Intimate Interactions

Latest Episodes:

Self Expression and Self Relationship Repair (Yana Skorstengaard) Sep 05, 2020

Show notes

Hi, Intimates! We talk with Yana Skorstengaard again today about her thesis in art therapy. Her research reveals great results from programs for incarcerated folks. Programs involving art can create the kind of self expression and other communication skills necessary for functional relationships.

Outside of programs within incarceration, there are also alternatives available to a very small number of incarcerated folks including indigenous healing lodges. While I acknowledge both she and I are settlers which is to say non-indigenous to this land, the success of the healing lodge programs and our inability to create more spaces like it is too important not to mention, so we’re going to go ahead and try in a flawed and somewhat self aware fashion.

Strategies developed by indigenous peoples in relationship repair and accountability for harming other folks in society are often radically different in approach from European descended strategies like incarceration, and it's worth lifting up the voices and values of marginalized cultures.
This is especially easy when values align. For example, settler society here in Canada values efficiency, effectiveness, and science-mindedness. Really, we love numeric results, which often plays a role in how we spend our money as a society. However when we see marginalized cultures being far more successful than us, the least we as settlers can do is suck less. Other than the obvious option of being less racist in how we jail, try, and sentence folks, sucking less is easiest when we become open to win-win situations.

Our values for results are aligned with indigenous values for relationship repair as a holistic process that considers offenders and victims, not just the relationship between offender and society focused around a social contract - to use colonial language.

tl:dr - we could be less violent in how we treat consequences of harming others. There are ways to divert people who would be harmed by our traditional system. Yet we haven't capitalized on solutions like healing lodges that improve recidivism rates by about 100% which is to say they double the number who leave incarceration and stay out of incarceration. That is a truly remarkable accomplishment, literally twice as effective at what we supposedly value: rehabilitation and a restoration of the social contract.

Well, let’s get into the session with Yana and chat more about how art can help people become more intimate with themselves and what her experience was visiting a healing lodge as a settler.

Talking Group Sex while Feeding Birds (Jazz Goldman) Aug 29, 2020

Show notes

This session discusses group sex while Jazz Goldman and I are walking around at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary feeding ducks and getting accosted by gaggles of geese. Nerdy aside - Occasionally those gaggles would form a skein or two, the word for a gaggle of geese in flight. Of course, both gaggles on the ground or water and skeins in the air can be called flocks of geese correctly.

Back to group sex - we talk about the sights and sounds, our personal experiences, misconceptions, and favourite parts. We talk about the way we move through group sex spaces and the way those spaces move around us as people of colour and non binary gendered humans.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skein

What are some common misconceptions about group sex/orgies?
What alternative options or opportunities do you see in group sex over one on one sex (not that it’s a competition)?
What kinds of group sex are currently your favourite and why?
What additional concerns do you have going into group sex situations that you might not have in a one on one sexual encounter?
Have you ever had group sex go poorly?
How have you found race impacts group sex - or is it just the usual stuff that impacts sex and relationships in general?

Launching into Podcasting (SB Divya, M Lafferty, A Stuart) Aug 22, 2020

Show notes

Happy Two Year Anniversary of Intimate Interactions Podcast! This is the current episode I'm publishing to my patreon feed that I decided I'd publish to my free feed early! ^.^ Remember all of my content publishes free but as a thank-you to my patreon subscribers, I offer early access to great content.
What does it mean when you feel a sense of intimacy that isn’t reciprocal? Today I’d love to focus on an aspect of that question: what is intimacy in podcasting? Do you know me? Do you know things about me? Do you know things about me very few people in my day-to-day life know? I would say the answer to most of those questions is probably: somewhat.

Usually knowing those things, experiencing that intimacy - it represents a connection. Usually we could both predict what the other would likely do, feel, and

Get ready for some meta content, folks. I am honoured to introduce you to both: one of my favourite short fiction podcasts, and to the esteemed veteran podcasters that in my opinion use their voices to promote talented new authors and build the writing community - all while bringing you great new fiction by donation or if you prefer, for free. S.B. Divya, Mur Lafferty, and Alasdair Stuart.

By the way, it’s the two year anniversary of Intimate Interactions - hooray! Who would have thought I’d be interviewing veteran podcasters from a popular podcast on my little show? If you want to show me some love, post something kind on https://www.facebook.com/intimatevictor

First, we’ll start with a quick introduction I recorded with SB Divya as one example of the kind of folks who have hosted Escape Pod. I’ll feature Mur’s intro next episode.

SB Divya

Former engineer specializing in machine learning with an education in computational neuroscience and signal processing
Writer https://www.eff-words.com/

Mur Lafferty

Many accolades including winning two parsec awards in the same year in 2008, won the 2018 Best Fancast Hugo Award for Ditch Diggers
Writer http://murverse.com

Alasdair Stuart

Co-owns Escape Artist Podcasts
Writer https://alasdairstuart.com/ (as seen in the Guardian, Sci Fi Now, How it Works, The Fortean Times, Neo, SFX, Bleeding Cool)

Escape Artists (https://escapeartists.net/)

Podcastle, The Fantasy Fiction Podcast
Pseudopod, The Sound of Horror
Escape Pod, The Original Science Fiction Podcast
- 576 - Karma among the Cloud Kings
Cast of Wonders, The Young Adult Speculative Fiction Podcast
Support them at https://www.patreon.com/EAPodcasts

Session 1 questions I'll be asking will likely be similar to:

1) What's the most intimate part of podcasting for you?

2) What excites you about podcasting?

3) Do you consider what you create art and why (or why not)?

4) How do you decide what to share of yourself or your life in your introductions and analysis of stories?

5) What has your time on Escape Pod taught you about life?

Parenting in the 80s (My Father) Aug 21, 2020

Show notes

My soon-to-be 70 year old father visited from India and had a trans-ischemic attack while here. He’s been sick for about four weeks since he got here and was sick before he came, so I felt a sense of urgency to get to know him better, document for my nieces, and to ask what questions I had.

He speaks well and often chooses only to highlight predominantly`the positives which could be seen as editorializing the past, you know - what I’m doing right now by offering a forward - or alternatively choosing to see only the positives. While some might argue parents who feel they’ve made mistakes and focus only on the positive are avoiding accountability, I haven’t gotten that sense from him and choose to believe he’s trying to illustrate the importance of focusing on the positives.

I’ve recently been trying hard to notice positives in my life more and have been finding the effects if nothing else, relieving. The world feels less dark. I feel more hopeful. Of course, I’m also medicated, and both have played roles in my increasing satisfaction in life. It’s not about only seeing positive though - I lean into the negatives and express the bad. I feel when I’m hurting. However it’s easy as a depressive to only do those last ones. It’s much harder to notice the colour of leaves changing seasons or smile at fresh snow falling.

Also, fun fact: this was recorded on Friday the 13th which was also my father’s mother’s birthday. Whelp - let’s go to the session.

Triads, Group Relationships, and Groupsex (Jazz Goldman) Aug 15, 2020

Show notes

Jazz and I drive to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary for a fun day out and have a conversation about their experiences in group relationships like the Triad they were in during college.

They discuss the needs of the individual versus those of the group (a la Spock, or if you prefer, the Three Musketeers or … insert maybe whatever French philosopher that inspired themes in that book here). They also discuss the benefits and drawbacks.

Let’s talk group sex and triads, here on intimate interactions.

What’s your experience with group sex?
What do you like best about group sex?

No Longer an Imposter (Yana Skorstengaard) Aug 08, 2020

Show notes

Happy New Year, Intimates! It’s 2020, the year where “partying like it’s 2020” will likely mean turning in around 10:30 pm so you feel rested the next morning. Just kidding - it’s the year of hindsight, and even with perfect hindsight, people stay up later than they say they want to and experience more motivation to commit to hard things the further away they are. I’ve always found that a bit embarrassing personally - or perhaps as a species?

New Years is a time of new beginnings, which brings us to Imposter Syndrome, one of those things from which many of us (myself included) suffer when starting something new or even after many years. Someone once said to me “imposter syndrome is colonialism” and it got a lot easier to take off the sweater vest that is imposter syndrome. I personally cope by reminding myself that people I respect chose for me to be where I am and since I respect them, I respect their opinion of what they saw in me.

Which brings us to today where I made a podcast for all of 2019 and some of 2018 every week for you folks. Here we are talking with Yana Skorstengaard about colonialism, moving, and grad-school, three related topics.

Crime, Motivation, and Punishment During Crisis (Yana Skorstengaard) Aug 08, 2020

Show notes

Do deterrents work? If you make a deterrent awful enough, does it stop crime? Has capital crime ended where the death penalty exists if you don’t count executions as murders? Yana, a criminology researcher from the University of Ottawa is here to help us unpack these things.

Since it’s six figures per prisoner per year in our current system, and if these very expensive, punitive deterrents don’t successfully deter crime, what does? What programs exist that reduce criminals reoffending - that’s called recidivism. So how can we take people who have committed a crime and have them not commit crimes anymore - that’s called rehabilitation.

We pose the question: does knowing you’ll be caught for certain deter crime? And if so, with technology evolving, how easily can we catch people and then offer a small consequence that is enough to deter but not so much it eats through public funds in the wasteful, harmful way our current punitive system does.

Keep in mind we’re spending this much on prisons while simultaneously talking about situations in which people are constantly exposed to violence by guards and other inmates. Rape and assault are not uncommon in prisons and in no way rehabilitating. I don’t think anyone would ever make the claim someone deserves to be raped regardless of what they’ve done. What if I told you that some of your taxes every year funded programs that resulted in non violent offenders being raped? Yeah. Think about that as we talk about motivations, crime, and punishment.

Keep in mind there’s no chance even if it’s possible that we get non violent offenders out temporarily that the Correctional Services of Canada would ever consider letting out dangerous or violent offenders. They are very conservative on their stance and are likely to stay that way in their pursuit of public safety with the ineffectual, expensive, and time-consuming systems and laws we’ve given them.

Link for petition

https://cp-ep.org/protectprisoners/ - Petition/List of Demands
Fundraiser to support prisoners and their families in Ontario: https://www.gofundme.com/f/prisoner-emergency-support-fund?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

Correctional Service of Canada

https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/index-en.shtml

Growing up in Vancouver in the 60s (My Dad) Aug 01, 2020

Show notes

My father visited from India recently. He turns 70 in 9 days. With chronic fatigue, heart attacks, and trans-ischemic attacks - they’re like ministrokes - I felt a sense of urgency to connect with him. I invited him to podcast about his childhood as it seemed like a good way to learn more about him, and I think it’s important to humanize a parent as just another person where you get the opportunity.

These recordings of my parents, in this case of my father, serve as a record for my nieces but also insights about how I became who I became. This recording provided me an opportunity to get to know someone important to my formative years and also still important to me today.

My father was sick when he arrived to visit and four weeks later was still sick so we recorded through the coughing because it seemed like the best opportunity I was going to get.

Coaching for Pleasurable Anal Sex (Jazz Goldman) Jul 25, 2020

Show notes

Because giving anal sex is my primary form of penetrative sexual expression, it became essential for me to make it easier and pleasurable for others.

Coaching someone who is receiving anal sex is more an art than a science, but there are certain skills that are useful. You can also coach yourself while you’re receiving anal sex, something I do frequently given my experience coaching others.

Another skill I forget to mention in the episode is using one hand (or two) to hold the shaft of the insertable be it a dildo or a penis to shorten it. It’s a great way to control penetration depth on the road to full insertion. The other option if you aren’t using a penis is to use smaller insertables at first. I find the interruption of changing insertables though to be maybe too disruptive of the experience for me, so I currently prefer a bigger insertable with a hand around the base for when I want more.

There is also such a thing as too deep in my experience giving and receiving. Some recta (or rectums) are only so long. If your insertable (or penis) is too long for the butt you’re inside, it will only quote unquote “turn pleasurable” for a certain length inside before it’s just uncomfortable. That can be sexy in the context of enduring something uncomfortable for someone else as a fetish, but isn’t a best practice in my honest opinion. Ideally you want to be sized for the person you’re fucking or if you have a bio cock like I do, you can adjust their position to change the shape and length of the rectal canal. On their back with their legs up will be shorter inside than on their stomach with their legs along the floor.

Jazz Goldman returns in this session to discuss pegging as well - that is to say strap-on sex in the bum. Since we’ve both given and received anal sex with each other, we have a lot to say about the experience. Enjoy!

Questions

You mentioned group sex before as facilitating anal sex; would you talk more about that?
What’s your experience with pegging and fucking people in the ass?
How do you coach others when they’re receiving pegging from you?
How was your experience getting ass fucked by me?
How was your experience pegging me?
Would you offer any advice to people curious about anal sex?

Grief and Emotional Intelligence in a Pandemic (Yana Skorstengaard) Jul 25, 2020

Show notes

Life Interrupted. I think that’s the title of the chapter of the memoirs I’ll never write about 2019 and 2020. The novel coronavirus has probably produced more global anxiety, depression, stress, and grief than just about any other single event I can think of right now in my lifetime. It has brought so many in the global community together in our isolation from even the closest neighbours.

Yana is back to chat about how the pandemic has affected her personally. We talk about emotional intelligence, coping strategies, what advice we’d give ourselves in the past, and my personal views on grief as a response to searching for meaning, value, and celebration of those we love. Get ready to call your loved ones and remind them how special they are; you might find yourself reaching for the phone after this session of Intimate Interactions.

Link for petition

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