Intimate Interactions

It’s my pleasure to talk more with Jazz Goldman today, an intersex human, friend of mine, ocassional sex partner of mine, and professional cuddler for cuddlist. Suffice it to say they have a really informed and interesting perspective on intimacy, sex, and gender. Jazz is also a mixed race person like me, except instead of being British and Indian, they are a Black Jew. I mention that because I th...

Today I begin an experimental piece called the Tillie Friendship Project. Inspired by Audio Smut and The Heart podcasts, I got an H1N Zoom mic, the newer version of what Kaitlin Prest started with when recording Audio Smut. Seriously, if you’ve never heard it, go listen to it - it’s still ground breaking even if she and I disagree on the possibility of non monogamy as a functional relationship sty...

Jazz Goldman and I just went to Pride. Jazz is a friend of mine, an ocassional sex partner of mine, a professional cuddler for cuddlist, all about the performing arts, and all about community building. Jazz and I have in common being some flavor of gender non-confirming and also being mixed race humans. In Jazz’ case, they are a Black Jew, and in my case I’m a British Indian. Very, very different...

Kat’s back for another session. This time, we talk about their experience of people pleasing and worthlessness. Kat describes the ideal of being a “wantless angel” that spends their time satisfying other people’s needs and wants. It may sound awful, but sometimes I think the body can be a traumatic place to be and focusing on someone else can sometimes be a relief, and a great way to get needs for...

Kris Perry is back to talk about parents, trauma, fear of intimacy, and the boy from the Wendy’s parking lot. She came to the recording session directly from his house. I mention my partners in this session. I talk about the importance of trying again and again when it comes to getting hurt in intimacy. My position is you can’t choose not to be hurt in life, but you can choose who gets to hurt you...

Stephanie is a woman of colour who has been an engineer and an accountant. She identifies as asexual or possibly a demisexual, and an ASMR content producer - though none happen in this episode. She has a passion for travel and politics. She brings up the supposed deplatforming of Alex Jones, her thoughts on Ben Shapiro, gun rights, and antinatalism. I’m not sure if it comes up, but it’s important...

Lisa and Paula are back again: two monogamous, vanilla, heterosexual women of colour in their 40s. They’re successful entrepreneurs and mothers and wives who met during their MBA programs at UBC. This session turned into suburban housewives curious about my lifestyle without any desire to change their current lives presently which is great. These kinds of cultural exchange are fascinating to me. W...

How’s your mental wellness doing today? Have you been getting enough self care lately? I’ve been somewhat sick and am probably going to cough through this episode. Our conversation this episode will focus on mental wellness in relationships and how trauma can disrupt intimacy. Our guest, Chelsey Blair, is an already-published Social Work undergrad who identifies as an activist and who is currently...

Lisa and Paula are back: two monogamous, vanilla, heterosexual women of colour in their 40s. They’re successful mothers, wives, and entrepreneurs who met during their MBA programs at UBC. They were super interested to talk more about the results of their struggles with Sexual Shame, which we talk about mostly in their first session on Intimate Interactions. This session focuses more on arousal and...

Today we meet Chelsey, a person working towards a Social Work degree at UNBC. She is a cisgender white queer femme who is anarchist leaning and is currently working as one of the humans pioneering conflict resolution strategies in a survivor support role. She’s also currently doing a lot of side projects. She is recently published as a feminist undergrad on the topic of practicing Non Monogamy in...

This Valentine’s day, I bring you a special interview that I got with Reid Mihalko. Normally new episodes publish on Patreon first and come out for free 9 months later. This episode is an exception and will air for everyone on Valentine’s day. If you find the quality better than my free episodes, maybe try out Patreon for a month and see if you like it. I have sessions with Sophia Sky at Pan Eros...

Most of us have probably experienced burnout. It can look like feeling tired, empty, sad, resentful, angry, used, or hurt. It can run from the first signs of resistance or hesitation around an activity to full, impassioned non compliance. When we play on edges like we do in BDSM sometimes or play with really intense feelings like emotional sadism or emotional masochism, there is a lot to think abo...

content warning: we briefly discuss blood play Sometimes when folks talk about a gold standard of service, they talk about anticipating the needs of someone else which is problematic to say the least. Getting it wrong is only human as no one is perfect. Accepting our imperfection is hard enough but asking someone how you can help can require courage. Asking for help ourselves sometimes requires mo...

Content warning for those of you who struggle with white supremacy, racism, stripping, toxic monogamy, shame...I feel like whenever I tackle really hard topics this entire intro is basically one big content warning. We continue the interview with Robyn Beatch today. We mostly don't talk about the KKK and spend a lot of time distracting ourselves talking about stripping, squirting, and teaching abo...

Van Dwelling is for some a matter of necessity. For others, it’s a choice. What is it? Exactly what it sounds like: living in your vehicle. In some communities, housing is quite expensive. In some lives, being functional long enough to produce the employment opportunities and or funds to pay rent is quite challenging. Some organizations count van dwellers as homeless and what they mean by that wor...

Irene is newish to kink. She started a sex and feminism blog where’s she's currently an avid blogger (thedesivibes.com) and hopes to be an educator one day. For a South Asian woman, that's not really a thing for our community yet for a variety of reasons, but I'll let her speak her own truth. Over her journey into kink, she has learnt a lot. Now it’s time for her to share some of that knowledge ab...

Olivier creates community by creating events. Often those events involve playing various kinds of games. When he first came into the Vancouver kink scene, he created the Vancouver Geeky and Kinky munch which he has since moved on from. Today, the VG & K as it’s known is a thriving event on its own where people get together to play board games. While the underlying idea is that everyone playing...

Orientation is for some, a lifelong struggle. Others rarely question it beyond their teenage years. I define orientation as the gender presentations to which one is attracted. Others might define it as the gender identities to which one is attracted. Others still might define it as the sexes to which they’re attracted. The distinction here is: are you attracted to what their internal idea of their...

Mark Hughes returns in this episode, discussing addiction and recovery. His history of encountering emotional abuse, homelessness, substance use, sexual assault, and prison didn’t stop him doing a twelve step program and getting sober. Faced with different body language as a trauma survivor and different class markers in his speech and expressions, social situations are often alienating for him. Y...

In this episode, Piper, one of my former domestic, kink, and sex partners is back to talk about jealousy. They share lessons of non monogamy that can often benefit everyone including the monogamous. These emotional self-management and interpersonal skills are useful outside of traditionally intimate relationships as well including in work environments, with clients, friends, neighbours, and in man...

Hello, Intimates! In this episode, I interview Piper, a former partner and current relationship anarchist. We focus on what works for each of us and how we make what it work. We also acknowledge what didn’t work. When the phrase relationship anarchy is brought up, it’s important to mention it means something different to everyone. I usually remind folks that anarchy isn’t about not having rules at...

Today’s introduction is long because we touch on some pretty advanced stuff. Thanks for bearing with me. Normalizing behaviours is key to getting rid of shame and stigma, the key to promoting intimacy on our own terms. Shame isolates people, and rarely is anyone made more compassionate for others by being shunned or disconnected from society. When we make distinctions between amazing intense, hot...

Each person offers a unique set of intimate interactions they want with you. They may want different kinds of sex, spooning, cuddling, hugging, kissing, or other forms of touch. And/or They may want varying levels of emotional engagement to meet needs like consolation, celebration, expression, validation, and many more. And/or They may want to live in close proximity to you by staying over tempora...

Media representations impart behavioural instructions and give us clear information on what is normal and what is abnormal - in short: what we should and shouldn’t do. They’re also a warning of what the consequences are if we show we are different. If the media doesn’t show minorities at all or worse, shows us only in a negative light, it’s hard to feel like it’s acceptable to be out of the closet...

Stephanie Si is back to talk about asexuals and/or demisexuals like herself who masturbate and who find creative ways to have sex outside of the kind where a penis goes in any of the 3 major orifices. She calls it her “no 3 holes” policy. We briefly talk about Racism and the criminal system as well as the idea of sexual consent and the #metoo movement. We also talk about forms of ASMR like rolepla...