect of his identities on his family and life and some resources that have helped him through.
You may have noticed there wasn’t an episode last week. Unfortunately, since this is a labor of love and not income, my day job took precedence and I wasn’t able to get this out until now. The good news, though, is that we have several episodes coming up, with conversations with old friends and new!
This week, I’m talking with Peter, who you heard in Episode 7 about 3 weeks ago. We caught up on the last four years and talked more about his journey, as well as balancing relationships in this time of quarantine, different forms of intimacy, his work teaching students how to teach sexuality, intimacy, and relationships, and several other topics.
After the recorded interview, Peter and I had a deeper conversation about this podcast, and I realized just how much I’ve learned during the process of putting it together. He challenged me to start writing my thoughts and what I’ve learned from each episode, and I plan to start with this one. So, watch the Human Tapestry feeds for some deep thoughts.
This week, I’m talking with Seth, a queer man whose identity is best defined as, “Put me in a box, but I won’t fit.” He also has a graduate-level education in theology and had some great thoughts about spirituality and identity. We had a great conversation talking about spirituality, gods, labels, drag, moving from tolerance to acceptance to celebration, and much more.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
This week we’re going back in time to 2016 and the first interview I recorded for the Intersections Project — the predecessor to The Human Tapestry Podcast. Peter is a gay, demisexual, man in a closed-loop relation with his wife and boyfriend. This being the first time I ever did something like this, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being a great conversation! We covered things like discovering your own sexuality, how living your true identity can literally save your life, finding support, and a host of other topics.
Peter and I met through the group HOW – which stands for Husbands Out to Wives. HOW is an international on-line support group for gay and bisexual men who are married to women and are out to (or working toward coming out to) our wives. Peter and I, along with hundreds of other men, found help and support as we redefined our relationships with our spouses, family members, friends, colleagues, while we learned to understand our own true selves. If you are or know a person who needs this kind of support, you can find out more and join at https://how-support.org.
This week, I’m talking with Amy Gahran, a Solo (not single), egalitarian, polyamorous straight woman and author of “Stepping off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life” — a research-based guidebook to intimate relationship diversity.
Some of you may know Amy by her pen name that she used to blog under: Aggie Sez.
We had a great conversation talking about solo polyamory, the relationship escalator, different kinds of monogamy, egalitarian relationships, and a bunch of other topics.
Amy’s book: “Stepping off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life” — a research-based guidebook to intimate relationship diversity. It explores the set of strong social norms that traditionally have defined how intimate relationships “should” work, and shows how people are diverging from each of these norms.
This week, I’m talking with Niesha, a wonderful cis, bisexual, black woman, who I also happen to work with. We had a great conversation talking about discovering her sexuality, how marrying a woman doesn’t make you a lesbian, having a minority identity at work, changing conversations in the black community, and raising a black girl with two moms.
