Horny For Healing: Body Positive Dating Advice

disability justice. Today, we'll be getting into something I've wanted to cover for a while, dating an intimacy, and I'm so excited to do it with Alex in particular because they have helped me think so many new thoughts about this topic ever since we were introduced by a friend who said we were going to connect like milk and cookies.

Welcome Alex, Hey, Virgilia, I don't think I had the milk and cookies part of maybe I'm a little bit embellished, but I basically feel like he said, I have a feeling that you might connect, and it's just been like giggles and tea. He's ever since. It's a it's a giggle fist. Yes, okay, So before we get started, before we get into it, we have some snacks. Alex, why did you pick this snack for us today. You were like, what's your favorite snack? Immediately my mind went to like

guaba and cheese Pastelito's. I spent a lot of time living in Miami, and those were like such a treasure and I haven't been able to really find ones that I super loved. But then I had this amazing snack, this guaba lime tart that a new friend Salamatu made for his project Black Feast, and it just is like not only like one of the most delicious things that I've eaten recently, it just really I feel like embodies what I feel like food can represent. Food is medicine,

food as activisms. Food is like community building. You know what Salamatu and Anica are doing with Blackfeast. You know, it's a food art event celebrating black artists and writers through culinary interpretations of their work, right, And so like to get to eat this like love that a black queer person created for the community, and I was like, I want to show this a virtue because it just like takes me there. You know, Oh, I love that

story so much. So we're having lime guavatarts made by Blackfeast, and I am stoked. Are you ready to try oh my god, artific my foregament. I was like, where do we go? Okay, we go? Now ready? Three? Two? One? Mmmmmm mmmm yep mmm wow, m hmmm. So the guava, I mean, this is true of tropical fruit in general. It's just so good, like it's tangy and you can just taste the sun or something. I don't know, you know, yeah, I was just gonna say something. It feels it's guava lime,

and there's maple meringue. It's sweet, its tar, it's a triumph. Yes, the meringue has almost like a perlescent chen and and then you get down, so that's the first layer. There's also like a beautiful little an edible flower on top for a little bit of flourish. And then you get into the pinky guava the next layer, and then the layer after that is like shredded coconut. And is it gram cracker? What is it? I really wish I could

tell you. I feel like more of it to find out, I'm just gonna get lost and you're gonna lose me. I'll be gone. I'm just really thinking. By the desert, I love it well, so I'm kind of crust. It has a coconuttiness to it, which I love, Like, I really feel confident that I'm not hyping it up too much. Alex, thank you for bringing this dessert into my world and for introducing me to black Feast. I'm just stoked. As

I said, you're a disability justice advocate. You run an amazing workshop called Spilva Disability where people can learn about the movement and how they can participate in it. Under COVID. It's also become an Instagram live series called sippin Saturday is where you're continuing to spread the good word about access. I think there's a lot of overlap between the disability justice and fat liberation movements. One that you and I

have talked a lot about is dating an intimacy. Like, in my mind, diet culture and the dating status quo are sneaky cousins. Can you talk about how that shows up in your work. Yeah, I feel able is a sneaky cousin in there. You know, It's it's still communicating which bodies are desirable, which bodies are worthy. There's a

lot of like moralism. I think the overlaps between diet culture and ableism right around this like false belief that people within the medical industrial complex know best about your body, and if you're not adhering to these like standards that are often like a racist and sexist and paphobic and all these things that like you're not doing your body right right and building off that idea of which bodies

are desirable. Something you've said to me about dating that I love is that the way we do dating and intimacy right now in mainstream society is all about being casual, being chill, being low maintenance, and basically not having any means. Can you unpack this? Oh yeah, I mean I almost imagine, like this is so specific, but like, um, if you roll up a luminum foil and you like buffet in a ball, like you just keep buffing it, you can actually create almost this like perfect sphere and it's just

like smooth and edge. And I think a lot of that. How like early dating or there's like performance around like being like cool and easy and like you're texting me ten minutes before you want to hang out and expect me to come like, yeah, I'm available. You cancel on me ten minutes before our date and I'm already at the restaurant. Oh, no worries like something came up right, Like all of these things are kind of ways that I feel like it's like standing that aluminum ball to

be like I have no like edges. There's no way for me to like cut or harm you. I'm so easy to like fit into whatever situation is being foised upon me. And it's like at what cost, you know, like when do you get what you need? When do your needs get met? When do you get to also experience like nourishment and healing and um support And again, I just I want to dismantle or like disrupted this binary of like disabled people are the ones with needs

disabled people have to conform. I feel like I spent so much of my early dating particularly feel like I had to compensate for being disabled, you know, like I'm lucky that this like hot person is willing to go on this date with me, Yes, you know, and it's for me reflecting on it for this conversation. It's like those even almost as like it feels like like Greek like myth level of like cosmic irony of like being

an imputee. I'm living in a society that like literally sees my body as as lacking right, as like I'm at a deficit, like I'm missing not just a limb, but I'm missing part of my wholeness, my whole self. And so I had this understanding or this assumption that like I had to then make up for what was missing, Right, So I have to be even more available, I have to be even more casual and thun and easy. And

you know what's missing from that equation. It assumes that non disabled people, you know, people with four limbs, like four limbers, right, I don't know if you have a disabled yes, you know. It's like it's it's this assumption

that I'm the one who's supposed to compensate. And then I'm dating people who like aren't in a place to like name their needs or aren't asking me about mine, people who don't have some of that like emotional magic and like capacity for like deep listening and intimacy and care that I have, Right, Yeah, I mean I relate to this as a fat woman, and I think specifically, I'm thinking a lot about how much I tried to hide my body, which is just so it's just so

absurd actually, right, Like, I mean, I was an early adopter of Internet dating because I was fat shamed so relentlessly, and I really relish the opportunity to be able to hide my body, and I fully subscribe to this idea that I could like trick someone into falling in love with me, you know, because there's no way that they could like my body, there's no way they could enjoy it.

I'd have to like dupe somebody into falling in love with my personality, which, of course I had worked so hard on to be extra charming and extra smart and have a huge vocabulary and all of these kinds of things that were meant to make up for what I understood as you know, like a societal deficit, a privilege deficit, you know, and that sense of coming hat in hand

to any exchange is so humiliating. Yeah, I mean you for you to use the word dupe like you're you're using words that I've used literally to describe, like when I came out when I was dating in Miami, you know, I was on Grinder and Okay Cupid, and on Okay Cupid, I'm like, Okay, So my understanding of this website is that like people are seeking like dating right, They want to like go on dates, they want to get to know people, and so my my thinking there was like

none of my pictures you could see that I was an imputee. I'm like, you know, you want to get to know me as a person, and it shouldn't matter what my body looks like, and so I would kind of like not show that, and then I would I would disclose like before the date, like by the way, I'm a put and I would ask people. I would be like, is that okay with you? Right? And with grinder, I'm like, well, if you're just trying to fuck, then

I'm down. My body's ready, and if you just want to have casual sex and it shouldn't matter what I look like either, and still would do that, like I'm going to roll up to your house in like an hour. Also I'm an emput is that okay? And that kind

of like a asking for permission? And you know, it's really like weighs on my heart that I used to offer people that opportunity to deny me or and then it also to your point, like I think that trying to control our bodies, our body minds to appear more desirable, it's like this fallacy of like, well if I approximate the identities in power, right, if I appear less disabled, if I you know, if I like perform thinness, if I if I do these things that make people more comfortable,

then I'll experience less violence. Then people will find me more desirable. And it's just it's such a trap because it's like, if you succeed at that, if that works, then you have to maintain that to stay desirable, which means you're just contorting in a relationship where you're supposed to be able to be present and yourself and authentic, whether it's a casual sex or like a deep partnership.

And then if it fails, right, if people see through it, if people tire of it, if people you know, I've had situations where I'm like dressed the most flamboyantly I've ever been dressed, and situations where I'm dressed real casual, and both times people have hurled like violent microaggressions to me. So it doesn't matter what I'm wearing, count dressed, how behave, I'm still an enable a society. And like I just I feel I've been joking with friends that I'm like

horny for healing. I feel like I'm like, yeah, I want, I want connections that feel like they're like fertile soil for my liberation work, I have a lot of unlearning to do. I have. I've had very hard lessons in the past couple of years where I have to reckon with ways that I have been complicit with these systems that I'm trying to dismantle. I can't just go out and, you know, speak the good word about things that I'm

not living myself. And I think ultimately in my perspective, I can hold up in my room and have this b a sanctuary, and I can read everything, and I can listen to everything, and I can consume all of this amazing content that's out there. I have to be able to put it into practice, and a lot of that is in relationship. And so I want relationships that promote that kind of healing for myself and reciprocal healing. Right. I don't want to just use people for healing. I

want to be there for other people. I'm with partners who express self consciousness in their bodies, and I'm like, I get it, you know, and I want I want to help offer a space where you can feel sexy and hot unconditionally, just the way that I see you

and the way that I feel seen by you. And that doesn't just like to be sexual partners, that can be friends, that can be you know, a community, all of these kind of things like the more that we orient towards like healing liberatory relationships, right, like trying to tear these systems down rather than like our individual liberation, it's it propagates, it kind of like builds off of itself for for everyone's freedom. Oh yes, I mean Alex

Horney for Healing twenty twenty two. Yeah, Horny for Healing for President. Um, I wonder Alex, like, can you talk about that transition from a person who is like hiding and disclosing, you know, disclosing your disability an hour before a day and asking for permission to someone who's horny for healing. Mmm? I mean what a what a transition?

Talk about character development. I'm really proud of her. Horny for healing is rooted and like all of this work, you know, growing healing, committing to liberation, like it is a like daily practice. I feel like I have to be like a devotee to this pursuit and so like therapy, being in community with other people who are healing art. Art has been so healing to me, and I've gotten to be in like several drag performances during the pandemic.

I got to perform with a choreographer to the song might Us Touch, and like I'm in the music video and like all purple propped balro with like big shoulder pats and floey pants, and I'm like kind of giving you some like prints, you know, gender queer, like furry realness. And it's like these are things that I had to like really commit to and and find people who supported that and then support them in kind, and like I think that's how I've gotten to this place of seeking

those kind of like liberatory relationships. Like I feel like I'm like coming into like non binary identity because of non binary and like trans babies in my life who have helped space for these kind of explorations and like love you know, and care. So I think anytime you can find people in your life that like see you and all of you, those are the people that I would I would say you should ride hard for because like that's where my healing has has truly stent from.

So yeah, totally, access is a big part of the work that Alex does. It's a central idea within disability justice. So I wanted to ask Alex to break it down for me. Can you just tell me a bit about what access is, Like, what does it mean to you? Alex? What a question? I don't want to find acces access from a very like functional maybe you know, a da

legally's like compliance. Space is like there are certain physical things that are required for disabled people to access spaces, right, you know, assign language interpreters, ramps and elevators for people who use wheelchairs or people with mobility challenges. Right, there's also access around is your event near public transportation? Right? Is there daycare? Right? Are there people with kids? Can they access that space in the same way that other

people can? Right? So, I think when we start to expand access not to just like zoom in on this binary of are you disabled or are you not? But again thinking about everybody benefits from access, you know. So I think access just really is like how do you in your body mind? Like what are your needs to be able to be present in a space and be able to like enjoy equally or even equitably, Rather than just focusing on like disabled people have you know, the

quote special needs. Right, Yes, I mean this is one of the things that I feel like I've honestly learned

from you, though it's so obvious. But again, I think there is that there's that sort of the normative framework isn't actually enable us framework, but I mean the idea, the idea that access is only needed for a very small group of people who are somehow, you know, asking for something extra, expanding the notion of access to every single person, every single body, every single mind needs access in fact, yep, yeah, I mean it's it's I think the way that I've been trying to shift away from

because I don't like how it feels or like sits in my spirit is you know, there's kind of this like morbid joke around disability that like, you know, if you have the privilege of growing old enough, like you will become disabled at some point. Yeah, It's like we have a relationship to our bodies where we understand the future of other people's bodies, right, we understand what other people may and or will experience at some point in their lives. And so turning to that wisdom around access,

around interdependence, right, all of that benefits everybody. And so then when we're thinking, like you said about all body minds being able to access things. You know, having chairs that are accessible to fat people is not like a special need. That's just making sure that everybody who comes in, regardless of how you look or you know, how big

you are, like that you can also participate. And I just I often see that framing of like special needs, of honing in on marginalized bodies often is irrespective of the fact that, like, anybody can become disabled, and so if you treat it as like in us them like, really you're ignoring the fact that like times of ticket, you know, especially in society and a culture that's really violent. Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean what I love Alex that you are not only critical of the dating status quo, but you are also what I might call a Venusian visionary. Specifically, you talk about dating from an access perspective, and honestly, I think this is the key to the romance revolution, right because I mean, when you think about it, access is just about admitting and accepting that humans have human bodies.

And I think what's really wild about this is, you know this seems obvious, but actually we're still in this age of like scientific materialism, which is the idea that our body is just a machine and food is just fuel, and our muscles and our bones and all that are just pulleys and you know, a series of complicated mechanics. And I'm really curious what you think, Alex, what is wrong? Let's define the problem. What is wrong with the current

dating climate the romance industrial complex? If you will, can you give us a breakdown from an access perspective, go, just just lay it out real quick. I wow. I would say that your your reference to this like bodies as machines, right or like robots, is a huge piece of the puzzle. One of the ten principles of disability

justice that Patty Burn proposed is anti capitalism. And you know, anti capitalism not just around you know, like deconstructing the violence of capitalism, but interrogating how we deem bodies to produce right as more worthy right or produce more as more worthy. And so when disabled bodies, because of the environments that we're in, like literally cannot access the same amounts of like productivity nor maybe have the desire to,

then those people are deemed as like less worthy. And so I think that plays out in dating in this very strange way where it's like this like double standard. Right. We have these like rom coms and these big sweeping romances in movies and TV and literature that are all about like the tenderness about these like grand sweeping gestures around, you know, the the extravagance of trying to like sweep

someone off their feet. But if we say that like people who have needs are less valuable because having needs means you can produce less. When disabled people like share their access needs or have access needs, or anyone has access needs, it creates this like inappropriate burden I think

in some ways of people date and connect. And it's it's really unfortunate because I think when we interrogate that, when we dismantle that, when we demand that everyone's access needs are attended to, I think that's where those are the sites of like the most for me, the most tenderness, the most intimacy, like the hottest sex, the most sustainable

like partnerships, lovers, like connections that I've had. And so it's it's disheartening to see that like all of this performance really gets in the way of the connections that people are actually desiring. Oh I love this. I mean going back to it takes work, it takes bravery, it takes you know, all these things, right, I think what you're proposing is so beautiful, and also it can be terrifying.

Like I just I remember for years I was not in a place where I could be witnessed, Like it actively upset me to be witnessed, and I couldn't be in partnership with people who were willing to witness me. And so I think one of the biggest tragedies, and we talk about this, you know, on the podcast a lot is like most of us are born with this innate ability to do these things, to connect to you know, eat in a way that feels good and right, um,

you know, all of these things. And then we're kind of going back to the metaphor of this, you know ball that's smoothed down. There's sort of these forces, these cultural forces that just sort of shave us down and shave us down and shave us down. How can you call that anything besides trauma, Like that's absolutely oppression, that's absolutely right, And yet a lot of us are operating from that place and trying to make things work from

a thing that is pretty broken. I mean, I mean, like, do you have any advice for the person who's like, you know what, I'm sick of being in this cycle. I'm having a really hard time taking that like first step out. Do you do you have ideas of what

that first step might be. I know, for me, something that hit hard at the beginning and like I'm still navigating is the reality that when you enter into the Church of Disability Justice right when you like, you know, I'm singing the gospel, like this is something that is a north star for me. This is how I'm orienting in my relationships moving forward, you kind of can't. You

can't turn back from that, you know. And so then when you are in conversations with people, whether it's like just friends, hearing the way that they talk about dating or the way that you pursue your own dating life, like, once you know how to embody liberation or at least like theoretically right, you kind of can't go back on that.

And so it is really hard to then realize, like addressing it can create you know, people can respond defensively, people can respond violently, and so it's really I think that one of the first steps is shoring up your resources and preparing to like engage with this lifelong journey because what you then become as a mirror for people to see the ways that they are perpetuating ableism, and people do not respond well when they are encountered with

how they're perpetuating oppression, you know, and so just kind of like bracing for that, and I think understanding that there may be a transition of like because of how connecting with people who are not interrogating these things might have felt quote easier, you know, like We've had this whole conversation today around like this like alleged ease of like dating and sex and intimacy that a lot of people perform, and so it can feel like, oh, now

all my connections are harder or people are more off put by the way that I'm presenting. But it's like that's because those people aren't also doing the work. Those people aren't in alignment with how you are now navigating the world. And so just like understanding that you will probably I experience kind of like a shedding. You're emerging

from this crystalists and that process is painful. It's it's hard to realize that people you really care about, people you're really attractive to people who may have provided you

a lot of support and care. Also, we're doing so conditionally upon the conceit that like we don't interrogate hard body eat minds and access needs and the ways that we're like perpetuating harm and that I know for me it was a hard transition and it's still hard to reckon with today if I'm like, well, I really like this connection for these reasons, but I can tell this person doesn't do X, Y and Z right, and how do you how do you square that? Ah? Wow, shedding

that's an amazing tool. I mean, there's so many things you've taught me that I kind of want to I kind of want to share with rebel eaters. I'm thinking specifically about turning sexy on its head, right, you know, like why can't it be sexy when we say this or we ask this? Can you offer some like you know, it's projecting into the future of like a world where we're not living in a love pyramid scheme? Um, you know, what is sexy? What are those sexy whisperers pillow talks?

What might that look like? I mean, you know, I felt so cared for by people in my life when like they witness a microaggression in public and like check on me immediately. You know. Um, I think that that is like sexy in the broader term of like I feel so cared for you know that I didn't have to say to my friend, hey, like that was really painful. I don't feel good in my body right now, you know, like that they just like jump and know like my friend has been harmed, and like what do they need?

And I think that kind of pillow talk can happen of like you know, what do you want to do today? How can I how can I provide you care? Like do you want breakfast in bed? Do you want meeded? Like go out and get it? We can order in Like any of those kind of things aren't just about are you disabled? Are you not? It's like what do you want? What are you looking for? What? How can I make this like a hot ass day for you?

I think that's all all very sexy. You know, we're horny for kneeling, so if that's something you're into, slide of my DM I'm ready. Yay, Alex. Thank you so much for talking with me. This has been absolutely incredible. Thank you for all your work, Orgie I just I love this podcast, So I love you. I love the work that you're doing. It's it's a real honor to be here. Wow. Well, I'm definitely horny for healing you.

Reach out and let us know your dating gripes, romance, horror stories, and or your hacks for finding love in the intimacy Pyramids game DMUs on Instagram, at Transmitter Pods, or email us at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com. You can find more of Alex's work on social media at glamput on Instagram, and if you want to support Blackfeast so they can keep making yummy guava lime charts, find them on Instagram at Black dot Feast. Rubbel Eaters

Club is brought to you by Transmitter Media. This episode was written and produced by Isabel Carter. Sarah Knicks is Transmitters executive editor. Wilson Sarah is our managing producer, and Greta Khan as our executive producer, and I'm your host. Virgie Tobar Rick Kwan is our mix engineer and thanks to Taka Yasuzawa who wrote some of the music we use in the show. If you love Rebel Eaters Club, tell your friends and share the love by writing your

review on your favorite podcast app. See you next weekly