218. Embodying the Values of Anarchy with Prince Shakur

Nicole: [00:00:00] Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host Nicole .

on today's episode, we have Prince join us for a conversation about how the personal is the political. Together we talk about embracing the inevitability of change. Deconstructing our unconscious conditioning and the anarchy of sexual liberation. Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday.

My name is Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic [00:01:00] integration therapy, and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear. A listener. Hello, hello, and welcome back. I am so excited to be sharing this conversation with you.

It is so powerful to remember that these systems of oppression are deep within our unconscious. Our desires, including our sexual desires, are not just innate, they are shaped and a reflection of our cultural context and our cultural conditioning. And so our relationships, our sex lives are just as needing of reflection and growth, accountability, and change.

As other areas of our life because these systems are so present, that's the water that we swim in. And so, dear listener, [00:02:00] I hope this space can be one that is inspiring you to reflect on the conditioning of your own context, to reflect on the areas that there is still liberation for your own desire and your own relationships.

And when there's so many big systems going on in the world, so much that is out of our control, it is no sign of hell to be well adjusted to a sick society. And within that, we know that the personal is the political. We riot, we protest, and we show up to love the people that are around us. Because choosing to love your community, choosing to show up for them, to have those deeper conversations, that is all an act of resistance.

And you have a community here, you belong here, and I am so, so, so, so delighted that you are tuning in each week. Dear listener. Ah. Ah. [00:03:00] Dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources@modernanarchypodcast.com. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.

We have a new Patreon member, Tyrone, welcome to the community. Thank you for supporting the show, Tyrone. It is you and other Patreon members that make this show possible. You are supporting the long-term sustainability of the show, keeping this content free and accessible to all people. So thank you. If you wanna join Tyrone and the Patreon community, then you can head on over to patreon.com/modern Anarchy podcast, also linked in the show notes below.

And with that dear listener. Please know that I'm sending you all my love and [00:04:00] let's tune into today's episode. The first question I ask each guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Prince: That's a good question. My name is Prince. I am 29 years old. I grew up in Ohio. I, um, come from a Jamaican family that immigrated to the US in the eighties.

Um, I got radicalized in high school and in college through, I mean, mainly the Black Lives Matter movement, but I have had people in my family be in and out of prison. I also am queer, so that's like a big part of my politic and how I like live in the world. Um, I'm a writer. I am a black anarchist. I am also an educator, an organizer, um, a lot of different things.

Also an artist. Yeah. And I, yeah, I enjoy conversations about how we look at the world, the function of things, the function of [00:05:00] cultural processes, political processes. So, um, that's kind of how I guide, like I don't know how I post things online or think about things online. Um, yeah.

Nicole: Great. Such a joy to have you in this space.

So thank you for joining me today.

Prince: Thank you.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. I feel like my first big question is how did you connect to Anarchy and what does it mean for you? Hmm.

Prince: That's a good question. Um, it's so big. Yeah. I, I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot because I do a podcast where me and my friend, um, talk about black anarchism and we talked about that.

I mean, I guess for me, um, in high school was when I first started getting radicalized and I started learning about communism. But I also mentioned that time because even though I was ideologically aligned with more communism, um, I think I was also anti-authoritarian in certain ways. And then in college again, I kind of started learning that aspect of myself a little bit more, but kind of generally considering [00:06:00] myself radical.

Um, but I think when I started to really name like inclining towards anarchism, it was when I, after I graduated college in 2015, I moved to Seattle and I basically connected with. Someone there who was like a student organizer who just graduated who was basically an anarchist. Um, but I started hanging out with them and their friends and mm-hmm.

Like, just like learning about their political practices. Um, I remember going to left bank books a lot in downtown Seattle and reading, I think Black Seed Journal. Um, and that was also around the time where I think I was just grad, I was out of university. I was asking myself all these questions about how do I be an adult in capitalism?

How do I not be exploited in work? Um, and like I was also working seasonally in hotels where I. Like a lot of my managers were racist. And so I think especially that period of time, like 2016, that was also the Donald Trump election. Yeah. That was when I went to Standing Rock. Um, and so I, I ve [00:07:00] viewed 2016, especially as a big year where I was like, oh, this isn't just something I talk about.

This is actually guiding how I show up in all these different spaces in my life, how I show up socially. Like you're at a party, someone gropes someone, you, you go, you go with your friends to confront and you kick them out of the party or you deescalate. Or like, if you're at your job and you're, you have bad working conditions.

Like you talk to people you work with, you unionize. I I was a boycott organizer in Seattle as well. Um mm-hmm. And so I, I think for me, I've just seen anarchy be applicable in many different parts of my life. And especially as a black person, it's a useful politic because I think so much of. I don't know, I guess how black liberation has been reformed again and again and again.

I think to turn away from respectability and towards like taking the question of violence seriously as like a colonized subject, like anarchism is such a useful logic for me to, to look at, um, what I perceive as like black liberation and queer liberation. Um, [00:08:00] yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. Thank you for sharing your journey and how you've connected to this across the years.

You know, something that I'm sure you've connected with deeper and deeper and, you know, the further down the rabbit hole, the more nuanced you have to your understanding of anarchy. I'm sure. Could you define it? Could you give more language to it? I know hard and I know it's usually defined by what it's not.

Right. But, uh, could you give more language to that?

Prince: I love that question. Um, to me, to me anarchy, or what I consider it to be is it's a political ideology that is against like a hyper centralism. It's against hierarchy, it's against, uh, social domination. It, uh, favors our individual in collective autonomy.

So if you're engaging in a political space, it's not like the people at the top need to decide how people in this space engage. You decide moment by moment and context by context. Um, to me, anarchism is also like. Really big into like DIY culture, punk culture, [00:09:00] mutual aid. Um, I think 2020 and the pandemic, which is still happening, um, showed a lot of people like the power of mutual aid, a lot of anarchists, like stepped out into different cities, did food not bombs.

Um, and so for me it's like definitely also tied to this critique of hoarding resources and looking at how can we appropriate things from the elite or how can we share the resources that we have so we all have the things that we need to live water. Mm-hmm. Housing, food, healthcare. And yeah. And, and, and I think it's to me also just like sort of.

I mean, any political practice or area or ideology can be stuffy, but I just also think anarchism is a little bit more fun.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I love the, the dream, right? Mm-hmm. Constantly. Mm-hmm. Challenging the systems, but also being radical enough to dream of what it would be like outside of 'em.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. And, and also just like the understanding that, I don't know, I, I don't think.[00:10:00] 

Anarchism is better than any other kind of political area or tactic. I mean, some people might disagree, but I like that it offers a continuous flexibility that mm-hmm. I sometimes felt wasn't there as much when I was more into like socialism or communism or, or whatever the kind of subcategories of even those ideologies are.

Um, yeah.

Nicole: Yeah, yeah. And when you're talking about the sharing of resources and mutual aid, I think about, you know, the ways that we're all social creatures, the way that we all need love. And so I've talked about it, you know, in the same way of food, water, love. And so I'm curious, you know, bringing anarchy into our relationships and what it means to love other people.

How do you see that being connected?

Prince: Uh, also a good question. I mean, for me, a lot of it comes down to queerness or my experience of queerness, of being rejected by my family at an early age, going to college. Knowing at an early age that friends and [00:11:00] community would have to matter to me because I understood the implications of like, living honestly.

And so I think on that one level, like community matters, matters to me there. And I think being queer, I, I feel like I feel grateful a lot of times because I'm like, oh, I'm not as invested in like, uh, heteronormativity or, or the patriarchy. I am still a man, but, and I can still commit or have violence committed against me.

But I think there are certain intersections that I exist at that make community and love and I don't know, transparency a lot more necessary. Um mm-hmm. Because my friends matter to me, like the people I share space with go to protests with, um, talk about, uh, life and politics with, I, I think it's like. I don't know.

I just view it as like the way we share space with each other. It's like you, you live by example and Yeah. I mean, I mean, I, I can, I can, and I feel like a big part of like what I hope [00:12:00] for in friend groups or spaces or people that I organize with is also this demand for accountability, for transparency.

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I, I think it, it shows up in that way, but I think queerness is kind of the first demand that made me kind of like, look seriously at like, okay, these relationships I've been given can fall apart, just like these systems I'm given can be fall apart. What are the other possibilities and how we can love each other or, mm-hmm.

Oh, each other, or how can you see people change and still love them anyway? How can you support people that are locked up or, or live in your neighborhood? I, I, I, I think like these practices of love in the way that you, you kind of said like, food, love, water, um, like they spread, I think ideally.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And so painful to have that. You know, loss of the family structures to not be supported in our authentic self. That's definitely something that I've experienced as a queer person, myself and my family being much more religious, more Mormon, and so queerness was certainly [00:13:00] not, um, uh, welcomed visible in that space.

Yeah, so you can imagine, um, it's definitely gotten better over the years, but even in that journey, you know, there's still so much distance in terms of understanding of. My world. And so, you know, yeah. What does it mean to really invest in chosen family and to build a community of my own choosing sensory, like the blood relationships don't really fulfill that space.

I think that that is a, you know, function of relationship anarchy in terms of questioning the assumption that your blood family should be the space that you invest all of your time and energy into all of your time and energy into. And what happens when those relationships are abusive? What happens when those relationships don't support you?

Right. Yeah. And I think that often the queer narrative, unfortunately, this is something that many of us go through of that redistribution of having to reallocate who are the important people in our lives. [00:14:00] 

Prince: Yeah. And, and I view it as, um, I think growing up queer, having family that I was aware might reject me.

Um. I don't know. It made me aware of loss and grief at an earlier age. It made me aware of violence, like my proximity to violence. Um, and it removed, like I, I think some of the illusions that I think capitalism especially, or like Western Imperialism gives us where it's like, you're born into this family.

You're born into this nation. There are these values that you have to claim that the structure represents. And I think at a very early age, I started to see like, okay, this structure exists and I fit into it, but I need, but I'm being told I need to be X, Y, z, I need to be a man. I need to be a particular kind of man.

I need to be good at school. I need to talk this way. I need to not react this way. And I don't know, it's, it's to, if I'm thinking of anti-authoritarianism, I'm like, is is family? Where that kind of [00:15:00] begins or starts for a lot of people, because if you're born into something and it doesn't make sense to you, how do you find another way?

And I think that to me is like one of the core questions of anarchism. It's like, how else can we exist and how can we show people the possibilities? And I feel like I'm, I'm grateful that whatever emotional, mental faculties I had, the community I had, or internet and meeting other teenagers, queer teenagers online, it's like, I don't know.

I knew at a very early age, I was like, you're gonna have to live in a world where people are gonna tell you, you, you, you don't make sense to them. Mm-hmm. And, and I feel like that's what the state constantly does to marginalize people, black people, undocumented people, disabled people, poor people. Um, and so it's, it's almost all connected in a way emotionally.

If you look at it, it's like, I. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting to think about.

Nicole: Absolutely. And as I study sex and relationships, you know, the concepts of pleasure are all linked to [00:16:00] that. You're not having good orgasms when there's so much pressure on all these other things. When you're stressed out, you can't play, right?

So, anytime that we start to talk about sex, it is so deeply linked to politics. And if you're missing that, you're missing the, the whole equation here. And so I appreciate conversations that really get into the. Nuance of that. And particularly in our western context, there's such a, you know, emphasis on the nuclear family, you know, the two person kids fence property household, which is not something that we see in other cultures which have much more community-based connections.

And so, so many of us are also feeling so deeply isolated in this nuclear structure that is relatively new. And so what does it mean to actually build community that can hold you outside of that nuclear family? Whether you're practicing monogamy or not, doesn't matter. You need community.

Prince: Yeah, this is, it's kind of interesting, we were talking about this, 'cause last night I was up late at night [00:17:00] with my friends's drunk until like 4:00 AM and we were, and I don't know why I'm thinking that we had this conversation about what is a normie versus like what is a non normie?

And I guess this conversation is making me think of like. What is a normal person in terms of like how we share and hold space and what we expect out of community and what is a non-normative way of looking at it. And, and I feel like that's what, what I think about with queerness and intimacy. Yeah. It's just like, I don't, I don't, I don't expect my life to look the same as the mainstream conception of what like a family or community is.

And, and, and that's exciting to me because I get to figure out all these other possibilities. I get to learn, I get to meet people. I, I get to be in relationships that change just as we change throughout life. Um, and, and that to me is just like, I don't know. It's, it's, I, I appreciate it because it also allows me a flexibility when I show up to spaces and 'cause I, I can change as well.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I feel [00:18:00] like personally, my own practice of relationship anarchy has been this deep meditation of embracing change. What does it mean to actually get comfortable with that? Specifically when I have multiple types of relationships that are sexual and romantic and platonic and that whole world.

There's so many moving variables to that, which is often what I think scares people about the practice, but also there's been such security and really embracing that inevitability of change for me.

Prince: Mm-hmm. Yeah. May maybe to me a non, a non normie is someone who. Can kiss their friends because I feel like that's a very weird thing to do.

I don't know. Yeah,

Nicole: absolutely. I kiss lots of my friends. Yeah. It's funny, I've gone, uh, in my journey into all of this, it felt so non-normative at the beginning to have sex with multiple people, to have affections with multiple people in romance and all of this. And then I've continued to build more community.

Even [00:19:00] going back to what you said at the beginning of stepping into anarchies, you found this community that was. Talking about these things and all of that, and now I've gone so much into this community space that I again, feel somehow super normal. I'm like, oh, mm-hmm. You know, and just the radicalness of how powerful it is to be conscious of who your community is and how much that can shape your concept of self, where I felt like I was constantly edging society and really pushing the boundaries to step into a world where now I feel like I'm doing just what everyone else is doing around me.

Yeah. Which I always hold the deeper context that this is not normal outside of my bubble here. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been so, uh, it's been so grounding to not have to constantly feel like I'm on the edge, that I'm actually just a part of a normal movement.

Prince: Yeah. What at, at what point in your, like radicalization did it.

Moved from being like something new or something that you were ideologically interested in to feeling like normal or just like a part of your life?

Nicole: Yeah, I think having all of my, you know, [00:20:00] I know the words get complicated in the relationship anarchy, but having all of my partners, you know, like four different people that I'm exploring sexual and romantic connection with, all in a circle, talking with me, easily intermixing them, having their other partners here and just kind of sitting back, I was having a party and sitting back and watching all of that unfold and it felt really calm and mm-hmm.

Peaceful and grounded. I mean, that, that's not to say there aren't days of, you know, fear and confusion, but Yeah. Relatively so feeling pretty calm and grounded and, and it just really, the dream like actualized.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I think that's beautiful and I, and I think to me, I also, I agree for myself, like I think when I.

Started to have more community where I realized our values were shared and they also fell under this thing known as anarchism. Um, and so it's almost like the normalcy aspect is like when [00:21:00] people reflect you back to yourself, right? And having that possibility as opposed to being in like a world where people just care about individualism or mm-hmm.

It's like you're in the rat race. Um, so I, yeah. And I feel like that was 2016 for me, like when I was quitting jobs and moving back home and then I, I like, and so many things were happening politically, I think the community aspect matters. 'cause it, I realized like, who do I feel safe around when things.

Politically or socially or in the world are fucked up. Um, right. And I feel like now we're experiencing a definitely a period of time where I think people are asking themselves the same questions and people are turning to the internet or mass mobilizations or whatever it may be, to, to find that community, to get that sense of safety.

To me as like an element of it is like when I realize like, oh, I have. A higher level of safety in this space with these people.

Nicole: Yeah.

Prince: And that to me feels like it should be normal or I want it to feel normal.

Nicole: [00:22:00] Yeah. And it affects our mental health. It affects our energy, right. The difficulties of even our family structures if we wanna go there, the ways that we have to protect and hide at times parts of ourselves, because it's not safe again for the listener, I'm like.

Caving my, my chest, because that's what we do, you know, to protect yourself. You're not gonna open up, you're gonna wanna cave. And how that impacts your energy because you don't feel safe. And then you're having to keep parts of yourself and all of the mental energy going into, can I share that? I don't know.

Are they gonna hate this? Oh no. And people often in that space feel like there's something wrong with them. Yeah. Yeah. And I, as a psychotherapist, when I'm working with people, I'm like, okay, what's your community? How safe do you feel in these spaces? And can we get you somewhere else, let alone beyond safety?

Like just the beauty of intimacy of all different types of being understood. I am so tired, you know, I keep a very wide variety of relationships in my life, but it is really hard when I start [00:23:00] to connect with someone and I open up about my life and I say, oh, you know, I was hanging out with my meta more, and we were talking about our shared partner.

And then that person immediately starts to say, oh, I could never do that. How do you even do that? I haven't even got to the part of the story I wanna talk about yet.

Prince: Mm-hmm. You know, like you're, it's like you don't even, you don't even know the worst of it

Nicole: or the best of it to be quite frank. Yeah. The best of it truly is.

I wanna get to the best part of it. Yeah. But I can't because you are sa having so much come up in your own experience that literally listening to me talk about my lifestyle makes you shut down and it immediately floods a reaction in the brain. And, and so I've had such, you know, difficulties I think in terms of living this life where you have to make that choice of how much do I disclose?

Yeah. And so then when I can find the relationships where they don't. Stop right there, and we can actually continue the story. And I feel understood and seen. Ugh. The expansiveness. Yeah, the intimacy.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, [00:24:00] I think the phrase that comes to mind is stigma. Like, how, how do we build communities or hold community where we turn people away from stigma?

We, we allow them to feel safe, to explore things, to talk about things, to communicate things. Um, yeah, because if I think of like my friends that on some level I might consider them less radical, or maybe they're not an anarchist, like mm-hmm. Of course I still love them and understand them. But I feel like one of the ways that I try to radicalize people, I guess even just like socially, is like, I don't know, I, I try to turn people away from stigma.

And this is just one example. Like, I have a friend who's getting a a BL soon, a Brazilian butt lift. Mm. And like, I think I'm one of two people, like she's told and she's like, I don't wanna tell people, or blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, if someone shamed you for making this change, change to your body. Would you think that's okay?

So why do you do it to yourself?

Nicole: Yeah.

Prince: Um, and I think that's like, I don't know, like one way, one way that we can help each other, move each other, push each other, make [00:25:00] each other feel safer. Um, yeah, open up the possibilities of how we feel like we can exist or show up in the world. 'cause um,

Nicole: yeah,

Prince: yeah.

Saying like, oh, I can never do that. It's almost like, what, what if it's like, what if you said that to a gay person? It would still be fucked up. I don't know.

Nicole: They did, they used to do that.

Prince: Yeah. So it's kind of like that same line of logic where I'm like. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that.

Nicole: Yeah, I know. It's tricky.

I feel like it requires, 'cause sometimes I feel the same way too, and I hear people talk about other relationship structures that aren't what I'm doing. Right. Like the idea of practicing monogamy. Right. Me right now would feel like taking my breath away, it would feel like mm-hmm. Taking away my ability to laugh with multiple people, to hug multiple people.

And so I could fall into the same camp of doing the same thing. You know, they start to talk about it. Oh yeah. And I could be like, I could never do that, but I do, I, I don't say those things, you know what I mean? These are moments when we go through the world and someone's saying that I take a deep breath and [00:26:00] realize, Hey, this isn't my life.

That's their life. And like that's where I start to think about the practice of relationship anarchy and self-governance. What does it mean to trust that, hey, this human is on their own journey and they're doing their own thing. And I know that they are smart enough, wise enough, and empowered enough to make their own decision That my stuff that's coming up about that.

Yeah. That's my own journey, not theirs. Yeah. I can take a step back and shut up, you know? Yeah.

Prince: I feel like that's like the, the practice of humility that I, I also like in more ideal, I guess, liberatory or anarchistic spaces where it's like, even if I disagree with you, I'm gonna humble myself to allow this space to exist or this discussion to be had or this diversity of tactic to happen as well.

Um

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. The humility to not presume that we have all the answers and the best way to live, the best way to show up politically, all of this, to really like, take that step back and honor the empowerment of each person. Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:00] Exactly. And I mean, the tricky part of all of this though, I think too is, is how deep are the power structures that we don't even see, you know what I mean?

How I, that's why the line I constantly feel as an anarchist working in the spaces, how do I. I talk shit about the systems that some people are still in because they're not aware of it without being, you know, power over dynamics and maintaining humility. When I look back on my journey, particularly to where I come from now, I mean, I was raised.

So Christian, I was homophobic to the degree, like highest degree. I was anti-abortion. I was everything of that caliber until I realized I was gay myself until I realized I needed an abortion and I was monogamous until I realized I was not right. And so when I look back on all those different points of the journey, there was so much power structures that were deep within my unconscious that I didn't have a choice about.

I was [00:28:00] put into this container and it was there. And so then I'm constantly writing this line of how do we talk shit about the fact that that is so deep within us, but also hold space for the people that are wanting to be there and and being humble. Yeah. That is, that is the line.

Prince: I, I have an answer. I have an answer.

Go for it. I think exactly what you described, um, I, I think it comes down to contradiction. I think about like how I was radicalized in high school, and I can't remember if it's, if it's Marks or Mao, but they talk about how. Every political system will have contradiction, especially capitalism, imperialism, and those contradictions are inherently there in any system, but how we react.

How we confront those contradictions. It, it defines our lives politically, materially. And so I, I think for you, you were like, I grew up religious. I grew up anti this, anti that. But the contradiction was that you were the embodiment of those things that you were against. And when you began to change is when you began to confront that contradiction.

And so I, I think like when we're [00:29:00] trying to let people in or understand or navigate the invisibility of these structures or institutions like racism, homophobia, imperialism, whatever, mil. I don't know, like state militarism. I think we have to be able to expose people to the contradiction. So like my contradiction, if I'm looking at like the army or the military would be like, I grew up poor and there were army recruiters in my high school all the time.

It was just normal. The contradiction is they don't do that at white schools in the same way. Yeah. Or rich schools in the same way. And so there is a contradiction in terms of like what I'm being offered and what the intention of this institution is. And even right now with like the encampments on different university campuses, like there's a contradiction between universities claiming to be about intellectualism or freedom of expression.

Mm-hmm. But the contradiction is, is that they're funded and their businesses just like any other business and they actually will. Clamp down on freedom of speech at any give, at any opportunity. Right. And so I, I, I think like the invisibility, I think is exposed when [00:30:00] these contradictions come forward.

Like 2020 and the pandemic, like mm-hmm. Why did so many people go out to, like the George Floyd protests? I mean, to me as a black person, the contradiction was like, people care, but they only care in mass numbers kind of because they're stuck at home and they're bored. Mm-hmm. And so that was my contradiction during that time.

Um, and, and I don't know. And does that make sense? 'cause I, I think about that a lot where it's like, how do you make people aware of Yeah. These invisible forces that are around them. And I usually try to be like. You're a guy and you say you don't care about sexism. Men experience sexual violence too. It just looks like all these different things.

That's the contradiction I see in what you're Or yeah, like that as an example. Um,

Nicole: right.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I ask the same questions. I think it's a really deep practice of also living in our own rootedness, right? Living by example, naming our own story, and then not enforcing it upon other people. But that's a really deep question, I [00:31:00] think of what does it mean, because sometimes I do see some radical people who really hit it and they pin it, and this is the problem.

This is it. You know, I've seen, um, I, for the relationship anarchy research, I have an open forum that people have submitted answers to the various questions I explored in my dissertation. And I remember one person specifically saying, I'm anti-family, anti monogamy. Mm. Right. And so I'm like, I hear you. I get it.

What do we do with the fact that there are people there right now who are enjoying themselves? But I think that that person would come back and say, are they right in that deeper way of the person who signs up for the military? Are they actually, or are they being sold in this pipeline? You know? Yeah.

And so I, for me, at least what I do is try to live my life in the way that I can live my own values, talk about it as publicly as possible, and the political nature of that. But I think it is a really deep question in all these different areas of systems about free will. [00:32:00]

Prince: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, I, and yeah, I mean, to the question of free will I, that's why I also like anarchy.

'cause it's like I. I get to encourage other people to exercise their free will. We show up to a demo, we show up to a demonstration. Yeah. You might wanna be in an orange role where you're not as arrestable. I might wanna be in a red role. And we communicate that we work through what our free will is in that space and we, I dunno, are transparent about it.

Um, yeah. And I feel like that, that to me is also like another positive to the way I look at these things. So Yeah, that's why also why, yeah. 'cause I'm like, even the simple, like the anarchy aspect of my life. If I'm going out with a group of friends and they're like, we wanna do this thing, and I'm like, actually I don't wanna do that.

I'm gonna go home. Like even that is a simple practice of free will that I think is to me, at least in my life, tied to how being politi politicized has like, pushed me to be more assertive, even in the personal parts of my life.

Nicole: Sure. Yeah. [00:33:00] Totally. And I think that. Yeah, the question of free will is, is so complex because when we're thinking about wanting larger political activism, it's about waking up the collective too, right?

So when we're thinking about how do we get more people on board, I, I think about the ways that when I looked to my past, I would say I didn't have free will Foley, right? Mm-hmm. Um, I think about the ideas of Fuko, I think about the deep internalization, and my existential professor was always saying, you have free will with what's within your existential awareness.

So you know what you currently see. You have free will in. So I did have free will when I was deeply homophobic because I could make choices about what I was doing there. But I've always come back to him and said, yeah, but what's within your existential awareness is so deeply impacted by your culture that it takes that free will out of it.

It's yes. And where I feel like I Oh, yeah. Didn't have it. [00:34:00] Because of the circle of deeply fundamental Christians that I was in. And so it's this, I see it as this like deep, yes. And that's so culturally laden, but in many ways I did not have free will 'cause I couldn't see outside of this box. And so I do kind of, yeah.

Prince: So are, are you, are you kind of saying like, it's only free will if we know we have free will sense, I

Nicole: guess. I'm saying we have free will and we don't, as simple as that is as simple as the Yes. And of like, I have free will right now, but also I do not because I am a white woman living in my current existential awareness within America.

And that's limited. And even right now, I wore clothing to this recording because that's what my society says I'm supposed to do. Mm-hmm. To be normal. And God forbid I didn't, you would be like, what is this woman doing? You know, why are we here? Right. And so, so much of that is things that are outside of my control because I'm in this cultural context.

But with my current awareness, I have the choice to say how I wanna speak, how I wanna show up. I guess that [00:35:00] level of holding the ways that. Culture has so deeply impacted us in an unconscious way. I think as part of the question of how we help people wake up is how do we have compassion for the ways that people are so deeply indoctrinated that they have no idea what they're doing and also they are responsible at the same time.

'cause they do have in that, right?

Prince: Yeah. I think it comes down to like. Knowledge.

Nicole: Mm.

Prince: We all theoretically have free will, but to your point about like existential, like trappings or like being born into a certain context, it's knowledge that takes us outside of that context, right? It's knowledge that allows us to see and understand another possibility.

And, and I think of knowledge as like literal information or experiential knowledge.

Nicole: Mm-hmm.

Prince: Like, like maybe someone is really anti-drug and then they end up becoming cool with somebody in their class. And then that person is like, oh, I smoke weed all the time and I also microdose 'cause it helps me feel a little less depressed.

And, and [00:36:00] then through that experiential knowledge, knowing someone like the, the, your capacity for free will help begin to change. Um, yeah. And, and, and I feel like that's, to me, the point of political process is it's bringing knowledge to people, holding them accountable to that knowledge. Mm-hmm. And based on how they act, then you say like, I'm aligned with you, or.

You're complicit and, and you, you can't claim to not be complicit because I've literally said this to your face or Right. You're aware of it because of X, Y, Z. Um, and so I, that to me is like a very material way to look at like that process of change. 'cause like, I, I think, I think of like the different points in my life where I'm like, I became more radicalized because I experienced something that gave me a deeper knowledge or understanding of the reality of the systems that I'm up against, like, right.

And then this is just an example, like, um, like a day or two where I went to one of the student encampments here in Ohio and I was leaving and like a van pulled up behind me and like seven cops stopped me and [00:37:00] like ask for my, ID ask me how I knew the friend I was with before and all these things. And I'm just like, oh, the knowledge of being stopped this way is compelling me to want to come back to stand by Palestinians or other people.

And it's also reminding me of my racialized position in this world where I'm like. To the regular person passing by. Right. I'm just another black man being stopped by police. Right. For what? Um, and, and so I, I, I think about that where it's like sometimes we turn away from knowledge and sometimes we have to compel people or challenge them to turn towards it.

Or you have to, you have to put the knowledge right in front of them and say, you can't look away from this.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So well said. I was specifically when you were talking about the drug use, I was thinking about the, um, research with Rap Park. Have you heard of this?

Prince: No.

Nicole: Yeah. It's so fascinating.

So I, again, growing up Christian right, never gonna touch drugs. Are you kidding me? Mm-hmm. Bad. How do,

Prince: that's the devil's lettuce.

Nicole: [00:38:00] Totally dare, dare deep. Um, and yeah, so getting to train in psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and learn from Sauna Healing Collective, we talked a lot about the research with Rat Park, where I.

Um, they basically put rats in this cage with cocaine and heroin water, and then the rats drank the water to excess and kill themselves. And then that's kind of where we had this understanding of addiction and drug use for, oh, humans are gonna do this and they're gonna kill themselves with these drugs.

Oh no, we need to prevent them. And then someone came in later and said, what if we build a more expansive rat park, right? Where we're able to actually give the rats something to do, something to play with other rats to connect with. And in that space, they barely touched the water and never drank to excess.

And so it radically shifted all of the research. I, I'll say not enough yet, because still even in my training with other psychologists, [00:39:00] it, there's still people who believe in a disease model and other sorts of ways that completely, despite you present them to research and they'll still say. But No. And you're like, okay, it's right there.

Um, but it's fine. Yeah. Um, and how that radically changed everything. And it was really interesting. I was reading, um, untrue last Night, which is all about, um, sexuality in the women's liberation. And it was specifically talking about research with monkeys where they had had monkeys in a cage. And within that cage the like male, female dynamics were that the males would like mount and the females would endure the sex.

And, you know, language is complicated. I mean, what's really gone going on in there? But it wasn't as delightful. And then someone else did something similar where they're like, what if we expand the cage out and build more for everybody to do, and other monkeys to be in there? And when they did, the women actually started stalking the men and demand more, being more aggressive and demanding of sexuality.

And then funny enough. In that cage with the same community, [00:40:00] they got bored and then they stopped having sex with the people that they had already had enough sex with. Yeah. And so they thought, what if we add more people into the cage? The second they add more people into the cage, the women's sexuality came back up again.

Wow. So if I present that research to humans about all of the couples that I've worked with and relationships where sexuality is dead, and I say, well, the research, which no one wants to hear me say that. Yeah, yeah. But I'm just throwing it out there for the world, you know? And so I think I, I, I, that's gonna shake a lot of boots in terms of the world of sex and relationships.

But I think it's really important to put the research out there so that people can be informed enough to know, yeah. That maybe they were sold something that actually doesn't fit with them.

Prince: Yeah. Well, I guess here's sort of, I guess. Maybe a bird's eye question, but I think, I guess I'm thinking with the, like your growing up religious mm-hmm.

Also being in this space, I guess, what's your perspective on what do you feel like makes people resistance [00:41:00] to knowledge, to like new information?

Nicole: Yeah,

Prince: because I think some of, like if I'm thinking of religion, it's like, oh, there's this moral judgment of like, oh, this is the right way to live in this world, and if we do this, society will be better.

We will be given like, we'll, we'll be, we'll repent. Like we'll have a better afterlife. Or like, politically, I feel like, I don't know, and I, I think like the, yeah, the process of people resisting knowledge, I guess. I just wonder like what you think about that or how you confront that in your work.

Nicole: Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, immediately what was coming to mind was Plato's allegory of the cave, right? Mm-hmm. The light hurts in a lot of different ways. I think, particularly in my Christian upbringing. It was so from a young age taught to me that if I didn't obey, I would spend. A lifetime of eternity burning in hell with my flesh being eaten into by demons, which as a kid is a lot of pressure to take on, you know, scary.

But that's what I was taught. So then anything outside of a [00:42:00] heterosexual monogamous marriage then would end me up in that camp. Which also meant that when I saw other people out in the world that I also wanted to save them in this really problematic, let me show you the way so that you don't burn in hell.

But I think even outside of that, for people who haven't been raised in that sort of culture, I think people forget the culture that we all exist in within like Western context that has so deeply told us, you go to school, you get the degree, you're happy and you pay your taxes. Right? And how deep If I try to, it's like my sister, I, um.

My sister's still practicing Mormonism, so you can imagine there's a level of conservatism that is there. And her daughter was born a preemie, and she really had a lot of medical bills because she was born premature. And I remember coming to her and say, well, in the next election I know if there was universal healthcare, I know what you'd vote for.

And she said, no, I don't think we need to go that far. I just think I need a better [00:43:00] job. Actually, if I applied to a different nursing job, I would get coverage. So why does she not take to that enlightenment of that moment? She can't see the world that we're thinking of, of, yeah, hey, this healthcare has been privatized.

It wasn't always like this. There are other countries or they don't do this, but her limited focus. Yeah, yeah. Is that I just need a better job. Yeah. And, and so then, yeah, in those moments, I think it's really hard in, in that and relationships and sex where we have such a failure of imagination, in my opinion.

Prince: Yeah. I guess that also makes me think about blame, like I think sometimes it's easier to blame ourselves than the kind of, I mean, I guess sometimes people like blaming other people or institutions, but I also think, like to me, I'm like, for your sister, I'm like, why are you blaming yourself? Well, yeah, and I guess that's like economics.

I guess that's just like capitalism and economics generally, but. Like that to me is like, I guess something I just learned long ago. Like I'm not gonna blame myself for something a system is doing. [00:44:00] Like, what the hell?

Nicole: No, totally. But I think, and so yeah, let's keep running with my research here in terms of sex and relationships, right?

So women in infidelity really took off at the same rates as men once women had access to credit cards in the 1970s and had more financial freedom. And so. Right now, there are still people in relationships that the sexuality and eroticism has faded so dramatically. And I get tons of women who say, what's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me? And again, if we go back to the research I talked about, actually nothing's wrong. This is predictable in some ways. And so there's still this deep question of why do I need more than this one person? Or why is it that I'm having more, much, much more fun in my affair, right? Mm-hmm. All this sort of stuff, that same thing that you're saying here, why is it being blamed onto the person rather than the system?

Yeah. Yeah. You've been sold too deep a lineage of, of a certain narrative. Way too deep. Way too deep.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I guess I think about, um, in [00:45:00] 2020, I had a therapist and I was just talking to her about love and life and whatever, and eventually she was like, you use a lot of should statements.

Mm-hmm. And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, you use a lot of should statements. That's usually. Placing undue pressure on yourself, like blaming yourself. Um, and so like even your sister being like, I should just get a better job. Or people being like, I should be happy in my marriage. Right. And it's like, actually me.

You don't gotta, there ain't no shit about nothing.

Nicole: Right.

Prince: I mean, other than like, just like intrinsic harm and not harming like another human being or yourself ideally. But it's like Right. The, the should is almost like contextual. 'cause even our moral equivocations are like, to your point, based on context, it's like to one person non-monogamy is immoral.

And to another person, it is the most moral thing you can do. It's a way to reduce harm in the long run.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. I think this is where I think about the realities that up until [00:46:00] 1993, marital rape was not illegal in all 50 states. And so you could rape your wife legally because she was your property up until 1993.

And so this question of I should. Want this. I don't think people are understanding how much we are healing from that. Yeah. In terms of that deep, I should be wanting to do this. Yeah. That is so deep within our unconscious of this is how you are a good partner. This is what it means to be a good human.

This is what it means to be moral. And it's so deep. Again, I, I just feel like people don't understand when you come from purity culture today, people gawk at it and say, oh wow. Okay. But people are kind of forgetting the cultural context they're existing in. Mm-hmm. In the same ways that that is just so deeply ingrained that like you're saying, I should feel this way, I should do that.

And the amount of women that particularly feel like I should feel this way about this thing, but they don't. And it's gonna take many more of us stepping up to say, Hey, I have way more [00:47:00] fun. When there was new monkeys brought into the cage, you know, seriously,

Prince: we had another monkey.

Nicole: Totally. Totally. Yeah.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole: Although the research then shows too that, um, it's only one study I found, it's still, it's so novel, right. But it was showing that swingers actually have the highest levels of sexual satisfaction than poly people, than monogamous. And, uh, I don't know. I take that to be the diversity of Yeah.

Adding more people. So even in poly, you're gonna hit the same level of problems. If you have two long-term partners, you're gonna hit the same levels of eroticism and stagnation and complexities, I think, uh, in a different degree than you would with one person, of course, but yeah. Yeah. You can run into the same levels of long-term stability, eroticism difficulties.

Yeah.

Prince: Yeah. I, I think that that makes sense. Yeah. Like the, because yeah, I, I like that idea of the ranking of it. 'cause I've only been in non-monogamous relationships and I'm like. I've had [00:48:00] fun.

Nicole: Yeah. And how's it been going for you? I'd love to hear about it.

Prince: Um, I mean, my, my first serious relationship was non-monogamous and like, even when I was living in New York, I mean, I dated around.

I didn't really like, like commit to anyone in particular. Like I didn't really reach that level with anyone. Um, but in general it's just made sense to me. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe pre graduating college I would've been more inclined to be like, oh, I want like a single partner. Like I want monogamy.

Um, but I think that was maybe just like, kind of like wrote societal memorization. It's like I didn't really test it. Um, and then I was just like exposed to like a very queer friend group where people make out with each other. Sure. Some practiced non-monogamy ethically, some people didn't. Um, and yeah, I mean, and I guess also contextually, my first serious relationship was long distance.

I think non-monogamy made sense to some degree, at least for us. Um, [00:49:00] but yeah, I mean, jealousy is something I don't really like to invest in. Um, and I think it's weird to have the social assumption that we're all just inherently jealous. I'm like, I'm like, just like any human emotion. Like some people are more inclined to it, some people are less, but I don't think it's an intrinsic trade.

I, I, I, I think humans desire each other and sometimes that can feel like jealousy or we can read it as jealousy, but I'm like, it's just desire.

Nicole: Yeah.

Prince: Really. Um, and so that, that's where I come from with it.

Nicole: Yeah. So cool that it's been so smooth for you. I. I think about jealousy too, if we're having a conversation about anarchy, about the power structures and the cultural context, right?

So in some cultural context, having, you know, hugging any sort of bodily contact with someone of a different gender is forbidden as mm-hmm. Immoral, right? Where particularly I believe in our Western context, there is a level of normalization around a hug or [00:50:00] a touch, right? So if we kind of take a cultural leap and went into the other space, there would be high levels of jealousy for things that we do in our American culture very normally, right?

And so then I think people, again, remembering that now, where, like you said, you were in a friend group where this was super normalized. Where there wasn't such a threat to losing, you know, your security with somebody for that. And I think many of us don't have that sort of example to say, oh wow, this is possible.

It doesn't have to mean that they're gonna leave me. There's such deep classical conditioning in our brains that, you know, every rom-com has reinforced of, if my partner were to do anything with anybody else, it means they're gonna abandon me. And so the second you see or think about that, there's not even a cognitive process.

It just literally goes into the body. Immediate panic. The brain has moved to the, uh, fight flight freeze of the amygdala. And we are panicking. And I'm so glad that you haven't had that. But I struggled so hard when I. Think [00:51:00] back to my Christian upbringing. I was taught that, um, boys and girls can't be in a room alone together.

'cause of course you can only have heterosexual, you know, cisgendered attraction. But that's what I was taught. So when I first was dating, my boyfriend would just mention getting coffee with a friend that was a female, and I lost my shit. Oh yeah. I lost my shit. You know? And why? Well, everything I was taught that you put a boy in gr they're gonna have sex.

Yeah. And that means that they're gonna leave me. Right. Compared to what I'm doing now has taken so many stretches of imagination. Oof.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. I, I guess I'm thinking of queerness again. 'cause the way I relate to the things you're saying, I feel like, I mean, I guess other than literally my really close queer friends, I feel like two of my best friends right now, one is like a straight woman and the other one is like a.

Queer man, but like more mm-hmm. [00:52:00] Like more straight relationships, romantic straight relationships. Um, I don't know. And it's interesting, like seeing how my queerness affects or influence our influences, our relationship. Like with my friend that's a girl, like she was married for seven years mm-hmm. And her husband regularly delete my number 'cause he didn't believe that I was gay or I don't know.

And then like how, what Yeah. And, and how I got to witness that a certain kind of possession there that I was like, okay, this is almost like anthropological to me. Like seeing how this

Nicole: Oh my God

Prince: develops over time. Like the, the, the gender politics that I'm witnessing and then even with my guy friend, I don't know.

It, it's like, uh, we learned to share space in a way that I think is like, I don't know, more soft or intimate or interesting. Yeah. Um, in terms of like a more traditional way of like sharing space together on a gendered level. Um,

Nicole: yeah.

Prince: And so I think even that is interesting, like how our proximity to each other can change.

Like who, who we are, what the possibilities are, what we believe are [00:53:00] possible.

Nicole: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We gotta rewind to your, your friend, that's the boyfriend that was deleting your number. Mm-hmm. So problematic. Yeah. So possessive, so controlling and unhealthy.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: And you know what's fucked up though?

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: One is that some people find that attractive.

Prince: Oh yeah. Like they really care. I mean, I mean, I'll just give you the rundown. This dude catfished, my friend Lowkey, on the first date, he lied about being part black. 'cause he had black roommates and they told him, oh, you're Indian. Just say you're part black. That'll attract black girls. It worked. They got married.

That was her first boyfriend, first date, losing her virginity, marriage first, everything. And so it was interesting, like for me as a queer person being like, I'm trying to like fuck around in college and oh my God, he doesn't like me and I, whatever this, and like seeing her, I was just like. You're, to me, I was like, you're literally engaged.

It's like this relationship is almost like a contractual agreement. Like you need to abide by his [00:54:00] politics. You need to change what you eat or what you wear. Like, I don't know. And it was just wild for me to witness. 'cause I was just like, I don't understand how this is affection love to you. But then also in, it's interesting, in retrospect to see her go through a divorce and like right, you still, I view him as extremely toxic, but she'll be like, oh, he was the best like partner I've ever had sex wise.

And like I, and of course their relationship is allowed to be complex and she's allowed to look back fondly, but also be like, fuck him. But it was just, to me, it was just very interesting to see in retrospect, I mean, to really tie it all in a bow. Like when they divorced, like. She needed to terminate a pregnancy, he abandoned her.

And like, she called me and she was like, I need someone to drive me from Planned Parenthood night. Mm. Booked the flight, stayed with her for two weeks, and he would show up to her house all the time to try and talk or drop off her laundry or whatever. Um

Nicole: Mm.

Prince: And so, yeah, and I, [00:55:00] yeah, and I guess I mention all of that because I, I think about the fact that if I weren't in her life as just like a guy who's like, you deserve X, Y, Z, right?

Blah, blah, blah. It's not irrational for you to be a woman and to want these things or mm-hmm. Like, I, I think about like, I'm like, what would've happened to her?

Nicole: Right.

Prince: What happens to people all the time? I think it's like the other, other way I look at it. Um,

Nicole: yes.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: I'm so glad that you were there for her 'cause mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, I think that this just deeply goes back to the questions of free will and the contextual, right? Because. Someone might find that attractive, that he's so possessive. And I, we have evidence of this, particularly with the 50 Shades of Gray and the amount of that flying off the shelves, despite the fact that it was possessive and abusive kink behavior.

And yet people are like, oh my God, I'm so turned on. And I'm like, no.

Prince: Yeah. Or twilight or any [00:56:00] other thing out there. Yeah.

Nicole: So free will. Right? So we look at that, we're like, no. Right. And I think that. Even in my work as a psychotherapist, right? If we go even further into abusive dynamics, right? Often these are questions around financial independence frequently and abilities to get out because of that.

So we got the capitalism force going on us. We also have know previous family dynamics that maybe, um, provided examples of love and this being normalized. So when they get into this type of dynamic, it feels like just what is normal. And so again, can we ask questions about free will in that when you don't have the movement under capitalism to get out of this dynamic?

And especially for women particularly all of that or different identities and how that impacts that, right? And then also, yeah, the question of our previous examples of relational dynamics, I. Like I hear about, like, I, I joked about this in my last recording that, um, I had recorded with someone who talked about like giving her [00:57:00] husband a blowjob because he had helped out around Thanksgiving and was being helpful.

And I'm sitting over here like, fuck, dude, I've got two men that come over and cook me dinner and then eat me out. Yeah. I am not giving them a book. You just, the, the, the failure of imagination that when you live in a certain world where men don't do domestic work. Yeah. That means that I'm gonna give this because that we need a whole different paradigm so that those people look to that and say that's possible.

That's actually a world. Oh yeah. And so the question of free will and our, what we find attractive, the ways that I used to find men who cried, unattractive. Oh yeah. That deep within my psyche. Okay. Yeah. And if I didn't acknowledge that in the ways that, that was something that was outside of my free will, and now I have the autonomy to choose how to respond differently, we're missing the whole part of the whole sexual relational attraction thing and how a lot of this is really outside of our free will until we know.

So

Prince: yeah, I mean, I guess it's just [00:58:00] interesting even on the basic structural level where it's like, are we engaging in relationships of domination or in relationships of like, I guess like, like expansion of, of, of free will. 'cause I think about like, yeah, some of the people in my life that are more repressed or like they're in a better version of their life now.

And I look at when they were sadder and I'm like, oh, you were, you had way more relationships of domination in your life and your space around you. Like my, my friend, like since she's been divorced, like she has more friendships. Mm-hmm. She's dated more, she's. Had many more considerations about the kind of sex she wants to have.

Good, the kind of partner she wants to have. Um, yeah. And, and that to me is like, that's a revolution in itself. And, and, and, and that's like, I loved that I get to see her experiencing relationships that, I dunno show her that she can be more, or like helps her like see her fuller capacity. Um, and I feel like that's some, like, I guess maybe to like the point about [00:59:00] stigma or like the context that we're born into or just even like anarchism.

Like I, yeah. I feel like that's like another practice involved in this like way of looking at the world. It's like I want to help the people I love and know be more of themselves, show up in the world as more as opposed to less.

Nicole: Right. Um. Right.

Prince: And some of that is like personal and some of that is like extremely structural.

Some of that has to be like antagonistic opposing forces that like are against them. Um. Yeah.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so then the pain of when you do see that friend going down that path of, oh, their boyfriend's blocking your number, you know, what do you do? Do you immediately tell them, Hey, that's pretty abusive controlling behavior, right?

Be

Prince: what? What did I do? I mean, and in those situations. I honestly can't remember what I would do. I mean, it was interesting to me because this friend, I don't know if you've had people in your life where [01:00:00] they, you can be like, Hey, how are you? And they're like, oh my God, things are great and blah, blah, blah and blah.

And then two weeks later they're like, oh, when I told you things were great, like me and my boo were down and out. And why do people do this? I mean, I, I think some of that is just like protection. You don't wanna look like an idiot. You don't wanna look like, like some like, 'cause like she was having a lot of the same issues throughout this relationship time and time again over the course of seven years.

And so it's like, how do you come to your best friend again and again and again and again and again and again, and again and again, and about the same thing. Um, I mean, a, a lot of it I viewed in that relationship. It was a careful tightrope between being brutally honest versus being honest enough, but knowing that in the long haul I wanted to be a part of her life.

Nicole: Yeah.

Prince: During and beyond this relationship. And so it's almost like a. If I pop off now, who is gonna be in her corner when she needs it, because I know her enough to know how she will resist certain [01:01:00] information or how it comes to her. Like, I knew for her I either needed to like, be really direct and check in, in like a gentle way and like nudge and be like direct, but not like antagonistic or I needed her to acknowledge it and then I could like really be like way more heavy handed with what I had to say.

Mm-hmm. Um, and so it depended on the situation, but um, yeah, I don't know.

Nicole: Yeah. The patience of love, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. But I'm really glad that you stayed and that you were able to support her of getting out. 'cause I think what we, we do know from abusive dynamics of all the structures, right?

From like, you know, it's spectrum here. You need community to get out.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: You can't do this alone. You need community to see you, to hold you financially. You need community, right? Yeah. And so until you have that sort of structure, it's almost impossible to move.

Prince: Yeah, yeah, [01:02:00] yeah. And you need someone to look at you and be like, you're in an apartment with no furniture.

Your husband is not a good person. You probably need to move home, get a therapist and figure out what could be next for you. Or, or like even, even that like I think is like a part of community, like. Calling people in at, at that moment where it's like, mm-hmm. You need

to like, help people look at themselves and be like, and I've had friends do that for me, like when I was working in Montana and had this, all these racist managers.

And I remember one night, like my manager made like this segregation joke at a party rat. And then my friends called me and they're like, we just got kicked out of a bar. Or we got kicked out of a bar because we got called the N word. And we fought these people. And, and I remember I went to work the next day and I called my friend crying and she was like, you need to quit.

Nicole: Mm.

Prince: And I, and I think about like, that's a part of community, like the hard truth. Having people that, having people that can look at you and be like, this is not good for you. Like, you might be within [01:03:00] your own reality or context, but I, on some objective level from the outside looking in is like, this is the pattern that you're in.

And uh, and I feel like with my friend, like I, it was that careful process of like making her aware of the pattern versus like. Also trusting that she's a grown ass woman on some level, right. And has to like, make her own decisions. Um,

Nicole: right.

Prince: And so I do think it's like an interesting tight rope. But, but I think sometimes like helping others, especially through like abuse or dysfunction, like some, some of that I, I, I think you have to be careful.

'cause sometimes when you want to help people, it almost becomes like an ego thing. Totally. You're like, oh, I need, I need to say it right now. Or else like, I'm a part of the problem or whatever it may be. And I'm like, sometimes help is like a much longer and complicated process. And there isn't this instant gratification that I think the systems that we have, like ity or, or whatever it may be like.

Tell us it, it should look like

Nicole: mm-hmm. Yeah. That complex balance between Yeah. The [01:04:00] patience of love and also those moments like your friend who hit it really hard about your job, right. Of like, you need to get out of this dynamic. Right. I think for me, I, I think about the ways in which, you know, one of my friends was telling me that they were gonna move in with one of their partners.

They're fully Pauly in this expansive world, which is so beautiful, and they talk about wanting to move in with one of their partners. And it's hard for me 'cause immediately, you know, I've, I've dedicated my research to studying these topics and really getting into the data. And so my brain immediately goes, well, the data shows that women's eroticism dies when they move in to live together.

Two times faster than men. And so I look at her and I almost wanna be like, well, just be prepared that the research shows that you're probably gonna fall out of eroticism twice as fast as he will. So like, don't beat yourself if that's the case, but like how helpful is it to, to hit someone with that research?

Yeah. I just have to take a deep step back. I'm like, okay, I trust your empowerment, particularly in your poly world to navigate that and, and do your [01:05:00] own journey with that and live into that and figure that out. But the research just flies up in my head and I immediately wanna name that as a potential like warning sign, particularly when we've been taught to like do these certain things as the ways that these are things that could actually impact you if you're.

Again, maybe not aware of them, like the importance of the knowledge that we talked about. But then, yeah, the importance of trusting someone's empowerment versus hitting them hard with that. I mean, it's, it's a dance and every relationship you had, you know, mentioned with anarchy, like taking each relationship at its own, you know, space and situation.

I think the same thing happens here. You maybe this is someone where we've had more of those conversations so it makes sense to drop that versus someone who's never heard me talk about this. And so that sort of, you know, comment would be rude and presumption of me knowing more about their lived experience than themselves, you know?

Yeah,

Prince: yeah. And that's, yeah, that's also the thing about relationship advice too. 'cause I'm like, I can give you advice based off of what I see, but I'm not in the intimacy of your bedroom or your house. So that's what I [01:06:00] also thought with my friend a lot. I'm like, I think this is toxic, but I'm not there.

And like, I mean, there are other things too, like her mom had passed away and he was very much supportive for her. So it was one of those things where I was like. Maybe I think I know what's going on or maybe not, I don't know.

Nicole: Yeah,

Prince: sometimes you have to just give it time to like really assess as well.

Like I, I think that's a big part of like helping or giving people advice. It's like you have to take enough time to listen and really understand the parts of what you're assessing in order to give like actual actionable or like specific advice as well.

Nicole: Sure. Yeah. It's making me think about harm reduction philosophy and psychology.

Particularly with drug use and other sorts of, um, relationships that tend to be chaotic, right? It's so important when you have someone who does have that chaotic relationship to a substance, or we could change that blank to a person, a work, you know, any, any sort of blank there. To actually ask that person, what is this relationship giving [01:07:00] to you?

Mm-hmm. What is this drug giving to you? What you know that your friend, you know, their partner was there when they had that loss and death in the family, they are actually giving them something. Yeah. We don't just show up for these relationships, you know, unless they're giving us parts of what we do need.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that stability with a drug that's giving you pleasure, that you're not feeling in your relational life because of your cage. Right. Or in this dynamic, it's giving you some level of emotionality of what you need. And so until we can be really upfront with the people in our lives and ask them like.

What is this giving to you? We're missing part of why they stay, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then again, like how important to give a full community so that they no longer need that from just one person. Yeah. That's how we're gonna make the shift, right, is you don't try to say to the drug users, stop cold Turkey and you're gonna be fine.

Right. You have to have a whole other world of meaning and relationships. Yeah. That are enough to get out of that sort of situation and reestablish the [01:08:00] relationship.

Prince: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Community. Yeah. 'cause yeah, seeing her after the divorce, I was like, yeah, it's just wild. Yeah. I even have another friend who literally has gone through another divorce and like she's literally going through the process of refin our community and I'm like, wow.

Heteronormative marriage can be a trap. It's not always a trap, but it can be. And I've seen it,

Nicole: right. Just like really isolated, like shut down all the other relationships in her life.

Prince: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I both examples. Yeah. Um, and I, I, yeah. And, and when people are out of it, I'm just like, I, I'm like, I, I feel so grateful for you having space to exist in a world where you're not just in service to ones one person, especially like women I know who have been through divorces.

'cause yeah, I just feel like there's so much emotional labor that's demanded, that feels normal, or [01:09:00] required or necessary. And I'm like, you deserve to like, figure out who you are. In your life, not, not in this other person's life. You know what I mean?

Nicole: Yeah. That's so deep. I do know what you mean. It is so deep.

Again, free will internalization, fuko. Right? Particularly for women. The romance myth, there's some level of, in the gendered, uh, all sorts of societal pressure of the man can be the independent person that has all this free, like the storyline of gender here with men is much more expansive than often. The storyline of purpose and meaning making for women is so deeply relational and it is one person.

And so then that is so deep within our unconscious that we like center that person so hard. You get that one person and the relationship teeters and it's almost like. Everything is off because of this one person, because so deep in our psyche, every single movie, you know what [01:10:00] the female character does, she falls in love, she gets the boyfriend, she gets married.

No other narrative. Meanwhile, in movies, you know, men have had all the different storylines, all the different stuff, and so that's, that's part of this equation is how deeply that influences the ways that our whole world gets surrounded by one person, let alone the fact that when I am working with my non-monogamous clients, I fucking love having the women that come in and say, I have multiple men who are trying to date me.

And so I actually get to choose out of the abundance possibilities of all of them that are showing up so well right now, what I want. Yeah. Yeah. They deserve. Yeah. That be so excited. Yeah.

Prince: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Nicole: Yeah, I think

Prince: I, yeah, I think people deserve options and when you. Especially my friend who was like, it was her first relationship.

I was like, you, you don't wear the options. You, you don't [01:11:00] not wear the options.

Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And it reminds me a lot too, of like the other ways we're sold various narratives of our life, right? You go to school, you get the degree, you get the job, you're happy, let alone the people that don't need to go to school at all.

'cause there's other jobs outside of this one path, let alone you go there and everyone's like, ah, be a business major. Right? And then you, you get out into the world and realize there's so many other things to do. And then let alone that that job might change over time. I feel like we do a lot of the same things with our relational world, where it's like this very clear relationship escalator of what you're supposed to do.

Meanwhile, forgetting that that's something you've been sold and maybe you shouldn't have gone to school. Maybe you should have majored in something else. Maybe all of it's a lie and way too expensive.

Prince: You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I, I, and I think about, um, when I've talked to university students, uh, about writing or publishing or especially like living an [01:12:00] alternative life or whatever, um, what I tell a lot of them is I'm like, you deserve to experiment.

You deserve to try things to graduate and take this weird job and then quit and then go here or fall in love, get married for a year, get divorced. And that like the, like, I guess to your point about like options or being given one path, like I. I dunno. I always tell them, I'm like, you deserve to also figure out what you don't want in your life.

Like we're told like all these things you should want, but what about the things that you're morally against or you don't stand by or they don't align with your values. Like find out what those things are as well.

Nicole: Right. Absolutely. I think previous versions of my, alright, I know previous versions of myself said I don't want non-monogamy though because it's too much to process.

Jealousy is so intense. So, you know, I'm definitely inspired by your grounding immediately without having to really navigate the complexities of, of jealousy. And I think part [01:13:00] of it makes sense given my like lineage of where I came from. But I'm curious for you how, yeah, how do you process that? What have you found helpful in terms of finding security and conversion in your dynamics?

Prince: Um, that's a really good que, I've never really thought about it, but I, I think. Maybe this is an interesting way to answer honestly. I think in college I had so many crushes. Mm-hmm. Sometimes on queer people, sometimes not on queer people. And I think having these deeper younger experiences with unrequited love

Nicole: mm-hmm.

Prince: In some ways gave me this sort of double-edged belief. Like, oh, like when you really love someone, you don't always possess them like that. Like, like that, that's what longing is essentially. Sure. And so I think when I started dating more seriously and I was with my partner and we were doing long distance, like I, I, I think like how we entered loving each other, I immediately was just like, I don't think, I dunno, there was no [01:14:00] part of me that felt like I was in possession of them.

Yeah. And, and I think that made the choice of us being together more special.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. And maybe, and maybe

Prince: that's a part of non-monogamy that I'm also interested in, where it's like we don't have to be in each other's lives, but like we choose to be and we choose to. Commit to each other in a complicated world where we all engage with other, to me it's just like, I dunno, it's, it's almost like how we treat friends.

I'm like, right. It's not like you have just one friend. You have different friends that you do different kind of things with. Um, and then the jealousy aspect, I mean, I, I think maybe you said comper is, is compersion when you find joy in other people's pleasure?

Nicole: Yeah.

Prince: Yeah. I, I feel like for me, I don't know, also, like, I feel like that was just a core part of the way mm-hmm.

Entered even just friendships or relationships. Like, I, I think that's the stigma, like what I was speaking to with stigma earlier. I'm like, I want my friends, my community to experience joy. I want to see people happy. And so, I don't know, even with my ex, like [01:15:00] I love when we go to parties and we'd make out with different people Yeah.

And end up talking to the people that my partner was making out with. Like, that to me is hot. It's not like some weird thing where I'm like, oh my God. Like, do they want me or not? I'm like, I'm. Like less than my jealousy. I'm more interested in like, the pleasure of that moment.

Nicole: Mm. Mm-hmm. Um,

Prince: and I don't think it always has to be scary.

Of course there's complicated things involved, but, um, yeah, like even like a year ago I was dating a guy where I started dating him for like a few weeks and then he, he was dating two other people, so we'd all hang out all the time. Yeah. To me, I'm like, there's no room for me to be jealousy. 'cause your relationship with them is different than your relationship with me.

So like, what am I jealous of? Unless there's something wrong in my dynamic with you that Yeah. I'm getting jealous of. And if I'm jealous, that probably means there's something. That can be communicated,

Nicole: right? Yeah. Said so. Well, yeah, that's a lot of what I try to ground myself into of, you [01:16:00] know, the joy of other people, the hotness of that.

Dr. Jo Lee Hamilton has done a lot of research on jealousy and yeah. Finding the ways that we feel hot and turned on by seeing our partners with other people as something that's also really normal. I immediately think of cuck holding in the hu kink world. Right. Yeah. I think that, um, just seeing your partner being wanted by other people can be so hot.

Yeah.

Prince: If you're, because you, you get to witness them being a, a being a of desire being desired. Yeah. Like, and, and that to me is like, why wouldn't you want to see someone you love be desired or like, what's, what's, what's the threat in that? 'cause it's like, do they only become meaningful because you offer them desire?

Yeah. Like I, I, I feel like that's like the weird possessiveness, especially in relationships. 'cause I'm like, I don't believe that my perspective, my angle, the way I. Treat or angle towards this person. I can't offer someone everything. And I, and I in a way, like sometimes I kind of hope that like maybe [01:17:00] I could have a friend that could be everything to me, but I, I don't actually believe in that.

And so why would I apply that to really, like, I do believe there are people that we just are so aligned with and that can make monogamy more safe and like interesting and fun. Like there, I, I do believe there's some people you don't, you feel like there's never enough time. But I don't think that necessarily has to be monogamy.

And I don't think it necessarily is bad when people are monogamous because I'm like, I don't know, like some of the coolest romantic dynamics I've seen have been monogamous. And I also think it's cool to like commit so fully to one person in these ways where like, you're gonna change, you're both gonna change.

And I feel like the change element of it, like allowing that there is, I think. What makes the love a little bit more freeing.

Nicole: Mm-hmm. Right. And yeah. Even when you are in those monogamous dynamics, you need a whole community of people. Right? So it's never just that relationship, no matter what. There's always gonna be needs that should be healthy, healthy dynamics to [01:18:00] get needs met outside of that relationship.

Right. And yeah, the, the choice of the sacredness of practicing sexuality with one person is beautiful. And so many people do thrive in that. And so many people do suffer. And I think that's where I just get the, the issue though. I, um, I read the book, Eli Finkle, the All or Nothing marriage, and like Esther Perella talk so highly about it.

Mm. And he doesn't at all talk about sexuality. The only thing he mentions this researcher who does so much research on marriage, doesn't talk about sexuality. Oh my God. Okay. Okay. Okay. The one paragraph that he had was like. So we have these great relationships, but the eroticism phase, do we accept a life of boring sex or a life of celibacy?

And I'm saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Eli Finkle. Hold on, hold on. So this is just normal, like you just like skipped over all of the research that you've done on marriages, which show high levels of [01:19:00] satisfaction in monogamy, right? Like, yeah. Again, the research I, I have found has shown that non-monogamous couples show higher levels of relationship satisfaction than monogamous.

Right? Yeah. But in all of his research, finding that like, yeah, people are happy and that the rates of divorce are actually highly predicated upon your socioeconomic status and education. And the higher that you have that the less that you actually divorce and the more that you have relationship satisfaction, not shocking, the systems make things harder.

Okay. But to not talk about sex at all, other than this assumption that it's gonna fade and be complicated. Yeah. Oh, we are missing a whole part of the research. So, yeah. If, if you are thriving sexually in the monogamous dynamic, like more power to you. However, all I see again and again is that it fades. I see Esther pll writing books about, um, mating in captivity and the difficulties of eroticism.

I see Emily Naski writing about her own relationship in the ways that it gets complicated. And I continue to ask, [01:20:00] why are we suffering so much? Why do we ah, you know,

Prince: I mean, it's, we're, we've been told that something that should make us feel safe, uh, we start to realize it doesn't actually always feel safe.

Yeah. And like how do you, how do you admit that

it's a difficult thing? Yeah.

Nicole: Right. Again. Yeah. If the narratives are, that something's wrong with me, all of that, right? All of those narratives that start to get activated, that maybe the reason why the relationship, you know, eroticism has faded because I'm not turned on, there's something wrong with me.

I'm not confident or there's something wrong in the dynamic versus no, there's something wrong in the whole system. Yeah, and I think again, particularly the cultural context here becomes very like important to talk about when I think about it, because again. The more repressed you are, the more space that you have to explore eroticism with one person that feels really exciting and fun.

[01:21:00] So when you can never talk about sex, I mean, there's so many problems with that and being able to name your desire and consent and all this. Yeah. But the, the tantalizing nature of sex with one person, when you can't talk about it, when you have this whole world to explore with kink and everything and that whole spectrum, there's so much to explore in a lifetime that I see so many people could truly like, have so much benefit in one person and the thriving nature of that.

Yeah. As we become a more sex positive, positive psychol uh, society, we are gonna have harder. Harder times with that because we have access to a full world of knowing what's possible. The second that, you know, you can travel the world and have all these different relationships, the cat's outta the bag.

Yeah. We are in a fully different cultural context. I think we're in a, a really interesting time where I'm just frustrated as a researcher when I'm trying to find stats on sex and desire and long-term relationships, and there's literally none. I'm, I'm pissed. You [01:22:00] know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. As a researcher, there's such a big hole, and so I guess I'm just.

I want people to thrive in whatever relationship structure that brings them that much joy. But there are so many relationships where they'll post on Instagram and say, we're thriving. Like your friend who said, I'm having a good time. I'm having a good time. And then when I get into the deep nitty gritty of it with some of my friends who are practicing monogamy, and they're like, yeah, the desire has been so hard lately.

And I'm like, yeah. Oh, you know? Yeah. Like, how much of that is still hidden behind closed doors that people don't wanna talk about? And I hear it again and again in my therapy office. Oh, yeah.

Prince: Yeah. It's, it's shame. A lot of shame. Like, I know in my relationship, like my first serious one, I don't know, I didn't really feel any shame, but I, I, I feel like, well, in the relationship, I didn't experience shame, but internally there were things that I was working through around sex, around intimacy, where I was like, mm-hmm.

My body is reacting in certain ways and I feel shame for I don't feel safe, or I [01:23:00] don't know how to navigate this. And sometimes that it's as simple as that. Like if people feel trapped or scared or shame, it's like that can be such a paralyzing thing where you don't even know where to go or how to ask for help, especially if you don't have community or people around you that have some of the language or can offer like something, and so then it just continues.

Right, and it's almost like, is it just chance that some people get out of things? Yeah. Sometimes,

Nicole: right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think about the first time that I had had sex with the second person in my lifetime ever, because again, purity culture taught me I was only gonna have sex with one person forever.

I failed that I was on the floor crying in my bathroom. No one's ever gonna love me again. At the time that I had sex with a second person, I felt so much shame. I felt so bad, I felt again. And again, that's being a reflection of my cultural context, let alone the first time I had, [01:24:00] you know, sex with multiple people.

I remember waking up the next day feeling like I had a scarlet letter, and everyone knew I was a whore, you know? Yeah. And I could have shut down right there and said, okay, I'm never gonna do this again. That was so bad. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. You know? And so the discomfort of staying in those spaces, because I knew the value systems and because I knew that this life was possible is what grounded me in those moments of such severe shame and discomfort.

But I'm curious for you, when you look back to yourself in those moments that you were experiencing that shame, what was helpful for you and what did you say to yourself, or what would you say to yourself now with the wisdom and enlightenment that you have currently?

Prince: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, I don't know.

I guess, I guess I would say like with shame, I'd say the simplest thing I would say to my past self is like, there is another way, like mm-hmm. You might think that there's something lacking or like something's wrong with you, but there is [01:25:00] another way. And, and I guess I think about that in terms of like something that can matter so much to me right now.

Something that I feel so shameful about right now, like give it a year or two or three years, I don't know. It's like we have so much, there's so much possibility and, and, and I, and, and that, I guess that's hard to kind of always believe when you feel shame. But then the other part of it is like, I think that the more you confront it or begin to like acknowledge it, the less power it has over you.

Oh yeah. Um, and like being queer and growing up, a lot of shame there. Like I realized like, oh, this shame like was a way for me to feel like I had control over something that felt uncontrollable. And that's even like interesting in itself. Like this idea that. We feel things that are uncontrollable and that we should feel shame about it, or it might harm people or it's gonna mess other people up.

And some, a lot of that is like social projection, like people, um, over emphasizing like what [01:26:00] their equivocation of something is. Um mm-hmm. And, and so, and, and so I think even to that point, I think with shame it's like, it's important to define what things are for yourself. 'cause I think a lot of it is, a lot of shame is like, oh, I've been told this is shameful.

Right? But I think especially being weird, like I, once I accepted it within myself, there was still a period of time where I couldn't really imagine myself being with another man or being in a queer relationship. But then once it started happening and it became like more material, I, I don't know, like things changed.

I realized, yeah, like ti time allowed for things to change. Uh, yeah. So I, I, I think of. All of those things, but, but shame is like complicated. It's powerful. I think you can, someone can rationally tell you that something is okay, it's fine, but shame will still tell you like, I need to armor myself. I need to protect myself or Yeah.

X, y, z, um,

Nicole: right.

Prince: And so I, I don't know, it's almost like you also have to give yourself permission to just

Nicole: Right.

Prince: Be human, [01:27:00] 

Nicole: right, yeah.

Prince: As well.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I love that time, like the ability of time to heal it. You know, I think about the pew dental nerve, literally Latin shame, right? It's deep. Within all of our, even naming of these different parts of the body.

I think about, I recorded with one sex educator who does work with, um. Educating children on sexuality. Again, the research shows that masturbation with kids starts between two to six years old. You know, how many parents are ready to have that conversation at two to six? Not a lot. And so I think that it's really interesting when she was talking about it, the ways that we'll say, oh, and this is the clitoris, like this whisper, right?

Yeah. And how that kids pick up on that. Kids pick up on that energy real fast. And you know, so we have this beautiful organ, the clitoris that has no purpose other than pleasure and yet such shame. Or even the prostate, right? Prostate orgasms, and so much shame around [01:28:00] that. Or the idea that one of the most highly researched fantasies is, is threesomes.

And yet if a monogamous couple said, we wanna do that, shame something's right. It is so. So deep. And again, that's the free will, the questions, all of it. Right. And what does it mean to actually, you know what I hear a lot out of your responses and something that I try to remind myself is that our initial response is not what defines us.

Mm-hmm. We can have that shame, we can have the judgment, and we're more defined by, you know, when we get back up and where we go from there. I, God, I remember, I, you know, being so deep within this community, so committed to the ideas of expansive liberation and then going to play parties. And I would watch one of the couples, you know, kind of be together and then mix around with other people.

And I felt such disgust in my body. What the fuck was going on there? Mm-hmm. Like why am I feeling disgusted? [01:29:00] And I had to really take some time to reflect on it. And my brain, in all the ways of processing, had gone, oh wow. Look at him touching all these other women. If my partner was doing that, I would feel really uncomfortable.

Oh no. And then feeling that disgust and I was having such a hard time. With knowing that I wanted this world of liberation. Yeah. And also I'm having this automatic reaction of judgment towards someone who's living it and just sitting with that. I think this is where parts theory can get really helpful.

We talk about different parts, right? Like I had a whole part of me that mm-hmm. Was saying this is gross, and then we can maybe name that, my monogamous part and then my non-monogamous part going, yeah, but you want this. And so I had to get really clear that when I unpacked that jealousy about literally someone that's not even myself.

Yeah, yeah. It was the fact that I presumed that they would love me less, that they would leave me, and that being what was really at the heart of that initial disgust of if I saw my partner do this, it would be a sign that they don't care about me enough or even,

Prince: yeah.

Nicole: All of that.

Prince: There's, they're, they're, they're not as committed or, yeah.[01:30:00]

Yeah.

Nicole: So much to unpack there. Yeah. And I, I've, I've talked about like seeing my partner hold hands with somebody else and how that was so deeply more threatening than the actual sexual space of sharing with them. Yeah. And it's so fucking wild because he's holding her hand, caressing her hand, and I'm losing my shit Meanwhile.

He could be doing that to his mom. Like this act of holding hands like Yeah, it is. So yeah, it's simple.

Prince: Yeah,

Nicole: right. What's deep? It's deep.

Prince: It's also, it's also even interesting, I guess I even haven't really thought of this this week because, because you mentioned threesomes. Yeah. I'm thinking of like my own relationship with non monogamy.

I'm like, I literally lost my virginity and a threesome. So I'm like, I guess like non monogamy. It was just always, I love that because to me, I'm just like, it just always has made sense. I'm like, what's that? Makes sense. What's the problem? There is no problem. And so I, I guess I also think that what shame too is I'm like, sometimes I also have to ask myself.

I'm like, what's the big deal?

Nicole: Well, there's a lot of big deals about the sex stuff. There's a lot of big deals. Yeah. But then [01:31:00] I guess I asked that

Prince: question in terms of like what's the big deal in terms of like if I literally don't tell anyone what I'm doing, what's the big deal? Yeah. Or not, I don't mean that.

I'm like, I'm not gonna tell people 'cause it's shameful. But it's like if I have the free will and I can do this thing and no one knows. Where's the shame coming from other than myself? And I don't have to feel that way because, I don't know. 'cause because I also think like with shame and fear, like sometimes we fear things that we actually really desire on some level.

Oh sure. And so it's like, to that point as well, it's like you can feel like internal resistance, but that doesn't stop everyone from doing things like,

Nicole: yeah, yeah. Let's go back to my homophobic self. You know? Like, I actually was really gay. I just didn't know, you know? Mm-hmm. So like I really wanted that thing that I said no, no, no to.

And yeah, I think again, I'm so glad that your first time was a threesome. How liberating. How exciting. Right. And. [01:32:00] I, again, I just think people forget how deeply ingrained this is within our unconscious, and I love that you felt that space to go for that. That was one of the most wild things for me to do and took so many years of sexual liberation to get to, and our positionality was different.

We started in different spaces with the cultural context of this, and again, particularly within colonizer religious structures, there is such deep emphasis on purity and what it means to have sex with one person, and it created this whole narrative of what sexuality is, which makes sense when we think about it.

Like talk about controlling the masses, the, the, the pleasure of sexuality. Yeah. And literal birth of human. I mean, it makes sense that they would get really tight on this. And so I think people forget that that is so deep because when we look at other cultures where sex work is legal. And the amount of communication that exists around sexuality in those cultures, [01:33:00] it is not the deeply repressed, taboo thing, but when I talk about sex work here in the United States, people lose their shit and the only way that they can Can imagine.

Yeah.

Prince: Look, it's the people think it's wild. Like not everything is trafficking.

Nicole: Right. That's the big thing is that they always see it as trafficking, let alone like dominatrix who have chosen this line of work. Yeah. Beyond their business job that had all the benefits because the, the work of being a dominatrix is so fun and enjoyable.

There's obviously a lot of privilege in that, right? Yeah.

Prince: Yeah.

Nicole: But like they just can't even see it.

Prince: Yeah. And when people are against sex work, I'm like. You're against sex work. What kind of sex work? Yeah. Because if they can't even name it, I'm like, you don't even know what the fuck you're talking about.

Nicole: Right?

Prince: Yeah. Have, have you ever read, um, uh, it's a column, I think it was also published as like a, a small book. Have you ever read the Tricking Hour?

Nicole: No, but I'll write it down.

Prince: Um, it's, it's a collection that my friend wrote. Um, but basically they, they [01:34:00] lived down south and they wrote a, I think a monthly column about their experiences as a sex worker and an anarchist.

Nicole: Mm mm

Prince: Um, and it's really beautiful essays about like the body queerness, cool bodily autonomy, how getting into, uh. Mixed martial arts, like grounded them in their body. Cool. Through some of the trauma that, that can just be inherent in sex work and mm-hmm. Like the act of performance. Um, I dunno, it's really, I feel like you'd, you'd enjoy it.

Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. I wrote it down. I'll have to check it out for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's again, a, a, a point of failure of imagination to understand that there's people who choose this as much as anyone can choose any profession under capitalism. Right. I think we can also ask questions there, but mm-hmm. Who choose this, right?

Yeah.

Prince: Some people are doctors, some people are police officers, some people are sex workers. Those all have different, I don't know, like social considerations, but mm-hmm. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's like interesting to think about even in that standpoint. Yeah.

Nicole: Right, right. And whether you've been through the [01:35:00] trauma of purity culture, the trauma of colonizing religions, I do find it to be a trauma response when I look back in my own history and when I work with clients, and I hear this again and again.

I was once asked. How do you like to be touched? And I froze. I had no response. I had gone into freeze and I couldn't name how I like to be touched. And I work with so many people who can't name that. That is a trauma response to the access of our pleasure because of shame and of all of these systems and all the ways that, that is so deeply within us that we can't even talk about the ways that, again, regardless of what body you have, it has literal organs that are meant to bring you.

Pleasure. Yeah. What? How wild is it that we live in a society that we can't talk about that?

Prince: Oh yeah. Yeah. Depression. Lots of oppression. Yeah.

Nicole: Yeah. Well, it's been such [01:36:00] a joy to have you on the show and get to talk about the anarchy of relationships and sexuality. It's really been a pleasure.

Prince: Yeah, it's been fun.

I appreciate it.

Nicole: Totally. I'm gonna take a deep breath with you now,

and so I always ask towards the end of my time with each guest if there's anything else that you wanna share with the listeners. Otherwise I can guide us towards a closing question.

Prince: Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I, I would just say I really appreciate this conversation 'cause I think it's important to. Unpack how we approach, how we treat each other, how we look at the world, how the ways that we look at the world affects how we treat each other.

Um, and it's something I'm especially thinking of now, of course, like so many protests are happening all around the country, about Palestine. Um, and to me, literally the process of humanizing each other is like taking seriously how we treat each other Yeah. And what that looks like structurally, individually.

Um, so I, I appreciate you holding this [01:37:00] space. Yeah. It's meaningful.

Nicole: Thank you. And I appreciate you co-creating the conversation. Each one is so unique. Each person brings such a different flavor and it really is a joy anytime I get to talk to an anarchist. Yeah. Alright, well if you feel good, I can guide us towards our closing question.

Yeah. Okay. So the one question that I ask everyone on the show is, what's one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal? Hmm.

Prince: To me it's as easy as, I wish more people knew that people are resisting systems of domination and exploitation everywhere. It's like, it's as simple as the old lady in your neighborhood cooking plates of food that she sells for real cheap.

It's as simple as like little queer kids going to school and normalizing, like just being public and out. And it's as normal as people doing food, not bombs and doing serves and sharing [01:38:00] resources. Like I, I think the better world is all around us and we have also every reason to be cynical, but I think we also have every reason to believe that things can and will and we have the possibility of things getting better 'cause it's already all around us.

Um, like I really believe that. Um, and it's something I, I. I hope I never lose sight of, 'cause I'm just like, I, I don't necessarily believe all of these things will change within my lifetime. Right. But I think the pursuit of that change is highly meaningful and it's like, that's how you make meaning out of life essentially.

Mm-hmm. Like, you don't just take what's been given to you, you, you define it for yourself as, as we kind of, as I kind of mentioned earlier.

Nicole: Yeah. So well said. Yeah. Really trusting in the ripples of that long-term work across generations that will hopefully pending climate change live much longer than us.

Right. Mm-hmm. And get to see the work that we're doing right now through these acts in our community and [01:39:00] the conversations that we're having in our, in our respective spaces. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was such a joy to have you. I wanna hold some space to you for all of the people that I've connected with you and really enjoyed your perspective and your insight.

Where can they find your content?

Prince: Um, I have a website, prince shakur.com. I'm on social media, so on Instagram it's at Sweet Black Prince On TikTok, I post a lot about capitalism writing politics. Um, I'm at pr, S-H-A-K-U-R on there. Um, and I also have a YouTube channel where I talk about writing travel.

Politics. Um, and I also also run a podcast called The Dugout, where um, me and my co-host Jordan talk about black anarchism. Um, and we use our kind of perspective to look at like news, culture, uh, life, so any of those places.

Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. I have [01:40:00] all that linked in the show notes below. And again, a big thank you to joining me and all the listeners today.

Prince: Thank you.

Nicole: If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I wanna thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.