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Cultural patriarchy and heteronormativity often negatively impact sexual and relational development — but they can be difficult to recognize and challenge. 

On this episode of the Empowered Relationship podcast, we're talking about gender and its construction as we examine our society’s cultural backdrop of hetero-normativity. Joe Winn joins me today to explore the principles to consider as we question ideas, notions, and messages that we receive around gender.

Joe Winn is a licensed clinical social worker, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and supervisor of Sex Therapy whose practice is outside of the Boston and Cambridge area. Joe has also lectured nationally and internationally on consensual non-monogamy, BDSM & kink, gender, and relationships. Joe is also a faculty member of The South Shore Sexual Health Center, an AASECT-approved training program for clinicians working towards certification in sex therapy.

In this Episode 

05:01 Why gender is such a problematic construct in our culture

07:45 Gender as viewed from a heteronormative perspective, and why people often perceive an LGBTQ+ alternative as an attack on their beliefs.

11:43 Joe’s thoughts on whether patriarchy is at the foundation of the gender construct and the ways the discomfort and fear feed into homophobia

19:55 Why we need to allow ourselves to step into the transformative process of understanding our needs to better develop authentic relationships

23:50 How to start engaging with people interested in alternative concepts of sex and gender and seek out meaningful dialogue.

31:05 The importance of self-care, tuning into ourselves and putting ourselves at the center of our experience so that we can also support our partner

35:26 How to recognize moments of discomfort around gender and why we should turn towards them

40:00 Strategies we can use to learn and reset if we have been indoctrinated by society with rigid beliefs

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Be willing to turn towards any discomfort around gender that you’re feeling and engage with the journey
• Speak to some of the pain you experience when you’re not living an authentic life
• Put the time into recognizing yourself in ways that you've historically been afraid to access
• Engage in those challenging conversations around gender you have been avoiding
• Pause, turn off all the distractions, and enter into that connection with your partner to live in integrity in your relationship

Connect with Joseph Winn

Website: josephwinnlicsw.net

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joewinnlicsw

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About Today's Show

Joe, thank you for joining us today.

No. Thank you, Jessica. I'm really honored to be here. Thank you.

And like I shared with you, I got exposed to you as I was a participant in a couple's conference. I appreciated your wealth of knowledge, your ability to translate some of these very complex concepts to be able to kind of start to metabolize or even just start to think about. And so, it's just an honor for you to be here because you teach other clinicians, and you're the teacher of teachers. I love that you're honoring us with your time today.

Oh, thank you. I'm blushing.

Well, it's real. It's real. I love having people that have really done the work and really know it on such a deep level. It really translates into your ability to articulate. Great! Well, we're going to be talking about gender and how its constructed and the cultural backdrop of this, and heteronormativity. I just would love for you to give us some basics on how to have a foundation for our conversation.

Gender is such a difficult construct in this culture because the current culture wars are really constructed around gender is male and female on one side, which tends to be a more traditional conservative, dare I say, transphobic idea.

And then on the other side, you have the Judith Butler perspective and the transformative perspective that gender is composed of many different facets and is culturally constructed. So, you have this breakup between essentialism and constructivism.

What I want to say is, rather than end up in a binary about a proposed binary, what we really need to talk about is a constructivist perspective that also represents biology. People can come into the world with penises, vaginas, or genitals that are undifferentiated, but that has nothing to do per se with how they construct these ideas around masculinity, femininity, and gender nonconformity. The first thing to say is yes to both sides.

Yes, thank you for just even naming a lot of that. And some listeners might be like, “I'm not sure what you're referring to.” But we're going to let people know how to get in touch with you, too, if they have more questions or want to learn more.

What I hear you say is that there are so many assumptions, and depending on our cultural backdrop, and just really, the bigger message is that when it comes to gender, or to really tell or even just culturally, to have these messages so ingrained, that that's so problematic.

I don't know if you know, Dr. Omar Manuel. He was talking about how we're shaped. It's not just like if we imagine a rock and a drop of water on that rock. One time being told what you should be, depending on what your biological sex organs are, and the real disservice and the harm and abuse that happens around that.

That one time could be painful, but we look at the cumulative effect of that drop of water on a rock over lengths of time it shapes us. We might even not be conscious of it. It's so in the fabric of our existence, and it's so inhumane when we look at human existence and our range of emotion, just even talking about emotion and how problematic this is.

Yeah! It's so funny that you use the drop of water on a rock, right? Because it's akin to the idea of racism, and white folks really struggle with this. It's like being a fish in water. You don't even see the water you're swimming in.

Gender, like racism and other aspects of intersectionality, is so fundamental, primarily from a heteronormative perspective, that folks who are cis who identify as heterosexual never have to question what my gender is? Never have to question what my sexuality is. Never have to consider what it means to come out. So, the idea of water is you swim in this privilege. And then, when someone picks you out of that water to say, “Hey, listen, there's an environment that's different from that.” The first thing that people start to do is gasp. They get anxious. Like, “I can't breathe. You're attacking everything I know.” No. What people are saying is there are multiple environments that exist in the world, and we only see the ones that we swim through.

Yes. So, if I can just acknowledge, you mentioned the cultural backdrop of this, and it has a lot to do with discomfort and needing to have certain confined categories to feel comfortable. I'm curious if that's where you feel like a lot of this stems from.

I mean, there's so much to this. So, we could probably just have an entire week talking about this. I wonder if you can speak to that part. And then secondly, even for people that are cis identified or do have this privilege of never having to really question or how people are perceiving and all of the different layers to that.

Still, even, it's so harmful and confining and abusive when we look at what is even termed masculine or feminine, right? And the impact of that is in the negativity around. That is significant. So, when you open that up, and it's just mind-boggling.

Yes. Yes. What is masculine? Is masculine a penis and a scrotum? Is masculine aggression? Is femininity just about a vulva and a clitoris? Or is it about what we have as softer emotions? What happens when you have a masculine man who has softer emotions or a feminine woman who's more direct on how she communicates?

What happens is these ideas challenge what we fundamentally believe. And in this culture, and it should be stated that we're in North America, that when we talk about the construction of gender, what we're talking about is very rigid ideas and attributes that determine someone's gender presentation predicated on cultural performativity.

Well, girls like pink and boys like blue. If boys are fighting rough and tumble and being mean to each other, “Well, you know how boys are.” And girls are all about love. And it's like if you raise kids, my husband and I have raised three kids, girls are vicious, and little boys can be incredibly gentle.

It goes back in many ways to what Bell Hooks said that the first act of patriarchy in any culture is never about harming little girls or women. It's about the emotional self-mutilation that little boys have to go through to begin crushing those aspects of their emotional well-being in order to comply with the cultural expectation of what masculinity is. That is so heartbreaking.

It is heartbreaking. And you're noting the cultural and historical, the patriarchal influence and how that has shaped men and just people as it relates to gender. I guess I'm interested in what your thoughts are having that this is something you're such an expert in. Do you feel like patriarchy is one of the reasons why gender has been constructed? I mean, is that one of the connections that you see?

I think that our culture is predicated on domination, exploitation, pain, and genocide, and capitalism. It's important to keep in mind that the clinical is always political. And that I think that one of the things is trying to pick patriarchy apart from racism, or ableism, ageism, or misogyny or transphobia, or heteronormativity, and any of the other -isms and social injustices that exist actually demonstrates the lack of understanding we have about patriarchy.

Our culture was predicated on dominance and control. It isn't necessarily predicated on self-acceptance and the acceptance of others. In fact, when those ideas come up, even in the discussion of critical race theory, which is not being taught in primary school, and yet that focus of people being able to talk about the truth of the historical injury is exactly what patriarchy and all of its interrelated siblings is about.

So, patriarchy like that water on the stone is so endemic to how we construct ourselves that the idea of talking about patriarchy often requires an incredible amount of preparation just to begin wrapping oneself around how many tentacles that construct has in who we are, how we organize our families, how we organize our economics, how we organize our state, local, and federal governments, and how we organism international policy.

So, not that I have feelings about this. It's all intertwined, and we're all enslaved and victimized by a system that says, “In order to be at the top, you must be this, or you must be that. And if you fall anywhere outside of that construct, you're automatically marginalized and constructed as a threat to what is ‘normal.”

And the pursuit of being in dominance is to participate in these -isms, right?

The domination of others.

Right.

Yes.

To be power over. Understandably, unless we make a concerted effort to engage in these learnings and conversations and dialogues that we don't even know the air that we're breathing, we don't even know the water that we're drinking, that it is so pervasive.

That's right. That's right. I think that this is why concepts like differentiation are so important, not just within therapy, but to recognize that there's personal, familial, communal intersectional policy differentiation. Being able to step back and say, “This is who I am. I can agree with you here and disagree with you here, and we can have a productive conflict, but I don't have to sacrifice who I am.”

I think that this is what queer folks and gender non-conforming folks and intersectional feminism and queer theory have to offer that is so threatening. It says you can be who you are. You can be who you were born to be. You don't have to conform. But you do have to find a way to deal with the forces that are going to say to you, “You're not right. You don't deserve to be here.”

I think the bigger question is, I'm so sorry that you've come to believe that. I'm so sorry that my presence is threatening to you, but I will not conform.

Yes. And if I hear you, Joe, you're saying that ability to do that work and engage in those conversations is a skill and something that you might encourage anyone to participate in.

Anyone. Anyone. Anyone. As a social worker, as a sex therapist, as a sex therapy supervisor, as a human being, as a queer man, as a white man from a working poor/working-class background who has been able through education to transcend to a different socioeconomic status, what I want to say is that that process of questioning and becoming is uncomfortable.

That's telling you this is the path. All right. This is how you begin to challenge. This is how you leave awes. This is how you leave pretend to step into a world that you create. Empowerment is not easy. You're going to catch hell when you do it against the way you're being told to do it. But at the end of the day, when you're on your deathbed, you don't want to be in a position of saying, “Jesus, I wished I had lived my most authentic life.”

And the tragedy is, in my work with couples and with families, one of the things I often hear is someone gets diagnosed with cancer or some event happens, and people discover parts of their loved one's life that were never shared. They say, “I love this person.” How terrible for them and for me that they went through their life not knowing who they were and not allowing others to bask in their shine.

And that we have been perpetuating this false living like you said awes. And that at the moment to moment, it's being reinforced, and that we're not creating safety to really have more consciousness and discernment about the authenticity in what's real and creating safety for that.

It's just one more thing that we could actually live our lives and not have been expressed or not have really lived fully, ever been true. It's like, going through the motions to just play the game for what?

For what? For whom? Who benefits from your denial of self? Who benefits from you hiding who you are? It's so funny. It's like, RuPaul has this great statement, and I really love this. It's like, we're born naked, and the rest is a drag.

So true.

It's so true. Who do you want to be versus who you are told you should be. And don't get me wrong. This isn't easy for folks who have really central ideas about creation and divinity. It means looking God in the eye and saying, “I have to follow that who you created me to be is what I'm supposed to be. It means saying to loved ones, “I'm sorry that you want this, but this is who I am. And I don't want to lose this relationship, but I don't want to lose me.”

That is like walking through the fire of transformation that I don't think I have a full grasp on what that provides. Yeah, it's transformative. Like, we don't really know that existence. It's not as culture evolved to that place.

Here's the paradox, right? I mean, we look at someone like Audrey Lorde or Belle Hawks, or we look at artists in this culture array. We look at Georgia O'Keeffe. And it's like, “What a brave person. Look what they did.” And we hold them up. But we see them as something unattainable, as if they're on Olympus, as opposed to these were flawed beings who just said, “I can't live like this. I have to live who I am.”

So, the fact of the matter is, each of us carries those people inside. I think what becomes really hard is if we're not allowing ourselves to step fully into that crucible, that to step truly into that transformative process, how the hell do we develop relationships that are authentic? How do we have sex that's authentic? How do we create sexuality in eroticism that might not even necessarily be genitally focused? Do you know what I mean? What this is all about is having the hutzpah, the Moxie, the courage, and the ability to feel the fear of walking through that fire.

Yes! And the liberation that can come from even engaging with it. It doesn't have to be this arrival that I have now flipped a switch, but it's this constant practice of being able to access the experience of that. I just get chills when I feel it. Just to be seen, like you're saying, and relate from deeper truth and to feel that connection from the authenticity that's being expressed. That's powerful.

That's right. There's so much there. There's so much power there. Again, to go back to patriarchy, racism, misogyny, sexism, and heteronormativity, and ableism, and ageism. We're taught that power is something that comes from the top-down, as opposed to something that comes from the inside out. The act to say no, or, more importantly, the act to say yes in the pursuit of one's own desires becomes really, really, really transformative in and of itself.

And the fact of the matter is, every time a movement becomes present and begins to move towards that growth, and something in the patriarchy shuts it down, or something around dominance shuts it down, we find a new movement begins to evolve with the same message. This is not to man bash. Because here's the paradox, women also maintain patriarchy. Women also maintain patriarchy. How many times in a couple of sessions have you heard someone in a heteronormative relationship say, “I want them to share their feelings.” Only to say now they're unfuckable. And they think the thing is, it's so present in all of the culture that we don't recognize how we're reinforcing these ideas. And we don't know how to sit in our own discomfort to let someone else in their truth.

Yes. And they realize that as we're talking, there's so much we're, you know, covering in this arc of naming some of this. I would love for listeners to have from you if you have any guidance or tips or support that, as we're talking about, it can be so pervasive from moment to moment that we might not even recognize it. And the pain that is, and the harm that we're experiencing, we might not even know. This familiarity, whatever that phrase is, we're so much more comfortable perpetuating what's unhealthy rather than the unknown of what could be really liberating.

So, I'm wondering if you could do two things. One is to speak to some of the pain that we're up against when we're living a lie, or we're living out of integrity or authenticity, like the impact of that, how to recognize as it relates to gender, sexuality, and if there's anything you want to name around that.

And then secondly, how do you support people to begin? I mean, this can be overwhelming. And where do we start if we don't have access to communities that are really talking? And maybe that's your suggestion to start engaging with people that are interested in having these conversations, or men's groups or any type of group that's looking at these concepts and really engaging in a dialogue.

All right. Sure. All right. You can read my new book—how to be really human, and 24 chapters. Yeah, I wish that it was that simple. I guess the first thing is to say that every one's path is individual. There's an existential reality here. We come into the world, and we die alone. All right. That doesn't mean we die alone, but what it means is the no one can ever truly know us. We can never truly know someone else.

What we're really going for is those places of interpersonal bridging that allow us to say, I would like to know you in ways that you've historically been afraid to know yourself. That's the first act. So, when people start to notice that they're uncomfortable when someone is talking to them about something, or they're hearing something that is offensive to them, but they swallow down those feelings of resistance to a homophobic, racist, sexist statement, or an ignorant statement. And we have, right now, a virus that is eating this country up, and people playing politics is like, “Well, I'm unsure about how effective the vaccine is.” Rather than just sit with that to say, “Wait a second. I'm having a lot of feelings about this.” And to be able to engage with the self. It's easy to say this person is being a dope or a jerk. They don't understand science, or they are ignorant. It's much harder to say, what is it that this discomfort is telling me about my experience right now? Where is it that this discomfort has something to say about the fundamental fabric of how I construct reality? What is it about what this person is saying that I don't agree with and don't want to engage in and attack and attack, but I want to engage in understanding my reactions and responses first?

I think that that's the first place to begin that journey am not saying you made me feel this way. No one makes you feel anything. You're feeling something because something inside of you has been touched on. To have the courage and the patience and the compassion to sit in your own discomfort, that's where you begin the process of picking apart the encoded messages that have been part of The Big Lie, to go back to pecks work, you know what I mean? Like the road less traveled and stuff like that.

I think that learning to sit with discomfort learning to recognize that physiological responses are your body's way of saying at a very, very, very primal, very early stage in our own evolution. There was something about this interaction that I need to find language for because we engage in behavior that can be detrimental when we can't put language to what we're feeling. So, that's the first thing that I think we need to do. And that can be really hard because it means, how am I breathing? Am I hydrated? Did he drink enough water? Do I need to go for a walk? Do I need to say to someone, I'm having a really hard time being present in this conversation, so I need an hour away from you and away from this? Can we meet in one hour back here to try to reengage that conversation? So, it's not about being like, “I'm going to get you to shut your voice down.” It's, “I need to tap into my voice and then come back and kind of share what I'm feeling in response to what you said.”

Oh, my goodness, there's so much depth to what you're offering. I'm getting this sense that even this first invitation is a pivot from that more dominant approach to more of this internal connection, living inside out that we're talking about that that in itself is a huge paradigm shift and approach that in these small moments, this is where change really happens, right? It's not sometimes in these big, broad sweeping life event changes. It's these moments. And so, and what I would say, from my own experience of what it looks like on the outside, is often not what is actually on the inside, right? So meaning what it might look like on surface level. And if I were just to react to that, I'd probably be super lost, right? Because it's just the reaction versus the deeper whatever's there for me to learn. And it's almost like this trailhead signposts like it's just the indicator that something's up, but we don't even know what that journey is going to lead to, or the gem of it in that and the willingness to take that journey. As you said, it's not easy. And what we learned from that, that that they can provide us something to stand on to then start to engage.

Absolutely. You mentioned the second part, but I broke down. The second part is what happens when we don't live authentically? Well, I can tell you what happens when we don't live authentically. We get cancer. We turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, money, infidelity. We turn to the accumulation of wealth so that we can validate ourselves externally. All right?

So, what we do is we engage in the rules of engagement that the culture says are normative until it's not. It's like, “Well, you're having a lot of sex. You're masturbating a lot. You're looking at a lot of porn. You're eating too much. You're getting fat. You're drinking too much. Wow, you gamble the house away.” And it's like, we blame the person as opposed to saying, “How did this culture teach you to fuck yourself over so effectively that everything you do in terms of your self-destruction in one way or another becomes an access point for a capitalist system to gain on the inevitable outcome of your own self-destruction? That's brilliant and incredibly sad.”

So, I think that when we step into looking at why we are spending so much time self-soothing, it's because we don't recognize that there's a self that needs to be soothed. So, what I'm offering is the ability to recognize that even the discomfort, even if it feels impolite, is an indication that some part of you is trying to say, please step into the ring with me. And let me share with you the language that I feel that I haven't been taught to put into words.

Because it's almost as if, if we're on this vicious hamster wheel of trying to get that external validation, right, we're trying to soothe, as you said, or even fill a void or an emptiness that could never be filled. It just keeps the perpetuation of needing something external, to be sexy, to be loved, to belong, whatever the thing is that we're wanting to feel, but it's not from an internal place. So, it can never fully be satiated.

It can never be fully satiated. And here's the thing, in our culture, again, another level of paradox is if we engage in self-care and tuning into ourselves if we begin to recognize that it's like, a spoke on a bicycle wheel, if I'm not at the center of my experience, how can I support you and who you are?

Now, people can hear this, and automatically it sounds selfish, right? Even as I say it, I can hear the voice in the background saying it sounds selfish. I think the reality is if I know my limits, if I know who I am, if I know that certain situations are going to be hard for me, that allows me to say to my partner or partners because not everyone has just a wife or one partner, there are folks out there who are consensually non-monogamous. If there is no primary self, then I'm trying to feed someone else of an empty plate.

So, it becomes so important to be able to say, “You know what? I don't particularly enjoy your parents. So, no. I don't want to spend the whole weekend there. However, because I love you, I'm willing to give a day. Saturday would be great.” Or, “You know what, when you speak to me in that way, I experience a sense of not being appreciated, and I end up feeling really distant from you. I end up feeling like I'm not as valued. And then, that results in a whole bunch of resentment. And there's a real, real, real small kid part of me that wants to sort of act in the same way you are. And that's going to hurt the relationship. So, here's what I'm going to do. If you're angry with me, tell me that you're angry at my action. Don't call me an asshole.”

That level of stepping into one's truth is not selfish. It's selfless because it's saying to the person that you're with, this is how I want to be treated. I guarantee that while I may drop the ball periodically, I want to keep your best interest present as well so that what we have is something that's sustainable, rather than, hey, we had really good sex for the first two years of our relationship, we got bored, we didn't talk about it, I started to step up and see other folks, you started to drink and drug. And then all of a sudden, with finger-pointing because we never had the wherewithal or the courage to step into what it means to be a grown-up.

And you're giving some real language and examples around what that can look like. I love that you're reframing what might sound self-critical as being selfish or self-centered. And really, it sounds like it's stepping into a relationship more fully because if we just please, or appease, then we're neglecting ourselves. And we can't be in a relationship if we've abandoned ourselves. So, it's a deeper, like you said, the sustainability of like, I'm going to have the courage, and I'm going to have tact, and I'm going to really try to meet you and honor you and also bring myself. That's a relationship. As you said, this sweaty 10-minute conversation is probably longer but required.

I guess, Joe, I'm curious. I know we don't have a ton of time with you. I can. I'm just so grateful you're on the show. You're speaking about when we're not doing this work. We have the propensity to be coping in various ways that could be problematic. And also in reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction.

That's right.

And the pace of life, right? I'm really acknowledging people who are probably listening: work, domestic life. There's so much on the table. And then, we have our pandemic, all the stress that's been. I mean, there are so many things. And the pace of life is so insane or so intense. I guess I'm interested in people that are new to really doing this inner work and recognizing these moments of discomfort and turning towards that. Is there anything you want to say about how to access that if that's new to them?

One of the things that I would say is, look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do you like who you are?” That's the first thing. The second thing is to look in the mirror and say, “Do I like my partner or partners?” And if you are stymied by the first question, do I like myself? I would really invite you to question what do you have to offer your partners?

The reason I bring this up is that stepping fully into a relationship begins with the process of being able to say, Am I someone I'd want to hang out with. So, that's one thing. The second thing is in terms of the practical piece is start carving out time with your partner, where the TV's off, where the phone is off. If you have music on, have like Miles Davis kind of blue on or have something chill in the background and just look at each other. How often do we spend time talking? And this is the thing. I often hear people say, “I don't have time to do that. I haven't gotten time to do that.”

It's like if you're on the phone bitching about your partner for an hour and you don't even recognize that's gone by, you have time to talk to your partner. Because the people you're talking to aren't going to do anything to help your relationship. In fact, they're going to undermine it because they're going to echo back to you because they don't have a sense of; you're absolutely right. They're horrible. As opposed to, “Hey, I'm not happy with what things are up between us. I really love you. I'm kind of stuck. How do we make things work? What am I doing that drives you nuts?”

And before you ask that question, make sure you're in the space to sit with the answer. The other thing is, how often do you unplug? All right? One of the things that we talked about, particularly as a therapist, is hypervigilance as it pertains to post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, we've been in a pandemic for almost two years. Everyone right now is demonstrating symptoms of acute stress disorder. So, when I hear people acting out on planes, it's like acute stress disorder, PTSD, lack of affective regulation. We had four years of someone who would have been a dictator telling us that as long as you're white, and cis, and Christian, and you believe this, you're in the majority, and everyone else is horrible.

Our government almost collapsed because there were people sitting in pain that they didn't even know were there. Unplug, breathe, go for a walk. I'm not saying go to yoga. I am certainly not saying find a new girl. No, no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is, what is it like to be in your skin? All right. If you're smoking, I'm an ex-smoker. I used to love smoking. All right. Try this. Breathe in the way you inhale when you're drawing from a cigarette without the cigarette. Guess what? You're breathing! All of these things. Go on a walk with someone. Say to the kids after dinner, “I need you to do homework because your parents really need to connect with each other. Do you know why? Because in order to be really good parents, we have to be a good couple.”

Your encouragement does seem to really fit in alignment with this internal connection, right? If we're turning to TV, or our device, or social media, it's still this external loop that feels again, never ever satiated. That is a time suck that if we really pause, turn off all the distractions and enter into that presence and that connection, there's so much available there.

Yes. And oftentimes, we're afraid of what's in there. It's so funny. Malcolm Gladwell released last year a great book called Talking To Strangers. I would really recommend people pick that up. If you have a faith system, I don't care if it's Christian; if you're Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, whatever faith you have, find time to speak to whatever deity, deities, or spirituality that you have. That's the focus of prayer. Prayer is the foundation of meditation.

If you're not religious, I think the most beautiful thing in the world that you can say to the universe is thank you. Find that mystery of who you are inside. And again, this sounds so poppy. All right? It sounds like such bullshit. But it's so simple in how complex it is. Really start looking at who I am and what do I want, and if you get uncomfortable, that's probably a really good indicator that it's time to dig a little deeper.

And when do people, Joe, get support? Where would you invite them to turn to if they are noticing discomfort, maybe even around as we're in the topic of gender construction and all of this, that they have been indoctrinated with certain beliefs, right? So can be so self-referencing sometimes to turn towards that discomfort, but then have all these messages and feel really lost, but that they know that you're really guiding people to an inner knowing that we're really wired up with this intelligence, even spiritual connection that allows us to access that truth. And there's a vibration around that that we probably will recognize, but we can also be out of touch with that too.

Well, the first thing that I'm going to say is therapy. I know that it's really hard to find therapists right now. If you do find a therapist, ask them, “How do you deal with personal empowerment, and also be really courageous? So, listen. If I am complaining about my partner, are you going to agree with me? Are you going to challenge me to step into – why am I talking about the partner that isn't in the room?” So that's one thing. Talk to friends.

For the guys in the audience, if you're heterosexual, if you're gay, if you're trans, if you're bi, if you're gender non-conforming, talk to your male-bodied friends when comments are made that a misogynist, homophobic, even within gay men and straight men, we make these comments all the time and we use language that we don't even recognize. I would invite you to say, “Hey, where did that idea come from? I'm curious if someone was talking about your daughter or your partner, are you in that way, what would you feel?” Really step out of that comfort.

For women that I work with who were friends or folks who are clients, I'll say, “I'm really curious. Where did you get this idea that you had to be a size three at the expense of your bone health?” “I'm just really curious. Where did you get the idea?” And for men, too, “That you had to have this GI Joe body that is actually unattainable?” And the invisibility of things like eating disorders in this culture. “I'm on a diet. I'm on a diet. I'm on a diet. How many calories did you take it? I took in 700 calories today.” It's like, “Oh.” Turn to each other and risk. “I love you. I really love you. Can I just talk to you about you and how beautiful you are?”

Or to be able to say, “Can you tell me I'm beautiful?” Ask for what you need. We are literally in a culture that fucks, drinks, eats, smokes itself to death, and we think that's normal. It's not. What's normal is something that most of us don't know because we haven't allowed ourselves to define that for ourselves just to bring it full circle.

Right. And it's a huge pattern interrupt that it might seem insignificant, right? People are weighing. Is it worth it to speak up? I tell folks because I do a lot of work in the queer community, which is my community. One of the things that I will say to folks is, “People think Stonewall started with one brick. It started with someone saying no.” No, you cannot arrest me because I'm living who I am. All right? It started with the Drag Queen, who said, “Kick the doors off that police van.” All right? It started with folks saying, “I will no longer live under the tyranny of your construction of who I should be.” It just starts with no. Or yes, if you're accustomed to saying no at the expense of yourself. One simple action can change the world.

I couldn't agree with you more. There are no words for me to really even do it justice. So, Joe, for people listening to you that are interested in learning more, what would you invite people to do to get to know you, what you're up to, what you're teaching?

Sure. Well, the first thing that I would say is, I always invite folks to reach out to me by email. It's [email protected]. You can call 617-461-8479. This is my number. If folks are interested particularly in the therapeutic community out there and learning more about this, I also teach and lecture at an organization here in New England called South Shore Sexual Health Centre. That is an ASEC-approved training program for clinicians who want to become a sex therapists.

It's sister organization which is South Shore Family Health Collaborative, is going to be starting a couples and family therapy training program in September. You can visit my website at [email protected]. Please do not show up at my front door. That really creeps me up. Unless you have coffee and really good food. And yeah, that's about it. That's how you get in touch with me.

If you agree, great. If you don't agree, that's okay, too. We can have different perspectives. You don't have to agree with me. I reserve the right to say, “Oh, you might be right.” Or, “Mmm. I don't know about that. Let's meet for coffee.”

Yes. And use it as an invitation to do this inner reflective contemplation and work that you've been speaking about. Okay. Joe, thank you so much for your time today and for being able to share with us and just really bring so much of this to light.

Thank you, Jess. I really enjoyed it.

Signing Off

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