Tag Archives: sex and culture

Orgone energy for troubled times: Reinvestigating the work of Wilhelm Reich on AEWCH 263!

7 May

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Dear friends: Does this podcast offer you inspiration?
If so, do support the show on patreon.

Give a one-time annual or monthly pledge to Patreon.com/connerhabib to connect to and give economic life to something you find value in. Thank you.

Also, please do subscribe to the show, give it a 5 star rating and warm review on Apple Podcasts.

You can also buy my novel Hawk Mountain (and give it 5 star rating and a positive review on Goodreads!)

Friends,

This is the fourth episode in a series of episodes on science and how science intersects with our lives in surprising ways.  These episodes are not “scientific” episodes per se, but they aren’t scientistic either. Each one is an exploration of what science can bring into our lives.  The series started with AEWCH 260, on which I talked with Marjolijn van Heemstra about connecting with the expansiveness of space to understand the challenges we face today. Then on AEWCH 261, I talked with bear biologist and the Tooth & Claw podcast co-host Wes Larson about our fascination with animal attacks. And on AEWCH 262, I talked with culture and nature philosopher, Erica Berry about what wolves can teach us about being human.

This episode is one from the archives… sort of. I do a deep dive on the scientist, outsider political theorist, psychoanalyst, and criminal, WILHELM REICH.  Reich was banished from both psychoanalytic and Marxist circles, even as he made huge contributions to both. He was a scientist who was considered unscientific, yet threatening enough to have his papers seized by the US goverment – in a strange collaborative with Stalinists.

He was a true scientific rebel. This episode combines  a conversation I had with Dr. James Strick, Program Chair of Science, Technology and Society at Franin & Marshall College  on AEWCH 59  in 2019. And one of my informal “Against Saturdays” mini-episodes about Reich. That mini-episode is no longer available, but I’ve included it here at the top of this ep. Both parts serve as introductions to and explorations of Reich’s work, and its importance for our time.

The reason I decided to include Wilhelm Reich as a topic in this series on science is that I wanted to look at someone who really tried to push science forward with their work; to practice science in a sense, at its most pure. Reich’s work took nothing for granted, but in fact aimed itself at every proposition we accept as true without interrogation. With his sexological experiments, his experiments on energy and in medicine, his lab work on where life comes from, and what arousal is… he was radical in a way that was eventually found to be intolerable by the powers that be.

His work lives on in many ways. Some examples: in family abolition movement, which draws from his culture-changing scrutiny of the nuclear family and how it affects the political realm; in radical psychoanalysis movements; in the sex positive movement; in integrative body work and bioenergetics; in the way we understand personality construction

But his work still hasn’t had its full breakthrough in terms of how energy and excitation and libido work, in orgonomics, in how repression and fascism are connected, and more. But we are slowly slowly, it seems catching up to him, as I hope this episode demonstrates.

Rather than do yet another intro to Reich here, I’ll just let you get into this episode, first with me giving a plain language explanation of Reich’s theories, then a more in-depth discussion with Dr. James Strick.

So happy to share this episode with you!

RESOURCES ON WILHELM REICH
There are lots of books by and on Reich, so it’s good to have the right start. The best place to get your bearings, if you can swing it, is a guided tour of the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Maine. You can also watch the documentary film, Love, Work, and Knowledge.

BOOKS ABOUT REICH
The Orgone Accumulator Handbook: Wilhelm Reich’s Life-Energy Discoveries and Healing Tools for the 21st Century, with Construction Plans by James DeMeo
Wilhelm Reich, Biologist by James Strick
Wilhelm Reich in Hell by Robert Anton Wilson

BOOKS BY REICH
The Function of the Orgasm
The Mass Psychology of Facism
The Murder of Christ
Reich Speaks of Freud: Wilhelm Reich Discusses His Work and His Relationship with Sigmund Freud
Sex-pol: Essays, 1929-1934 

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Are consent and trauma useful enough concepts to help navigate violation and healing? I talk with psychoanalyst and author AVGI SAKETOPOULOU on AEWCH 259!

9 Apr

LISTEN VIA SOUNDCLOUD ABOVE OR:  Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker

Dear friends: Does this podcast offer you inspiration?
If so, do support the show on patreon.

Give a one-time annual or monthly pledge to Patreon.com/connerhabib to connect to and give economic life to something you find value in. Thank you.

Also, please do subscribe to the show, give it a 5 star rating and warm review on Apple Podcasts.

You can also buy my novel Hawk Mountain (and give it 5 star rating and a positive review on Goodreads!)

Friends,

The world is a generator of mass future trauma. Of course, it always is, but it has rarely been as obvious in my lifetime, and probably yours, as it is now. We anticipate a future of people dealing with the violence done to them, or having done violence to others, or having witnessed violence.

So it is more important than ever to ask: is our view of trauma and healing up to the task of helping so many cope with the fallout of the trauma being created today?

What if we require a whole new understanding of trauma? Not as something healable, even, but as something to work with, think with, move with?

Furthermore, because one of the ways trauma can be generated is through violation, and the framing of that violation is often a frame of a breach of consent. But… is our model of consent useful is relating to trauma and violation, or even in protecting us from it?

I’ve talked about these topics on the show before, but the conversation runs particularly deep on this episode with my guest, psychoanalystAVGI SAKETOPOULOU. Avgi is author of Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia and co-author (with Ann Pellegrini) of Gender without Identity, two excellent books that confront therapeutic/psychoanalytic status quo views of desire, queerness, and trans life in both clinical setting and the public conversation at large. Her thinking offers a strong defense of queer and trans self-determination, as well as powerfully nuanced perspectives on sexualities.

I’m so happy to share this episode, and all its challenging directions, with you.

MORE ON AVGI

Here’s Avgi’s website, which has a comprehensive list of her publications and links to other interviews, including her talk with one of my very favorite writers, Adam Phillips. I also recommend her challenging books, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia and, with co-author Ann Pellegrini, Gender without Identity.

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Art of darkness: On writing horror with Paul Tremblay and CJ Leede on AEWCH 235!

29 Aug

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker

SUPPORT AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB

Advertisements from sponsors don‘t fit with the mission of this podcast. So I ask listeners if they‘d like to support the show by sharing what they can via patreon. The best way to support this show, my writing, my events & courses, is to give an annual or monthly pledge to  Patreon.com/connerhabib. You can also subscribe to the show and give it a 5-Star writing on Apple Podcasts, as well as buy my novel Hawk Mountain.

When you use patreon, you’re not only supporting me, but accessing an economic model that isn’t about paying people for their labor, and instead showing care and appreciation of who they are.

Friends,
Celebrating the release of my novel Hawk Mountain in paperback, I’ll be talking with creators of my favorite genre, HORROR. There are few genres that have inspired such a furor of regulation, stigma, and anger. Horror is regulated by governments, has been the topic of countless moralistic exams rations and moral panics, has been blamed for disintegrating societies, and more. Horror itself horrifies. And when horror does become accepted, at best it is said by critics to “transcend the genre.” Which means it’s really just transcending the stigma the critics have by re-asserting it. But who am I to talk about beleaguered horror? The fact is, it is also wildly popular. Even a terrible horror movie can be quite popular, and the most consistently bestselling author of all time is a horror writer. What does that mean? Across these episodes, I’ll be talking about horror in its many forms: cosmic horror, body horror, suburban horror, monster horror, possession horror, and more.

Previous episodes in the series were AEWCH 234 with John Langan and Sophie White, AEWCH 233 featured writers Nathan Ballingrud and Sara Gran, and the first was AEWCH 232, with cosmic horror writer and scholar Matt Cardin.

Partially inspired by the 1990 Horror Cafe on the BBC2 featuring Clive Barker, John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Lisa Tuttle, Ramsay Campbell, and Peter Atkins, we’ll be investigating deep questions about horror together, and seeing what unlit paths they lead us down. What is horror for? Why do we condemn it even as we flock to it? What is the horror-nature of being? What happens when the imagination explores the violence, the darkness, and the screaming in the inner landscape and when we conjure it into art?

Writing horror brings in all the elements that we might not want to deal with in everyday life – particularly evil and violence. And it also brings in that aspect of life we have an uneasy alliance and longing for: sex. It’s a lot of un-illuminated corridors to walk down, much less lead others down. As horror writers, we feel our ways through. It can bring nightmares, fear for your own stability, a sense of deep responsibility, and more.

So… of course I wanted to talk about it. That led to my great conversation with a seasoned master of horror and a new and powerful voice: PAUL TREMBLAY and CJ LEEDE!

Paul was last on the show on AEWCH 158 when we did a deep dive into his work. This was, of course, before his excellent horror novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the film A Knock at the Cabin directed by M. Night Shyamalan. His latest book is a collection of formally experimental, wild, and frighteningly heartbreaking stories, The Beast You Are. CJ is a newly published horror author, whose novel of compulsion and sadism Maeve Fly has been an instant hit, with its shocking blend of Los Angeles pacific vibes, brutal murder, the happiest theme park on Earth, and American psychosis.

This is such a lively and deep conversation, I’m so excited to share it with you.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT OTHER EPISODE SHOULD YOU LISTEN TO?
While it may not seem germane to the topic, AEWCH 130 with Oein DeBhairduin ties into this episode in a crucial way: we talk about the livingness of stories. How do they speak to us? How do they want us to announce them? I think about that in terms of stories of the horrific – what might it mean if horror has its own life?

WHAT BOOK SHOULD YOU READ?
You should probably go ahead and read Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille which is a massive influence on CJ Leede. Bataille was also a member of a secret sexual/occult/philosophy socity, and that’s detailed in The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology.

MORE ON CJ and PAUL
For more on Paul, go to his website. Here’s a good interview with Paul at Gridmark Magazine, and another one in legendary horror magazine Cemetery Dance. And my very favorite novel of Paul’s (one of my favorite horror novels!) is the sinister and tragic Disappearance at Devil’s Rock.
CJ is starting a new series of book reviews on her instagram account and on an account with her partner Kyle Kouri. And here’s CJ’s website.

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How to STOP catastrophizing and START changing yourself and the world – Una Mullally on AEWCH 230

25 Jul

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker

SUPPORT AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB

Advertisements from sponsors don‘t fit with the mission of this podcast. So I ask listeners if they‘d like to support the show by sharing what they can via patreon. The best way to support this show, my writing, my events & courses, is to give an annual or monthly pledge to  Patreon.com/connerhabib. You can also subscribe to the show and give it a 5-Star writing on Apple Podcasts, as well as buy my novel Hawk Mountain.

When you use patreon, you’re not only supporting me, but accessing an economic model that isn’t about paying people for their labor, and instead showing care and appreciation of who they are.

Friends, Are you seeing a terrible future ahead? So many of us are catastrophising – a gesture that has become exacerbated in the post-pandemic landscape. When we have a fear, rather than allowing it to rise and fall in time, it consumes more time than it should, it becomes a fantasy of the future.

We come up with scenarios in which something we thought could be stable is now laid to waste. Whether you do this by catastrophising the environment, imagining landmasses underwater, feeling a tightness over your thoughts of fascism overrunning all governments, or seeing your own beloved social movements fall to pieces…

or maybe it’s more personal? You feel a pain that you begin to conceive of as a terminal disease; your partner’s phone binging with texts signals cheating, lies, and the end of the relationship; you notice your social media posts aren’t getting likes which must mean no one is interested in what you have to share anymore.

In all of these motions, we create an image of the future and feel its resonance in the present. Catastrophising can be paralyzing, terrible, and it doesn’t help that we’re all preyed upon by various catastrophe industries, not to mention the fact that we are facing real challenges!

To talk us away from catastrophe and towards a healthier world, I asked my friend Una Mullally on to the show. Una is my closest collaborator in Ireland and has been on the show multiple times, most recently in conversation with me and author Sara Gran on AEWCH 200, pt 2.

We talk about catastrophe first, and then take apart four of the biggest challenges of our time:

  • fascism
  • climate change
  • AI
  • “groomer” moral panics

considering how we might see them differently.

This is a transformative conversation. I hope it reinvigorates your knowledge that you can change things.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO?
AEWCH 83 with Franco “Bifo” Berardi on how to breathe in an apocalypse – which we recorded in Bologna just a few months before the pandemic began. It is one of my very favorite episodes.

WHAT BOOK SHOULD YOU READ?
I think, to go along with AEWCH 83, a great book to prefigure our moment is Bifo’s Breathing: Chaos and Poetry.

MORE ON UNA
Una has a weekly, challenging, column in the Irish Times. Some of Una’a other great appearances on AEWCH include AEWCH 151 on how the world is changing (slowly!) for the better, and AEWCH 192 which featured us speaking about my novel Hawk Mountain and fiction more broadly.

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Wellness isn’t good for you. Here’s how to move beyond it on AEWCH 211 with Fariha Róisín!

24 Jan

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

SUPPORT AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB

The best way to support this show, my writing, my events & courses, is to give an annual or monthly pledge to  Patreon.com/connerhabib.

When you use patreon, you’re not only supporting me, but accessing an economic model that isn’t about paying people for their labor, and instead showing care and appreciation of who they are.

Two other ways to support the show and my other efforts:

  • Buy my debut novel, Hawk Mountain (and if you’ve bought it and loved it, give it a great review on Amazon and/or Goodreads!). All my creative projects end up supporting each other!
  • Give the show a 5 star rating and positive review on Apple Podcasts (and subscribe if you haven’t already!).

Friends,
Welcome to the How To Live Beyond series of eps on AEWCH!
To open 2023, each episode in this series will consider a set of tools or way of thinking that are useful but that we’re ready to go beyond in 2023. We’ll be looking at abundance and manifestation, magick and entheogens, paganism,  and more. The first episode (AEWCH 208) featured Mitch Horowitz on How To Live: Beyond the New Age. The second (AEWCH 209) featured Lisa Romero on How To Live: Beyond Psychedelics & Sorcery. And the third (AEWCH 210) featured Pilar Lesko on How To Live: Beyond Money Magic.

These are the techniques and traditions we use to cope with and confront the challenges of our time, but risk –  if we can’t consider them deeply – getting us stuck in those challenges or worse, funneling their strengths back into those challenges. These episodes aren’t a call to forget about these techniques and traditions, but instead a call to bring forward what they’ve offered without the barbs of the problems they’re tangled up with.

This time:

We’re constantly tracking ourselves: with Fit Bits, exercise journals, food journals, mediation apps and more.

But what if wellness went deeper than tracking and instead into witnessing the wounds of materialism and the constant reopening of those wounds by colonialism, capitalism, racism, homophobia, and more?

To discuss this, I invited Fariha Róisín, artist and author of the excellent critical memoir, Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behindonto the show.

Together we examine the hidden woundings that are so frightening to us that we seem to only be left with narrow paths for healing: wounds in the erotic, the spiritual, sacred anatomy, healing, speaking, and more. 

In the same way we fear to touch a cut on our body or look into emotional to heal it, we encounter the deepest wounds as sites of pain. So we end up pushing the knowledge of these wounds to the far edges of our consciousness until they’re that their damage is only revealed a moment that is too late, as surprise diagnosis.

This is an adventure in wellness and how to heal wellness itself. I’m so excited to share it with you.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT OTHER EPISODE SHOULD YOU LISTEN TO
I talked a lot about mental health with author and psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber on AEWCH 196. It’s worth a listen because, well, everyone needs some form of therapy! (And if you want to pair it with a therapeutic look at restorative justice, you can listen to AEWCH 162 on violent offenders with Dr. Gwen Adshead!)

WHAT BOOK SHOULD YOU READ?
A good introduction to other models of anatomy and health is Cyndi Dale’s The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy which is richly illustrated and written in clear language.

(Also, if you’re interested in my essay on heath and wellness, here’s
“When You’re Sick You’ll Wait for the Answer, But None Will Come”)

MORE ON FARIHA
Subscribe to Fariha’s excellent newsletter, How To Cure A Ghost (which shares its name with her debut poetry collection). And here’s Fariha’s website which is a good hub for her earlier work. Also, you can engage with a different layering of her consciousness by reading her novel Like A Bird(which is also available on audio). And here’s a short profile on her novel in the New York Times.

Until next time, friends,
Seek wholeness.
CH

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AA and D&D, art and reality, conspiracy and curation: Listen to me, esoteric scholar Peter Bebergal + countercultural pastor Barry Taylor talk about the uses of fantasy!

6 Dec

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor • Patreon

SUPPORT AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB

Give via patreon – Patreon.com/connerhabib – this is the best way to support the show. You can also:

  • Tell people about the show and, if it feels okay, to support it on patreon (especially if you already know your pals are fans of the show but don’t support it).
  • Give the show a 5 star rating and positive review on Apple Podcasts.
  • Share on social media (you know the deal with this one)
  • And if you want to explore my other main creative output – writing fiction – you can buy my debut novel, Hawk Mountain (and if you’ve bought it and loved it, give it a great review on Amazon and/or Goodreads!). All my creative projects end up supporting each other!

Friends,

The world accumulates new fantasies about itself, and as it does, it changes. We develop these fantasies, we curate them, alter them, cling to them, and mark what counts as “reality” by them. Reality is an aggregate of fantasies.

So…what fantasies serve us? How? And who are the best curators?

Well, I’d say two I know are my guests on this episode.

First, occult scholar Peter Bebergal, editor of Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons and author of Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural (which we talked about extensively the last time Peter was on the show – back on AEWCH 112 ).

Second, countercultural pastor and artist, Barry Taylor, who is also the author of Sex, God, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: Catastrophes, Epiphanies, and Sacred Anarchies. I met Barry through my friend and frequent AEWCH guest, Peter Rollins. Ive been wanting to have Barry on for a long time, and finally, needing to have discussion of art and fantasy and reality and religion, knew that this was the exact right moment.

We go all over the place in this one. From Dungeons & Dragons to Alcoholics Anonymous, from the problems with Graham Hancock to our acid trips. This is a great episode friends.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ?
I can’t say I’ve read Susanna Clarke’s epic British magic fantasy, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I trust Peter’s curatorial sense. Since he recommends it, I may go read it now. Let me know if you read it too! If you want a book I’ve read on some of the themes here, read Grant Morrison’s excellent nonfiction book, Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us about Being Human.

WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO?
AEWCH 47 features the psychoanalytic philosopher we talk about quite a bit throughout the show, Todd McGowan!

MORE ON PETER and BARRY
Peter is also the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll. And here’s another interview with Peter, on RPGs and Appendix N.

Support Barry’s work via his Patreon! Here’s Barry’s website (you can also get his book from there if it’s sold out on bookshop.org), and a short profile of him in the Guardian. And do follow Barry’s Instagram – @UKBloke – for the great collages he makes and posts almost every day.

Until next time, enjoy your quest!
CH

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AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 200 is here! Three episodes, six guests, three weeks! Part One: Caitlin Doughty, John EL Tenney, Chris Donaghue, and Caelainn Hogan on Stigma & Repression!

27 Sep

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

Friends,
The massive, mighty AEWCH 200 is upon us! What makes AEWCH 200 different? It’s three episodes over three weeks, featuring six conversations, each conversation has two previous guests of AEWCH in conversation with me on a theme.

These are people I’ve loved talking to (most of them have been on the show more than once) in conversation with someone they might never talk to without AEWCH bringing them together. The idea is a sort of conversational alchemy: What happens when people in different disciplines speak? What sort of new substances arise?

This time it’s Part 1: STIGMA & REPRESSION Mortician Caitlin Doughty talks with paranormal investigator John E.L. Tenney + Sex therapist Chris Donaghue talks with investigative journalist Caelainn Hogan.

Each episode also features an opening monologue by me. So happy to offer this all to you over the coming weeks!

SHOW NOTES: GUEST WEBSITES & SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Chris’s website • Rebel Love: Break the Rules, Destroy Toxic Habits, and Have the Best Sex of Your Life

Caitlin’s website • From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

Caelainn’s website • Republic of Shame: How Ireland Punished ‘fallen Women’ and Their Children

John‘s website • Theoretical Weirdo: A Mish Mash of Ramblings about Weirdness

A PLEA FOR THE PODCAST FROM ME

Being up to 200 episodes means AEWCH is in a tiny tiny percentage of podcasts that have lasted this long – something like 2%. I can ONLY keep doing this show if people support it on patreon.

I know post-pandemic times and economic roller coasters are affecting everyone in different ways. That said, the art and culture you love are great places to center support and love.

If you don’t already, please do the following to keep AEWCH going:

  • Give via patreon – Patreon.com/connerhabib
  • Tell people about the show and, if it feels okay, to support it on patreon (especially if you already know your pals are fans of the show but don’t support it).
  • Give the show a 5 star rating and positive review on Apple Podcasts.
  • Tweet and Insta quotes from and thoughts inspired by episodes!

Thank you so much for everything, and enjoy all this big talk.
Love,
CH

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Gays vs queers vs straights vs homosexuals: Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller of the Bad Gays podcast on AEWCH 197

30 Aug

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FRIENDS! The only way Against Everyone With Conner Habib exists is through its relationship with its listeners.

Do you enjoy the show? Does it inspire new thoughts and conversations in your life?

If so, SUPPORT THIS PODCAST via Patreon


Friends,

Moving towards the 200th episode of AEWCH, I found myself in the funny realization that I don’t talk about gayness all that much. Partly it’s because I didn’t feel like I had much to say. But the realization deepened into: Wait, why don’t I have anything to say? Why do I feel so un-aligned with “gay stuff?” That itself was something to talk about.

I’ve found the right conversation partners in Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller, hosts of the Bad Gays podcast and authors of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History from Verso.

I’m excited to share this conversation with you, and happy to report that talking with these guys gave me the opportunity to compare sexual liberation with sasquatch.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ?
Not a book, but an essay: “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” by Gayle Rubin. It’s a foundational text for many conversations on sex and queerness and sexuality, so if you haven’t yet read it, go read it!

WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO?
An earlier but great exploration of “queer” on the show is AEWCH 74 with Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. Andrea and I go all over the place talking about queerness, and find a lot of affinity for each other’s views (and experiences!).

MORE ON HUW & BEN
The best place to start is the Bad Gays website, where you can actually order a t-shirt that says “Evil Twink Energy.” And do support their patreon here. If that’s not enough for you, never fear, Huw has three novels out which we didn’t even get around to talking about. Here’s a link to Huw’s substack, which has links to all his work.

Until next time friends,
Be gay!
CH

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AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 196: You need to go to therapy. (Oh yes you do!) In conversation with Charlotte Fox Weber!

18 Aug

Friends,

As I approach my 45th birthday, I’m thinking a lot about what it is I want from my life. It’s not yet half over, but it’s heading there, and there’s so much to choose from! To sort through the burden of wanting so much, I invited psychotheapist Charlotte Fox Weber, author of What We Want: A Journey Through Twelve of Our Deepest Desires onto to the show to discuss the many ways desire shows up for us and how to manage it (if it is, indeed, manageable).

PS: No episode next week, as I celebrate my birthday, but keep your eyes open for a FOR-PATRONS-ONLY recording of my event in New York City with Will Menaker of Chapo Traphouse!

SHOW NOTES

WHAT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ?
Another great book about desire (By one of my favorite writers) is On Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by Adam Phillips. “We make our lives pleasurable, and therefore bearable, by picturing them as they might be; it is less obvious, though, what these compelling fantasy lives – lives of, as it were, a more complete satisfaction – are a self-cure for.”

WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO?
Another long conversation about desire is AEWCH 95 with Maggie Nelson. What a weird conversation, too, in the best way. Desire in literature, in sex, in art.

MORE ON CHARLOTTE
The best place to learn more about Charlotte (or to contact her as a therapist!) is via her website. Charlotte’s book isn’t available in the US until April 2023, but you can order it from this link to her publisher – which offers multiple sites to get it from. And here’s a little interview with Charlotte where she says “Paying attention is a form of love.” Well said!

Until next time friends,

Get help! (Joking, not joking.
CH

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2022 Relationships are vital and… confusing. That’s why I asked Dr. Chris Donaghue onto AEWCH 180 to talk about how to navigate them!

23 Feb

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Against Everyone With Conner Habib is funded exclusively by listeners like you. Let’s keep this relationship going! SUPPORT THIS PODCAST via Patreon

Friends,

Happy New Year! Here’s the fifth episode in my series on How To Live in 2022. The first, AEWCH 175, was with occult scholar Mitch Horowitz; the second, AEWCH 176, is on why reincarnation matters for us now; the third is AEWCH 177 with philosopher Zena Hitz on how and why to be an intellectual; the fourth is AEWCH 178 on using mysticism and the tarot in 2022 with Jessica Dore; and AEWCH 179, the fifth in the series is about living in community and organizations with Dean Spade.

But at the foundation of all our lives is sex – even if we are not inclined to identify with this or that sexuality, it is our origin story – and relationship – whatever kind of relationship I might be in. While world events seem to take up so much of our attention, in some ways the real action is at the level of fantasy, relationship, desire, lust, gratification, doubt, dear, confusion, and pleasure.

So I asked my friend, sex therapist and relational philosopher Dr. Chris Donaghue back onto the show. Chris is the author of Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture and Rebel Love: Break the Rules, Destroy Toxic Habits, and Have the Best Sex of Your Life. Chris has been on the show twice before. Waaaay back on AEWCH 10 and then again on AEWCH 56.

Chris and I have a wide-ranging discussion as per usual on the show. But we both bring our own psychological (in my case psychoanalytic) and spiritual perspectives to bear. I hope this episode is helpful and illuminating.

SHOW NOTES

WHAT BOOK YOU SHOULD READ? I don’t like many pop-psych relationship books, but one I still think about – even though I read it over ten years ago – is David Richo’s How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration. It’s not a perfect blueprint for sex and relationships, but there are so many bits of wisdom and seeds of contemplation in that book that I think it can be helpful for everyone.

WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO? The obvious pairing for this episode is AEWCH 159 with my friend Duncan Trussell. There’s not much to say about it other than it was recorded in the middle of one of the hardest relationship moments of my life. I don’t think it’s “brave” to have recorded it. But I do think, based on the feedback that I received, that it might be helpful for others or at least help diminish loneliness.

WHAT SHOULD YOU LOOK INTO FURTHER? One of the greatest tools I pull on when I’m having a relational emergency, I turn to The Work of Byron Katie. It’s a simple but profound tool for slowing down, and encountering the other through your own thinking. Watch some videos of Katie’s work in action, and then take it on yourself in your own life.

MORE ON CHRIS Chris is extremely prolific, so aside from his books (linked above), it might be a bit difficult to know where to start. Thankfully, his website gives tons of links. He also has a great Instagram which offers up thoughts and prompts for you to reflect on each day.

Until next time, be kind and horny with each other.
X
C

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