Something Positive for Positive People

One of my favorite people I've yet to meet in real life, Christie Federico, Sexuality & Soul Alignment Coach joins SPFPP for a very lighthearted, fun conversation about self-worth. Applied to dating, it is important to know who you are, what's important to you, and have ways to identify if what's important to you is also important to prospective partners. Get this dating advice from a dating coach and if you're someone who'd like support in your dating life, don't hesitate to reach out to Christie about coaching! About Christie: Christie Federico, M.Ed., is a Relationship + Sexual Empowerment Coach. She works with individuals and groups, helping them feel confident and fully expressed in their bodies, sexualities, and entire lives. Christie empowers her clients to align all aspects of their lives with their authentic selves so they can lead a life of meaning, deep connection, pleasure, and fulfillment. visit www.christiefederico.com and follow her on Instagram @christiefederico If you have the means and want to support what we're doing at SPFPP, visit www.spfpp.org and consider donating what you can to help us continue to expand. Stay Sex Positive!

So what do my ex’s have to do with this? Literally everything. I had this EXperience with anxiety, I EXplored the behavior and emotions behind them. Through this came a need to EXpress which I was not healthily doing before due to the lack of awareness. I took different action through that anxiety and used it as fuel for expression. Communicating this was challenging at first but the confidence that followed allowed me to share or EXchange with others in a vulnerable fashion which led to further EXpansion of my own perspective. What do your Ex's have to teach you? Do we have the same ones making us EX-kimo siblings? haha that was a reach! Stay Sex Positive!

I interview Soraia Papaya, who uses she/they pronouns. Whenever I go into an interview, I set the standard that I would probably say the wrong thing or ask a ridiculous question. Fortunately everyone so far has been cool in correcting me. I asked about their use of she/they pronouns, some stereotypes within stereotypes around bisexuality such as this inherent belief of hyper promiscuity, inherent nonmonogamy, and association with transphobia which was completely new to me. We talk about this bi erasure through a push toward pansexuality in order to not exclude trans folx. There’s also this idea that bisexual people aren’t sure of their sexuality, and Soraia talks through her own experiences facing some of these stereotypes on Episode 87 of Something Positive for Positive People. I’d say until recent conversations, I’ve shared some beliefs in some misconceptions as well. The thing about assumptions is that we’re either so confident in them that they don’t come up, or they don’t come up because we fear receiving a negative response from the person we ask. It can almost be perceived as a form of rejection if we approach it from a right/wrong standpoint. It’s about allowing ourselves to be redirected so that we can be more connected. In being able to speak with Soraia and sharing it on SPFPP, I hope you’re able to challenge your own assumptions and allow for deeper, more evolved connections to take place in your life. Find me at www.spfpp.org because that’s an expensive website and we need the traffic lol. Stay Sex Positive! Soraia can be found on Instagram @transformativesexologist Mentioned resources from this episode: “Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution” by Shiri Eisner

Ella Dawson, known for her TEDx Talk titled 'STIs aren't a consequence. They're inevitable' which has received more than 500k views, steps out of retirement from herpes activism to share her experience as an activist. We talk about setting boundaries, dating sites, ways to avoid burnout during activism. This is encouragement not just for the herpes activists because it relates to all activism.

How could Disney have made someone kinky? Should you disclose your herpes status in kink scenes? How do you know if you’re kinky? What’s the difference between being dominant and abusive? How does being kinky help you in business? The answer is to listen to episode 85 of Something Positive for Positive People! Veronica Yanhs, a multi-passionate Kink & BDSM Educator breaks down all these for us in this episode. During our chat, we uncover my own personal beliefs about kink and what dominance and submission have looked like in past relationships. I’ve always felt a certain pull toward dominance, because that’s where my arousal leads me. Thing is, there’s a guilt there that created a resistance to naturally falling into what feels right for me and brings me the most pleasure. Veronica’s words opened that up for me to begin to challenge my beliefs and begin to heal that wound by going in and reshaping the story with the truth. So I’m on that journey. After hearing this episode, what journey will you be on? Let me know what ya’ll think of the website www.spfpp.org and let me know if you have any feedback. I’m on social media @HOnMyChest Considering exploring Dominant/Submissive kink dynamic? Click Here to join the waiting list for the book for beginners & starter pack! About Veronica - Veronica is a multi-passionate entrepreneur on a mission to strip people bare—of the expectations and limiting beliefs that do not serve them—so they can thrive unapologetically exactly as they are. From systems to spankings, she emboldens womxn to leverage their pleasure and power in business and the bedroom with Business Laid Bare (systems for creatives and entrepreneurs that scale and save their sanity) and Desires Laid Bare (kink education for beginners in a fun and shame-free way). She gets all hot and bothered by diligent process, thoughtful protocols, and high-quality service: from the spreadsheets to the bedsheets. Website: www.veronicayanhs.com Instagram: @veronicayanhs Email: hey@belaidbare.com Book: https://www.desireslaidbare.com/ds-guide-waitlist/

Billy dated his partner for 7 months before they became aware of his positive HIV status. Billy's story shows what it really means to support a partner during a challenging time in their life. While he has not tested positive for HIV himself, the perspective Billy has is one from seeing how a partner's internalization of a positive diagnosis can effect everything around us. This is a damn good episode to listen to if you are considering dating someone with a positive STI status and if you're someone who is positive but you can't get over the fact that you may expose your partner to your condition. This discordant conversation has come up often recently in DMs and this story is a REAL instance of what it can look like when a person literally forces another away due to their own feelings about their positive diagnosis. Oh and SVAKOM was kind enough to offer us a huge discount on their pleasure toys! Visit www.svakom.net and select your items. When you get to checkout, use the promo code +people (plus sign people all one word) to get 40% off your purchase! Cearra and I are fans of this pleasure toy company and appreciate the recommendation from Instagram's S.xuallectual who introduced us to this company's products. Check out the website! It's live! www.spfpp.org Working on language but I'm so pumped to have this up it doesn't even matter ha! Billy can be found on Instagram for more sex ed and STI facts in their Facebook stories: @billyroyperez and @svakomusa Connect with me through the website www.spfpp.org Stay Sex Positive!

Lindsey informs us about another common virus in the herpes family, cytomegalovirus defined by the CDC as: Cytomegalovirus (pronounced sy-toe-MEG-a-low-vy-rus), or CMV, is a common virus that infects people of all ages. Over half of adults by age 40 have been infected with CMV. Once CMV is in a person’s body, it stays there for life and can reactivate. Most people infected with CMV show no signs or symptoms. However, CMV infection can cause serious health problems for people with weakened immune systems and for unborn babies https://www.cdc.gov/cmv/index.html Given the political climate we're in right now where reproductive rights are being restricted, the timeliness of this episode is important for a number of reasons. Lindsey shares her experience through her pregnancy where she finds out after alerting the doctor that she knew something wasn't right with her body repeatedly and then being dismissed, only to find out later that at some point she had been exposed to CMV during her pregnancy. Lindsey found out about this several weeks into the pregnancy and was given the information on what the baby's life could look like if she chose to go through with birthing the child. She was informed about the child's potential disabilities and challenges it would face IF it would not be stillborn. Lindsey was given a choice and made the choice that she felt was best for her. For more information on CMV please visit www.nationalcmv.org If you'd like to purchase a SPFPP t-shirt to support the nonprofit, Something Positive for Positive People, please let me know and we can figure out how to get that to you. They are $25. I'll make a real announcement once the website goes live. I'm on social media at HOnMyChest. Stay Sex Positive!

If you are curious about non monogamy or interested in opening your relationship, I encourage you to consider checking out this podcast episode. Dr. Stephanie K. Webb teaches an online course you can sign up for at www.unscriptedrelationships.com that is an introduction to opening up your relationship. I enjoyed this course as it is hands on and there's a workbook that helps you put what you're hearing to paper which allows you to challenge beliefs you may have had before. Dr. Stephanie defines cheating for us. I have always thought people who were non monogamous couldn't cheat because their partners knew they were involved with other people. Dr. Stephanie corrected me on that one real quick haha. We also talk about love in comparison to commitment, rules in comparison to boundaries, compulsory monogamy and ethical monogamy and I did my best to keep this around 1 hour for everyone to make it through. Depending on the feedback, we may be able to convince Dr. Stephanie to come back for a part 2. Let us know what you think. Please leave a rating and review for this episode and share with your frans! This was great! About Dr. Stephanie:https://www.unscriptedrelationships.com/about-me Follow Dr. Stephanie on Instagram @Unscriptedrelationships I'm on social media @HOnMyChest Also we have $25 t-shirts. The money that comes in will go toward development for the nonprofit functions of Something Positive for Positive People. For more details just contact me on social media or email me: courtneywbrame@gmail.com Stay Sex Positive!

There’s a range of emotions that come with dating. While it starts often with physical attraction, it’s common to decide to look at the more important things once the person has you by the eyes. From there, you choose to have a written exchange if you’re on a dating site like Dating Positives, or a verbal exchange if you’re in a social setting. From there you’re deciding whether or not this person is compatible with you. What’s amazing about this process is that you are naturally empowered as the chooser. “Are they a fit for me?” is the question we’re answering during the exchange with the potential partner. By the end of the exchange, we know if we want another one or if there’s no need for doing it again. If not, we move on and repeat this process with the next potential partner. And then there’s those of us who can’t relate to the luxury of being able to decide based on appearance if someone is a fit for us. Physical attraction, conversation, lifestyle, etc. tends to carry a much lighter load when you seek partners based on whether or not you’re a fit for them. I struggled with this after my positive herpes diagnosis for years. I began to look at prospective partners based on how they viewed me. Am I a right fit for you? What can I do to be a better fit? And then there was always the lingering covert expectation of “if I’m everything else they need in a partner, then they won’t mind that I have herpes”. Where did these thoughts come from between the time I likely contracted herpes and when I actually found out I had herpes? Nothing changed except for the fact that I was now aware of something that just lived in my body. I let its coming out of hiding completely change the way I did dating and relationships. I found someone who was able to elaborate almost parallel to my experience around this time and decided to have a conversation with her on the Something Positive for Positive People Podcast where I interviewed her about dating with herpes. Our guest for this episode talks about making dating decisions from this space of being chosen rather than being the chooser and just how it can mess with your head to have to potentially deal with that rejection, especially in a casual dating environment. Living in Bali, she shares the experiences she’s had disclosing her positive status to partners and the various responses she’s gotten from partners still not wanting to use condoms, changing their mind from accepting her status to not accepting it, the importance of disclosing to casual partners or not disclosing, and then of course being flat out rejected. Check out this episode to hear about Adrienne’s experience casual dating and disclosing and not disclosing to partners in this casual atmosphere. What we learned from these experiences and what her audience on Instagram surprisingly thinks about whether or not to disclose to casual sexual partners. About the guest: Adrienne Rommel, is a Certified Nutritional Practitioner, Yoga Teacher and Mindfulness Coach from Toronto, Canada has a passion for women’s sexual health and wellness. As a 37-year young woman, she’s struggled with her own Yoni and sexual health issues since she was a teenager. For her, it was the lack of sexual education and increased antibiotic use as a child, long-term birth control pill use, lack of STI awareness, bad diet, high stress lifestyle and unresolved emotional trauma that contributed to her own personal sexual health issues. Having struggled with her own sexual health for half her life, she’s lived with HSV-2 genitally for 16 years and is prone to yeast infections, but has healed herself through diet and natural holistic wellness and healing practices. Experiencing it first-hand and having the knowledge as a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, she helps women who are struggling with their own personal Yoni and sexual health issues, heal their bodies and Yoni’s from the inside out, just like she healed her own. She is also a new member of the Herpes Activist Network Dismantling Stigma, HANDS! Adrienne can be connected with on: Instagram, Facebook, Youtube @YoniNutritionist and her website is www.yoninutritionist.com Support the show by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/spfpp If you like this episode please like, rate, review and share this podcast! I’m on social media @HOnMyChest! Stay sex positive!

Johana Dominguez teaches us that while it could always be worse, things ALWAYS can be better. Living 8 years with genital HSV taught her to shift that negative self talk. Below are some great takeaways from this SPFPP episode - There's always someone there to support you - We are in control of what happens within us - Say it until you believe it and absorb relative content the person you want to be would take in - It's easier to share your status to infinite strangers than to loved ones - Her only regret is not having told her family sooner - Distractions in relationships Johana can be found on: Instagram @IAmCoachJo Facebook: Johana Dominguez Coaching Website: www.johanadominguez.com The Patreon Page is live if you want to support the show financially: patreon.com/spfpp and if you'd rather support another way, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. I can be found on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit @HOnMyChest (H-ON-MY-CHEST is the pronunciation) Stay Sex Positive!