The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
In honor and celebration of Pride Month, today we’re focusing on the experiences of those in the LGBTQIA community that identify as asexual or aromantic. This week I’m joined by Yasmin Benoit, the award-winning aromantic-asexual activist and founder of the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike movement. Our conversation explores what asexuality is and how it differs from aromanticism, some common misconceptions about the asexuality community, and the intersection of being both a Black woman and an ace-aro woman.
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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 two sixty two of the Therapy for a Black Girl's Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after word from our sponsors. In honor and celebration of Pride Month, today, we're focusing on the experiences of those in the l g B t q I, a community that identify as a sexual or a romantic. This week, I'm joined by Yasmin ben Wah, the award winning a romantic, a sexual activist and founder of the This Is What a Sexual Looks Like movement. Our conversation explores what a sexuality is and how it differs from a romanticism, some common misconceptions about the a sexuality community, and the intersection of being both a black woman and an ace aero woman. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over in the sister circle to talk more in depth about the episode. You can join us at community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Yasmin, thanks for having me. I'm very excited to chat with you. I would love for you to begin by just telling us a little bit about yourself and about how you identify on the spectrum. Well, my name is yas and Ben Why. I'm a model and aromatic a sexual activist, writer, speaker, and I just really just use the terms a sexually romantic. I don't really get too deeply into the semantics. Yeah, and for those of us, like with the very beginner's knowledge, can you give us a little bit of a like just a generic or simple definition of a sexuality and how it's different from somebody who's a romantic. Yeah, So, a sexuality means experiencing little to no sexual attraction towards anyone, regardless of that gender. So it's a type of sexual orientation, um, whereas being a romantic is a romantic orientation, and that means that you're not romantically attracted to anybody. So you can be a sexual about being a romantic and you can be a romantic about being a sexual. I just happened to be both, and there are quite a lot of people out there who are both. Yeah, and that's why I think it's so important the work that you do as an a sexual educator and an advocate. Can you tell me about what that work look like and how you got into it. Yeah, So, I mean there's kind of a lot of gaps to feel so I pretty much just trying my hand and everything. So initially it was just kind of like incorporating it into my modeling work and talking about it on social media. I write articles for a bunch of different platforms, podcasts, I've done radio, I've done a radio docuseries, documentaries, consulting on TV projects. I speak a lot of at businesses and universities. I've launched the UK's for As a Sexual Rights initiative, it kind of goes into a bunch of different areas, research, assisting, behind the scenes, conferences, events, all that kind of stuff. I just kind of got into it very much. Accidentally. After I graduated from my degree, I was able to kind of focus on it a bit more. But initially it was just something I mentioned on my social media. Because I'd already built a platform through my modeling, I felt like I might as well use it to filly gap in our representation a little bit, because I thought it was ironic to complain that there was not much black a sexual representation if I wasn't actively doing anything about it, a so on of a platform and yeah, and it just kind of snowballed from there. Really, m M, can you tell me a little bit more about the uk A central rights work that you've done. On April six, which was Internationally Sexuality Day, which was also an occasional I co founded UM, I launched our first AI sexual rights initiative. It's called the stone Wall and Jasmine Benoi as Project stone Wall being one of the biggest lgbt Q rights organizations in Europe, and yeah, we're going to be producing a report into the issue of a sexual discrimination in in the UK, particularly in the workplace, healthcare and education, and are going to be using the results of that report too, hopefully influence policy and legislation to make it more inclusive. So yeah, that's kind of what it is. Can you talk a little bit about some of the rights that you are introducing or hoping for as a part of this initiative. Well, the National LGBT Survey eighteen, which was one that was conducted by the government within the UK, found that, like there's such a stark difference when it comes to the a sexual community, like we have the lowest life satisfaction rates, were less likely to be out to anyone, whether it's friends, family, colleagues. We are temperas that more likely to be offered or to undergo conversion therapy compared to other sexual orientations. We are more likely to have negative experiences in healthcare. Is probably something to do with that. We still pathologize as hyperactive sexual desire disorder in the International Classification of Diseases, which is something that was tackled in the US already with your Diagnostic and Statistical Annual of Mental Disorders. It kind of put a clarification in there, but we don't have that in Europe or in the UK and so, and we're not including in sex education, we're not protected by the Equality Act, we're not protected by hate crime law. So that's just like a lot of gaps that would really be helped if there was specific data dedicated to it and if there was a report that was specific to the a sexual community in the UK. So we're hoping that once we have that information, we have those testimonies, that we can use it as leverage to make people listen a bit more when we talk about aes phobia and things like that. Yeah, thank you for sharing it. So you mentioned convergent therapy and I knew that it is something that has really been kind of outlawed in the psychological fields here in the U S. It really talked about how damaging net is. Is that the same in the UK? Not really, it's legal. Actually, there's a campaign going on right now and as we record this, the government is currently discussing it because people have been campaigning to get it banned for a long time and recently our government and said that they would consider banning it, but not for transgender people, and they've left a sexual people out of it. Then there was more campaigning about that, and so today we might find out whether they're actually do a proper ban or not. It's hard to be optimistic because they've really lingered on it for quite a while, but yeah, that is something that hasn't really been outlawed in the UK yet unfortunately. Okay, thank you for this, So if you feel comfortable sharing, how did you first realize that you were both a sexual and a romantic. I always say that I realized when everyone else realized that they weren't. So I feel like it's kind of like early puberty when people start having sexual orientations, or their sexuality becomes directed to lords other people, or they've become interested in romance and dating and kind of expressing that. Prior to that, everyone is pretty much a sexually romantic and then all of a sudden they're not. And that's when I kind of noticed that I was experiencing things in a different way. But I didn't discover the terminology until I was a teenager, and I didn't really start using it until a while later. Okay, Okay, I was going to ask like, was there a gap in between, like you realizing like, oh, I feel something that may be different versus having language to describe it. Yeah, And also you don't really feel that inclined to put language on it when you were like ten, It would be kind of weird to bother labeling your sexual orientation at that age because I kind of assumed it would kick in at some point and that I was just kind of in a transitional phase. But by the time you're like a teenager, by the time you're like fifteen, like, people would very much to be like, what is your deal? And I was like, I don't know. I guess you want me to have a word for this. And that was how I ended up discovering the word was mainly through people like pestering me. But I still didn't feel like it was really that useful to have because no one really believed me when I told them what I was anyway, no one knew what I was talking about, So I was like, it's not like I can really successfully come out, So what's the point in me having the word. So when you say people didn't believe you, what do you mean, like, what would your experiences and trying to describe your experience, Well they just say like, oh, well, that's not what it is. You must just be well behaved, or maybe you know it just hasn't happened for you yet you haven't met the right person yet. Or maybe you're gay and you haven't worked it out. Or maybe there's something physically wrong with you. Maybe there's something mentally wrong with you. Maybe you're stunted, maybe you're repressed, maybe you're all kinds of other things other than just being a sexual. Like, no one really accepted the answer, so after a while you just stop mentioning it. Got it? So as a part of your work, you talk about the difference between esthetic attraction and sexual attraction. Can you say more about that? Yeah, I mean to put it very simply, like I can recognize if someone has a really nice face, I just have no inclination to sit on it. So it's kind of like that. It's like, that's the difference. It's kind of a visual appeal, but it doesn't that's it, got it? Got it? I appreciate that that description, right, because it's like, Okay, I can see why somebody might be attractive, I'm just not attracted to them. Yeah, it's I guess it's a good lucky person. Like if I had to pick a face, to look at that would be a preferable one, but the attraction isn't sexual. Might be attractive in the sense that I would enjoy looking at you the same way I would like a painting or something, but you know, I'm not gonna lick a painting. I'm not gonna lick you either. So what are some of the things that you think can make it difficult for somebody to recognize that they are or maybe a sexual. I mean, I think the main difficulties is that there isn't really a fixed criteria. It's an objective or like a subjective experience, like it depends on how abnormal you feel, how much you feel like you're experiencing something differently. It's very much dependent on your circumstances in your company and your culture, and you know what's normalized in your environment, so it's kind of dependent on that. I think if I was living in a place where no one really expressed their actuality at all and no one really spoke about it, and girls weren't expected to do anything and boys let then I probably wouldn't have noticed. It wouldn't be something that relevant. But I think in a Western country where it's kind of everywhere it becomes more obvious. So I think that can be one of the challenges because there's no fixed criteria of what is a normal amount of sexual attraction and what is an abnormal amount of sexual attraction, what isn't enough and what is too much? So it's very much just based on like your room perception and the perception of people around you. So whenever people so like, oh, how can I know, or this person said i'm this person that I am, it's like, if you feel like it's helpful to label it, label, if you don't feel like it's helpful, don't. As as far as it goes, really, there's no clear cut way to think about it, right, Yeah, I mean, because the labels, it feels like, are for other people in a lot of ways, right, And really, what the labels can do, I think for individuals is just give language to explain how you might have been feeling like and you hadn't found that language before. Yeah, I mean, it's it's something that's supposed to help you to articulate something. Sometimes it's helpful just for yourself. If you felt like you needed to feel like other people are experiencing the same thing as you, and that makes you feel better to be able to have a term just for yourself. And sometimes people don't really care for themselves and they just do it for other people. And some appreciate it for both raisons, and some don't appreciate it at all and they don't use any label. So it's all up to you. But I spent like the good tenures not really using any of them, and I was that worked for me, and using it also works for me, but I don't really mind that much either way. Got it? Got it more from my conversation with Yasmin after the break. So you mentioned the term earlier that I'd love for you to talk a little bit more. You mentioned eight phobia, So can you tell us what that is and what that looks like. Yeah, I mean that's you could probably guess from the word. It's kind of like homophobia, by phobia, transphobia, all the other phobias, but kind of more specific to a sexuality and just kind of like negative attitudes, negative behaviors, negative stereotypes that people place on you on the basis of your sexual orientation, specifically being a sexual So that can be in the same as other instances of any kind of queer phobia. It can be someone straight up insulting you. It can be someone thinking that there's something physically you're mentally wrong with you. It could be someone thinking that you're like less of a person or feeling like you're not going to be able to live a fulfilling life, or treating you differently or threatening you, or it's very much the same logic as the other ones, really, but it can manifest in very similar ways. M hmmm, And what does it look like to take care of yourself in light of acephobia? Like what kinds of mental health impact do you feel like? Get his hand on you are can have other people. I mean, I'm pretty thick skinned, personally awise o and be able to do this job. So I feel like for me it doesn't have that much of an impact, not because it doesn't happen, but because I tend not to care. But I think that based on the statistics I mentioned earlier, like how many a sexual people just do not come out to anybody and are in fear of coming out because they're scared of what the reactions will be. It has a psychological impact of feeling like you have to live in secret, or you have to make yourself do things that you don't want to do so you can be accepted or so you can fit the box of what we're taught is how you live a fulfilling, happy, connected life of other people. And the rights of like depression and anxiety in the a sexual community are as high as they are within the wider queer community, higher than it is within the heterosexual population. And I don't doubt that it is because of acephobia. It is because of all the messages that you internalize as someone who isn't straight, that there is something wrong with you and that you are really be happy, and that no one's going to accept you and no one's gonna love you, and all that kind of stuff. So I think it definitely has an impact in those ways. So how would you say that the a sexual community is situated in the larger queer community. It can be a topic of debate for some people, but like for me, if you're a sexual, then the chances are that you're not straight. You don't really have the experience of someone who suterosexual, and based on my understanding of coolness, that was quite a big part of the criteria. You don't really aligned with like gender expectations or you don't fit within like the heteronormative box and therefore you are kind of part of that community. But yeah, so I mean that's kind of how it fits. It's something that like looking back historically, like all of the early mentionings over sexuality of being by people who are within the lgbt Q plus community has been by gay writers, gay historians, gay sexologists. Most of like the early literature was tied in with like lesbianism and back in like the nineteen sixties kind of like that kind of era, and even beforehand when it came to early research like the Kinsey scale, which was kind of looking at different sexual orientations and like the populations of it. The first documentation of asexuality was within that. So it's something we've always kind of been tied into it, just not in a very obvious way, just because of like the prominent messages in the community aren't always relative to us, but then can also be relative to us depending on the perspective. So, yeah, it's a strange topic of debate, but we've always been in there. Yeah, so can you tell me more about what's up for debate. It's very much a kind of like mean, girls, you can't sit with us, kind of by the mean. There's exclusionism within the lgbt Q plus community the same way there is a funny others, like there's racism in the community. There's people who don't like buy people, and then they don't like trans people, and they only like certain types of gay people or certain types of lesbians, and then they don't think a sexual people should be in there, and they don't think that pan sexuality is a thing, And there's all kinds of debate going on constantly, So we just kind of get caught up in one of them of this sort of oppression Olympics mentality and this idea that I don't know, there's a certain amount of seats at the table, and that if you are, they are, then you have to kick someone else off who deserve that space more than you because they faced more historical oppression than you did. And it's a very strange criteria to base things on. But that is a debate, unfortunately. Yeah, and I can imagine that this feels even more marginalizing for black people who identify as a sexual or a romantic. The strange part of it being caught in a debate is someone who's black is that? So often I have white people telling me that I don't understand what oppression is and I don't understand what discrimination is and trying to educate me on these phenomenons because they can't really equate being a sexual and being black, and so they kind of had this to predetermined and they don't know how to adjust it, so they just go straight to it. And so they're talking to like a suburban white kid and they're like, well, you don't understand what discrimination is, so that's why you're under this strange idea that you're part of a marginalized group, and let me explain to you what oppression is. And I'm like, please, white guys, sit down, like I know, I know, I'm not even equating a sexuality to the oppression of being gay or the oppression to being black, and obviously you don't know what the oppression of being black is like, so let's not get into that subject. But it's all very strange because that happens to me so often. And do you feel like that is I mean, I can't imagine that that is uniquely like a UK thing, but do you think it is something about like the culture in Europe that brings about that kind of a feeling. It's definitely not just you're I think it's America as well, Like I think a lot of my audiences American. I think it's very much the same over there. I say it's probably mainly a UK US phenomenon just because in terms of like the loudest a sexual populations, it tends to be people in those countries. I think we just had to be the loudest of Western countries in general. But yeah, it's something that's definitely going on in the UK right now. There's definitely a kind of exclusionist movement happening here, like trans exclusionary radical feminism is very much a thing here. But then you also see things like that kind of happening in the U S as well. I don't know if it's it's the same or as bad, but I feel like it's a kind of a similarity. Yeah, it definitely feels like there has been some related to like j K Rowling right Like, it feels like there's any surgeons of you know, that kind of sentiment, more discussion around it. Yeah, she railed a lot of people up, especially especially here. She gave them a newfound confidence, and those people do not like me, and they do not like a sexual people either, so we tend to get very caught up in that. Yeah, so what are some of the common misconceptions that you've come across about people who are a romantic or a sexual and mean, they're slightly different but sort of reminiscent of the same thing. I always say that if for a sexuality, it's more that there's something wrong with your body, and for a romanticism, it is more like there's something wrong with your soul, because we equate experiencing romantic love as being like a huge sign of your like humanity and your capacity to connect with people. So when you say that that's actually not how mindy emotions manifest for people, they think that you're like a full blown Baltimore. So that tends to be one of the main ones that people attach it to your personality and think that you must be like a full blown serial killer, like a total psychopathic, narcissistic person or probably the things that like I hear the most. But I've been called serial killer are more times than I can count, which is strange because you think that if I actually was a serial killer. People wouldn't want to piss me off, so they wouldn't say that, but they seed to miss that important detail. And then for like a sexuality, it's kind of like that you must just be like very anti sex or frigid or prude, or you think you're too good for any body, like that's why you didn't find any was sexually attractive. Or maybe you're too ugly for everybody and no one wants you anyway, so you're just using it as an excuse. Or people think that like you're an in cell, or that you just kind of like have a hormonal problem, or you just can't become physically aroused, or you're scared of sex, or you have some kind of trauma is a very common one. People tend to think that you must have just been sexually abused and like it just traumatized you and now you don't understand sex at all or something, or that you're like a pedophile and you're just using that as a cover is another strangely common one. Wow, okay, and so related to it, sounds like this is most closely related to a romantic So can you talk a little bit about the capacity to form other relationships that are not like romantic, like parent chowl or friendships, Like can you say a little bit about that? I feel like when you're kind of romantic, like you're you know, people use that phrase like, oh, your friends are like more than friends. It's like, no, like friendship is the more like that is is the peak, that is the epitome, Like it's not a stepping stone to something else. Like that is the kind of one of the types of relationships that I value as much as someone would value a romantic relationships. So when people kind of equate it with like not having an emotional capacity for people, it's like no, it's just like there's more than one type of way you can like someone. I think it's a shame that people put all their eggs in one romantic basket and don't place the same energy in like different kinds of relationships. But like you know, you can have great relationships with your friends. You could form families with your friends and then parents, siblings, children, pets. You could be like a mentor to people, you could teach people, Like there are so many different kinds of relationships that you can have that can be very fulfilling. Like I know, people that are teachers that don't have any kids of their own, but in a sense they have hundreds. So it's like there's so many different ways that you can have, like, you know, meaningful bonds of people that don't involve celebrating Valentine's with them, right. More from my conversation if yasmin after the break, So you have developed this viral campaign, the hashag this is what asexual looks like. Can you tell us a little bit about your inspiration for creating the hashag? Yeah, I mean, initially it was kind of just because I was constantly told that I don't look a sexual. That's kind of one of the things that people used to like debunk my orientation to me. And it wasn't because I wasn't taking every seemingly a sexual box. It was purely just because of what I looked like. And I know that had everything to do with my race. I know it had everything to do with how I dressed, and there being a sort of stereotypical image like this kind of Sheldon Cooper or like mousey, homely white girl idea of what an a sexual person is supposed to look like. And it's sort of stems from the way we've been represented and just stereotypes them in our culture in general, but for much left out, like the diversity of the community, which I have seen personally, but you don't really see unless you're like looking for it and unless you're part of the community yourself. So I just wanted to give the agency back to the community so we can represent ourselves about having to rely on like the media to do it, because they tended to have a very specific idea that they wanted to go for. And I also found that so much for our community, like they mainly engage with each other online, and when you are online, you don't really get to see people's faces very often. It's like avatars and emojis and like blocks of text. But I don't think it's very healthy too only interact with people inside your community and never actually see what anyone looks like. So I kind of wanted to just see some more faces. And now you can type that in and scroll and see loads and loads of faces. So I've personally found that quite helpful. Yeah, and you talked earlier about incorporating some of this into your modeling work. Can you say more about that, and like how you've taken on an initiative to include representation in their way with a modeling work. It was initially unintentional because I didn't really think that we still lived in a time where people would like equate your appearance to your sexuality that much like I didn't think that me being a model and being a sexual was going to be like a controversial point until it was. And then I kind of realized that regardless however one thing was associated with the other, every time I put out something modeling related, people are going to see a sexuality and that they're going to tie that in and it's going to kind of inevitably become like a social statement. And so I was like, Okay, well, I mean it can't really be avoided, so I might as well just like own that association. And for example, I did a campaign last year with a Lingerie brand for Playful Promises, and we did like an a sexual theme like Lingerie campaign with them, which was like both educational and esthetically pleasing to me anyway, I thought it looked cute. Yeah, I'm just using the opportunities you have, Like when you're modeling, people do interviews and you get to use that as a way to like raise awareness at the same time and tying them all together. Some people find it a bit perplexing, but I think a lot of other people find it cool because it kind of strays away from that idea that if you're not sexually attracted to people, then you need to make yourself very sexually unattractive, and you need to like dull yourself down, and you shouldn't do your hair or do your makeup or put any effort into your clothing, and you should be like a little wallflower that tries to blunt into the background as much as possible. So it kind of challenges that idea, which I think some people appreciate. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that about the Playful Promises campaign because that seems like a very cool way for brands to kind of get involved with, you know, of course displaying their products, but also educating. Have you found that you've been approached to do lots of those kinds of campaigns or are you pitching two brands to do more of it. I mean, that was definitely one that I sort of pitched to them. A sexuality is not very trendy, is not something that people like inherently think about, like let's do something that's like focused on this. I do spend a lot of time like pitching two people, but then like being Pride Month. There's definitely been a few campaigns like I just did one for Mercedes, and I did another one for a flower company called Bloom and Wild, and you kind of get to make it educational while also having some cool visuals, having some cool cars, having some pretty flowers, and some pretty outfits. So it's fun getting to blend because I think that humans are very simple and we just like to look at nice things. Half the time. We're more likely to pay attention to something if there's something esthetically pleasing at the front of it that catches your eyes. So I think it's also quite a helpful technique to you get people's attention. M I agree. So do you feel like there is any good representation that you've seen in the media for a sexuality or a room or a romanticism, like any movies or TV shows that you feel like you have done a really good job depicting this. There's kind of two ways, because it's like there are so mhich are good, but I wouldn't watch it. There are so many things where I'm like, this is good if you're that type of person. For example, there's a character on a British soap, I think Credians Live or Liz who is an a sexual white teenage girl in the countryside, and it's like, if you are in a sexual white teenage girl on the countryside, then that is it for you. But I am not a white teenage girl on the countryside. I can't relate, but I'm sure like there are things like that, Or there's book characters, like there's a character in Alice Osman's book love List, which is cute if you're into like young adults, teenage high school things. I personally don't really read that kind of stuff, but I'm like, I've heard it's very good, but like I don't really watch it. Or Todd from BoJack Horseman is probably one of the more popular examples. Again I don't watch it, but that is kind of one of the few examples that's like an adult white guy, I think, but like, you know, it's an adult but yeah, they tend to just speak very I know it's overwhelming lead white characters. It's just kind of one of the reasons why I'm like it's good if you relate, I don't. But I'm also at a stage of life where I don't need it myself, so it's kind of okay. If I don't relate, I can relate to myself, so it's fine. But yeah, I feel like there's not many examples, but there's definitely like things out there, but it's not something that like personally appeals to me very much. Yeah, So we talk about just a general shortage of like black characters that often kind of people can relate to, and so this seems like an even larger shortage of people who maybe identify as a sentual or romantic on the screen, things that seems sort of like a sexual or a romantic coded but it's usually like not in a good way. Like if you have a character that has no interest in romantic relationships, it's probably because they're really awkward or they're like evil, and those are kind of like your if our high maintenance awkward or evil, and those are your free like components or their aliens or robots or something. So there are kind of things out there in that sense, but I know I don't really count that. Yeah. So you mentioned a little earlier that it can be hard for people to even recognize black people as a sexual or a romantic And I would imagine for black women this can be more complicated because it feels like they're typically all these stereotypes about like black women in their sexuality, right, either being just a bills or fast or you know, all of these things. Can you talk a little bit about that intersectionality and like what kinds of things maybe have come up and what might make it hard for black women to be able to identify as a sexual. Yeah, I mean, we're probably like one of the most hyper sexualized demographics in the world, so that in itself makes it very hard for people to like equate a sexuality with blackness. And I'm very sure that that was one of the reasons why people found it very hard for me to believe that I was a sexual in the first place, was purely on the basis of me being black and the kind of expectations that people already had on how my sexuality was supposed to manifest. I'm pretty sure that if I was like a white kid, it would not be very hard to believe that I would say sexual if people just did not accept it at all for me, And I think coming out to say sexual almost impossible. It also kind of makes even relating to the way a sexuality is represented very hard because it is very much predominantly white. The space is very white, representation is very white. It's very much associated with whiteness. Still, So even once you bridge that gap and come to like your own place of self acceptance, there isn't really that many places you can go with that because it's not a conversation that's happening in the black community at all, and it's not a conversation that you're really that included in within the a sexual community either. So you're kind of just like left in your own little bubble and it can be a very strange one to navigate. So are there any words of advice that you have for somebody who may be listening to your conversation who would be a black woman and struggling to figure out Am I a sexual? Am I a romantic? I mean you the a borready figure it out and want to come out? Any words of advice you would share with them? The main thing I always say is just like understanding that there isn't anything wrong with you and your cam live a perfectly happy, fulfilling life while being a sexual and romantic and black, and also that like other people's reactions to you aren't a reflection of you, and they aren't a reflection of your sexuality, and that is a reflection of the road ignorance most of the time. And you shouldn't feel pressured to a certain box. I think that there's even within the sexual community, like people feel like they kind of have to dulve certain parts of themselves down to be like the palatable type of a sexual person. And outside of that, people feel like, oh, we have to use a label, I have to describe it this way. And you don't actually have to do anything. Do whatever makes you feel like it's helpful for you, do whatever makes your life easier, and don't feel like you have to kind of go down like some big rabbit hole of ticking boxes or fitting into other people's ideas just to make life easier for them. You don't actually have to do that. Thank you, I appreciate you sharing it. So you've talked a couple of times about the difficulty and like finding support and finding community within this smaller community. Are there any resources besides the ones that you offer for people who may be looking for community. Are looking to connect with other people who share similar experiences. Are there any things that you're familiar with you want to share in terms of finding community, that's like a quote unquote safe space. I know that there is an instagram called asan Grace, which is kind of specifically like it's run by someone who's black and a sexual and they share like black a sexuality, your latest stuff. I mean there are places where like lots of a sexual people like Conjugate, but I've experienced racism in those same spaces, so I feel like it would be inappropriate to recommend them. Like I wish I could say that there was like a bunch of options, but there isn't really Okay, so they can can stay connected to you and if you find anything, I'm sure you'll share it on your own platforms create something. Yeah, I mean I know that, like you know of the space, like my own socials are sort of like save space, Like I don't tolerate any racism in mind, And sometimes people find each other through like the comment sections of my things and stuff, so like that's an options. Sometimes comments sections on things can't be a great way to find people, but there isn't like a giant like Black Inclusive Forum or anything like that, and I have thought about doing well myself, but then that's like a lot of additional responsibility of like managing a whole space and making sure everyone behaves themselves right, It's like it's too much. I'm not a teacher, so speaking in there, where can we stay connected to you and your work? What's your website as well as any social media handles you like to share. My website is yas and ben dot co dot uk. I mean, if you just type in Yasmine ben Wro on Google, I'm sure most of my social platforms will pop up. Instagram is at the yasmin benwa and twitters at the same thing, and those ones are both verified. I have a TikTok that I don't use, a YouTube that I don't use, So those are the ones that like up their mind, but I don't really use them. See on Twitter and Instagram and yeah on my website propping the bus places where you can find me perfect well, thank you so much for sharing with us today, gays when I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you as One 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 to sixty two, and be sure to text two of your girls and tell them to check out the episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in your 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 or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet design just for black women. You can join us at community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Freda Lucas and Alice Ellis and editing was done and by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care