Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Support for today's podcast comes from Cricket Wireless. Are you looking for a way to in summer on a high note, They've got just the thing. Get ready for unlimited smiles, unlimited times. For get four lines of unlimited data for a hundred dollars a month. Please note that Cricket corey is required on four lines. Data speed limited to three megabits per second. Cricket may slow data speeds when the network is busy. Additional fees, usage and restrictions apply. Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session one seventy four of the Therapy for Black Girls podcasts. All month long, we've been having conversations on our social media channels to celebrate sex positivity in an effort to normalize conversations about sexuality and pleasure, and we're camping this month off with our sex Positive September celebration this coming Friday night, we'll be joined by some of your favorite guests from the podcast and other special guests for some fun and conversations about things like exploring your kinks, how colorism might be impacting your orgasms, and how to feel more affirmed and exploring pleasure. Grab your tickets to join us at sex Positive September dot com. And in line with that event coming up this week, today, we have an amazing guest joining us to talk about how we can engage in more sex positive thinking throughout our lives. Today we're joined by Tanya Bass, also known as the Southern Sexologists. Tanya is the founder of the North Carolina Sexual Health Conference in ce sex Con, which is North Carolina's only conference that provides opportunities for agencies and individuals to share information, strategies, and best practices around sexual health across the lifespan. Tanya is committed to increasing health equity and is pursuing her PhD at Widener University in human sexuality studies. Tanya and I chatted about some of the lesser known areas of sex should be, exploring what it means to be a sexual or a romantic, how to discuss your sexual health history with a partner, and she shares some of her favorite resources for anyone who wants to dig in more. If something really resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in Session. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Tanya, thank you. I'm excited and glad to be here. Yeah. So you are affectionately known as the Southern Sex Ologies. Yes, that's like my brand name and I love it. It took me a few years to develop it and decide on it, actually based on some of the ideas around being a Southerner and what that looks like. And I'm originally from Brooklyn, but my family is from North Carolina, so it was also like, it's this part of my identity. And I've said, I think, yes, I've been living here long enough, I'm definitely into that. And so I started by work actually from a prevention lens and sexuality look doing work around HIV S, c I information and education. And then literally I remember the year in two thousand and three I finished my masters and I started working on a project for persons living with HIV and AIDS to talk about intimacy and sensuality and disclosing realizing, you know, just because you have a diagnosis of conditions such as HIV or AIDS doesn't mean you stop being a sexual being. And so like all my world's collided because here I was challenging aspects of my prevention side with aspects around holistic approach to sexuality, and so fast forward just adopted the name Southern Sexologists when I fully committed to doing work that was more sex positive and embracing sexuality throughout the lifespan. M hmmm. So that's a really interesting point that you bring up, just the idea of even talk think about sex as a Southerner, right, And you know, I think that the discussion around sex and sexuality can be difficult for lots of different people, but it definitely feels like there's something about being in the South that makes it even more taboo. Can you talk a little about that absolutely, you know. So my family is originally from eastern North Carolina. That's where our family roots are, and so we have been challenged both in my immediate family and then cousins around talking about sex sexuality growing up in a Christian household, Like I literally walked to church when I moved to North Carolina. That's how the churches across the street from my house. And while I appreciate some of the values and the impact that my church and my religion had all my life, it was also some of the ways that I was challenged in my own worldview around sex and sexuality. And even though I didn't have words for it at a young age, some things that I would hear wouldn't feel right in my body, and it just made me feel sad, and I didn't know why until later. And so in my family again, we had a person's family members cousins who passed away from HIV and AIDS in the eighties and the nineties, and no one will talk about it. It was just so taboo, and it's kind of like once you put two and two together, you realize what was happening, and then when you try to talk to somebody about it, they wouldn't want to talk to you about it, even as a professional. So to this day, there's two people who passed away in my family that a subset of my family will not talk about the cause of their death. M m m m m m m m. Yeah. So it definitely does feel like some of those kind of religious backgrounds intertwined with these conversations that even makes it more difficult to discuss. And I think religion is a core element of herself, and I think there's a lot of historical aspects of like why is that even true? But then I also think about when I say Southern, they are kind of like that idea of prim and properness and what you should be talking like what are the words that are coming out of your mouth in public? So what are the topics that are appropriate to be talking about, whether it's in school or church or even in your home in front of other people who aren't your immediate family. Mm hmmm. Very good point. And that kind of reminds me of something you said earlier, just the idea of a more holistic approach to sex education. So can you talk a little bit about that, right, So, the way I look at it and there's a model entitled the Circles of Sexuality. It was made most famous by Dr Dennis Daley, but he wasn't the originator of this model. And some people don't like it, but I think it's a good way to start and I like to use it when I'm teaching, and for myself, is that you know, we are sexual beings across different aspects, and this model has five areas which include sensuality, intimacy, sexual and reproductive health, sexualization, and then sexual identity. And I think as we go through our lives and through development, we probably get the most information on sexual health and reproduction. And even that has its limitations. You know, you might learn about body parts and birth control and that s t I prevention, etcetera. You know, it's kind of confined there. But all the time we don't talk about how our senses bring us pleasure. You know, like when you taste something really good. And I love when people say something is better than sex, because honestly it might be for them, but you know, something tastes so good it brings you so much pleasure, or hearing something that can resonate and make you feel good. So ultimately we have to look at sex from those different areas, so including our senses. Another area I don't think we talk about is intimacy. I often ask my class like, how do you think somebody might get catfish? And they're like, I can't believe that someone would fall for that. But we don't really talk about the desire that people have for intimacy, and not just physical intimacy like that, just a connection with your friends, with your family. The reason why so many people are like glued to even social media now is because they're not able to physically be with folks, but they can connect socially and have intimate conversations even on social media. And then sexualization we probably talk about that next after sexual and reproductive health, because we do want to protect each other, especially children from predators, etcetera. And we tend to always talk about sexualization too from that negative side of like sexual assault, sexual abuse. But there's some good sides to it, like like flirting and you know, just using power dynamics in your intimate partner relationships. So I love that model. I know they're probably are other models out there, but I think it helps us look at it from the time we're born until the time we die, we're sexual beings and that's the wholeness of us. Okay, So I think you cover four the circles was their fifth one? Oh oh? The fifth one is important to the sexual identity because I think that's that's the one that says who am I? How do I show up? How do I want to be seen or perceived? And how? And things we can't control is how do people see and perceive us? So like our expression sexual identity, So not to go on so much. I think about you asking me about southern roots. So when I think about sexual identity. So I'm old school. And when I was in college, it was like boys to men era and I had like baggy pants. I literally went into the air Quotations men's department and purchased ties on cells and button downs, and I wore baseball caps. And I remember going home on one of our college breaks and one of my classmates friends was like, why do you always wear those ball caps? You better not come home again after being in college. We're in a ball cap, and I was thinking, why didn't you like what I have on? But she was really addressing my gender identity and my gender expression, because for her, I was presenting in a masculine way. You know, a young ladyshipn't just like that. So she actually came for me during that time, and it's stuck with me about if we believe in the binary or subscribe to that. It's kind of like maleness and femaleness and how you show up in the world. You get to choose that, you get to you get to express yourself the way you want to express yourself. Mm hmmm, yeah, I appreciate you sharing this model. So this is not a model that I was familiar with, and I agree, it definitely sounds like it's a good place to start. And I'm wondering if you have some thoughts about how we can maybe start with these circles and like what kinds of things we should be thinking about, or even what kinds of things we should be talking with little people about, just in terms of like beginning to embrace all of these different circles related to our you know, pleasure and sexuality, right, and the circles, if you think about the model, they're not just like single circles, you know, outside of their own they kind of overlap each other. And so I think talking with young people I had to pick three, I probably would go sexual and productive health, probably intimacy and sensuality I would like to talk about. You know, one of my colleagues uses a difference between some tickling like playing being able to play touch with somebody, but then what is considered inappropriate touch or touch without your consent. So I think understanding that some touch is gonna feel good to you even if you don't want to, even if you don't want to be tickled, you still might laugh because it felt good or it made you laugh, but you didn't consent to it, you didn't want to be tickled. Like understanding those boundaries and also understanding what it means to feel good. So if you get this ice cream I love ice cream, and just think about, like how good it feels to get a cone or a cup of ice cream that tastes really good and the joy that it brings. You don't have to tell your child, oh, this is sexual pleasure. We could say, yes, it's pleasure. You like ice cream, you really like ice cream, and have conversations about what else do you like, so that they can start thinking about what they like at young ages, so that when you get into these intimate relationships, you don't have to sit down and just say mm, what do I like or why don't I like that? Like you can have that dialogue already, and then of course knowing proper terms for your body parts and being able to articulate that at a young age as a protective factor and to help with conversations later on with your parents or whatever in nurturing environment that you're in. So when you are working with clients, and tell you do you primarily do more kind of speaking to large groups. So you work with like individuals or couples. Tell me a little bit more about like how you work. So I primarily do large groups, whether they're sexual health professionals themselves or aspiring to be college students. Also faith community like congregants and different religious groups around the area, primarily Christian for for my work in my perspective, so I do a lot of large groups or at least when I say large, like more than at least ten people or something like that. I have done someone on one counseling. So I applaud therapists. I just don't believe I have the capacity to do that because I'm such an impact like I want to fix everything and cry with you and all of that, but I feel like I can do good at counseling, so I have some counseling certification specifically around HIV too, so I'm able to do that. So I do someone on one but mainly large groups. Got it? And where do you typically start with that work? Like? What do you feel like it's foundational to know when you're working with like a large group. I think that you have to know thyself. I'm doing my research on comfort and capability with community based sexuality educators, Like, in order for you to do this well, and even if you're not degree like whoever you are, if this is a conversation you want to have with folks, you have to be comfortable and who you are and also know that there's some blind spots within yourself. So somebody could say, like I used to think no one can say anything because I've seen it all, heard it all, said it all, and then you have that moment where you're like, oh, but that was that through me for a loop. So I think being able to know who you are in your own sexual being nous is important. You don't have to share that with folks, but be comfortable and who you are mm hmm. Got you. So is there a spectrum as it relates to sexual health or sexuality that is healthy versus unhealthy or do we not want to look at things related to sexuality as unhealthy. A lot of people are in the viewpoint of not necessarily unhealthy. And I even we even play around with like what's safe right and safer And it's challenging because I'm from the thought of just let people be, with the exception of causing unwell to harm to someone else, harming children, you know, anything that doesn't involve consent, I think can be healthy. Like there's some things you just like, you just want, and then there are other things that you might be willing to compromise and try just out of curiosity. I think when it thinks about healthy, when it's causing yourself or somebody else unwanted harm. Got you? Got you? That makes sense? Yeah? But I mean because you know, if we think about like just the history of you know, mental health diagnosis and like things that have been deemed quote unquote unhealthy or abnormal, we know that where we were as a field even twenty thirty years ago, is not where we are at today, right, And so I do think it's important to not kind of demonize or you know, make something seem abnormal simply because it's what someone enjoys. But you know, barring the exceptions that you've listed, yeahly, So something else that I think that we don't talk enough about, or people who may be identify as a sexual or a romantic. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah. So it's interesting that you bring up because when we when I'm teaching especially, and folks are talking about just overall sexual identity and what that includes. So that includes your attraction, how you identify maybe if you use the term orientation, etcetera. And so even when we're talking about orientation and using acronyms like l G, B, T Q I A, and then everybody's like, what's the A? And you know, and then some folks will say ally and other folks will say a sexual and then that piques another level of curiosity. And so I think with a sexuality, it's something that I think has gotten more attention and I want to believe, although I have no research to confirm this, that it's allowing people a little bit of affirmation of why they might not have been attracted to someone in a certain way while they're other people have been, if that makes sense, Like sometimes you just wonder what's wrong with you or what's going on because it seems like you're different than everyone else. And I think having conversations about a sexuality is important, and even a romantic So not having that romantic attraction to other folks. I'm gonna use this because I don't know if we can say it, but you can tell me. And that one of my former students just posted about Girlfriends, so you know, Girlfriends is on Netflix right now, and so they posted about Lynn and William started having sex, and they were just like, I just wish that never happened. Although I remember well maybe one episode where it got complicated. For the most part, it was kind of like neither one of them were romantically attracted to each other, but they were fulfilling sexual needs that we have as human beings for one another. And I know other folks may say, well, that crosses a lot of our friendship, but there were two consisting adults and they were getting parts of their sexual needs met without a romantic attraction to one another. And I think that also is something people didn't see in the story because it just seemed like there was more a line of the friends with benefits than it was about Lynn and William getting their sexual needs met in that capacity. And you are seeing those as two different things, because I think that's how I would have thought about it too, as it like a friends with benefits. Yeah, I'm saying those as two different things only because there's an opportunity for romantic attraction. In my mind with friends with benefits, some people do come to an agreement, but I feel like Len and William had a clear agreement that sometimes friends with benefits have too many unspoken rules. M Yeah, I definitely would agree with that when we've talked about that on the podcast. You like how to assess whether that is something that you really want to get involved in, and like knowing all the benefits and the risk that you're taking in a relationship like that, right, Yeah. Yeah, I had forgotten that William and Lynn slept together, And now I'm still in the middle of my rewatch, but I'm trying to think about, like, how was that handled when William and Jones started dating. I don't remember if there was any conversation about the fact that William and Lynn had been together and I'm not sure I had to now I have to go back, yeah, because I don't know. Wasn't public among the friend group that William and Lynn were getting together now that I can't remember, But I feel like at least Maya knew. I feel like Maya knew, and I can't remember why or how she might have found out because I feel like I think she used to say like somebody was nasty, like, so I feel like Maya did say that quite a lot. Yeah, So stay tuned for the answer to these questions after we finished rewatching exactly. So. You talked earlier, Tanya about like the important to be even talking to young people about like enjoying things like ice cream and you know, that kind of thing. But I'm wondering, as we grow up, are there other things that we need to think about that what helps to create an environment for positive sexual experiences and pleasure. I do I think that we need to think about. And I'm just really about introspection and reflection, So thinking about why you might not like a certain thing or why you're a desirous of something and being able to articulate. I know, in my at least small circle of even friends and colleagues, some of the biggest challenges has been around communicating with their partners and being able to articulate kind of the why. Not necessary that you have to explain to someone something, but to really reflect on what could be some of the reasons that I don't like a certain behavior or that I really really desire this more than I can articulate. So being able to reflect. I think when we look back our childhood, when we look back on past relationships, we can get a better understanding as to the why, and then we can't communicate that. And I think that when we go into new relationships, especially as as adults, if you've had like that past, you take those past relationships expectations into the new relationships. Sometimes and you expect someone to kiss you, hold you, respond to you, or you're even your understand your love languages the way that someone else did, and that could be very disappointing. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I'm glad you talked about the communication piece, because I do think that is something that comes up often in our community about like how to even maybe tele partner that you maybe have a kink that might not be something that you know people expect, right, So do you have tips for how to maybe negotiate those conversations. I think I will call it the before the lights go off, although like don't always go off, you know, but just having like a chat to say what is it that you like or have you tried this? And sometimes you might have to use a crutch, but maybe you say I saw this on TV. I was wondering if you know you like this, or would you want to try this. I feel like my community often times or very and it's it is private, right, but I feel like they don't often embrace something that isn't just standard what you've seen on TV or reading a book or tried yourself. So anything that other people or if you haven't experienced it, it's seen as taboo or freaky, like we like to use the term freaky in my small community when it's kind of like, no, it's just different, so it doesn't make it wrong, it's just different or it's new to you. And so being able to like ask people to take risk with you. So vulnerability and and risk taking, if we go back to that circle's model is within the circle of intimacy. Think how risky it is to tell someone about one of your fatishes, like you're getting that close to them and you want to experience that with them or just disclose it to them. That's risky emotionally, and it is a level of vulnerability that is really important to relationships too. I'm trying to keep track of all my thoughts because you said so many good things that I'm trying to connect now and I'm like, no, I don't want to lose that thought, but that what you just said help me. And I'm like, I said, I've not seen this model that you're talking about, So it sounds like some of the circles overlap, but it does feel like there is an important conversation to have around the intimacy piece and then the pleasure, because it does feel like people will often be very comfortable like just getting naked and having sex, right, but those conversations that you're talking about that really deep and intimacy are much more difficult for people then sometimes just the act of set exactly. I wholeheartedly agree with that, And is there a way that you need to do some work around the intimacy to really enhance pleasure. I think when you start connecting and like sharing communication, again, it's not just about articulating your needs. You you know, it's also about being able to share and connect, and so that allows you when you're able to like I'll use the turn, let your guard down, or let somebody in into you, then I think that that's what facilitates that. I think you're able to gain that level of trust. And to be quite honest, I had a conversation with my class and I were saying, well, how long does that take? And to be quite honest, it could take someone like a couple of hours, I don't know, because of the connection they have with somebody, where it might take somebody else a few years or months to actually get to that place. And another thing that often comes up in our community telling you and you've kind of touched on this a little bit, is having conversations about S T I S right. And so if you've been diagnosed with something and you're like in a partnership, or if you have a history of a diagnosis and our newly dating, like, when do you share that? How do you share I'm curious to here if you have any tips about that. Yeah, now that's a big topic. So I came into this work, like I said, doing HIV and ST I prevention testing and counseling, and it's so much stigma around having an STD like we've been socialized to think somebody is either clean or dirty, and dirty meaning they have an s t I. But probably when we think about it, the majority of people at least have had one or been exposed to it. I I just can't I probably shouldn't go that far because I don't have the data in front of me, but I feel confident that that's how easy some things are actually transmitted from person to person, and some of the of our s t I is like herpes that can be transmitted in a non sexual sense, you know, like from mother to child or something like that. And I just feel like our work has been so rooted on this is a bad thing. It's something that you don't necessarily want, but it's not necessarily like this is the worst thing, and for some people that can happen. And I know I'm saying that from a very strange perspective, but hear me out in that I worked in a student health center on a college campus. I worked in a local health department, and I work in a community base organization where people were diagnosed with HIV gonna Ria, clamittia, all the things, and I think more so on the college campus. Nobody wanted to come to student health just because we offered s t I testing or you know that assumption. If you're in student health, then you must have something, because that's primarily what we did, and so we had to let people know that our services were for everybody, try to change the community, for the culture of the campus. To even offer up the STI testing is also a prevention method as well, so if you know what your test results are, I know your status, then you're less likely to pass it on to somebody else. To get that into the world, it was hard on the campus, but to get that mindset in the world, it is even harder because we say such negative things about folks when they do have IT diagnosis, so it makes it hard for them to share with other people and to sometimes even seek treatment for whatever it is that they have. M hmm. Yeah. I worked on college campuses as well and completely understand what you're talking about, you know, and it does take a lot of effort to really kind of push that conversation forward around There are lots of differ for reasons why you could be in student health that don't involve necessarily in st I are testing, But even if that's the case, then making it okay to kind of be in charge of your own health information, like to be armed with facts so that you can then make decisions accordingly. And I have some friends who are both sexuality educators and have discools publicly their STI status, and from their perspective, they encourage people to be open and honest to kind of normalize the conversation period. So not only are you able to who we're talking about, like how soon can you gain trust? You know? It also boost up that trust factor because you just share this thing with me, you trusted me enough to do it, and as a relationship continues to grow, if it does, it also allows for communication to say, well, I'm not afraid to talk about s c I, S or HIV with you because we already started out the conversation this way. Mm hmmmmmmm. I'm curious, Tanya, have you seen any similarities between kind of what's happening even with COVID testing and relating it to SCI testing. It feels like there's some of that same stigma exactly. It is, so again, using my family and they know who they are. Um ultimately with our family not having conversations with our cousins who were infected with HIV and past we at the same situation where there were a cousins who had COVID but they didn't tell anyone and they were still not I don't say social distaining. Were supposed to be quarantining and social isolating, and they're just going around. There's still visiting people or running a public facing business instead of telling people, and you know, trying to figure out and I struggle with it because I'm like, well, here's a business owner. If you have COVID, then you have no business, you have no income. But at the same time, you're putting other people at risk. And it was just a secrecy around it, and it find they just came out and we don't even know if the whole story is out. But a lot of that is going on because there's a there is a stigma with any condition, except I don't ever remember anybody asking like how did you get cancer? But I feel like people will ask you, even with COVID, how did you get it? Because they want to know what were you doing that put you at risk? So that will be the same way as like, what were you doing sexually that put you at risk for whatever disease or infection? M H. And I'm wondering, Tanya, And I know that much of that reaction, of course, is a way to kind of protect ourselves. Right, So if you, you know, were infected with COVID and there was something that you were doing that was risky, then I feel better about myself because I didn't do that risky thing, of course, not on you know, knowing that we can get COVID very simply, even if we do everything that we can um to try to protect ourselves. And so I'm wondering how we can kind of expand our thinking from it being a personal responsibility to more of a system kind of a thing with both with COVID and s c I. S. Yeah, I think the system's approaches to be able to normalize the fact that some people are going to get sick with different things, whether it's COVID or an s t I. But we can lessen that when we're able to talk about it. So think how much communication was needed to combat or you know, when we first heard about COVID, it was we weren't given even given a lot of the information they were still information with Hell's I believe from us, and so the same thing happens when we're talking about S t S or HIV. So if we were able to normalize having the conversations not demonizing folks who were either infected or you know, coming or in treatment or care for different conditions, I think that would help build that space for combating it, because now we're having conversations like, well, you know what, I'd love to have sex with you tonight, but I'm taking I don't know the medication from my committee. I need to wait until I'm done with that before we can engage. By the way, let's talk about how you protect yourself from S T I S or etcetera. Or have you ever been tested? You know, it seems weird to ask people. We get on that scale soon you go to the doctor's office. We get on a scale when you're in it in a cup. And I don't think there's any anxiety around telling somebody that's what you do when you go to the doctor's office. But if you start asking about STI testing, a lot of people do feel weird about it, even if they're negative, because it's almost like you're insinuating that they might have something. So your stance is really to just kind of make this a part of your regular kind of dating conversations. And I'm guessing probably not first date unless you know you're gonna sleep with the person, right, but you know just in casual dating, right that that you start to have some of these conversations pretty early when it looks like you may even be hitting towards because being intimate with one another, physically intimate. I think so, because I even think about when you're on a job interview, not that they ask you like inappropriate or frustrating questions, but they do ask you all these questions and you have to decide, and they have to decide. Do you have to decide if they hire You're gonna take the job, and they have to decide based on your answers, do they want to hire you. I feel like that's kind of the perspective, is like, let's just ask some hard questions and make some hard decisions. M M so. And I think I see this most often with diagnoses like maybe herpies or HIV ones that are not you know, necessarily easily controlled, or like there's a medication you can take for seven days and then you don't have to worry about it. Would you still suggest people being open about that very early in relationships. I think with HIV in particular, and I feel like VOTH were stigmatized and that's how I started, Like I said, getting into the holistic area of sexuality, is that with a type V there's a lot of risk of disclosing that can be detrimental. So not saying that it wouldn't happen with herpes, there's your voluntary disclosure of it, and then with the intimate partner, but then there's an involuntary disclosure that you can't control, should you break up, should they decide not to continue, you know, seeing you, even if it's like on the first day. So like that requires for some people a level of critical thinking to say, am I willing to take this risk? Because they're going to be the pros and the cons with disclosing for any condition, And I think any person has to be at a place where they are willing to me sit down and address the cons knowing you might not be able to prevent them. Mm hmm, got you, got you, Okay. So you started talking earlier telling you about like the level of introspection and reflection that you need to do to kind of really be able to approach this work. And I know something else that has come up in our community often is the faith route, like you talked about, right, and how so much of faith in religion in a lot of ways, I think for a lot of us has really kind of gone again sexuality and sexual pleasure specifically, And so I'm wondering if there are some questions, are ways to start digging into that for yourself, if that is something that you're really struggling with, so having trouble kind of engaging with sexual pleasure because of like religion and spirituality. Yeah, I think for that it's like that values reflection of of why do I feel this way? What bothers me about it? What scares me about it. We do something in sexuality education called a sexual attitude reassessment. Uh sorry, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it forces you, well, I don't say force, but you go through it willingly. But it addresses topics that might be seen as triggering or offensive or you know, different or challenging. And I think going through something like that not as a sexuality professional because you think you can do it for a professional or people who just want to process some things for themselves can go through one. But it forces you to face kind of the things that you're most uncomfortable with and then how do they reconcile with why you feel that way? So in my experience, when I think about let's say, same gender loving couples and some of the people I know in my faith community, that's a challenge for them. So then asking them, so, what is it about that that challenges you? Like what happened or what have you heard or seeing that made you feel this way about this type of relationship? What does it do for you in terms of emotional and vulnerability and just sitting down and having those conversations with yourself. That's kind of where I am with it. M I'm glad you share that time, because I wasn't aware that like people who were not training to be like a sex therapist or a sexual sexuality educator could do us ours. Yeah they have. I forget. There were two places of course COVID, but there are two places, I want to say, like Vermand up that way, and then someone had one in the South or in philadel the Philadelphia area too. I think Widner was connected to that one. And yeah, you could do that and you can process some things. Now, I'm pretty sure we don't have hundreds of people wanting to go to it because it's pretty intense. M m. So are there pieces of it that you could maybe think about for yourself if you can't necessarily afford to do that or I would imagine also I don't know the two that you're speaking of, but I would imagine there are some cultural pieces to sexuality that we would want to make sure that are part of that conversation for it should be a safe place to engage. Oh. Absolutely. And there are some stars well again I'm going to profess on now, but you know, people can create them where it's for black, conditionous and other people of color only, or making sure that you address culture and intersectionality within the star, and that's one of the huge things. Um. I have some colleagues that's their only stars that they conduct because the lack of inclusion and sexuality work and whitewashing of sexuality overall, and so that's their main intent when they're doing stars. I love that. Yeah, Yeah, I'm glad that people are offering those and I would imagine that maybe even some other sexuality educators or sex therapists maybe do this work as a part of the work they do with individual clients or maybe smaller groups. Right, yeah, Okay, Okay, So Tanya, I want to also here just because I'm not as familiar and I have little ones, so therefore and six so you know, really just kind of starting school. But I think about my own education, like with health education and right, like thinking about that one circle that you talked about, right in terms of reproductive health and sexual health. I'm curious to know if we are seeing advancements in terms of like health classes or like what kinds of curriculums are Are they being shared in schools that have a much more sex positive focus. Well, joined there's good news and there's and this is the honest truth. So I don't know if you want the good news or the badness, but let's start with the good news. Okay. So the good goals is from an overall standpoint in my experience, the curriculum are not or curriculum are not changing per se, Like there's been advancement even here in North Carolina when I was doing some work with working at the Department of Education two thousand nine, our standards change for reproductive health and safety education. But aultimately that's just a small bit of it, and a lot of the evidence space curriculum that's been using communities and schools. You know, that stuff was published and set out in the nineties and early two thousands, so it's it's not as inclusive, it's not as affirming. The good news on that is that educators are realizing that these are the things that they're mandated and required to teach, but they're learning for themselves how to be more sex positive, how to be inclusive, how to change language with keeping still of the fidelity portion of the materials that they're using, but expanding it so that it's more holistic in their teaching. So it's really about the teacher themselves, and it is about the actual materials that are out there. But then with the event of like well, I'm saying, the advent with the use of technology and spanding technology, they're like online wordles that people can use, videos, podcasts, etcetera. Now, so basically what you're saying is that if we want to make sure that the young people in our lives have a more sex positive approach to sexuality are more positive approach to sexuality. It's really gonna be on us to make sure that we're sharing materials and books and videos and those kinds of things to start those conversations, because it's unlikely they will get it in schools. Right. And I always use this analogy because I'm horrible at math, but I said, in North Carolina, we have one hundred and fifteen school districts. So if you multiply that by the number of schools that actually are teaching this content, multiply that by the number of teachers who are actually providing it, then that's the number of ways you're actually gonna get sexuality education in the state because it's gonna always land with what the teacher can and feel supported and it's knowledgeable and doing all the way up to the superintendent of the school district support them doing it. Got it? Got it? So Todd, you can you share any resources that you really enjoy for people who maybe want to dig more into some of the things that you've talked about today. I really like books, so I have I feel like my library is like sensive because I like old books. So like right now I'm reading a book from nineteen eighty three on sexuality just to see how things have evolved. So those are some good books. But I know you have my colleague Dr lex Change. She has the cool book that's for children on teaching about body parts. I also, I'm like, I'm looking over there now, uh, to to see like there's like volumes of books around sex and how it's changed. So I think books are good resource. And I also like reflecting back on old sitcom so, like we were talking about girlfriends, but like Good Times is a classic way to like discuss sex and sexuality with various people because there were so many episodes that really looked at gender and representation, etcetera. So I hate to say TV, but TV is also a good way to do that. So now I am very curious to hear some examples from Good Times because there's so many episodes. But I don't think I've ever looked at it through like a sexuality or kind of information lends in that way. So can you give me an example of something that you might use from Good Times? Oh? Yeah, So there was one episode where what's his name, Philip Michael Thomas was in it and he was dating Delma. He was a college student working on either his dissertation or thesis. I believe that these this title was something similar to like Black Sexuality in the Ghetto Girl or something like that, and it was a conversation of Delma was reading it, but her father James saw and thought it was okay because he j j was reading it and he was even okay although Michael was younger than it might have been Michael reading it, but he flipped his lid when he found out Thelma was reading it. And so that played out like the gender dynamics around that. So like when I see some of those episodes, I like trying to take deep and plus I see myself as a black woman in Filma, will Lona and Florida, Like it's like that's all the people that were in my life at the time, and I see myself in them. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is interesting to kind of look at some things that we looked at when we were maybe younger, and now, you know, from an older approach and through a professional list, right, because of course you worked and informs how you're you know, viewing media, which is interesting. Yeah, yeah, I love that. I appreciate you sharing that, So anything else that you want to share with the audience, Tanya, any other resources, and definitely share with us where we can find you online as well as any social media hands. Oh yes. So some great resources include sex Positive Families for those who have young people and kiddos in their life, so that they can have conversations, especially as a trusted adult or most importantly in parents, because that is a lot of stress, especially now with COVID. Afro Sexology is a great resource too. I like to use some of their worksheets when I'm talking about pleasure and kind of that conversation is like what do you like and what you don't like or your fetishes and your fantasies. So Afro Sexology those are my main go to ones. And my contact information is Tanya and bass dot com and I put videos up there, but you definitely can contact me and get information from me and on Instagram as well. Perfect what we appreciate you sharing. That's on you, and I appreciate you, know you and Afro Sexology and sex Positive Families because something you said earlier around like you using oh I saw this on TV. You know, it's just something that you want to try. I really feel like the work that you all do gives people that in right, So if I see a sex educator share something on Instagram, then that's an easy thing for me to show to my partner and say, oh, did you see this thing that you know Tony was talking about? Maybe this is something that we can try. So I do think it makes, you know, sexual education just much more accessible for people and gives them language, you know, that they might not have had otherwise. Absolutely, that's so true. Yeah, yeah, so thank you so much for sharing with us. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm so glad Tony was able to share her expertise with us today. To learn more about her and her work, be sure to visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Session one seventy four, and don't forget to grab your tickets to join us Friday night for US sex Positive September Celebration at sex Positive September dot com. If you're looking for a therapist tunity area, be sure to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic and connect with some other sisters in your area. Come on over and join us in the Yellow College Collective, where we take a deeper dive into the topics from the podcast and just about everything else. You can join us at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash y c C. Don't forget that. If you're looking for a way to end summer on a high note, Freaket Wireless has got just the thing. Get ready for unlimited smiles, unlimited times. For get four lines of unlimited data for a hundred dollars a month. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care. What's