239. Decolonizing and Unsettling Sexuality with Dr. Roger Khun

[00:00:00] Dr. Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Dr. Nicole. On today's episode, we have Dr. Roger Kon. Join us for a conversation about embracing the innate wisdom of the body. Together we talk about exploring the edges of your conditioning, finding empowerment in our choice and the lifelong process of unlearning. 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 Dr. Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist providing psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, author of the Psychedelic Jealousy Guide and founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear. Listener, uh, what an important conversation to be sharing with this week and everything that often occurs in the holidays of this week. And to be continuing the conversations about power systems, especially for all my US based listeners that are holding on right now. Wow. Uh, yeah. Essential conversations to be having about the liberation of our body, of our pleasure and our community.

Right. And all of the ways that our sexuality has been colonized and settled, and the legacy of all of, there's so much to unpack here, which is why I'm so, so great to have Raj on the podcast that Roger was willing to share their wisdom with all of you. So I'm grateful that you're tuning in. I'm grateful that you're expanding with me and.

Trusting in the ripples, right? Culture shifts through conversations, right? And we're having these conversations every week. You're sharing these episodes with your friends, your poly QEs, your communities, your lovers, and trust in those ripples. Right Trust. Do the work and trust. Alright, dear listener, that cat we saying Hi.

Yeah, we are. If you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and Fat Cat and eyes free resources@modernanarchypodcast.com. Linked in the show notes below. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all my Patreon supporters, you are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people.

So thank you. And with that dear listener, please know that I'm sending you all my love and, and Pat Katu, and let's tune in to today's episode.

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Well then the first question I ask each guest is, how would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:04:51] Dr. Roger Khun: Hmm. Well, um, you know what, what I usually say is, and, and moments like this, there's the blah, blah, blah answer, which is that, you know, my name is Dr. Roger Coon.

[00:05:02] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:02] Dr. Roger Khun: Uh, and then there's the, Hey, how are you answer, which is, um, my friends call me Raj.

So I guess I'd, I'd, I'd prefer, you know, over the next time that we're together for you and, and listeners, just, just call me Raj. That's the easiest way I think that I

[00:05:18] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:05:19] Dr. Roger Khun: Uh, feel as I navigate the world.

[00:05:21] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Love that. Excited to have you today and all the things that we're gonna talk about with today's episode.

[00:05:28] Dr. Roger Khun: Thank you. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:30] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. So you had sent in decolonizing and unsettling sexuality. Hmm. So I'm curious, Raj, where does this start? Where, where does this conversation begin? I'd love to hear where you wanna take me and the listeners.

[00:05:48] Dr. Roger Khun: Well, you know, the, the, the interesting thing I, I, I find is as a bit of an introduction mm-hmm.

You know, to sort of, how, how did I even get here? How did this conversation begin? And Sure. And, and really it, it is decolonizing sexuality that has big word here though, gifted me a lot of opportunities. When I was in my doctoral studies, um, in sexuality, I, not surprisingly, did not encounter any literature that was about indigenous, indigenous ideologies on sex, pleasure, reproduction, even.

And I remembered it specifically taking a class called Love, sex and Intimacy or something like that. And it was a, it was an interesting class, and I'm still using aspects of what I learned in that class today.

[00:06:48] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:48] Dr. Roger Khun: In my thoughts though, uh, I was very dismayed, disappointed that it was all from this European perspective.

And as a, as an indigenous person, I'm, I'm Porch Creek and as a queer person, so I also identify as Two-Spirit and an Indi queer. Uh, I just found like, how can it be that I'm at a doctoral level of education or the pursuit of education, which I'm, I'm told, and I believe you're cultured in a similar way.

Yeah. That this is the pinnacle of e education.

[00:07:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:25] Dr. Roger Khun: And I just remember. I I, we must have been technically on break or something. Um, because this happened over the summer, uh, it was, uh, over a pride weekend, which usually falls right after the, the summer solstice. And, um, as really this response to what I was not receiving in my education and what was sort of going on in that moment really of critical analysis in, in my life, I thought, well, I'm gonna make this sign that said decolonized sexuality.

And, um, in San Francisco, in the Castro, there's this store called Cliffs, which is a hardware store slash paint store slash they probably sell cute little kitten mugs like the one I just saw you have. They have all kinds of things, and they also have a poster board and stencils. And so I went and bought, um, you know, a.

Poster board and some stencils and a big fat marker. Mm-hmm. Sharpie marker. And my sign is a little crooked. Do you ever see I I was trying to, I know it's in my office area somewhere. I think it's over, um, over there somewhere. I was gonna see if I could grab it and, you know, I didn't think that much of it though.

I, I walked down Market Street with that, that sign above my head. And it, it caught a lot of people's attention. And so by the time I'd gotten to the end of the parade route, something had shifted in the way that I was approaching my academic work. And then really what it meant for me to decolonize from a sexuality perspective in my clinical work as a clinician.

[00:09:14] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:15] Dr. Roger Khun: And as just a person, as a being, as an indigenous two-spirit, indigenous, queer person, what does that mean for me? To Decolonize sexuality. And the more I started to talk about it, the more other folks started to pay attention to what I was saying. And, you know, before I knew it, I was, uh, e eventually contacted by the Levi's jeans company, and then they did a pride campaign really built around that sign decolonized sexuality.

And, uh, instead of using some images that, um, were taken for the campaign that Cool. Then went in target stores and Macy's and they did an online international campaign on their social medias and such. And, and part of the picture, what's, what, what I really love about it is that in the, uh, I don't know what you call 'em, like the, the signage that was in the store.

[00:10:11] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:12] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, just very bottom corner of that. And one of the pictures you can see. It's just the corner of a white sign. Well, if we zoomed out, you would see that that sign that I'm holding is my decolonized sexuality sign. So I always like to say, Hey, you know, from, from my basement and clips with the, the crooked signage to target stores nationwide.

You know, and, and that's really what I call a one gesture moment in our lives. We never know, seriously. We never know how one gesture that we do. For me, it was making that sign radically transforms our lives.

[00:10:55] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:56] Dr. Roger Khun: And I am, I am so intrigued by that concept of like these one gesture moments. And, and we have several of them throughout our, our lifetimes.

Some of them are, are, um. Start small and then have a, a much wider ripple and others kind of start with that huge splash, right? Mm-hmm. So this story is an example of what I like to think is like, well it's, it was kind of a little ripple. It started with just me making this sign that now there's this wide ripple.

And part of that ripple is like, now I'm talking to you, I'm having opportunity to talk about

[00:11:33] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Dr. Roger Khun: This idea. Yeah. So that's kind of where decolonizing sexuality came from, from, from my, my mind at the, at the beginning of it. And where it is now is, you know, quite different. 'cause it, it. I've taken on different meanings and I've had different conversations.

[00:11:52] Dr. Nicole: Right, of course. And it will be different today and then when we keep studying for another 10 years and 20 and, you know, that's right. We'll keep expanding. So my brain is already starting to think about so much and these are the moments where I start to feel like I'm gonna throw you a nice pitch that I hope I want you to hit the home run outta the park with, in terms of, but why, why do we need to call Decolonize sexuality?

I don't understand. Hit that home run. Just go for it.

[00:12:23] Dr. Roger Khun: Interesting. Because you are making this baseball reference.

[00:12:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:29] Dr. Roger Khun: And even if the game baseball is played virtually.

[00:12:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:35] Dr. Roger Khun: It's about a configuration of land. That's what a baseball, that's what the baseball game is about, is about this diamond that's configured in a particular way.

I'm not quite sure how. Based upon land though.

[00:12:50] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:52] Dr. Roger Khun: And we cannot have conversations around decolonization without talking about land. That's why, that's why we say decolonize, is because it has something to do with land. And in the case that I make around decolonizing sexuality, what I'm, what I'm understanding now, when I use that phrase, I am talking about the marginalized of the marginalized.

And when we say to decolonize sexuality, for me it's a reference. It's a, it's a, a moment to say, well, prior to colonization, prior to now settler ideology being the dominant way in which a lot of people, most people think, myself included. Thought, you know, I don't say I don't think this way anymore, but what I thought at one point in my life was based upon what was only true after a certain period in time.

[00:13:55] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:55] Dr. Roger Khun: To, to go back to the land, to decolonize, to go back to the land. One must remember that there were, and continue to be bodies on that land and bodies are ascribed something. Culturally, we do this as a species, as humans. There's a certain culture that is then pushed upon us or we are forced to assimilate to.

And in regard to sexuality, that included many things, including sexual behaviors and sort of what we might call stereotypes or tropes, if you will, about what is. Masculine, what is feminine, and suddenly we have this binary that we were living in. So to decolonize sexuality means that I'm first going to disrupt the idea that, that there's even this binary to begin with and say, well, actually I believe, and culturally my people believe this, and we've believed this long before you all came in and stole from us and forced us to assimilate, to survive.

And that's the larger conversation that I, that I welcome when I say decolonize sexuality. Mm-hmm. And from there, I think we have a foundation that can mean many things to many other people, depending on who's talking or who's saying things. In addition to, to, you know, this idea of decolonizing sexuality is also what I say to unsettle sexuality.

Which is where, where I think a lot of us fall into that category. Mm-hmm. And the unsettling is also the unlearning piece. Where to, um, you, you know, when when colonization happens, then there is this displacement of, uh, certain groups of people and a settling process is made by other people. And that settling process, generally we begin to see a shift in cultural norms and cultural values.

So what was at one point that minority view as that minority population, meaning the settler population grows and grows and grows and grows to become not only dominant in numbers, but now becomes dominant in cultural values, ideologies, et cetera, which of course includes. Things like sexual norms.

[00:16:21] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:21] Dr. Roger Khun: So then anyone else that comes after that is also subjected to those that new normative. Mm-hmm. So we had that colonized group and now the group that comes after that, that are also subjected to that. So I say that we can build off of this idea of decolonizing sexuality to moving to unsettling sexuality and unsettling sexuality, I think can also take a sharper critique.

And looking at, um, feminism and looking at queer studies that have a tendency to, especially in their origins, have a tendency to be dismissive of indigenous viewpoints and indigenous ways of understanding.

[00:17:06] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:07] Dr. Roger Khun: Because it requires, it requires that conversation around privilege and benefit, you know, from.

These terrible things like genocide of the indigenous people, so,

[00:17:18] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:17:21] Dr. Roger Khun: I hope I, I, I may have, I don't know if I hit it out the park, so to speak, to your baseball reference, though. I at least hope I, I, I, I maybe made the game a little more lively.

[00:17:31] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Well, I'm

[00:17:32] Dr. Roger Khun: please

[00:17:34] Dr. Nicole: yeah. Maybe now we can use a tennis metaphor.

I'm ready to rally you back. There we go. Now it's a new game. Um, yeah, so I, a couple of things I'd be curious your thoughts on, I'm thinking about just even the pieces of land and the privatization of land, right? And, and connections to capitalism, ownership, wanting to pass down your property, a KAI need to know who this is going to and the sort of control around that.

And maybe we could talk a little bit more about that, even within those frameworks. Right. There was still, um. Quote unquote infidelity of exploring sexuality with multiple people. But there was often this sort of biological, I'm gonna pass this down to this person. And in terms of the unsettling piece, I'm just thinking a lot about, um, Christianity.

I mean, puritanical culture, right? Of the people that came in and invaded this land within America, and the values around that of you have straight, heteronormative sex with one person, and how deeply laden that is for many of us in ways that, at least for myself, I don't, I have a lot of conversations about this.

I had free will, but also didn't because it was so around me that I thought anyone who had queer sex was a sinner and was gonna go to hell despite being a queer person myself, right? And so. At the time, I would've said, I identify as straight, I am this right. I identify as monogamous. But I think that that sort of paradigm is missing the larger ways that these are cultural practices.

Cultural practices, right. Less so than, um, particularly monogamy. I have a lot of feelings around because people say they identify as monogamous, but I, I almost wanna push back on that because naturally our body, not, and I'm holding so much space for this, but naturally our body responds to multiple people.

If I've sit you down in a scientific study and we're studying genital response to porn, your body's going to respond when I show you other people. Now what you do with that is up to you. You can choose to practice of not engaging in that with multiple people. Beautiful. Beautiful. But no matter what, our bodies actively respond to that.

So it's not like this identity of, uh, I am monogamous, I search inside me. It's more of a practice of choosing. And so I think even that paradigm of getting people to think like that is a part of unsettling the mm-hmm. Paradigm of purity culture that started within our area for years ago. So curious, what of that resonates with you and you wanna bounce off of?

[00:20:12] Dr. Roger Khun: Well, uh, I'm immediately drawn to the work of Dr. Kim Bert. I'm not, not sure if Kim's work.

[00:20:17] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:20:18] Dr. Roger Khun: I really loved Dr. Tall Bear and there's a great podcast that I like called All My Relations.

[00:20:25] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:25] Dr. Roger Khun: And I believe it was in their first season, possibly episode five or around there, there's a phenomenal episode WW called, I think it's called Decolonizing Sex with Dr.

Tall Bear. And it's just phenomenal. And she's really talking about like how monogamy is really the settler concept. How in certain, again, certain tribal nations, uh, we have different understandings of what it means to be partnered and what it means to, to have sex with someone, to marry someone. And we can't say this was true of all tribal nations.

And the challenge with a lot of these kind of conversations around sex and what was sex or sexuality like prior to the colonizations of what we now call the, the Americas or North America, uh, the US and Canada, um, the challenge is a lot of those records were destroyed. Right? You know, that that was part of the, that's how colonization works, is you destroy the records.

If there were any, if there were any to destroy you, destroy you, you destroyed them. And you try to shift the way that people think. Now, is that really any different than what's going on right now? In some cases? In certain parts of what we now call the United States, like, let's get rid of this kind of information.

[00:21:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:49] Dr. Roger Khun: And, and this can be anything from teaching children how bodies work. Um, this is a bit of an aside, but I'm suddenly remembering how, when I remember in early sex education, when I, I think the first time I was introduced to any kind of sex education in the school system, I was maybe in fifth grade.

[00:22:08] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:10] Dr. Roger Khun: And it wasn't that I was introduced to anything specific. It was that the girls in my class were all escorted out of the room one and went to a special like closet. And I just remember thinking like, I know what they're doing. I have th I have three older sisters. Yeah. So I was like, I know what they're doing.

I know what this is. The, the fact that it was like kept so separate

[00:22:38] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[00:22:39] Dr. Roger Khun: As opposed to let us all be educated about how bodies work. Right. You know, really when I go back and look at those early ways in which, oh wow. Even in my childhood, I, I was controlled. My, my, what I learned about sexuality was control.

And so it wasn't until I was in my mid twenties before I even learned what Two-Spirit was. And once I learned what that term meant, I thought, well, of course I identify that way. That makes the most sense to me in terms of all the, of all the acronyms and the terms that can be a part of this beautiful rainbow world that we live in as queer folk.

Two-Spirit is the one that I resonate the most with. Um, so part of the, the decolonizing sexuality for me is also. To claim that as, as part of my identity, as a, as a two-spirit, to say I am two-spirit, which is the claim of my indigenous, um, my indigenous id, uh, identity of my indigenous nature. That's really important for me.

And then part of the unsettling process for me as someone who also has a white parent, is to think about, you know, when you, when you were talking about like the inheritance of land, uh, I was raised in North Dakota on a farm in a small, like farming community in, in North Dakota. And, uh, the way that it probably was supposed to work, or at least it worked at one point in time, is that land that I lived on was my, in my father's family for several generations.

[00:24:13] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:14] Dr. Roger Khun: I didn't think much of that as a kid. Now as an adult, I think, how strange that, where did you, where'd your family get that land from?

[00:24:24] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Dad.

[00:24:25] Dr. Roger Khun: Like it was never, it, it was never explained to me where the land came from. Well, of course I know where the land came from. I mean, it, it came from at some point, either the government stole it or, um, my family stole it from some native people.

And so I, I am an indigenous person, but I'm, my tribal nation is not from what we now call North Dakota. So that was also interesting too, to grow up in that particular way to have an indigenous parent, but my mother's not indigenous to that region. So, um, but to think about like, oh, that land, which, um, my father eventually passed away when I was in my early twenties, and I really wanted nothing to do with the farm and, you know, all the things.

So my sisters and I just sold it to my auntie, my dad's sister. And it's still, that land is still in the, the family. Mm-hmm. But her family's side, so I don't really think about that land very much though. It is interesting when you really think about land and who has it, who doesn't have it, how does, what does that say about bodies?

What does that say about sexuality? All of these things, to me, are so intricately tied together because they're all, they're all in some way about culture. And so if you have a home, if you have land that says something or, or we've placed a particular value on it and said, we believe this says something about you, something about your stability, about what you might possibly.

Have in the world or, and or have to offer the world because of this particular status you might have in the land that you've acquired. It's very, very interesting. So I know though that as a clinician, part of the unsettling process comes when I'm helping people get back in touch with their bodies.

Sometimes that requires a particular somatic attunement Totally. About helping someone get into, to feel into, to sense into their body in particular ways. And then sometimes part of what I find interesting and particularly about being a sex therapist, I've worked as a sex therapist for over a decade, is the education piece about sexuality that sort of comes with it, and not necessarily just about the body and the physiological functioning, et cetera.

[00:26:59] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:59] Dr. Roger Khun: About the way that culture has shaped. Informed the way that we are in our bodies.

[00:27:09] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:27:10] Dr. Roger Khun: And sometimes that includes how people feel about their gender or how they express their gender and or their sexual orientation.

[00:27:18] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that's where I ask those deeper questions about free will.

Right? If we are so deeply in a culture that tells us what's right, wrong, the otherwise, it's really hard to see any other world, right? Mm-hmm. And I guess I believe in the yes and or I think about my existential mentor who would say that we have free will within what's, we have free will with what's within our frame of understanding.

Within our perspective. We have free will. But again, our perspective is so narrowed within certain cultural frameworks. And I think that's why I always come back to that knowing my lived experience with this because. So many people are living within paradigms that are so laden within these systems.

Mm-hmm. And when we look at other systems like internalized homophobia, racism, ableism, right? Like we have to take this active lens of saying, I need to actually question myself. And these values, even though they feel AKA normal to me in this moment, I need to actually take that lens of critical perspective to say, where are these coming from?

And so I think a lot of times with sexuality, that's not even part of the question of like, should I be examining these to see where they're coming from and if they're my own, as much as they feel natural or normal, right? So I think that lens, and it's sometimes I talk about that even when we're talking about gender, like the gender stereotypes of, um.

Just in a cis heteronormative perspective, a woman who becomes unattracted to her male partner because he starts to cry and offer softness. Okay, we gotta break that down, right? That is a larger cultural framework that we need to be examining. Even though you're having this a. I don't even know the words to say, like it's happening out like naturally that's doesn't feel right.

But they're becoming unattractive in ways that are outside of their free will. You know what I mean? Like that is so deeply laden in our psyches that it is automatically happening. And so how do we take these critical lenses to the ways I I I keep using this metaphor of like digging, I'm like digging my shovel over here.

How do we keep digging and digging and digging to kind of get this shit out, you know? And yeah. And, and I don't know where the end is of that as I continue to study relationship anarchy and did my dissertation on relationship anarchy and continue to like expand out uncoupling the ways that there's so many scripts of intimacy and relating to something much more expansive.

[00:29:49] Dr. Roger Khun: Well, maybe this is a good, um, time to pitch my book. Yeah, go for it. Called Soma Cultural Liberation.

I'd love to say like, well, actually I wrote a book about something very similar to what, what you're talking about, and. From my perspective, it needs to start with the self. Yeah. It needs to start with a deeper understanding of ourself.

We can gain all kinds of knowledge. I think that having a PhD as I have, uh, does not necessarily mean that I am smarter than someone else. Again, it's this value that we've placed on things like a PhD. I know because I've done the process that all it really means is that I have, um, a bit of grit and determination about me to follow through on certain things because it's a lot of getting a PhD is a lot of follow through.

Mm-hmm. It, it's, mm-hmm. Now, I, ISI say all of that to, to, to set that up. To say that part of this idea is really recognizing how the culture that I live in. Operates and what is the easiest way that I can navigate this system? And the easiest way does not necessarily mean I'm gonna go right through the center.

It might, if that's where the goal is, though, I may also end up in a situation culturally in a place where I feel very uncomfortable. So the easiest place is on the outside and to kind of go skimming the perimeter.

[00:31:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:29] Dr. Roger Khun: And that is what I think is important to understand about our body's responses to those experiences.

A moment ago we were talking about baseball references.

[00:31:40] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:40] Dr. Roger Khun: And, uh, the other day I happened to be, uh, for the first time ever I went to a hockey game.

[00:31:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:47] Dr. Roger Khun: Uh, an NHL game. I was struck by something. I haven't been to many games in general. I'm not a big sports person though, at several points throughout the, the game, during the breaks.

The jumbotron would come on and it, it, mm-hmm. It would encourage people to scream and to make noise and people would make noise and scream and do all the things. And I thought, aha, this is an outlet for a certain kind of feeling that most of us are never allowed to express. Right. And, and I kind of finally got why people would go to something like this one.

It was kind of cold. It was a hockey game. It, it, it was also exciting and all those things, but there was that sort of primal this about getting together and, and what an interesting cultural phenomena that we say, here's a place where you can get your, let's call it, um, angst out collectively. And it's mm-hmm.

It's allowed, you can be drunk, you can be somewhat obscene. And, and we, we appreciate that. And we say this is, this is allowed. And other places like that exist. Dance clubs, disco techs are other places we could say are similar like that. And we've created these, I'm gonna use a big word here, but like sanctuary spaces.

[00:33:07] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:08] Dr. Roger Khun: So where do these places exist? Where do sanctuary spaces exist for the marginalized or the marginalized? One of the things that's really important to, to talk about in, in terms of like decolonizing sexuality is, uh, the exotification that comes with that. Someone like maybe that looks, looks like myself, I'm what they call ethically ambiguous.

I can, I can go into a lot of different ethnic categories and people like to take all kinds of guesses if they're not certain. Um, which means I've gotten into all kinds of conversations with people literally from around the world who might try to identify with me to think, oh, you must speak Spanish, or you must speak Arabic, or you must speak based upon how I look.

The challenge with that then becomes about how does, again, a body that is marginalized, how does it know to feel a sense of safety when there can be so much uncertainty, especially in, um, these sanctuary spaces I talked about.

[00:34:19] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:21] Dr. Roger Khun: You know, I, I can't even begin to tell you the amount of times my body has been violated.

A sanctuary space, like a queer bar or a gay bar, which I think I should be able to go in there and have fun and be myself. Mm-hmm. But then to have other gay men, I'm gonna use that word, violate my body by touching me in ways that I never consented to touching my body that way. Um, wow. I don't know you or as you're moving through the crowd, you know, and, and, and I know it's not just, this does not just happen in, in gay spaces though, to specifically say like these sanctuary spaces or when sexual per, you know, violence or when there's some sort of sexual perpetrators in these spiritual communities we see beyond just the church.

Mm-hmm. But, you know, in, in enlightenment communities, spiritual communities, et cetera. That's also what I would bring into the, another aspect of decolonizing and sexuality. And one of the things that I also talk about in my books, all cultural liberation, is the need for more people doing this kind of work to be talking about the cultural piece in a way that helps us understand more.

[00:35:43] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:43] Dr. Roger Khun: So that we don't get into what we see happening right now in the US This, it's not a fiction because it is happening. Mm-hmm. But what feels to me, like what should be this fictitious argument about what is and what isn't woke and, you know, it just seems like I, I do not understand why folks would not want to know this stuff and not want to have the conversa.

Well, I don't wanna say I, I don't understand. I quite understand it requires a willingness to sit with uncomfortable parts ourselves.

[00:36:19] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:21] Dr. Roger Khun: And for some of us it's just easier. And by that I mean that, well, if you've, if you kind of have always been sitting there for, for whatever reason, could be that you come from, again, that marginalized population.

Or it could be something even personally to your more micro culture at home. Maybe you grew up in an Abu abusive home or an alcoholic or a drug addicted home. And so we have different feelings that are, you know, based on our personal experiences though, when we unpack that and know those things about ourselves, I believe it gives us a little more cushioning to move through the world.

[00:37:04] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think a lot about, uh, Stockholm Syndrome and just the ways that we, in various systems have been so normalized to a certain level of existence. I'm. Even thinking about my younger sister who I had a conversation with, she is, uh, was took a path of Mormonism, more conservative, and I took a path of liberal queer relationship anarchist, right?

So you can see the divergence here and in different ways, of course, we're still connected, um, in our own unique way, but it's really interesting. She's had a lot of complications with her daughter going into the hospital, right? And has these astronomical view, um, payments that she's having to pay for that hospital treatment.

Now, I had joked with her recently and I said, you know, hey, I mean those bills are crazy. And she's like, oh yeah, so wild, like thousands of dollars just to make sure my baby is alive. And I'm like, yeah, well, so next time we have a president that offers universal healthcare, I know who you'll be voting for.

Mm-hmm. She's like, well, I mean, I don't think it's that. I think I just need a better paying job. I looked at the better paying jobs and they have better paying health insurance. So I don't think it's about that. It's really like the better paying jobs. And I'm like, uh, okay. Okay. Mm-hmm. So there's a level of awareness.

That she does not have of a different future of what is possible. Of Yeah. Changing the whole effing system, right. That this isn't even what's happening to you. You know what I mean? So I just think about the ways that abuse has been so normalized with these structures in our relationships that we don't know to even say, Hey, that actually isn't at all.

Okay, we're gonna step way outside of this frame to a whole new world. And we do see that in psychology, right? The, when we've been in abusive relationships, we slowly step out to a next one that's a little bit better, but often still has same patterns of abuse and dynamics. And it takes stepping out as we grow in relationships to see this different world.

And yeah, so I think about that often in terms of the ways we move through the world of just ex uh, normalizing certain levels of existence. And as you were talking about, um. The different sacred spaces for this. Yeah. There's so much pressure around you show up in this space and you're quiet, you sit down, you know, and now we can start talking about things like a DHD and how we diagnose, you know, I won't, I won't even get off into the soapbox there, right?

But like, you sit down in the chair and you be quiet and you learn this way. Right? And so, yeah. To have this sacred space where you can roar and actually connect with more of that bodily soma, right? The experiences. Oh, how important. And so, you know, like you were talking about the bar, I've had so many different spaces where I've been violated and touched and groped and other things and bar settings.

And so it was actually making me think just about the sacredness of the BDSM dungeons that I've gone to. Mm-hmm. Because mm-hmm. Wow. What a space where consent is so. Forward. No one has come up to me and made me feel uncomfortable. No one has touched me, like, wow. And it's a sacred space where I have been in there and seen bodies of all different generational ages, having sex, having pleasure, exploring bodily sensations.

So I was just thinking what a sacred space to have as so consent laden space that's specifically to that. And many of us don't have that. And again, just thinking about worlds of possibilities, it's hard to even consider that as a world because most of us don't have examples of that in our day to day.

And often are going through so many situations where we're having to protect ourself and, you know, close, close down. Intimacy is scary. Connection can cause harm versus a space where it's very consent laid and I can really open up my body there. So I'm just, you know, sad about the world, but

[00:40:39] Dr. Roger Khun: no, uh, yes.

And, and decolonizing sexuality requires the recognition that. Consent was not granted to many, many, many people that now live here. Right? Or, you know, that, that have survived here or that, that are the descendants of the survivors. That's something that I, I'm very intrigued by. Uh, I love consent culture.

Yeah. I love consent to trainings. I love teaching couples about consent, and I'm also very curious about consent in terms of these larger conversations around, yes, well, how do we, how do we really have consent on land that, uh, there was no consent given for, for how it is we're all living here anyway. I think that's a really interesting conversation to have that, uh, that's kind of where my thinking is at the moment.

[00:41:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:47] Dr. Roger Khun: In terms of what I'm thinking of critically as I would say a, a writer or where my next workmate my go to. Sure. Um, uh, and I just finished a couple days ago, a very short essay in a book that a friend of mine named, uh, Lucy Fielding wrote called Trans Sex, and she got, the book is now going into its second edition.

So she asked me to, you know, what would I write a, a, a small little essay on two-Spirit sex. And I wrote about two-spirit erotic embodiment, and I started to talk a little bit about consent and land and, and I realized like. I can only just touch on this because I have 1500 words and I wanna keep it around 1100.

[00:42:41] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:42:41] Dr. Roger Khun: And I knew that I could really spiral into something. So that's a, a very fresh question. I'm kind of sitting with around consent that a lot of times there are these tools that we have and they may be, um, somatic based tools or they may be more of the soma intellectual based tools. They may be a combination of, of are the Soma emotive, um, they may be a combination of all of these things.

And they're great and they're really helpful and they're really, they're really beneficial. And if you come from a particular marginalized group, it it, it might even lead you to a point of saying like, this is awesome. And there's this other thing that I also experience as this kind of person. That if that's not dealt with, then none of this even really matters.

Like I can feel great and I can feel empowered on, I can feel somewhat self confident though if this larger issue is still lingering. It makes it really hard to navigate that system.

[00:43:52] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:53] Dr. Roger Khun: And that's an important aspect I think to discuss when we talk about everything you and I have talked about today, is that mm-hmm.

There's always gonna be that group of people for whom a message like you and I are talking about today may never even reach, you know, and how could it, right. And, and you know, it's, it's so interesting 'cause as I was, as I was preparing myself this morning, sort of thinking about like, wow, what are we gonna talk about?

[00:44:24] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:44:25] Dr. Roger Khun: And I was thinking, there's so much going on in my life. Good, good things going on in my life. Yeah. I could talk about so many things and every now and then as I'm driving in my car or I'm, I'm sitting in the passenger seat and I, I'll glance out and look at other people and just have that sort of meta thought of like, that person has a history

[00:44:47] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah.

[00:44:47] Dr. Roger Khun: Of connection of Oh

[00:44:48] Dr. Nicole: yeah.

[00:44:49] Dr. Roger Khun: Maybe their favorite songs playing right now. There's all of these things and then there's that idea of like, and I will probably never meet them ever.

[00:44:57] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:44:58] Dr. Roger Khun: I have no idea that I even exist or that I was even looking at them. That stuff blows my mind because then it's sort of like, well, I'm gonna end this conversation with you and think, oh my gosh, all the things I did not talk about or I not upset about.

Yeah. What's going on in my life right now. And then it's always like, well, will there be more time for that? Will there be other conversations? And the reality is, is like there, there always is. If we make the time. Though it's, again, when we have conversations like this that I, that I kind of feel are just watering the garden, so to speak.

Sure. How do conversations like this continue on so that they start, they start happening more and more outside of folks like you and I who might have some fluency

[00:45:46] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:45:46] Dr. Roger Khun: In these kind of conversations? That's what I hope my book does.

[00:45:51] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:52] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, part of what I write about in the book is my own decision a couple of years ago to step away from the kind of heavy academic clinical route that I was going in my life for a really long time and to, to step back into music because I, Hmm.

I had this moment where, you know, I worked so much as a clinician helping people find what I'm calling liberation and pleasure.

[00:46:20] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:46:21] Dr. Roger Khun: It's very pleasing to me to do that. I love being a clinician. I love being a therapist. It is a job that suits me probably the best out of any job I've ever had. And I consider being a musician a job as well.

And I, not to say I'm a better therapist than I'm a musician, so to say that I think I'm better suited for it. Yeah. Because, um, the music world or the music business is really challenging and it's changed so much from when I was in it, you know, really in it almost two decades ago. Um, though coincidentally I have been working on a new music project and I just released both a new music video and a new music, uh, single called Kaleidoscope.

And the song and the video are really about seeking liberation. Which is really what this book is about, seeking liberation, and ultimately that's what I'm doing in my own life.

[00:47:18] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:19] Dr. Roger Khun: And being willing to be witnessed in my vulnerability by others. Yeah.

[00:47:27] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:28] Dr. Roger Khun: That's what I've really learned from all of this.

When I, in the past, I've compartmentalized myself so much.

[00:47:35] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:47:36] Dr. Roger Khun: It always feels like there's no cohesion.

[00:47:39] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:40] Dr. Roger Khun: Now I'm at this point where it's like, wow, I have this book coming out. I have a song, I have, I have a video out. It's all there at the moment.

[00:47:46] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:47:47] Dr. Roger Khun: And it feels really good. And I'm also on at the moment, and that feels really good to not be doing the therapy work.

I haven't taught a class in months and it, or I haven't graded papers in months and it feels so nice to not do those things. Mm-hmm. This book came from that sign Right. That, that, to, to go back to that decolonized sexuality sign. Right. You know, that is, this book really came from that moment of that one gesture of, you know, literally carrying that sign above my head.

[00:48:23] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:25] Dr. Roger Khun: And just to be witnessed in that way, to be, to allow myself to be witnessed by

[00:48:30] Dr. Nicole: literally

[00:48:30] Dr. Roger Khun: thousands of people who, somewhere, as I mentioned, really, really excited about my sign. And other folks, not so much they, you know, would yell. It happened 'cause I, I carried it with me twice to two different, um, pride events.

[00:48:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:46] Dr. Roger Khun: Always the people that would sort of yell out like, well, what does that mean? Or what do you mean by that? Or. I would always have to yell back, like, figure it out. You know, it's like I can stop in the middle of the parade and, and say what I mean by that. And since I did it the night before, I didn't know what I meant by it.

[00:49:06] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[00:49:06] Dr. Roger Khun: And now I think if I carried it with me, which maybe I will, if I go to the parade again next year or something, I, I would never stop and tell someone. 'cause I would, I'd miss the whole parade then. 'cause I would, I'd probably just keep chatting the same person up and, you know.

[00:49:22] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Thankfully,

[00:49:22] Dr. Roger Khun: thankfully I've, um, it, it's very rare that the message is not received well by, by others.

[00:49:30] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:49:30] Dr. Roger Khun: When I, when I'm talking about decolonized and sexuality or when I'm talking about somo cultural liberation, um, thankfully I've only experienced, like I was going to speak a couple of years ago. I was speaking in Wisconsin and I think it was like a state senator. Said something about the, the university spending funds on some, I don't know if they said two-spirit sex therapists from San Francisco or something like that.

[00:50:01] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:02] Dr. Roger Khun: I was like, Ooh, controversy.

I, now, I guess I feel, I feel like I've really made it, you know, if I'm, if I'm controversial and to some state senator from Wisconsin. Sure. Um, you know, so it, it's just about really keeping, keeping myself open to learning and now being able to witness others

[00:50:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:50:25] Dr. Roger Khun: And experience themselves and deepen their own understanding of their culture and yeah.

[00:50:32] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's why it's a joy to have you in this space, right. To know that there's hundreds of people listening, tuning in, and I think about the way that. I started my life. It's shaped by relationships, by culture, right? And the way that I got out is growing through relationships. And so people are listening to this and growing through that Now, the meaning making of all the words that you just said have a meaning making to you.

And I'm gonna interpret, gonna interpret them in my own head, through my own lens. And we're on two radically different pages existentially, right? When you, like you said, when you look at those strangers and they have a whole life, a whole connection of relationships, a whole meaning making world, right? We are always the existential therapy, you know, paradigm would say we're always isolated.

We're in our isolation. Um, and so all the words you just shared. You know, your meaning different than mine, and we somehow come together in it. Mm-hmm. And so when we're having this conversation, right, depending on where someone's at in their own journey, their own process, they're gonna hear things radically different.

Right? Some people, not to stratify it as right or wrong or anything, but people are gonna take their own message from it, right? And so I try to let go to that, that space and just trust that the ripples of whatever we're talking about is shaping towards that, uh, greater movement of, of potential worlds.

Just to, to, just to open up, I hope in this space, worlds of possibility. I don't care if people practice sexual fidelity, sexual self governance, they're having sex, or I, I don't care. I just want you. Pleasure. Right? I want you and your body to feel good and to feel that connection. And so I think that the more that we create space to kind of get into the nitty gritty of these dialogues, I hope that it kind of rattles some people just to think differently.

And I, I trust in the ripples of that, whether it's a, a sign and we don't explain the whole manifesto, right? Or a deeper conversation or a podcast, right? I do trust in the collective consciousness that originally shaped where I came from to also shape where we're going, right? Like even the idea of the word, I'm like, oh, I'm queer.

I'm queer in all senses of the word. Who created that term, it wasn't me. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants of community conversation that go way back before me. And so mm-hmm. You and I are just a part of, you know, the, we could say the blade of grass and the whole lawn, you know, I'm anti lawn, right?

Native native planes, maybe I should go, um, a drop of water in the ocean, right? We are a drop of water in the collective ocean. And so our conversation, I think, will get people to start thinking about that and, and continue to like branch out in their own worlds and, and thought. And so I trust in that evolution of just.

Thought as we continue to go down this path, like you said, that what the sign meant to you at the beginning, it is very different than what it means now. What the word modern anarchy meant to me three years ago mm-hmm. Is very different than what it means now. And so it's that continual embrace of change to see kind of where we go collectively in relationships like the one we have today.

You and I, and I'm gonna make an assumption that you have a badass radical community as much as I do. Right. And we continue to kind of sit and grow and think together, and maybe we'll regret some of the things we said when we look back, you know, and go, Hmm. Gotta change that. Right. I think that's part of the growing process, but

[00:53:51] Dr. Roger Khun: Sure.

[00:53:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I have a lot of faith in the, in the ripples of the work that we do. Mm-hmm.

[00:53:56] Dr. Roger Khun: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, I, I'm remembering a, a part in the book where I talk very briefly about the recognition that in my life I have undoubtedly said and thought racist things. How could I have not given the world I live in, how I was raised, cultured, what have you, and again, we can't use ignorant ignorance as an excuse.

Right? Right. It's like not only do do those things that I say, uh, undoubtedly did I not, you know, have, have I not said those things. They were both racist and ignorant though. Now that I'm aware of it, it's like, oh yeah. I don't remember ever a time in my life where I, uh, sort of purposefully said something that would have been considered racist.

Though again, when you're younger, you might say things that it's like, oh, I didn't even know that that was a thing, because that's how everyone around me spoke. That's just the way that it was. Um, though, it's what do I do with that knowledge? And that knowledge then is cognitive. Yes, though it's also what do I do with that knowledge in my body so that when I'm in a situation like that again.

Or when I see a particular kind of person that I may have had either a really ignorant hurt, you know, racist or fill in the blank, homophobic, transphobic, what have you reaction to in the past? Now when I see you, I don't, you know, freeze my body. Like, oh, don't say something stupid, but then try to be all cool with you and be like, oh, hey, how, how's everything?

Because I'm holding my body. Yeah. It's like, can I learn to let go of whatever that was too? That takes another layer. The first part is just bringing that awareness. Just become aware that something is going on, and then we begin to notice. What do you do with that? When you know you, you do that thing, or you're doing those things again, how do they manifest in the body?

Is there a way we can learn to be with those uncomfortable, literal physical sensations so we can let go of those as well? So we can learn to be present with what is true, what is not true, what is what we are learning and what we are unlearning all simultaneously at the same moment.

[00:56:14] Dr. Nicole: Yep.

[00:56:15] Dr. Roger Khun: It is a skill that I'm still learning.

[00:56:17] Dr. Nicole: Yep. Same.

[00:56:18] Dr. Roger Khun: Yep. And I'm sure, uh, I will continue to learn this until my last breath. Right. It's gonna be an ongoing process. And once I think all of us can accept that, that we're, we will be continuously learning.

[00:56:31] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:32] Dr. Roger Khun: There's an excitement to that. It gives us something, you know, that's wonder that that's that beautiful word wonder.

It fills us with curiosity. So we have something to keep going toward, to move toward, to center to ourselves. Right. And the chaos.

[00:56:47] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. And it begins with the body. I think that's such an important piece, right? Because yeah, you say something, you know, harmful in any sense of the word, and someone can gently try to come in with community care and say, Hey, Nicole Raj, you know, like.

That's really hurtful. I, you know, can we talk about that? Mm-hmm. All of a sudden my chest goes tight. What I did, I did what? I'm a good person. How dare you? You know, like, so our value system of wanting to move through the world with love is being confronted with this moment of someone saying that we did something different.

Right? And can we sit in that discomfort to say, okay, like I'm gonna relax that tightening in the chest and maybe open up the space to have the dialogue with the person to hear them out. Right. Obviously the complexities I've talked about, like, um, I went to a rally having my, um, I had an abortion and I'm not apologizing sign, and I got a ton of comments on Instagram saying I'm gonna murder, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right?

So like I don't always open up the door to have that conversation of meeting one another because there's a certain level of wow, like I'm just gonna hold space for your cultural perspectives and I don't need to engage in that, right? Mm-hmm. So I think even that nuance of who do we open up to of perspectives that we trust to sit in that space of discomfort, that's even, you write a more nuanced conversation, but it takes that first body recognition of, okay, I'm having this tightness and I wanna like, like roar back at you and say I'm a good person, versus, okay, I'm gonna relax and actually listen.

Right? I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna grow through that discomfort. And even just for me too, of trying to do more relationship anarchy and find, um. Security in my relationships that aren't control dynamics of, of, uh, controlling what the people in my world can do. There's been so much body dis, I don't wanna say dysregulation, maybe that's actually the right word.

You know, like truly when I first started, it reminds me of rock climbing. I always use that metaphor because I'm a rock climber. That's where I get like my metaphors for life of, uh, the first time I come up to the wall. It was terrifying. My, my belly is shaking. I don't wanna do it, but I made the choice to do it anyways and do gentle exposure therapy.

And so I've experienced some the same things of when my, um, beautiful people in my communities have, I have attachments with them and they're exploring attachments with other people. I felt sick, nauseous. I wanted to vomit. Like, so I would say it's some reg, uh, like form of dysregulation, but I have to sit with that and I take a moment to like.

Honor what that feeling is. Ground myself, ask for what I need, and also know that my body's reaction is not truth. In reality, I can move through the system with values. Right? And so I think all of this does come back to the body in terms of dismantling of the internalization of, of all these various structures, right?

Is we're gonna have a body reaction first, right? And if we don't feel that, that is where we actively lash out at people and start yelling and these other things. 'cause we're not even noticing that we're having this reaction first. And so I agree. Starting with the body, man, if I could, half the time when I'm doing therapy, I don't even wanna talk to people because I'm like, where are you connected to your breath?

Do you feel your toes right now? You know, I don't even wanna process your trauma until you're there, but I, it's a yes and right. I'm not, we could be all in the body, but our narrative of, of our life could be so like, aggressive or negative. So it's important to do both, of course. But like, man, the deeper I get into this, I'm like, ugh, we gotta start with the body before anything else.

[01:00:15] Dr. Roger Khun: Yeah. There's a really powerful exercise that I like to do with people in workshops. Mm. And I can teach you and, and your listeners really quick. Sure.

[01:00:24] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Love.

[01:00:24] Dr. Roger Khun: But if you may already know this, folks that are listening may know it already as well though. It has to do with, um, you know, if you have access to your hands

[01:00:33] Dr. Nicole: mm-hmm.

[01:00:33] Dr. Roger Khun: Folks that, you know, might have any arthritic or arthritis issues. This may not be the best exercise for you though, though. If you do have, if you do, um, have access to your hands, the idea is really to think about something going on in your life, an issue. It could be a relationship, let's say, let's all take all relationship to.

Oh, that's a big one, right?

[01:00:55] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:56] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, and, and with your dominant hand, essentially. Now usually, you know, you know, we would ground ourselves and maybe close our eyes and do all those things, but essentially with that right? My, I'm right hand dominant, so with my right hand, I'm gonna make some kind of shape about my relationship to my body, right?

And so that might be, sure, you know, in this case I'm making a, um, and you could keep, you could move it or you could keep it stable. Yeah. And so, you know, then, and then with my left hand, with my non-dominant hand, I'm gonna make a gesture of what I want my relationship to be like with my body.

[01:01:32] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[01:01:32] Dr. Roger Khun: So I might kind of give it a, you know, in my case, you know, very open and palm up facing the sky.

Sure.

[01:01:40] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:01:41] Dr. Roger Khun: And then, and then in my sensations, I'm gonna go back between the right hand and the left hand and just kind of feel into the difference somatically, like, wow, I can feel a difference. Not only in the way that my hand is shaped, but the way my body senses into these two things. And then eventually it's a choice.

I love that word, Nicole. You used earlier choice. I'm gonna make the choice to allow my right hand to feel into the same gesture as my left hand.

[01:02:12] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:14] Dr. Roger Khun: And now I take notice again, like, wow, how does that feel in my body? Like who, wow. Yeah. That's a choice that I've made to actually respond to the situation with, with this openness.

And then of course you let it go, shake it off, just breathe it off, et cetera. Yeah. This is a really quick little exercise that one can do really to stay embodied with something and also to recognize like, I do have a choice in how I'm responding to this.

[01:02:41] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:42] Dr. Roger Khun: And once we really learn that we have choice, game up, you know?

Yeah. It, it's, it's, uh. We no longer have this excuse anymore, which so many of us love. I also think excuses have get bad reputations and, and we think people use these excuses because they don't wanna do the work. Excuses take a lot of work excuses, take so much work. That's the thing that we oftentimes don't talk enough about, is that we get so good at our excuses that it takes a facade to keep up with it.

And that requires more emotional labor. Labor, sometimes more physical labor. Than it would be if we were just open, honest, and truthful with ourselves. Mm-hmm. And with doctors.

[01:03:29] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:30] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, and that's a conversation for another time,

[01:03:34] Dr. Nicole: right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I just think about the importance of, yeah, the edging of our window of tolerance and, and listening to that, again, I'm, I'm thinking about times where I've gone up to, you know, climb and I specifically got back into lead climbing.

I dunno if you're familiar with the concepts of like lead or top rope. In the, the shortest, simple version of the term. When you're top roping, there's a level of physics where you're controlling the, the person with the rope. And it's, it's a simple pulley system versus when you're lead climbing, I become the weight for the person when they fall.

So, which means when they fall mm-hmm. I shoot up into the, you know, into the wall to counterbalance them. So it's a much more dynamic braking system than the top rope, which uses the physics at the top to take out the tension through a second coiling. Okay. But I was just starting to get back into that and, um, it was a choice.

I'm like, okay, I know this is the scary thing. I've tried it in the past, kinda scary, but I wanna do it again. And so I found someone that I trust and could have a lot of like security with, but even as I stepped up to the wall, my brain is going, oh my God, when they fall, like, 'cause we plan to take a, a structured fall.

When they fall. I'm gonna shoot up, I'm gonna shoot up and I'm going to myself, okay, Nicole, you know that. You're okay. I'm laying. I'm like, you're okay. Deep breaths, you're okay. And I can feel my ga my um, my gaze start to narrow. I can feel start to shaky. A little flighty, and I'm like, damnit, like, you're okay.

Deep breaths. Ah, I start like doing like my yoga breath of like really trying to side up like, ah, and uh, they took the fall and I was okay, but I still came back. When they came down, I was like, I need to lay on the floor. Like, I could feel like a trauma activation response going on in my body. And I remember laying on the floor and I felt so powerless.

Like, I was like, damn. Like my brain. I was right there of like, you take the deep breaths, it's okay. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Yeah. And yet I'm still on the floor going, whoa. Like, I feel flighty. I feel like I'm gonna faint and everything is okay. So how much of that's my brain? You know, conjuring out the experience, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think, you know, and then we can ask a deeper question of what's the frame right? So I was not necessarily in control of that reaction that was happening. And it reminds me a lot of my times, I've processed trauma in my therapy space as a client myself, not the the doctor, you know? And there'd be times where I'd be talking about, you know, the things I'd gone through in life and it would produce that same sort of like narrowing of the gaze, you know, the belly tightening.

And that feels so powerless. Like I have no control over that. But it's that, yes. And to the, okay, I laid on the floor. I laid on the floor, I pushed past my zone just a little bit, so much so that I didn't faint or cry right? But then laid on the floor, asked for what I needed. I didn't climb any other lead routes like that that day because that was enough, right?

We have that therapy, we ground at the end and maybe we don't watch a scary movie at the end of the day because we don't need more for our bodies, right? Mm-hmm. So it's like such a delicate dance of as we're pushing that edge of discomfort, we're gonna feel things that are slightly out of our control.

Mm-hmm. But how can we reground so that we continue to push past that? Right? Because if we stay in the safety space, we never really actually process. So I think it's just, I hope we can get more language to what it's like to work through these larger structural pieces that are causing our bodies to have these reactions in a way that hold space for the, like lack of control at times.

Mm-hmm. And also the control that we do have to ground mm-hmm. And push through that. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:10] Dr. Roger Khun: Well, you, that, that language of window tolerance I think is really, uh, useful.

[01:07:14] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:07:15] Dr. Roger Khun: In particular if, if we can learn how to understand. It feels like to be in a particular zone, if you'll Right. And to know where that edge is.

Yes. You were getting close to where that edge is. Yes. I know for myself, when I start dropping a lot of f-bombs in particular, I know that that is when sums up with me. Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily, necessarily have to be a bad thing because, you know, the, the window of tolerance works in a lot of ways.

And something else you said, I think is also really important to, to talk about too, is that sometimes when we're doing something like rock climbing or when we're about to get on stage and perform in front of Right. A bunch of people. Yes. The sensation of anxiety, which we may be used to because of some trauma we had in our life.

[01:08:12] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:08:14] Dr. Roger Khun: Sometimes we go, oh my gosh, there's that feeling again. Yep. Because citation excitement. Feels very similar in terms of how it travels in our neural pathways, right? And so it's like, oh, is this anxiety excitation? Is this is my phrenic, what's going on with my phrenic nerve? And to be able to, to recognize that, like, oh, this is, this is a seven in the good way.

This is the seven excited seven.

[01:08:44] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:45] Dr. Roger Khun: Versus the, this is the seven OMFG, this is the FBO seven.

[01:08:51] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:08:51] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, to sort of reg register on that scale to, to understand and know the nuances. And then the importance is like, and here's the steps that help me get back to a 6.5. Right. To a six, to a 5.5 to a five.

Yep. To ultimately back to that four where I'm optimal. I can be a, a, um, a little bit, something can be evocative to me and I can still be super clear and go. And yeah, developing the language for that, developing the somatic dialogue for it as well, I think is, I think is crucial for all of this. And, and as that word becomes more common, soma, and as people are talking more about the body, and hopefully we'll be doing that more with my book.

[01:09:39] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:09:40] Dr. Roger Khun: I think it'll become more common for us to be having these kind of conversations and dialogue so that it all becomes interwoven so that conversations around soma cultural liberation are synonymous with conversations around decolonizing sexuality are synonymous with conversations around unsettling or synonymous with conversations around therapeutic modalities for people who have experienced and survived sexual assault and violence.

All of these things are tied together.

[01:10:08] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:09] Dr. Roger Khun: It, it is all tied together. It's all woven together. And when we, not necessarily unweave, but when we learn the technique that wove. The pattern together or wove the basket together in the first place, we can change, we really can change that stuff.

[01:10:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:10:28] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, and that's what I'm hoping my work does. It's changed my life,

[01:10:33] Dr. Nicole: certainly,

[01:10:34] Dr. Roger Khun: and I hope it, I hope it inspires and changes others. Mm-hmm.

[01:10:38] Dr. Nicole: I'm sure it will. And I believe in our inner healing wisdom, our gut, our intuition, whatever we wanna call it, that knows more is possible. Mm-hmm. I. My heart breaks for the people who feel miserable in their relationships, who feel such a lack of embodiment and pleasure.

And I think that we all have an inner calling towards more of this. And I think it starts as little whispers. I don't know, maybe you could speak to that in your own life, but for me it started as little whispers of something more is possible. There is a level of this that I'm, I'm feeling drawn toward. I don't know what it is.

I don't know what the word is or the space it's going to be, but I feel the small step towards this next thing and this next thing and this next thing. And then my journey that has expanded to such a level of embodiment that I couldn't have even fathomed years ago where I was in these restrictive paradigms.

And so I do believe that people, when they get quiet and try to feel like there is a gentle nudging towards these things, 'cause I think we all have a craving towards connection. Intimacy and pleasure, whatever that looks like for people. I think we all do have an inner desire for that. And so I think it's getting quiet with the self too, to kind of try and feel into that and then follow those little steps.

[01:12:03] Dr. Roger Khun: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And to echo what we shared earlier and to know that there will be multiple times in our lives when I'm sure you've heard that expression jump and the net will appear.

[01:12:19] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:12:20] Dr. Roger Khun: I've heard it differently a few years ago and now it's my preferred way to understand that phrase, which is jump the net is already there.

[01:12:30] Dr. Nicole: Ah.

[01:12:31] Dr. Roger Khun: And that I think is important for us to say is like, and we're gonna come to points where we're not quite sure where to go or what to do so, and, and jump, and that is there, it's there. The reality of what we've sort of talked about today, the sort of heavy part. The balance of that is the hope, is the wonder is the excitement, is the pleasure.

[01:12:55] Dr. Nicole: Right.

[01:12:56] Dr. Roger Khun: That is ultimately what my work is about, is about the liberation.

[01:13:00] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:01] Dr. Roger Khun: And I will always be on the quest for that. I've accepted that, uh, as I can sort of look back at my life, that there's always been these really interesting little dips along the hills. And I'm on a very interesting one right now.

And maybe in five years I won't be doing any of this anymore. Yeah. Uh, you know, who knows? Who knows? Who knows. That's exciting thing is that, I don't know. I don't know what else I would be doing right though. I could be, I could be a spin looking at my spin bike. I could be a spin bike instructor. Sure. Who knows?

Sounds fun. Why not? Yeah. Sometimes I think about being an aerialist, like those people that do this.

It's amazing.

[01:13:48] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:13:48] Dr. Roger Khun: I really, I don't know if my body could do it at this point. I really, you know, and I, yeah. I don't mean to do who, who, you know, myself. I think that the reality is I'm in my late forties now and I just don't have that same level of, sure.

I just can't do it anymore, unfortunately. Humanness.

[01:14:04] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[01:14:05] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, the, the mental piece is there, but the physical piece is not there. That's not a boohoo moment. That's, that's a genuine to say like, no, it is true that things sometimes happen to us as we get older. Right?

[01:14:16] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely.

[01:14:17] Dr. Roger Khun: Though, just to be like so open to the idea that I don't know what's gonna happen and that uncertainty I've become much more comfortable with over years.

[01:14:30] Dr. Nicole: I appreciate you saying that. I'm gonna continue to breathe into that. 'cause it's always scary. It's so terrifying to me. Right. We wanna know, we want answers, we want security and Yeah. Yeah. It's like the Buddhist saying that the only constant is change and, uh, that brick keeps getting thrown into me.

Mm-hmm. Again and again. And so I'll take your words of wisdom here and continue to try to feel that in my body of how can I embrace the inevitability of change today again and again, and again and again. And trust that, you know, wherever it is, I'm in such a state of embodiment now that there'll be pleasure wherever I am and, and, and deeper embodiment.

You know what I mean? Like, we're only getting bad. So, so wherever it is I end up, it's gonna be, uh, feeling good. Yes.

[01:15:14] Dr. Roger Khun: Yeah.

[01:15:15] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. I wanna hold a little bit of space as we come towards the end of our time. I always like to take a deep breath with my guests,

and then yeah, ask you to check in and see if there's anything else that you wanna say to the listeners. Otherwise, I have a closing question I can ask you. And then I'll also invite you to plug all of your pieces at the end as well.

[01:15:40] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, no, I'm good. Good.

[01:15:41] Dr. Nicole: Okay. Well then the closing question that I ask everyone is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:15:51] Dr. Roger Khun: Um, one thing out of everything in life.

[01:15:54] Dr. Nicole: I know.

[01:15:55] Dr. Roger Khun: Oh my gosh. Okay. So the very first thing that came to mind Yeah. Was adults collecting toys into their forties. Oh,

[01:16:05] Dr. Nicole: you wanna say more?

[01:16:07] Dr. Roger Khun: Well, yeah, I, I do. I collect little things. I have these little, I was just. I have these little Smurfs Sure. That sit in front of my, I have a, a Reagan little exorcist doll that sits in front of my, um, I have a little, uh, yes.

I love these little pops, these little fun co pops. This is the

[01:16:27] Dr. Nicole: cute

[01:16:27] Dr. Roger Khun: snow monster from Rudolph. I also have a brainy Smurf one. Um, you know, and so I, I, I think that would, I wish that was more normalized. That, and I think what I mean by that is like, these things elicit joy. They bring me, they make me, they, I feel playful when I see them.

And

[01:16:46] Dr. Nicole: yeah.

[01:16:46] Dr. Roger Khun: You know, if I pick one up, I just go, that's so fun. I, I'm so excited to have this. So that, that is love. That, that is what I would say.

[01:16:53] Dr. Nicole: I love that. And in line with our whole conversation on the show, I guess I'll, I'll say I have, uh, many toys as well, some like that and also some of different types of play.

My collection of dildos is very extensive and wonderful. I have, I have some with confetti, right. That are so fun. It makes me just think of the aerial song, like, look at this stuff. Isn't you neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? You know, it's not, wouldn't even

[01:17:20] Dr. Roger Khun: think I'm the girl. Right?

[01:17:21] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, exactly.

Yes. Many a toys of different kinds and the meaning and the sentiment of it. So I appreciate you normalizing that today. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you. Yeah. Where do you wanna plug for people who wanna find your book and all of your stuff today?

[01:17:42] Dr. Roger Khun: Sure. I have two different websites. They're very similar. It's Roger Kun, R-O-G-E-R-K-U-H n.com. That one has my music and my book is on there as well. And then like speaking dates and stuff or gigs that I have, music gigs, all that stuff's on there. And then my other website is roger j kun.com, R-G-E-R-J-K-U-H n.com.

And that one is my more, what I call my therapeutic academic website. Also, my book is on there. I think there's a link to my music on there. Either website you go to will get you the information that you want, 'cause. You know, there's ways that you can click, click, click, and then I'm on all streaming services.

Um, apple Music, Spotify, if you wanna check out some of my music. Yeah. And then Soma Cultural Liberation is available on Audible or wherever you may purchase your audible books or your, your electronic books or your, it's available in paperback, so yeah. Yeah.

[01:18:50] Dr. Nicole: Thank you for joining us today. I'll have all of that link below.

[01:18:53] Dr. Roger Khun: Yeah, thank you.

[01:18:54] Dr. Nicole: Lovely. 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.