The ability to sort of claim queer, not being able to say it till later on in life, and even today, I no one else is telling me I'm not queer enough.
It's only me.
Oh, you know what we do here destroy shame around sex by talking about sex. Now, let me tell you something messy Mary, Christmas, Happy Holidays, or as we say here, happy holidays. Okay, So I wanted to pick us some kind of Christmas holiday themed messy story. So have you heard of winter penis condition? I don't know if it's true. It's sounding a lot like blue balls, but let's talk
about it. So apparently there is something called winter penis condition that may reduce amen's genitalia up to fifty percent. Let me read. I found this by the Dasmin brand, you know, because I do be following my little messy, little messy gossip accounts for a little messy pop culture accounts. So it says men around the world are being put
on notice about winter penis. According to reports UK, doctor Hey UK Donald Grant is spreading the message about the temporary condition, letting men know that it may impact their ability to perform sexually and could reduce their genitals by fifty percent. A report from the New York Posts further explained as the temperature drops, the male penis recedes into the body to maintain body heat, resulting is this real
resulting in restricts? I mean, listen, if it's real, Like you know, I'm not laughing at you, but I just it's sealing, sus and its resulting in restricted blood flow, while slowed circulation makes achieving an erection difficult when this thermostat drops. The doctor noted that the condition can affect men of all ages and typically reverses as the temperature increases. Medication is usually not prescribed, but can be for extreme situations. I mean, I'll be fucking in the winter. The winter
has not re stot my dick from working. But now I'm curious because because here's what I'll say I did over the summer. I was like, my tickets is looking real big these days. I was like when I was at Madrid and London, Hey UK, I was like, I was, you know, because whenever I'm away and I'm at a hotel, hotels make me horny. You have to know, a hotel or an airbnb makes me horny. All I want to do is take photos of myself and videos of my
whole and send them to people. So I was in London in the hotel taking the photos and I was like, my dick is looking girthy and thick. I don't really here's it, y'all. I have not measured my penis since puberty. I really have it. Like when my dick gets hard, my thought isn't let me grab a ruler and see how big it is? So people ask how big it is I want I'm like, can I send you a photo and just looking at it. If that's the size
you want, then that's the size it is. Or I'll say it like I think it's like a I never want to overshoot him, like I think it's like eight and a half. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I will say during the summer I did this summer, I was like, oh, it's really girthy and thick. But I've also looked at it. It's winter where I'm recording this. What day is it that we're November recording this? And my dick looks the same to me.
I took a dick pic yesterday and it does not seemed to be suffering now I am in LA and so our cold is like what like fifty five degrees sixty degrees. So perhaps if you're in the UK, because I know the UK, y'all be cold as fuck, and New York, you know, be cold as fuck. So perhaps you know the east coasts and the you know, the people that have real winter, maybe your dicks are shrinking. And to which I say, who it's that Wendy Williams meme where she goes, Oh okay, anyways, that's how I feel.
I'm like, oh okay, Well, anyways, I listen, this might be true. Somebody do the research and doctor patrons, email me let me know if this is a thing. Email tell me something messy at gmail dot com. I said to feel sas because it's sounding a lot like blue balls, which is like, oh, I can't you know, I need you have to stroke me otherwise my balls. My husband says blue balls are real. I don't know. I don't think they're real, but whatever, So I don't know. Maybe
this is true, maybe it's not. Somebody let me know. But you know, if you are having trouble performing in the winter months, you can say I have winter penis, even saying it it's wild to me. I have Winter Penis, winter is coming. I haven't watched Game of Thrones, but maybe that's what she meant when she's the winter is coming. Or I guess Winter's not coming.
Huh.
I see what I did there. By the way, welcome to the show. This is tell me something messy. I'm Brandon called Goodman, your host. Some people call me messy mom, but today you can call me summer Penis. Summer penists twenty four to seven. Heah, there you go, game of summer Penis. There was some yeah, game of summer Penis. Yeah, something in there. Merch baby. You know what that means? It is time for a guest. Actually, in this episode,
we're gonna have two guests. Now, while they get situated, we'll get our messy key Key started with a how manifesto repeat after me aloud or in your head. Grant me the serenity to unpack my shame, the courage to heal, the wisdom to that sex is not just about penetration. The audacity to advocate for my pleasure and boundaries. The strength to not call my ex that fuck boy, fuck girl, or fuck day, even though it's Christmas. Okay, for it is better to masturbate by myself and then to let
someone play in my motherfucking face. Let the community say, oh helujah. I am so excited to have Kyle June Williams and Nicki Douglas on the show. Nicki Douglas is a Lucille Lortel Odelco and Princess Grace Award winning Brooklyn based experimental theater and dance maker who is interested in leading community care centered creative processes. You can refer to her, them, him,
us using any pronouns said with respect. She is currently a harp Resident Artist at Here Arts Center, where she is creating a new dance theater piece called Only I. Kyle June Williams had a residency at the Standard Hollywood creating queer driven comedy shows. Kyle June's one woman show Only Child, a true Ish crime documentary about a catfishing murderer up for parole, premieres at Arsenova in New York
this coming February. Kyle and Nikki also have known me since I was eighteen years old and we went to college together and have been just busom buddy friends since. I'm so excited to have my chosen family on the show, Please help me. Welcome Kyle June Williams and Nikki Douglas. Hi. Nikki, Hi, Kyle, Hi. Hi. This is so funny because it's the first time that I have no I've had two guys before, but first time I've had two guests in studio at the same time.
So my head is like, I love this, this is wonderful. How's your day today, Nikki?
So far, so good, A regular day. I'm an educator coming from the classroom and I'm here now and I'm so happy.
I love it.
And you, Kyle, what is regular anymore?
Ky, he's ready to go. Okay, before we get into our messy key key, here's some messy mandates. Things get to be unprocessed. Any thoughts or opinion shared have the right to shift, change or evolve today, tomorrow, ten years from now. And if during the key keys something feels too personal or unintentionally offends, we use the safe word foodsball, which gives us the second to uh, pause and address and pivot accordingly.
How sports of you?
I love sports? I love sports. Okay, let's start with a loop breaker. Yes, a loop breaker. Yeah, this is a game of smash or pass by the way, Merry Christmas. Everyone waits Christmas on Thursday. It's today Christmas. I don't know, whatever, it's Wednesday. Smash your pass decorating Christmas trees and smash.
Is good and passes?
No? Yeah like smash smash. Okay, you like to decorate Christmas tree?
I like to decorate anything.
Really, Oh how about you pass?
I have cats.
That's just asking for it.
Yeah, yeah, I'm a pass on the decorating of the Christmas tree. Matthew loves to decorate the Christmas tree. I love Christmas tree and I every time we have to go buy one month, but he finally let us get a plastic one. Oh my god, how I'm so excited. I know some people are like the real tree, but the real tree like side top of the tree. We need the trees.
That is such a metaphor for your relationship as well, that he desperately wanted to decorate a Christmas tree, and so that you said no unless it's a plastic tree.
You know, I never said I never said no. I never said no. I would decorate. I would put on Mariah Carey's Apple Christmas Special, and I would put the ornaments on and I have a Black Angels of the Startopper. I think we also have a Beyonce Startupper Startoppers as one does. So like I support it, but I don't like to participate in it.
Absolutely.
But now with the plastic tree.
No needles, no needles and no watering, no no mess, and then it goes away like I don't have to like lug it out, you know, because we would have the tree deliver it's too much.
So right now, just say, y'all know, while you're listening to this, I am sitting under my plastic tree with with some kind of alcoholic beverage and a joint for sure, because it's Christmas and I could do whatever I want on Christmas. You know what I'm saying, Smash her past Frosty the Snowman. Can I go first? I would smash. I think Frosty is a sensitive soul. I think that carrot is has always you know anyways, and so I
would smash Frosty. I feel like we have a good time, and the best part is like the season changes, He's gone, you know what I'm saying, Like you don't have to worry about it after a certain amount of time, it's clearly a fuck buddy. It's clearly like that's not somebody you gotta really invest in. You can just really take that carrot, do what you gotta do with it, and then you keep the carrot, which is lovely. It's a fuck buddy who leaves behind a gift, you know what
I'm saying. So I'm going to I'm gonna smash Frosty the snowman down. How about you, two.
Ladies, And it's it's a smash for me. But I do feel anxious about it because we're always on the clock. You're always racing towards a puddle, I know.
Yeah.
And you have to keep the house cold.
You gotta keep at you gotta keep a colt.
Or you gotta funk outside. But he's very specific about the environment that he can last in. That's right, you can last in.
You know, nothing has changed.
Christmas filing Christmas. Can you talk to me?
I would smash because Frosty is a di wire.
Say more, say more about it.
Just think it's just a collection of goods. You don't have to buy nothing.
It's all from from around, from around.
Climate change friendly, like my guy is reusing things. Yeah, although how it's going we might have a prosty.
I mean it might just be really small, really little.
Guys, just three ice cubes.
Yes, yes, yes, we should still use the same size carrot, very very long carrot on this three ice cubes.
Right, we're here to talk about Dick.
You forgot at any point, if you forget what the show is about. If y'all have any prompts or ideas for LU breakers, you can email tell me something Messy at gmail dot com. Speaking of which, Nikki tell me something messy.
Oh wait, okay, I mean I have two messies, but this one I think is more fun, so I'll leave with this one.
Yeah.
So I am also.
Thirty seven, Yeah, living in my thirty seventh year, and I still have crushes. I like, still very much have a crush all the time. And this is my messy crush. I was walking out of I teach down Town in down Had Manhattan. I was walking off campus and I was headed just on a walk, just like truly on a walk. Then this man who I have this crush on, starts walking up the block.
I see him. Yes, I'm gonna tell you who he is.
This is the messiest part, the messiest part I see him from a distance, From like a great distance, I see him.
I just want to name that. I saw him from like a.
Block and a half away.
Oh wow, Wow, that's the crush I have is on an actor who to me is very famous, is doing a lot of work in the indie film game.
He was just in It's a Beautiful Name.
Yeah, he was just in the in your Ghost Lanthemist film.
He's okay.
The actor's name is Mama Do. I felt you have talked about.
Before, very very very If.
I could like flip something over in this room, I would flip it over the water. Yeah, that's how I feel about Mamma Do. Mamadu was just in a show at the public theater. So he was in the neighborhood, which is in the same neighborhood of the school I teach, and I teach it m Iu. So I was seeing him come up the street and I was like, oh, I have this is this person I have a crush on.
We also like know each other a little bit.
As he's walking up and approaching me, I'm like making a very serious kind of eye contact.
I'm like really looking. I'm just looking.
From the second I see him I'm just locked in, so it's a whole block of me just like trying to look at him. He's got his earbuds in, but he does do a double take. He sees me he's famous, so he just keeps moving. He's like whatever, that person's looking at me. Then he looks back, he takes his earbuds out, and he goes hey, and I go hey, mama do And then we proceed to like catch up a little bit in the street.
Wait, you know.
Each other a little bit? A little bit, okay, a little bit.
I need that in the but they thank you for elaborating.
We know each other just a little bit. It's like a couple of degrees of separation, but enough enough.
Apparently, apparently for him to turn around.
To have a moment in the street. And I'm stuttering. I'm like cold sweating. I don't know what I I don't know what I said to him.
I blocked out.
But we did share a moment, and I've been thinking about ever since. This was like a month ago. This is like a very long time ago.
Oh my goodness, what's your what do you want? I want to ask a questions? I ask a question. You don't have to answer, but how do you want to be ravaged by him? How do you? Oh my, I don't have to answer if you don't want to. But I am curious, like what is the fantasy? Where are we? Are we in Costa Rica? Are we uptown? Are we in Australia? Are we on a beach? Are we on a hotel? Like? What? How are we? You know what? You know what I'm saying.
I do know what you're saying, and I feel things I know about mama. Do you grew up here? Is of Mauretanian heritage?
And so I just want to be ravaged in the most African of ways. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, say less, say less, sister, say less, I understand. Yes, yes, it's a sort of it's about Kwanza in a way.
I feel it is related to the season. Yes, yes, that's what I want for you.
Yes, to turn that into our holiday story.
Wow?
Wow, quite impressive. I want to give you a standing ovation. Thank you so wow beautiful. Thank you, Thank you for sharing that, Thank you.
For culturally mess Yeah yeah it was wow.
Let's y'all if you have messy stories, tell them something, Tell me something. Message gmail dot com. But shall we do some mess email please, Yes, this is I couldn't be happier. This is my Christmas wish. Okay. As always, your submissions, stories and questions remain anonymous. This first one says, I blew my friends with benefit and sat on his face in the closet of another friend's house during a birthday party. But have you ever sat on somebody's face in the closet?
Yes, honestly, thrilled to know you.
Thrilled an honor, an honor, high honor.
How did I think I'd have nothing?
You really came in here, was like, I don't know if I have anything to girl. Okay, you've lived I've lived a life. Okay, So you you sat, You sat on somebody's face in a closet. Do you have like what was the context of it? Why were we in the closet?
We were at a party. It was in college.
Yes, we were all trying to raise money for a play.
Oh my god, not a fund raised It was a fundraiser.
And you're distracted, distracted, distracted?
Yes, and uh, there was a very cramped space beneath the stairs to.
The understair closet.
Yeah, so there's not much maneuvering you can do.
All you can do?
Is it? Yeah?
I'm just thinking of how how many jobs I no longer will be able to believe.
We'll blow your face out.
Can I be anonymous?
Absolutely?
Anonymous? Just say it. That's it, That's what the show does. Okay. This one says I female had sex with a woman for the first time in my life last week, and I am.
Chain, Yeah, that had sex with women feel very similarly to my first time. I was like, oh, it can be this thoughtful.
That's what I would like to know. What is it that changes it for you? Because like I still sleep with men, and you know RP, but.
For for for all, men are dying.
You know, men are trash, and you know it is what it is. But for as a I think I would make an incredible lesbian. I've said this on the show. I would love to be a lesbian. It would be my greatest honor to be a lesbian. Every time I say that to a lesbian, they're like, yeah, you should be you this makes sense, but it just you know, there just things don't work out for me, but it for you? In sleeping at with a woman, what was the like why was it so transformative?
I mean for me, it just had to do with having had a significant amount of or enough amounts of sex with men people or people with penises. Yeah, and then the like the shift had to do with presence. It had to do with like eye contact.
It had to do you with I still.
Be looking at I was talking for a long time, and every time we would do missionary, he wouldn't look me in the eye.
And I was like, I'm shocking.
He's like looking to the side, he's like looking above, and I'm like, I'm right here.
We're like we're lined up, you're inside me, Like you gotta look in you gotta look in my eyes, just like you're.
Already inside me, look at me in the eyes. It's too much, okay, Yeah, so.
Yes, Yeah. And I had to do with softness, just soft, Yeah, just so soft.
Yeah, the skin is soft, the energy is soft. Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, women are just better. Sorry, well the wrong, the wrong.
But it's like there's the more the I I value emotional connection in sect because like it is something that like now when even if it's a one time hookup, I'm like, I want the emotional connection, which just simply could be Like we talked about Housewives for a moment or like we you know, danced and the movement was correct, but there's like some kind of connection that happened before the thing. I don't know what I was talking about.
Yeah, just how how if you if you were to switch over to being a lesbian.
Yeah yeah, And.
That's why I like women, because because women stay emotionally connected, they value the emotional connection. Thank you so much. Yes, okay. This one says I'm on a solo trip to Italy and I just fucked my tour guide. Best sixty dollars I ever spent. This is another person like, wow, y'all are out here living and in Italy. Now they are passionate.
That's what I was saying. The men in America they can be rough, but I feel like the men specifically in Europe culturally at least like France, Spain, Italy, they're like lovers. They enjoy, they want to be lovers.
Men in America are a plastered wall. Men in Europe are the crown molding.
You know what I mean?
Like all the men just turned off the up. We love you if you're here and you're part of the podcast, said, yes we are.
Sometimes you need a little plaster.
Yeah, just trying to make it better. Sometimes you plaster, we value but yeah, there's a there's a passion which I think is just kind of you can think about like how we in America are raised around sex and sexuality, and how what men are taught, what women are taught,
what queer folks are taught. And then you go elsewhere and there seems to be more of an interest in love making, which doesn't mean that it can't be rough and tough and whatever, but it just means that there's I'll look you in your eye, I'll kiss you, you know, I'll ask you about what you like, what's your pleasure you know, which is just something that we It's romantic. It's romantic, yes, And here romance is so radical because romance is only reserved for being in a relationship, whereas
I think there romance is a way of life. It is like they live for the romance and the poeticness of just connecting. I like all my like grinder hookups in Spain were some of the most like emotionally connected, like beautiful, soft like version of sex that I've had, whereas here it's always like, uh, come in me right now, and then get out like I don't.
I live through your healthy experiences of an app.
Oh, thank you, I truly do.
Thank you.
That is like something that I feel as a woman, I would never be able to say.
Yeah, so yeah. I'm sure part of that is if you're navigating heterosexual men on an app, imagine I have no experience with what that is. The other pieces, because you know, queer men and gay men are not immune from being of course, of course, well and they very
much are on these apps. But I think over the years, because let's say, how long has it been since being on that, It's like, what ten eleven years of being on apps, I have become really clear about what my boundaries are on who I talk to and I know and I really believe I know immediately by your opening line in the first couple texts how this is going to go when somebody messages and they're actually interested in my day or how I am, and not just like, hey,
how are you, but like they're willing to talk about things and say, oh, like I'm into this or I'm doing da da da dada. I know that's going to be fruitful when somebody messages, which is no problem with that but it's just not for me. And they're like, can you come over right now? Will you blow my back out? Like it's like, oh, that's not going to be emotionally connected. I'm in that exchange. I'm an object, which is fine, but I don't want to be an
object in my sex. And so I think I've really heightened the boundaries that I have on the apps and that's made for a much better experience.
Yeah, you have a lot of autonomy when you go on, which I rephrase that not necessarily as a woman. I just think that, like you, you are so good with words as well, and you are such a good communicator, and having having a nobility to do that via messaging is a different skill set that I don't I don't have necessarily.
That's so interesting and I wonder I can't even in this. I'll think about it, but I can't even Like, how do you help somebody become a better because you're right, like texting is really about writing, and if you don't, even if you consider yourself a writer, but especially if you don't consider yourself a writer, how do you activate yourself in that medium? And I imagine, oh, I'm having a an o moment, a big old moment, which I think is people who write to me stressed about the apps.
There's a really good chance that they're not good at writing or texting messaging, which makes trying to interact or find partners via an app probably much more challenging.
No, I think it's more writing for self, because I can write, but writing.
For myself as myself.
If I gave.
You my account, you'd be like, OK, this, but for yourself. Yeah, yeah, that's that's also that's another layer of nuance if you if you don't know how to write, but if you do know how to write, how do you write on behalf of yourself? I think a lot of times. And I was interviewing somebody yesterday and we were talking about how the bedroom is a place of make believe. It
is a place of fantasy. That like, even whether you are actually playing out fantasies I'm this and you're that, or just like what you've projected on that hookup and who you think they are are Jim crushes or whatnot, that is a place of make believe and so can you lean into that? So I've been working on leaning, like I want to get more comfortable in my dumbness
and in like my my ability to take charge. And so some of that has come from like acting just like pretending, like let me like what, like what is the mindset of a don that I'd be interested in? Can I act that out? And that has helped to like take Brandon out of it and just play a character.
I don't know if that's I think the thing that I hear inside of the conversation is curiosity and like the value of curiosity in a sexual experience. I think so often people, especially on apps, you know, they just like everybody wants the same thing.
We all want a little little sex in.
Our lives, but the way you go after it can sometimes like yes to the writing challenge. But I feel like if you write with curiosity, if you share what you're curious about, what you're interested in, with like openness and a willingness to be in your imagination and needs to play, then those are those are the times that I have found better experiences.
Off of apps.
Yeah, like yeah, you write well, and like yeah, we're able to find a rapport together via text message, but it seems like we're both curious enough to gauge or to meet each other and play a little bit.
That is a beautiful piece. The curiosity, Like, like when you can feel that somebody's actually interested in you, it gives you space to be curious back, it gives you space to not because I never, like, I hate when I feel like I have to like second guess what I'm messaging. H this is too much, and it's like I just kind of want to say I love this and I like this, and if you don't vibe with it, then like move on, you know, like I'll move on.
But I think there's still a version of me that like wants to be wanted, and so you're trying to make the perfect interaction for somebody who just honestly may not be perfect for you. Yeah, I don't know. It's a it's complicated. I never I've never had to think about the relationship to the acts. Okay, this one says I'm a thirty three year old gay guy and I've never been in a relationship. I feel so lonely. I'm such a late bloomer, and I found it hard to
find community and hard to feel queer enough. I'm not even sure what that means, but I wrestle with feeling like I belong. I don't know what my question is other than how can I be more queer and less alone and find love?
Oh? If I can just respond to this so quickly, I really this resonates with me so much just because I have I have been like queer in my I have known that I've been queer for a long time. Let's say, right around college time. I was like, oh yeah, no, that's yeah.
I like all of the things.
I date everybody, I date people I like. And I was in my first relationship with a woman. Maybe I was thirty four, so just around the same age as this person who's written, and that was my also my first long term relationship, and it was it came at a time. I mean it came at in COVID time, but it also came at a time when I just had space and capacity to be with myself and in dialogue with myself.
So I guess I just.
Want to say to this person that queerness is uh not determined by some some outside force. I think queerness for me is determined by my own rules, my own desires, my own questions, and you can move through it at whatever pace, in whatever timing you need to.
It is up to you.
Yeah, you know, I'm more and more I'm realizing how important it is to say that out loud. And I think that's what queerness. I know people have that with with race. You know there are I can't tell you the amount of people who are biracial who feel like they can't own their blackness, and like and in these in these groups that get where we have to qualify their qualifications for your queerness, qualifications for your blackness, qualifications for your womanhood. I think it is so important to
say over and over there are no qualifications. It is what it is for you. Like, what is true for you is what it is, your version of it, your even as a non binary, Like what is non binary look like? Wrestle with that all the time. You look so masculine, you're not androgenous stuff. You don't look non binary? Fuck out of here, like it is true for me. And so how I show up is what non binary looks like. And how what that person shows up, That's what non binary looks like. How that person shows up,
that's what queer looks like. So however you show up, you are inherently that thing. And so however you show up is how that is represented, and I think the suffering comes from trying to be somebody else's version, whether it's you know, your favorite character on TV or what your community is doing. But like you just, it is hard and it takes time. It's not an easy solve, but the work is getting comfortable in your version, what makes you happy, what makes you feel good, and then
that's it. You know it, Let it be expansive.
I definitely I wrestle with this a lot.
Yeah, tell me.
I still don't feel queer enough or the ability to sort of claim queer, both because of not being able to say it till later on in life. And that has nothing to do with.
My upbringing or I mean.
We all went to school in New York City for theater people.
It's definitely something that is built into my body from very young and even today. I mean, Brandon, I've spoken with you at length about this. Like I, no one else is telling me I'm not queer enough. It's only me, and that is first of all, so hard to admit, but it's the truth. Because we all move through space and say what's your pronounce? So I feel like I always have to have an answer, or I had to have a coming out story.
Rather than just being.
And I also think I had a secret relationship with a woman for which I don't I still can't put rap around my brain how and why it was kept secret, but it was, And so I think it's important to remember that.
You kind of create your own prison.
And I have to remind myself to be kind to myself and to walk in a room giving people the benefit of the doubt, especially in this day and age. I mean, we're so lucky to live in New York that I feel more often not accepted and loved. Sure, but yeah, I mean I can walk into a room full of lesbians and still feel odd and like I need to over explain myself.
That's the other thing.
I'm a super chatty Kathy, and I explain it to my therapist, like I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know where I put in my pocket, I don't know where that to put it out for handshake, high five, hug. And I mean I'm thirty nine and.
Still it is say it differently.
I am thirty nine years young.
I have seen the world turn, the dinosaurs come and go. But I think that there is a lot with coming out later in life coming out that idea, and also like, I'm so intrigued that your first long term relationship was with a woman because I don't feel like it can actually put my have that or I haven't had that, so it's hard for me to claim it. I mean it is the same thing with like, we live in a world now where you're supposed to put your status where if you put a rainbow.
Sign, people are like, oh are you by You know what I mean.
It's this.
Curiosity, which I think is good.
But I also want to live in a place where I assume everybody is queer sure, and everybody is fluid and everybody is everybody is just there.
To meet the person that they want to meet.
And I feel like the generation younger than us is there and I'm just trying to allow myself to live in that same space.
Is there any way for your community to support you, because I know you said it. It's like it's not anyone else telling you you're not queer, it's just you so one and you don't have to have an answer or it can be on process. But I'm curious, is there any way for your community, which is you know, we're part of your community that can support you in changing that. And the second part of that is like
what do you muse? Right, doth be perfect? But what do you muse would be the steps in changing that story for yourself and like being able to affirm that you are queer, Like what would what would need to happen or what do you muse the steps would be?
I feel very lucky.
I feel very supported by everybody that's around me. I think because I'm older and I am still single.
It is a little bit of feeling like you're an island of your own, uh.
Managing both meeting somebody later in life potentially, I don't know.
That's the other thing is I also have uh.
Beautiful vision of being on an island of my own with a gorgeous house.
And you know, wild animals running around me. I don't know. It's you know, am I a witch? Yes?
Yes, I don't.
I think the idea, the thing that would make me feel most supported is to stop putting so much pressure on the idea of relationship and that making you whole.
I think a bar yeah.
And I don't think that any And that's the thing is, I don't think anybody puts pressure on me per se to meet somebody.
But yes they have society. Society every show that you've watched on you like you've grown up in a tank of pressure. Like we are swimming in pressure to find a mate and mate and have like that. That is the the I just posted something that said, normalize. There's no rule that says you have to get married and start a family. Normalize splitting a mansion with five of your best friends and ten dogs and yeah, honestly sounds
great to me. But like that, I'm sure you can also read that and go h and that uh is because we've been indoctrinated to say no, like for me to be a whole person, I have to have somebody else or I have to be in a relationship. And I do think there is some work to do to release that. But I just want to affirm that there has been pressure.
Yes to do that.
Yes, you're right. I think a lot of the times I'm like, don't worry, guys, you're.
Swimming in it.
Yeah.
I think it's the idea that sort of normalizing not asking somebody who they're dating. Yeah, if they're in a relationship, maybe asking them, uh, how is work?
Yeah?
What what are you excited to work on. What are you passionate about?
How's your heart? I like asking that.
Yeah, I think a lot of times I hear you know, I this is not this is this is my side of the corner. But like I was watching Murder on Elm Street, which is a murder document, yes, and they were talking about this young woman who passed, and the father was saying, uh, I'm just I just think about, uh, how what a wonderful wife she would have made, and like what a wonderful like what a man would have just loved to.
Have her as his wife.
And I was like, what the fuck.
Reduced to somebody's wife as opposed to being her own?
And I feel that all the time surrounding me, especially because I'm at the age where you know, I'm considered rotten inside and not able to procreate or I am actually but you know, I just I don't feel the lack of support from friends. But I do think it's about changing the bigger conversation.
Yeah, the societal conversation.
And I think you're right that there is something you know that that we are like growing out of in terms of how generations are considering love and yeah, relationship status and what that means or what it can look like. I feel like the generation coming up behind us is just like we're paving a way in many ways, like the we are cursed with it, but it's it's almost over.
In a way.
Well, we're the generation that I think is at the crossroads, right Like I think our generation is the generation that's starting to go to therapy and take mental health seriously. And so our kids, which I don't know, I'm not having kids. It like I'll be a good uncle or godparent, will have parents or people around them who have been raising their emotional intelligence and who have been learning how to communicate. And so that's just going to breed a
different type of desire and a different track. But I think we are, you know, blessed or cursed with have to straddle the line and straddle the bridge of breaking the curses in so many ways, of fighting against the messaging even though we were indoctrinated with it, like having to pick it out and that is hard and that is strenuous and I think has to be done in community.
But you're right, ultimately it is the bigger conversation because I said this, you can't expect a child to not absorb that, and a child only becomes an adult who has absorbed that and is operating from that until they're not, which is I think these conversations help interrupt, but there is an interruption that has to happen.
Yeah, and it's I think I think queer or not, you're still expected to walk down the aisle, expect.
That to be heteronormative, like you're still expected to have all the same things to say. Look, we're good queer. Yeah, we're a normal queer normal.
And I very much like love the conversations that are that are being had now because I think that hearing them, hearing that, hearing the type of discourse, especially you know, not to toot your own horn, but I'm toooting it in this podcast allows people to feel on their own, given a toolbox, yes, and to not necessarily feel like
you have to be one way or another. That we are constantly learning, and I think that's the thing is I feel like I should I should say I'm a lesbian, I should have a wife, I should be in a house, I should adopt three kids, But maybe I should just keep learning.
Yes, yeah, and you should, like that's the only should the only should is to evolve, to change and to be That's the only thing that you should do. The rest of it is like, if that's what you want, you like, But if you don't want it, that's also cool. I think like we we feel like it's not cool
because we feel like we're standing on our own. And I think about this with Matthew and being polyamorous, and I've talked about it when when we first started being open, you know, we would get on grinder and people are like, you're open, And now people are like, oh, you're probably like whatever for the most part, but it's like, oh, we felt like we were on our own island. It didn't mean that what we were doing was wrong. It
just meant like everyone else wasn't doing it. And I think that sometimes we have to get comfortable being on our own. You're not really like you have your community, but be comfortable with like saying like I might be the only one doing this right now and that's okay. What matters is does it make me happy? Do I feel safe? Do I feel good? Do I feel value?
Do I feel protected? If all those boxes are being checked, I don't even fuck what it is, you know, what I'm saying you're not hurting yourself anybody else, I'll go fuck what it is. But I think our brains are trained, especially as women, especially as queer folks. Our worth comes from how well we are liked, how well we are accepted, how well we're able to perform, how productive we're able to be, how well we can stay inside the lines, that we can color inside the lines. That's where we
get our our validity from. And it's like we have to it's a harder process. But having to shed that and say like, no, like what I'm doing is fine, and I still have to like I still have questions and I still have to go, no, Brandon, you're fine, Like that is okay what you're doing. Because the old, the old operating system comes up. I was in it for thirty something years before I interrupted it, So to expect that it will be an easy transition would be
setting myself up for failure. You know. Yeah, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for sharing of yourselves in this because I know a lot of people listening and that write and write and similar to this person about not feeling queer enough, about wanting a relationship or wanting to find love, or not sure what that looks like, or not showing how they want to set things up. And I really think that these conversations allow us to satiate or balm the discomfort on the journey, you know,
like it is a journey. We're going for it, but it gets uncomfortable, and hearing that other people are experiencing something similar, I think makes it a little easier.
I hope it's the only way.
It is the only fucking way.
It's scary, but we've got to talk.
We got to talk to each other, especially in this climate. Especially, you know, we were before we got a mic, Nicky and I hear Nicky and I were here talking about you know, the election, you know, and so more than ever, it is important for us to talk. More than ever, it's important for us to say the quiet things out loud, because this next four years in particular, is gonna be
about silencing people. It's gonna be about pushing people back into their corners, getting people back into their lanes, and we just cannot succumb to that. And the only way that we are able to, I think, be victorious is together. And that's again I always say, it's not some spiritual bullshit. It literally is just tea.
And to celebrate your uniqueness and your difference because at the end of the day, they can push us into as many boxes as they want to try to.
But to have ownership of who.
You are is so important and that it doesn't it's not hinging on someone else's idea. It's not hinging on the person laying in bed next to you, you know, and how important it is to also to surround yourself with friendship and salons of people who you can commune with.
Friends are soulmates too. You have to know that animals and animals like soulmates, are not just that one person.
We have to take care of ourselves.
It's so important as each other as well, but we have to take care of ourselves. So it's so important over these next four only four, it.
Will only it will only before and that is tea because we will come together and we will make sure that it is only the four. So yes, I'm gonna say something to the two of you, which is because you know, it's a Christmas episode and I specifically picked the two of you to be here because I want it to be with my chosen family. Because I know some people don't get to be with their I'm that person. I don't get to be with my blood family on holidays.
And I know there are a lot of people who listen to the show who may have either lost a loved one or loved ones or have not been accepted by loved ones, and so their chosen family really is everything. And I'm gonna do this without I might cry, and so what, but I might not. But I've known the two of you since I was eighteen years old, and so it is incredibly special to be sharing this space
with the two of you. You, to have watched you over the last however many years, because I can't do math that fast, and to be witnessed by you, and to have this love means has been has been life saving, you know, like when losing my family and that relationship to them in order to allow myself to be my full queer, black, non binary free self was the hardest thing I've ever done. Continues to be the hardest thing
that I do. To know that my you know, even my mom specifically is getting older as I'm getting older, and I do not have any semblance of her life, and it's been hard. But what makes things soft is the love that I have and the love that the two of you and our community continues to show me and pour on me. And so to this person that wrote to us about, you know, not feeling queer enough or whatever, it's like, give it time. You'll find your community.
But above all, else do you find your community. What has saved my life is the two of you and the other people that we know in our lives. But it is it is life saving because I really could have been on my own, you know, swirling and spiraling and unsure and very alone, and so publicly I would like to thank you for for not leaving my side, for loving me as I am, and for insisting that i'd be who I am. I am eternally grateful, I'm internally grateful. So thank you and I love you. Thank
you for being here. Huh Merry Christmas? Where is thank you?
Thank you? Oh?
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right, Well, i'll talk to you soon. You already know we're hose here, but hose with heart. So before we get out of here, let me speak to yours. Oh you know, nothing is new under the sun blaze a trail. Someone is looking for you. So if you feel safe about the thing that you're exploring, the thing that you're doing, the thing that you're processing, then be loud. You know. I wasn't loud about my polyamory or our openness for a long
time because I didn't need to be. It was something that I was navigating in private and didn't want to be loud about it. I wanted to figure it out. I wanted to be able to figure out what are my opinions on this, what are my thoughts on this?
How does this feel for me before? And how does this feel for my partner and my partners before I start allowing the world to have their opinions on it, because I know y'all do okay, But sometimes it's scary, especially when you're like, no one else is doing this thing, no one else is living this way or making you It's easy for you to go, well, then I'm wrong or this is wrong. But perhaps you are just blazing a trail. Perhaps you're lighting a fire, and so perhaps
it's you can look at it differently. I would say, as long as you're not hurting yourself anyone else, you know, and if it feels good, if it feels fun, it might also feel scary bye, right, But fear or being afraid doesn't mean the thing is bad, or being uncomfortable doesn't mean that you're in danger. Yeah, So know the difference between I'm uncomfortable by this because maybe I'm growing
and I'm expanding, or I don't like this. Yeah, But if it's something that you're like I do, if no one is looking at me and I don't care about anyone's perception or anyone's opinions about it, and I'm enjoying it, then you're probably doing something that's right for you, And so I would keep on keeping on. Also, friends, family, family is so hard and such a difficult thing to navigate. And as I said, I'm about like thirteen years estranged
from mine. Here's what I'll share that I am. I wrote on threads, which is I used to worry about being abandoned, so I'd contort myself for acceptance. But now I invite people to walk out of my life. I am excited to be in the lives of the people I love, and I want people in my life to be excited to love me, eager to see my soul, passionate about holding my heart softly, insistent that I be
exactly who I am. I deserve to be loved just as fiercely as I love And if you can't rise to that, then please, by all means walk out now. If this is your first Christmas away from your family, be it by choice or by a passing, or it's your second year, or your tenth year or your fifteenth list, it gets It's hard. The first year is the hardest. The first couple of years are incredibly difficult. But I will tell you it does get easier. But I don't
know if that wound ever goes away. But I have arrived at this place where I know that my life is infinitely better by choosing to be around people who accept and hold and love me as I am than trying to sacrifice my happiness for someone's acceptance. Don't do that, even if it's your blood. Uh. You know we're not
taught this, because we're taught. You know, Honor your mother and father no matter what, no matter, no matter how they treat you on a mom and dad, And I'm here to interrupt that if mom, dad, brother, sister, boss, teacher, friend, I don't care who it is, if they are not loving you, holding you, respecting you, championing you, advocating for you, protecting you. Let it go easier said than done, but you gotta let it go for your for your I keep using these words, but they're right, you know, for
your expansion, but also for your for your thrival. Right, because there is surviving and if you keep those people around, you can survive. But that's not a life. You want to thrive. You want to be happy. You want to be excited to wake up. You want to know that when you're going into these you know, to your your holiday parties, that you're not going with dread. You're not afraid that somebody's gonna say some dumb shit to you.
You know, you're not afraid that somebody's gonna to tear you to pieces or or dismiss you or belittle you. You want to know that whatever space you're walking into, people want to build you up the way that you're gonna build them up. Yeah, anyways, it's easier than done. But I do want you to know, do not sacrifice your happiness for other people's acceptance. Anyways, I love you. Happy holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate, Happy holidays. And if it can't be happy, this year. I wish you a
peaceful holiday. I love you. You can find Kyle June on Instagram at Kyle June and Nikki on Instagram at my Name is Nikki and I See h I. You can find me on Instagram as well at Brandon Kyle Goodman. You can find our podcast at tell Me Something Messy and you can join our community on the Messy Monday's substack. When you subscribe, you'll get weekly posts, recommendations on sex
and self and so much more. Also, I want to hear from you, so send your topic ideas, your messy stories, your submissions, your game ideas to tell Me Something Messy at gmail dot com. You can also call us at six six nine sixty nine Messy. That is six six nine six ninety six three seven seven nine. Rate review and share this podcast with all your HOE and aspiring HOE friends. Really really helps the show out.
All right.
Until next time, ask about the politics of that dick before you make it spit, make sure they eat the kitty before they beat the kitty, before fuckation or succation communication. And in case you haven't heard it yet, today you are so deeply loved. I love you, Hie. Thank you so much for listening to Tell Me Something Messy. If you all enjoyed the show, send the episode to someone
else you might like it. Tell Me Something Messy was executive produced by Ali Perry, Gabrielle Collins, and Yours Truly. Our producer and editor is Vince Dejohnny. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and The Outspoken Network, visit the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.