Speaker 1: Welcome to Sex's Medicine, your number one resource for holistic
Speaker 1: sex education. I'm Davey word Ericson, and I invite you
Speaker 1: to join me every week for another enriching and powerful
Speaker 1: conversation about the intersection of sexuality, spirituality, pleasure, and personal growth.
Speaker 1: Each episode of Sex's Medicine is dedicated to awakening your
Speaker 1: heart and mind to the true purpose and power of
Speaker 1: human sexuality. Please join me on this journey of self
Speaker 1: discovery as we explore the art of using pleasure as
Speaker 1: medicine to awaken, heal, and empower every area of your life.
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Speaker 1: and YouTube. And now get ready for another episode of
Speaker 1: Sex Is Medicine. Hey, everybody, welcome to sex Is Medicine.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Davy ward Ericson, here with you
Speaker 1: once again for another delicious and exciting episode where we
Speaker 1: explore the connection between sexuality, spirituality, pleasure, and personal growth.
Speaker 1: One of our favorite topics. I just want to give
Speaker 1: you a reminder that this is going to be the
Speaker 1: last month of sexist medicine for twenty twenty one. We
Speaker 1: are taking a little winter vaca for November December of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one in early twenty twenty two, but we
Speaker 1: plan to be back at you in the spring of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. And in the meantime, of course, you
Speaker 1: can stay connected to all of this deliciousness at authentic
Speaker 1: tontra dot com and make sure that you follow us
Speaker 1: on all of our social media outlets at Authentic Tentre.
Speaker 1: You can also follow my little personal journey of poppy
Speaker 1: love on davy Ward tntra as well. This evening, we
Speaker 1: have a wonderful, wonderful guest who has been a colleague
Speaker 1: of mine for many many years, a graduate of our
Speaker 1: Authentic ton for Certification program, actually graduate from our first
Speaker 1: the year went to a full year of training, our
Speaker 1: full first full year of training twenty sixteen, and that
Speaker 1: is TK and TK Spider is.
Speaker 2: The I got my spiders on.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for all, you're a rock climber. You're like
Speaker 1: a spider climbing rocks. Yay, I thought so, I thought so.
Speaker 1: So TK is joining us this evening to talk about
Speaker 1: queering TONTRA, a topic that is really important in something
Speaker 1: that we absolutely want to explore moving into more of
Speaker 1: at the institute. So thank you so much, TK for
Speaker 1: being here with.
Speaker 2: Us, Thanks for having me Davey, Yeah, yay.
Speaker 1: So could you share a little bit about yourself? TK?
Speaker 1: So you you graduated in twenty sixteen from our training
Speaker 1: program and what have you been up to since then?
Speaker 2: I can't believe twenty sixteen only five ish years ago.
Speaker 2: I I've been doing authentic entre practitioner work. I was
Speaker 2: working in sports medicine for a while. I'm an athletic
Speaker 2: trainer certified as well. I stopped doing that. I work
Speaker 2: at a route setting gym. I do sex and authentic
Speaker 2: contra coaching. I came out early this year as non
Speaker 2: binary trans mask. I've been in the kink world. My
Speaker 2: partner and I have performed at Folsome and Twisted Windows,
Speaker 2: and we submitted to HUMP so kind of exploring avenues
Speaker 2: with kink and infusing and integrating TNTRA and what it
Speaker 2: means to be queer and trans and polyamorous. And now
Speaker 2: I am relaunching my formal former Lovecraft collective dot com
Speaker 2: to queering Tantra dot org with a focus on queer
Speaker 2: and trans bodies and changing language and infusing what it
Speaker 2: means to be queer into sexual liberation. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 2: kind of hand in handle.
Speaker 1: Yeah really, and that's a huge topic in the realm
Speaker 1: of specifically because it is so binary, and we'll explore
Speaker 1: some of the reasons for that, but because that's also
Speaker 1: it's very exclusionary, right, there's not a big push in
Speaker 1: the in the world of at least neo Western neotntra
Speaker 1: to include non binary bodies and bodies that aren't aren't
Speaker 1: easily fitting into this box of either or and and
Speaker 1: and and for example, So when I, when you and
Speaker 1: I first met were working together, you were female. That's
Speaker 1: how you you identified. And then in your journey, it
Speaker 1: sounds like your journey of personal liberation has allowed you
Speaker 1: to claim the totality of who you are, which is
Speaker 1: beyond this box of you know, female woman and into
Speaker 1: non binary and then also as a man. So are
Speaker 1: you open to sharing a little bit about that journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's an interesting one. It's spending a lot
Speaker 2: of time wrestling with language and what it means to
Speaker 2: exist in a world that has these power structures set up,
Speaker 2: so like gender identity and what is what we consider normative,
Speaker 2: A lot of it's about power, Like when the reasons
Speaker 2: our brains are categorizing these things, the stuff that we're
Speaker 2: socialized is socialized into is about competence, power, threat, sexual attraction.
Speaker 2: But all that kind of plays and boils into the
Speaker 2: metal level of power. So I spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time wrestling with that and almost Scorpio. You're a scorpio too.
Speaker 2: There's like this deep need to understand what's happening, which
Speaker 2: I think is part of why we're called ta tantra,
Speaker 2: and so in trying to figure out what's going on
Speaker 2: understanding why I would like cringe at the word fem
Speaker 2: or like this kind of idea of like a woman's circle,
Speaker 2: and how I actually started to realize I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like I fit into those spaces. Yeah, just kind of unfolded,
Speaker 2: and I, in hindsight, my childhood seems so it's like,
Speaker 2: so twenty twenty makes so much sense. And now the
Speaker 2: language is evolving to like include new understandings, and I
Speaker 2: think that that's really the like this stuff has always
Speaker 2: been here, we're just using words that express it. Differently
Speaker 2: and more powerfully.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So expanding expanding our language, and expanding
Speaker 1: our understanding of what it means to be human ultimately,
Speaker 1: and it's many myriad forms, yeah yeah, so exploring all
Speaker 1: of those concepts. So so for you, it sounds like
Speaker 1: as you have been practicing and as you've been like
Speaker 1: coming more into alightnment with your own authentic self, that's
Speaker 1: what has catalyzed your exploration outside of these you know,
Speaker 1: belief structures and these power dynamics and started to explore
Speaker 1: outside of that. And so what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that you've you've you've found now that you've kind
Speaker 1: of left the container of like the traditional masculine feminine
Speaker 1: orientation to tantra, what are some of the things that
Speaker 1: you've seen and in the field and and and you know,
Speaker 1: looking back, like what are some of the things that
Speaker 1: you see? If that's a clear question, I.
Speaker 2: Think, so I'll try and if I don't quite get it,
Speaker 2: we can try again. Some of it is using more
Speaker 2: like whole language. So when someone says the term masculine,
Speaker 2: that's a cultural like da yeah, And I mean I
Speaker 2: love being masculine, right. My association with the word feminine
Speaker 2: is not as loving. And so when I think of
Speaker 2: the things that someone might call feminine, I have a
Speaker 2: very soft side, and I have a very nurturing side,
Speaker 2: and I have a very like that the loving carrying
Speaker 2: the stuff we culturally associate with that. And so some
Speaker 2: of it is just a shift away from these kind
Speaker 2: of umbrella terms that we have used, I mean partially
Speaker 2: because they are useful into more specific and more like
Speaker 2: whole and inclusive language.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that. I hear that a call for
Speaker 1: for for humanity and so specifically I know that, I'll say,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's as we talk about, there's different
Speaker 1: styles of tantra, and there's different ways of practicing tantra,
Speaker 1: and so I observe a lot of the masculine feminine
Speaker 1: dynamic kind of conversation happening in the realm of neo
Speaker 1: Tantra and David Data. It's like as a as a man,
Speaker 1: as a masculine man, you need to be powerful and
Speaker 1: have your polarity, and as a feminine woman, like you
Speaker 1: can't be that good at business. You have to like
Speaker 1: be receptive or you're not going to be a man.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have too much masculine energy to get fucked
Speaker 1: or something like that, right, So that's yeah, i'd not
Speaker 1: crazy making too. And in terms of Tibetan Tnraed Buddhism,
Speaker 1: I know that for me, where my mind goes and
Speaker 1: where the emphasis and the masculine feminine is often is
Speaker 1: on the expression of universal energy. So there's this concept
Speaker 1: in Tibetan Buddhism that the feminine is formed. So that's
Speaker 1: the way like universal energies are are feminine and masculine,
Speaker 1: and so the feminine is the physical, it's the form,
Speaker 1: it's everything having to do with the flesh and the
Speaker 1: senses and being incarnate or environment. And then the masculine
Speaker 1: is conceptual and etheric and you know, kind of out
Speaker 1: of body. And so the whole thing of tntras, you know, balancing.
Speaker 1: We have masculine and feminine within us, and it's balancing
Speaker 1: the essences. There's also you know, things just in terms
Speaker 1: of hormones. I know, in the Daoist tradition and in
Speaker 1: the Tibetan tradition, feminine essences feminine. They're talking about hormones
Speaker 1: and they call them the red essences. And it's like
Speaker 1: the estrogen and the progesterone and certain hormones that are
Speaker 1: specific to female gonads. And then the masculine essences are
Speaker 1: like the semen and the prosthetic fluid and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and the testosterone, and those are masculine because
Speaker 1: those are produced by what are typically called male hormones.
Speaker 1: So in terms of you know, rectifying and having more
Speaker 1: all inclusive legguage, when we're talking about you know, physiological
Speaker 1: components or hormones or universal energies, do we need to
Speaker 1: be looking at using opening up our terminology and describing
Speaker 1: those those things differently without using masculine and feminine or
Speaker 1: are things like when we're describing universal energy, is it
Speaker 1: acceptable under that umbrella?
Speaker 2: Great question, And I'm glad you brought up form and
Speaker 2: energy because that's a that's a big part of energies, right,
Speaker 2: It's like what we're embodying and swaying and changing through
Speaker 2: in terms of that stuff. So I was just reading
Speaker 2: through Passionate Lane. We're talking about the red fluids and
Speaker 2: the white fluids, and one of the things that I've found,
Speaker 2: you know, in my own engagement or like with my consort,
Speaker 2: is that you can embody that energy. Yeah, and you
Speaker 2: can uh, you can embody that energy, and then whatever
Speaker 2: fluids you're producing can be whatever fluids you're infusing them with.
Speaker 2: Energy wise, yes, And so as we move away from
Speaker 2: this idea of like super binary endocrine systems, because as
Speaker 2: we study more about testosterone, we find that different bodies
Speaker 2: that we previously thought would have very specific levels, actually
Speaker 2: it's not as binary, and it's not as clear, especially
Speaker 2: with people from the global self or the periphery, right,
Speaker 2: So making that more inclusive in terms of like what
Speaker 2: are we embodying when we are engaged in sex or
Speaker 2: tantra the partner or by ourselves. Why not make white
Speaker 2: fluid when you're feeling like it? And I think that
Speaker 2: that's a big part of kind of what we might
Speaker 2: get into later about tantra being part kind of a
Speaker 2: counterculture as we like where it came from and how
Speaker 2: it got passed down to like everyday people, that this
Speaker 2: is like an evolution of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're you're exactly correct, and that tantra is
Speaker 1: counterculture like the origins of it. So this whole conversation
Speaker 1: of queering entre is so fucking dondric like, so like
Speaker 1: breaking out of our our conceptual reality, our concept of reality,
Speaker 1: and so so I hear that in terms of like
Speaker 1: that would be a wonderful in my experiment to do.
Speaker 1: In terms of like, you know, if I'm if I'm
Speaker 1: really you know, calling on like typical stereotypical feminine energies,
Speaker 1: is my body producing hormones that are congruent with that,
Speaker 1: And if I shift my energies to be more you know,
Speaker 1: masculine quote unquote masculine oriented, Am I producing more white essences?
Speaker 1: That would be very interesting also when occurs to me,
Speaker 1: that's it seems like a certain level of accomplishment as well. Right,
Speaker 1: and then also there are certain aspects of our physicality
Speaker 1: that that we we don't have control over yet. So
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, conversion not conversion therapy, that's
Speaker 1: a bad thing. In terms of hormones, hormon that's very different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but in terms of like, if I want
Speaker 1: to you know, if I'm transitioning into a man, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take hormones that's that decrease my as you know,
Speaker 1: my my ovary hormones and increase what would be considered
Speaker 1: more male hormones. So on the hormonal level, that is
Speaker 1: still you know, applicable. I think even you know, in
Speaker 1: the trans community, there's acknowledgment that our hormones do affect
Speaker 1: their anatomy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's true, and it's that's such an interesting space.
Speaker 2: It's like blackness is not a monolith. Trans people are
Speaker 2: not a monolith, right. So there's some people that are
Speaker 2: trans and non binary and maybe don't want to take
Speaker 2: hormones but want top surgery, And then there's some people
Speaker 2: that do want to take hormones but don't want top
Speaker 2: surgery or like all kinds of ways of expressing themselves.
Speaker 2: And there's different amounts of physical dysphoria, and that's something
Speaker 2: that very interested in working with people about. My own
Speaker 2: comes in waves, and there's periods where everything's okay and
Speaker 2: this is my body, and then there's periods where it's intolerable.
Speaker 2: And so finding the ways through using this energy and
Speaker 2: sex as medicine like to move that energy through, I
Speaker 2: think is also really important.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that because that is a big issue,
Speaker 1: the body dysphoria, right, and so how do we how
Speaker 1: do we as inclusive providers support trans and queer people
Speaker 1: in doing some of those somatic sexual healing practices and
Speaker 1: approaching you know, the genitals in a way that's going
Speaker 1: to be supportive and loving as opposed to triggering and painful. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's different for each person.
Speaker 2: So much of our programming is like a client guided process. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is even more so, and so it really depends
Speaker 2: on what's tolerable. Some people like having their breast tissue touched,
Speaker 2: and some people that might be a source of dysphoria.
Speaker 2: So for imagining, if there's any source of pleasure in
Speaker 2: that part of the body, can you get at it?
Speaker 2: And if so, can you grow it? And maybe it's
Speaker 2: I want it to be touched this way, but not
Speaker 2: that way. I want you to like, grab my muscle,
Speaker 2: but don't grab the breast tissue, or you can pinch
Speaker 2: the nipple, but don't caress my breasts. Right, So it's
Speaker 2: a lot of that exploration, whether by yourself or with
Speaker 2: a partner, of very similar exploration we do with cisgendered
Speaker 2: people who haven't touched their bodies or don't know what
Speaker 2: they like. It's the same kind of questioning process and
Speaker 2: really making a lot of space and room for whatever
Speaker 2: comes up, right, because we know trauma is stored in
Speaker 2: the body, and especially in the genital tissues and so
Speaker 2: same same kind of like in the genitals, some people
Speaker 2: transmit don't or aren't into penetration and some really are
Speaker 2: and some love it. Yeah, And so finding out whether
Speaker 2: or not that's going to be something that's on the
Speaker 2: table and not assuming starting out with thirty seconds, can
Speaker 2: you touch yourself for thirty seconds and see if something's there?
Speaker 2: Can you see you know? And then moving through that
Speaker 2: really person to person, really gentle, very curious and like
Speaker 2: trying to step back from these so many of them
Speaker 2: are blind spots, I know because of our culture, but
Speaker 2: step back from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and I'm hearing, I'm hearing what an
Speaker 1: incredible opportunity for communication this is and just how slow
Speaker 1: and like really spacious it needs to be to to
Speaker 1: support the individual and having their own wisdom arise to
Speaker 1: communicate what their needs are in regards to this, as
Speaker 1: opposed to us as the practitioners, presuming that we know
Speaker 1: and just kind of shoveling it on them with our
Speaker 1: biases and all of.
Speaker 2: That impact and expecting it to shift. Like when I
Speaker 2: first started working with you, I was in a period
Speaker 2: of time where I really needed some like soft, juicy, feminine.
Speaker 2: I was all into the juicy, and then there there
Speaker 2: came a shift and I was like that, oh interesting,
Speaker 2: that's actually an aspect of this thing. And so like
Speaker 2: making room for it to move. And there is no
Speaker 2: there is no there's no destination. It's just like a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Your pleasure is going to change. You can grow it,
Speaker 2: grow it, grow it, and then something might happen and
Speaker 2: you'll be back to where you you know, it's the
Speaker 2: same same thing.
Speaker 1: So the fluidity and the and the I'm also here,
Speaker 1: the unboundedness.
Speaker 3: And the the the the expectation that as our sexuality,
Speaker 3: as we become more in touch with ourselves, the way
Speaker 3: we express our sexuality is going to evolve and grow
Speaker 3: and change, and sometimes that's going to look like breaking
Speaker 3: the boxes entirely.
Speaker 2: Oh totally. It's so painful.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, tell me about that. What's so
Speaker 1: painful about that?
Speaker 2: Grief? So I've heard grief described as love with nowhere
Speaker 2: to go? Yeah, And when I think of, you know,
Speaker 2: my own experience, this idea of like who I am
Speaker 2: in the world or who I'm how people see me,
Speaker 2: how I've showed up for people? You know how my
Speaker 2: mom asks, can I still call you my daughter?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So there's like all these aspects where it's like, actually,
Speaker 2: I'm grieving this person that I'm not anymore, and that's
Speaker 2: breaking through a box or the it's coming out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's not. It's yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: grief there, and there's aspects of that it's like, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't want to break through all of that.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's this aspect that's still okay in my childhood
Speaker 2: thinks name actually feels okay, but the rest of this doesn't.
Speaker 2: And so like that's that's a heavy process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as you're as you're sharing this, what's coming
Speaker 1: to me is because of like it's it's unfathomable in
Speaker 1: some ways to someone who is who identifies as cysts
Speaker 1: and hat and it's you know, our brains are wired
Speaker 1: in that way. So these beautiful and precious nuances of
Speaker 1: as we are, you know, as you are becoming, as
Speaker 1: you were shedding who you used to be and becoming
Speaker 1: more of who you are now, as you're just grabbing
Speaker 1: that grief in that process of letting go, and just
Speaker 1: how how poignant and precious that is and how tender
Speaker 1: and sacred, quite frank of that space is. And so
Speaker 1: I'm also hearing like the imperative of having having queer
Speaker 1: contra teachers to be able to have the resonance and
Speaker 1: the relatability to be able to hold that space for
Speaker 1: for our students as they go, because it's really a rebirthing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, And people who do hormone replacement therapy
Speaker 2: talk about their second puberty, so yeah, yeah, it is,
Speaker 2: I mean. And interestingly, to draw a parallel, we become
Speaker 2: different people throughout our lives all the time. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: Like you used to be a monk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to be a stripper too. I still
Speaker 1: act like a stripper sometimes.
Speaker 2: How many lives do we have? And so I think
Speaker 2: that one of the as you know, the media doesn't
Speaker 2: we we talked. The media talks a lot about trans
Speaker 2: and queer people, but doesn't engage a ton with trans
Speaker 2: and queer people. And the truth is the experience, not
Speaker 2: the like socialized experience, but the I can only speak
Speaker 2: for myself, but the truth is that experience is like
Speaker 2: very similar to like you know, when I left LA
Speaker 2: I moved to small town Montana. It was a different
Speaker 2: kind of rebirthing. There was a different kind of reef there,
Speaker 2: and this one just happens to be this other avenue
Speaker 2: that people have all these like very socialized, intense normative
Speaker 2: scripts put on us children. But it's an experience I
Speaker 2: think that everybody actually can relate to, and it's not
Speaker 2: as foreign as to set people think or might think
Speaker 2: it is. It's really you know, you're trying something else,
Speaker 2: you're doing something else. Yeah, I think that gets conflated
Speaker 2: and in fear because the passion is real. I don't
Speaker 2: mean to say that this isn't real, right, but like
Speaker 2: muh yeah, the experience, the experience of becoming should be
Speaker 2: familiar to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a human experience, right, Yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: then how can we as practitioners in the field of
Speaker 1: TNDRA who who really who are committed and really want
Speaker 1: to bring healing to all humans in all all expressions
Speaker 1: of humanity? How can we demonstrate and provide and create
Speaker 1: safer space for our queer brothers and sisters and siblings
Speaker 1: and siblings.
Speaker 2: So this is an interesting one. I there's a lot
Speaker 2: of different language out there. I personally have been borrowing
Speaker 2: from kink and using terms of pop and bottom mm hmm,
Speaker 2: to describe who's going to be, you know, sitting on
Speaker 2: someone's lap in the ab young position, or who's receiving
Speaker 2: sensation and you know, a tounch of massage or something
Speaker 2: like that. And then I tend to ask people what
Speaker 2: they prefer to have their genitals called. Yeah, so not
Speaker 2: assuming that somebody likes to have their vulva be called
Speaker 2: the vulva you know in specific medical situations. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: appropriate in uh, some kind of emergent situation, but otherwise,
Speaker 2: it's like there's a whole host of words out there.
Speaker 2: I like to call mine my portal, and uh, what
Speaker 2: else is there? A lot of it really is language.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about masculine and feminine energies. I prefer
Speaker 2: to like just stay away from those terms. And you
Speaker 2: talk about I think you brought up earlier the form
Speaker 2: and energy and like what parts of you are full
Speaker 2: and your energy and what's being expressed like this and
Speaker 2: what's being expressed over here? And like actually, how much
Speaker 2: more how much more space you're talking about expansiveness, how
Speaker 2: much more space? Using like we talk about nonviolent communication
Speaker 2: and using these describing words, these intense like specific nuanced vocabulary,
Speaker 2: more freedom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that, And because it is like really
Speaker 1: drilling down into what it is that you want to describe.
Speaker 1: So in terms circling back to this whole concept of energy,
Speaker 1: feminine energy versus masculine energy, Well, if we take the
Speaker 1: time to really drill down into it, what are we describing?
Speaker 2: So what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: What are we talking about? Yeah, so the active, vital,
Speaker 1: red energy is what comes to mind from me when
Speaker 1: we say, you know, the in Tibetan, when we say
Speaker 1: the feminine energy, it's active, it's vital, its form, it's red.
Speaker 1: And masculine energy is ethic, it's open, it's spacious, it's conceptual.
Speaker 1: So instead of just saying masculine feminine, presuming that people
Speaker 1: know what the fuck I'm talking about, actually describing the energy,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because that's a thing not everybody when saying
Speaker 1: masculine energy, in some traditions, that means the form as
Speaker 1: opposed to being conceptual. Right, So yeah, yeah, I hear that.
Speaker 1: So really, the masculine feminine is really problematic in that
Speaker 1: in that in in in that realm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it can be the other. And
Speaker 2: that's just you know, some people have dysphoria with those words. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but also I think that it speaks to you what
Speaker 2: you're just saying, like, what are we talking about? What
Speaker 2: the fuck are we talking about? The other one? Oh,
Speaker 2: if we are like separating groups of people to share experiences,
Speaker 2: this is a tough one. I think unless there is
Speaker 2: some very extreme traumatic exception that we should not be
Speaker 2: separating people by gender, you know, like having like a
Speaker 2: like a women's sharing circle or a men sharing And
Speaker 2: I don't know how you're doing things now because it's
Speaker 2: been a couple of years since I was in the program.
Speaker 2: If people are still sharing all together, or if there's
Speaker 2: breakout groups that folks separate, but keeping everybody has something
Speaker 2: to learn from everybody. H And so yeah, keeping everybody
Speaker 2: together if they're sharing specific things that maybe some people
Speaker 2: would be like, well, these should be reserved for these
Speaker 2: people with this anatomy, because you know, moving through the
Speaker 2: world as a woman is yeah, under patriarchy different, sure,
Speaker 2: But who does that exclude when we don't make room
Speaker 2: for nuance?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that. So my preference is for everybody
Speaker 1: to share. That's that's always been I hate breaking out
Speaker 1: sometimes we have to, but it's usually I don't recall
Speaker 1: it breaking out based on gender. It's as well teaching pods,
Speaker 1: teaching pods. But my preference is for everyone to all
Speaker 1: be together all the time. And I hear that in
Speaker 1: terms of like I would say, maybe for a public,
Speaker 1: public workshop, and as you pointed, there are specific concerns
Speaker 1: that are you know, specific for let's say cis gender
Speaker 1: heterosexual or we'll just say sitch under mind because they
Speaker 1: may not be heterosexual, things like stemen retention. Right, So
Speaker 1: like having a a cis gender men's group to talk
Speaker 1: about how they work with their penis, right, or maybe
Speaker 1: just having a penis owners group. I think, yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so everyone can engage.
Speaker 2: Totally and being clear about that, right, because it might
Speaker 2: be that the penis owner owner's workshop is open, but
Speaker 2: if there's no other language about being trans inclusive, then
Speaker 2: is a woman who has penis going to show up
Speaker 2: there and want to feel safe? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly, So even in that case, So I
Speaker 1: remember when I when I taught at the Seattle Center
Speaker 1: for Sex Positivity and I was doing a you know,
Speaker 1: a tuntra masturbation for women. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: we were really clear about about or they they really
Speaker 1: wanted me to be clear about, like, okay, so is
Speaker 1: this for cist gender women, is this for all women?
Speaker 1: Like what kind of women are we talking about? And
Speaker 1: they also shared like, if you want it to just
Speaker 1: be for cis gender women, because that's the people that
Speaker 1: you want to talk to, that's great, you know, like,
Speaker 1: just be clear about that so that it's not like
Speaker 1: you're not just erasing that there's women with penises, and
Speaker 1: if it's inclusive for women with penises, then communicate that totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So again I'm hearing really mindfulness and care and examination
Speaker 1: of the language that we use and some of the
Speaker 1: concepts that are conditioned into us by our culture, and
Speaker 1: those those concepts being inadequate to describe the totality of
Speaker 1: our human experience. And so also i'm hearing you also
Speaker 1: mentioned like in workshops or i'm sorry, in teaching clients
Speaker 1: and talking about their genitals. That's very specific. So what
Speaker 1: about in the case of a workshop, if we're in
Speaker 1: a workshop when we've got a mix of cist gender
Speaker 1: people and trans people, and all the trans people in
Speaker 1: the workshop have a different name for their genital anatomy,
Speaker 1: how do we balance the the thoughts, not that you
Speaker 1: have all the answers, but that's about.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, no, what would I do.
Speaker 1: We're just having a conference that we're exploring possibilities here, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and probably we're going to talk about genitals. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's my own resistance is coming up and being like, well,
Speaker 2: would I just use medical terms? Maybe maybe I would
Speaker 2: use you know, a ritchie medical terms, and maybe there
Speaker 2: would be some kind of disclaimer. Yeah. The other thing?
Speaker 2: What was I just thinking? I think some of it
Speaker 2: is just about like relaxing. We talked, you know, like
Speaker 2: when you're we're teaching clients to relax so they're not
Speaker 2: like squeezing as they're about to come. And you're like,
Speaker 2: I think of our under norms and are kind of
Speaker 2: like societal ideas is like, I'm a man, and when
Speaker 2: we like relax out of that rigidity, there's just like
Speaker 2: room for things to expand yes, yes, yes, And so
Speaker 2: I think of like, well what would I Well, maybe
Speaker 2: i'd ask the class. Maybe I would say, hey, we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about this and if it's confusing, we
Speaker 2: can try to clarify and we'll go from here. Yea
Speaker 2: or maybe we'd talk about Oh it's funny. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't ideas of shapes come to mind, Like maybe there's
Speaker 2: a like shapes the class can agree on. But the
Speaker 2: idea there is to play is to find the like
Speaker 2: play inside of like where can we all be? And
Speaker 2: like sex is medicine, sex is fun, Like play is healing,
Speaker 2: and how do we reject they that makes us like
Speaker 2: I don't want to make a mistake or I don't
Speaker 2: want to have used some different language because it's really
Speaker 2: hard for me to understand. It's like, all right, we'll relax.
Speaker 2: No one's stealing anything from you, which is kind of
Speaker 2: a non answer, but.
Speaker 1: You know that's a that's a beautiful answer. And what
Speaker 1: I'm loving also is so we you were you were
Speaker 1: in the anti racism training that we held for the institute,
Speaker 1: and I'm so loving this. You know these anti racist values,
Speaker 1: which is like sometimes we don't know. We don't have
Speaker 1: to show up and know all the answers we create.
Speaker 1: We co created as a collective, we co created as
Speaker 1: a community, So I you know, it would be part
Speaker 1: of the white supremacist ideology for me to walk into
Speaker 1: a room and presume I know what the fuck's can
Speaker 1: happen with a group of twenty people I've never met before,
Speaker 1: I know what all their needs are. Like, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're pointing to you. We can't make assumptions that
Speaker 1: that we have to be present and open and spacious
Speaker 1: and allowing the nuances and the diversity and and the
Speaker 1: variety to emerge. And then as a collective we co
Speaker 1: create how we're going to navigate this space with the
Speaker 1: intention of love and support.
Speaker 2: So the kind of workshop I want to go to,
Speaker 2: not when that's like specifically we're going to, you know,
Speaker 2: say these words, it's like, well, actually everything you just said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually we don't know all the answers, so let's
Speaker 1: co create it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's figure it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And so you also mentioned that you've been
Speaker 1: diving into kink as part of your reclamation journey. So
Speaker 1: where are they? Where are the intersection points that you
Speaker 1: see between tontra and kink, Like, how can how does
Speaker 1: kink cultivate presence and mindfulness and in a similar way
Speaker 1: that tuntra can? And where where are the points of
Speaker 1: connection there?
Speaker 2: I love this question. So my partner is a prodom
Speaker 2: and when we first met, we were both like, oh
Speaker 2: you do that, Oh you do that. Oh no, I
Speaker 2: do that, But we do this differently. A lot of
Speaker 2: the the reason why top and bottom work I think
Speaker 2: really well in TNTRA is that whoever's topping in a
Speaker 2: scene in kink is following the lead generally and is
Speaker 2: given consent and is empowered by the bottom to do
Speaker 2: the things that they're doing. And so you know in tantra,
Speaker 2: if we're going to be giving somebody massage, that the
Speaker 2: person whose genitals are going to be touched is going
Speaker 2: to empower the other person to touch their genitals. And
Speaker 2: that is a process where the person touching them is
Speaker 2: making eye contact with them. That's generally another point I
Speaker 2: think some people who practice different kinds of mediasm sometimes
Speaker 2: they put in their scenes that they you know, you
Speaker 2: don't look at me unless I ask you to. But
Speaker 2: generally you're making eye contact, You're following somebody's breath and
Speaker 2: big time consent and communication.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm hearing that tremendous communication. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And so when I hear that, so it's like the
Speaker 1: bottom is driving. So in the way I think of
Speaker 1: this as a receiver. And so if we're talking about
Speaker 1: giving and receiving. So if I'm receiving a Yoni massage,
Speaker 1: I'm driving, even though it may look like the giver
Speaker 1: is driving, I am actually you know, putting on the brakes,
Speaker 1: saying or pushing on the gas, and giving the communication
Speaker 1: about how fast, how slow, and what the needs are.
Speaker 1: So I'm hearing that in Kank the bottom, the person
Speaker 1: receiving the administration is the one actually driving the car,
Speaker 1: even though it may look like the top is the
Speaker 1: one in control.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, all of the agreements and conversations
Speaker 2: that happen generally, I am practicing. I think you're going
Speaker 2: to negotiate a lot of what happens beforehand. Where Tana,
Speaker 2: there's more of like I'm here and talking with you,
Speaker 2: but not all the time, and sometimes that's different depends
Speaker 2: on who you're playing with and how you're playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to circle back to the body dysphoria
Speaker 1: and finding pleasure. You did such a beautiful job of
Speaker 1: talking about like, is there any pleasure in this space?
Speaker 1: And if so, can we build upon it? But I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit more about approaching that
Speaker 1: in the realm of TNTRA because because that that that's
Speaker 1: a huge huge trauma. It's a huge area of wounding
Speaker 1: and suffering, and so as as practitioners wanting to be
Speaker 1: able to provide safe space for trends and queer people
Speaker 1: to explore this. What are some things that we need
Speaker 1: to know about body dysphoria and how to in your opinion, like,
Speaker 1: what would you have liked to receive if you were
Speaker 1: if you were if you were on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of of a TOUNT instructor from our school, how would
Speaker 1: you like to be held in that space?
Speaker 2: Oh? Interesting? Well my first thought is like I tend
Speaker 2: to call my clip my dick. Yeah, okay, and so
Speaker 2: if it's funny, I'm wearing my big clit energy shirt.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a mirroring that happens there, which
Speaker 2: is what you're talking about relatability earlier and that kind
Speaker 2: of even if someone doesn't understand it, they got to
Speaker 2: get it. Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they gotta feel you, empathy.
Speaker 2: I gotta feel you. Yeah yeah. And then really, I
Speaker 2: think the biggest thing for me is a curiosity and
Speaker 2: really letting that person drive with a little bit of push.
Speaker 2: There's this kind of like, oh, well, maybe you don't
Speaker 2: want to explore penetration. Oh no, every time I try
Speaker 2: to explore penetration, I you know, have a panic attack
Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, well that's that's okay if you
Speaker 2: never explore penetration. Are you okay with that? Do we
Speaker 2: want to like get into radically accepting that? Okay, Once
Speaker 2: you radically accept that, might there be some time in
Speaker 2: the future, like if you're open to it, please, like
Speaker 2: I want to be here if that's something you want
Speaker 2: to explore whenever you're ready. And so really finding the
Speaker 2: line of being like not like are you sure in
Speaker 2: an infantilizing way, but kind of like all right, feel
Speaker 2: into that. Are we okay withdrawing this boundary about you know,
Speaker 2: how you want your penis touched? If you know someone's
Speaker 2: on spiral electone and estradiol and whatever's happening to their
Speaker 2: body is making you know, changes there, and it's a
Speaker 2: big exploration. I think that doing the research about how
Speaker 2: different trans bodies like to fox.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep. And and well you just mentioned the different
Speaker 1: hormones and how they're going to affect sensation. That's a
Speaker 1: huge component of it. I mean we're like hormone factories, right,
Speaker 1: and it impacts everything from mood to thought process to sensation.
Speaker 1: So being educated about about how how those chemicals are
Speaker 1: going to impact our experience of touch, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and to add a personal touch.
Speaker 2: I I tried to stosterone earlier this year. I was very,
Speaker 2: very very excited about it, and it changed my arousal
Speaker 2: process so drastically and so quickly. It was arrifying, and
Speaker 2: I stopped. And that's not everybody's experience. Often hormones balance out.
Speaker 2: But for me, where I was at and still am
Speaker 2: at in my life right now, there's so many other
Speaker 2: things going on, it was like, this is too much.
Speaker 2: This is like straying away from how I understand my
Speaker 2: pleasure and I like need to be grounded in my
Speaker 2: pleasure with all the like stuff happening, Yeah, and so
Speaker 2: being ready to make space for that if that's what
Speaker 2: somebody else is going through too, the like, yeah, how
Speaker 2: do we how do we make room in a changing landscape?
Speaker 2: You know? There's like an interesting parallel I think is menopause,
Speaker 2: And that's where a lot of people get their hormone
Speaker 2: research on estrogen. A lot of like male to female
Speaker 2: transition folks.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, and menopause is a great example. As
Speaker 1: I enter into that myself, I'm shocked. It's like it
Speaker 1: can create brain fog. You forget words like I didn't
Speaker 1: know you can forget like too much read that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's pretty profound the impact that hormones have,
Speaker 1: so being really mindful, uh, for all of us. The
Speaker 1: more we talk about, the more I just hear is
Speaker 1: like again, it's human and just just opening that extra
Speaker 1: not even extra, opening that other pedal. And I think
Speaker 1: of like our human consciousness as a lotus, right, so oh,
Speaker 1: here's another pedal to open here, here's here's another area
Speaker 1: to explore and be be more aware of and have
Speaker 1: compassion and grace and mindfulness and love and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: this conversation is about how can we be more full
Speaker 1: of human to more humans?
Speaker 2: Totally totally yeah. And I think the other thing is
Speaker 2: some people get their first t shot and it's the
Speaker 2: greatest change that's ever happened in their life and they
Speaker 2: never saw yeah hanging for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, all them mean, yeah.
Speaker 2: The frenzy that might happen there or yeah or otherwise.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The myriad of different experiences that we may have is
Speaker 1: unique human beings so then your work you are you
Speaker 1: are making a choice to focus on queering contra What
Speaker 1: is it? What does that mean? How is that going
Speaker 1: to look in the world?
Speaker 2: I hope, I know You're called creating it exactly. And
Speaker 2: that's that's been so much of this experience. The majority
Speaker 2: of the clients that I've seen since graduating have ended
Speaker 2: up being queer. I'm in the Pacific Northwest and around
Speaker 2: the Seattle area, so it makes sense queer and polly
Speaker 2: and generally kinky as well, so it like really helps
Speaker 2: that whole framework. I think it's just going to be
Speaker 2: a pretty soft launch, but into really like the stuff
Speaker 2: we talked about with with tantra form and energy and
Speaker 2: and and moving away from very binary language. And there's
Speaker 2: that quote by Belle Hooks that I love. Uh. She
Speaker 2: says something like, not queer as in who I'm having
Speaker 2: sex with, but that could be a dimension of it,
Speaker 2: but queer as in going against everything that like basically
Speaker 2: society is and finding a place to thrive and something
Speaker 2: to create out of that. And that's really what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to do. It'd be great to end up with
Speaker 2: like a queer to community of folks who want to
Speaker 2: meditate and turn ourselves into green Tara and white chin
Speaker 2: Razik and uh and masturbate and like yeah, I mean right,
Speaker 2: and then like maybe hit each other sometimes always yeah,
Speaker 2: doing that. And then I've also talked to my partner
Speaker 2: who has over a decade of kink experience, and we
Speaker 2: are talking about potentially launching workshops that have kind of
Speaker 2: a blending because he's learned so much from me and
Speaker 2: I've learned so much from him, like bringing you know,
Speaker 2: the best of to ask how there's a crossover, but
Speaker 2: there's a couple of places missing where I think the
Speaker 2: two just really beautifully hold space for each other and
Speaker 2: that there's a lot when taught together that they can
Speaker 2: unlock that maybe one or the other might not be
Speaker 2: the whole prescription for somebody.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well you mentioned something about how BDSM can
Speaker 1: bring that crystal clarity versus open spaciousness. What my interpretation
Speaker 1: of that is that sometimes the chakra pain can get
Speaker 1: you present in a way that just wrestling in meditation
Speaker 1: is yeah, so fast.
Speaker 2: And then the one of the differences there then is
Speaker 2: like then you might need space for something else to arise,
Speaker 2: whereas like if you're in a king scene and you're
Speaker 2: getting it repeatedly. Generally we're trying to do is have
Speaker 2: the emotional release. What we're trying to do in tandra
Speaker 2: is get down or what's happening like that, And those
Speaker 2: can be two totally separate avenues.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, one is very active, it sounds like, and
Speaker 1: the other is more just relaxing into a receptive or Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a different, different movement of energy, is what I'm sensing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the coolest part and this is like one
Speaker 2: of the things I think I learned from you early on.
Speaker 2: We were talking about different ways of masturbating or doing
Speaker 2: an oyp am. I going to do masturbation the way
Speaker 2: I used to do it, and you would say, just
Speaker 2: don't combine them, and so my, uh, you can combine
Speaker 2: kink in tantra. I want to be clear. But what
Speaker 2: I what I what I think of there is this
Speaker 2: idea of I'd like, yes, yes, so like you're going
Speaker 2: to choose sunch, you're gonna choose cank, or you're gonna
Speaker 2: choose them both together. You're gonna choose an avenue tonight
Speaker 2: to look at your genital tissue. Which avenue are you
Speaker 2: going to choose? And what is your attention and then
Speaker 2: do your own science. It's all right now, what happened
Speaker 2: to your experiment? And try something else next time, or
Speaker 2: try the same thing if.
Speaker 1: You like to, Yes, exactly. Yeah, and I love that
Speaker 1: perspective of being a researcher.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We're explorers and what we're exploring is territory that our
Speaker 1: society tells us we're not allowed to explore, which is
Speaker 1: our fucking genitals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excuse me, I reject that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't reject that. Yea awesome. Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much TK for this beautiful conversation. How can people get
Speaker 1: ahold of a hold of you and find out more
Speaker 1: about your work and sign up for working with you?
Speaker 2: Woo. My website is Queering Tantra dot o RG. I'm
Speaker 2: on Instagram at Queering Underscore tntra and that's really it.
Speaker 2: The website's got a couple of blog posts on it.
Speaker 2: My instagram is getting fired up and run in here,
Speaker 2: and there's a place on there people can sign up
Speaker 2: for what I think is going to be a bi
Speaker 2: monthly newsletter. Yeah, beautiful are consultation on there, so you
Speaker 2: can fill out a form and tell me some stuff
Speaker 2: about yourself and then I'll hit you back and we
Speaker 2: can see if we're a good fit to work together.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, So we will put all those wonderful links below
Speaker 1: this video and podcast and blog and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: so you can reach out to TK and connect with
Speaker 1: them to work with in queering TNDRA, embracing TNTRA as
Speaker 1: a queer person with a guidance and support of an expert.
Speaker 1: The thing about expert doi do you want to qualify
Speaker 1: that word?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: To me, expert doesn't mean that we're done. To me,
Speaker 1: expert means that we've put in the work, We've cultivated
Speaker 1: a level of mastery and expertise, and that we continue
Speaker 1: to grow and evolve in in that mastery and in
Speaker 1: the expertise. So it doesn't mean that we're done. It
Speaker 1: means that we It's just an honoring of of of
Speaker 1: the work that we've put in up into the journey
Speaker 1: so far, on the journey so far, and that we
Speaker 1: have accumulated quite a bit of wisdom as a result
Speaker 1: of that. So that's what I mean by the word expert.
Speaker 1: You have expertise in this field and you've been practicing
Speaker 1: for five years, and yeah, can provide a layer and
Speaker 1: level of support that's unique and important. Yeah, yeah, yay.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much TK for joining us this evening.
Speaker 1: Thank you audience for tuning in. I hope this was
Speaker 1: enriching and delicious for you. So for any of our
Speaker 1: queer and non binary folks who would like to learn
Speaker 1: Authentic Contra under the guidance of another as a fellow
Speaker 1: queer sibling, you can find TK at queeringtontra dot org
Speaker 1: and again we will put the link under this video
Speaker 1: and you can stay connected to us and TK at
Speaker 1: Authentic tntra dot com and tune in next next week
Speaker 1: for another wonderful episode. We got two more until we
Speaker 1: go on break for the winter, in which you get
Speaker 1: to listen to a lot of wonderful replays. So make
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe to Sex's Medicine on YouTube, tune ins, iTunes,
Speaker 1: all the wonderful channels Spotify, and we will see you
Speaker 1: next week. Have a beautiful You've been listening to Sex's
Speaker 1: Medicine with Davy ward ericson your number one resource for
Speaker 1: holistic sex education. You can listen to and subscribe to
Speaker 1: Sex's Medicine on Spotify, Stitcher, tune in, iTunes, iHeartRadio, and
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Speaker 1: with me and my guests on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
Speaker 1: at authentic Contra. And learn how you can use tntra
Speaker 1: as medicine to heal, awaken, and empower every area of
Speaker 1: your life at authentic tontra dot com. Make sure to
Speaker 1: tune in to Sex's Medicine every Thursday at seven pm Pacific.
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Speaker 1: forward to you joining us next week for another episode
Speaker 1: of Sex Is Medicine with Davey bournem