Tag Archives: sex and culture

Porn Work Is Work! AEWCH 69 (yes that is actually the episode number) with Dr. Heather Berg & Sovereign Syre!

7 May

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Pay for your podcast  is the new “pay for your porn.” At least in my case. Your support you love, is crucial to keep my work going. If youfind something of value on my show, give back and support themany hours of free content I offer every month for the price of alatte or cocktail or lunch or, you know, a month of Only Fans.

Sign up for my Patreon today by clicking here. It’s quick, easy, andyou get cool stuff in return.

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Friends,

So excited to talk directly about adult performance, the sexual politics around it, the labor politics around it, and when those politics clash and support one another.

And who better to invite than Gender Studies professor Dr. Heather Berg and writer/comedian/porn maven Sovereign Syre! Heather is a brilliant mind and one of the most thoughtful Marxists I’ve ever met; she’s really pushed the needle for me on understanding and embracing Marxist discourse. Sovereign is

We talk

  • labor tactics developed by adult performers
  • Sov’s and my histories in adult
  • How vocal people are about watching or not watching porn
  • The benefits of the (extremely problematic) “gig economy”
  • On being compared to Colby Keller by dumb journalists
  • Why the sex in sex work matters in the “sex work is work” conversation
  • Whether or not porn is art (it is!)
  • Why our picture of patriarchy should be informed by porn and not merely informing us ABOUT porn
  • What the best tactics are for performers to thrive
  • Why “feminist porn” isn’t always good for workers
  • Heather and I trying to make Marx and Freud sync up

I love this conversation.

XO
CH

SHOW NOTES ARE HERE

Sex & The Occult: Conner Habib talks with Christian occultist and sexuality research Lisa Romero on AEWCH 68!

30 Apr

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Please pay for the podcasts you love, including this one. Thispodcast is always free and available to the public, but your supportis crucial to keep it going. If you find something of value on myshow, give back and support the many hours of free content I offerevery month for the price of a latte or cocktail or lunch.

Sign up for my Patreon today by clicking here. It’s quick, easy, and you get cool stuff in return.

AEWCH68 Title CardFriends,

So excited to finally be talking directly about sex and the occult on my show, and there’s no one I’d rather do that with than author and teacher, and Christian occultist Lisa Romero!

Lisa has written multiple (excellent) books on meditation and spiritual development, but the one that drew me to have her on for this episode was her excellent book, Sex Education and the Spirit: Understanding Our Communal Responsibility for the Healthy Development of Gender and Sexuality within Society. It’s a book that looks at sex and sexuality from a developmental perspective, but in a spiritual way, rather than from a materialistic perspective.This episode goes really deep and presupposes your ability to go on the magical mystery tour with us. But there are lots of insights to be had by the secular as well. I hope whatever your belief system is, you’ll stick with it.

We discuss:

  • what sex is, anyway, from a non-materialistic view, especially in the light of the evolution of consciousness.
  • how we all have individuated relationships to sex (and what that has to do with freedom).
  • the scientific definition of sex and why that matters now.
  • how sex and attraction get confusing when different aspects of our being get into conflict with each other.
  • why a Christian occultist approach to sex never takes the form of “don’t do this.”
  • how sexuality gives us the ability to transform our lives and bring our spiritual development forward.
  • the Catholic Church developing its response to sex in response to the Reformation.
  • the problems with the sex positive movement.
  • the four levels of attraction and how they relate to the subtle bodies.
  • displaced sex as a creative process.
  • what anthroposophists can learn from Freud and Lacan.
  • why masturbating men should hook themselves up to the power grid.
  • why Conner doesn’t do or care about “sex magic.”

Show notes are available here.

XO, CH

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We’re Here! We’re Queer! We’re On Against Everyone With Conner Habib! Me + Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on the State Of Queer, 2019!

22 Jan
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Friends, 
At the opening of 2019, I’m reviewing the state of something in 2019: what’s on the scene now and what to look for in the coming year! This week, it’s the State Of Queer 109, and who better to talk about it with than one of the queerest people I know, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author and editor of multiple queerer than queer books, including her new novel, Sketchtasy, her deeply moving memoir about abuse, The End of San Francisco, and the collection, That’s Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. Mattilda is also an outspoken activist, and the only person I know who legit looks like she could tie Adam West’s Batman to a buzzsaw and then go dancing afterward. She’s also written the most scathing film review I’ve ever read; a review that not only condemns the film, but mainstream gay culture in general.
Mattilda and I talk nostalgia, how people make “queer” an accoutrement rather than a radically felt and enacted principle, the trans military ban and why patriotism is the opposite of queerness, the generation of queers that grew up in AIDS culture but weren’t dying en masse from it, the naive celebration of Truvada for PrEP, why gay marriage is a compromised strategy(and honestly just kinda sucks), why you should never invite Mattilda to your wedding, masculinity and A Star Is Born, and more.
I wanted to go on and on with Mattilda, but we’ll talk and collaborate again for sure. For now, enjoy MBS & CH doing the State Of Queer 2019!
As always, you can get copious show notes here.
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The State of Sexuality 2019: Dr. Chris Donaghue returns to AEWCH to set us, um, not straight.

15 Jan

 

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FOR TICKETS TO MY UPCOMING ONLINE EVENT WITH PETER & CAITLIN DOUGHTY, GOD SEX DEATH, CLICK HERE (ARE YOU A PATREON PATRON? YOU GET A DISCOUNT!)

Friends!

My friend the sexologist, author, and radio show host Dr. Chris Donaghue is back on AEWCH as part of my “The State Of” series of AEWCH in January! At the opening of 2019, I’m reviewing the state of something in 2019: what’s on the scene now and what to look for in the coming year! I couldn’t think of anyone better to discuss the State Of Sexuality 2019 than Dr. Chris Donaghue! The episode comes right on the heels of the release of Chris’s new book Rebel Love: Break the Rules, Destroy Toxic Habits, and Have the Best Sex of Your Life which is the first good self help book on relationships to come out in…ever?

We talk about how academic jargon keeps people out of meaningful discussions, whether or not sexuality is political, the fourth wave of feminism and foursomes, looking back on sexual experiences with curiosity, how our identities intersect with our sexualities, how to talk about the political content of adult scenes without condemning the desires for it, desire shaming, why sex is everywhere and safe, why sex and porn addiction don’t exist, the benefits and problems of “body positivity”, the problems with “enthusiastic consent,” how to heal sexual assault and end it culturally, and more!

SHOW NOTES are here.

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How To Destroy The Patriarchy: Muslim feminist author and radical, Mona Eltahawy, on AEWCH 50, the best episode of AEWCH ever!

4 Dec

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(Note: AEWCH is and will continue to be free as a podcast going forward, but AEWCH 50 is the LAST episode available publicly on YouTube. If you want YouTube versions of the show, go to patreon.com/connerhabib and sign up at any level; you’ll get instant access!)

Friends,

On my favorite episode of AEWCH so far, I speak with feminist author and radical, Mona Eltahawy. Mona is the author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why The Middle East Needs A Sexual Revolution, a book which has shaken the Arab world, feminist discourse, and also, on a personal note, has changed my inner life. Mona articulates what patriarchy is — and why it is our urgent task to resist it — better than anyone I’ve ever read or spoken to. Even if you have some resistance to the term (*ahem* hello, bros), Mona will help you see why this framing is so important. .

Mona and I talk about:

  • our sexual assaults and how we recovered and transmuted them into action
  • what patriarchy is, exactly, and how it enables and protects power
  • why enthusiastic consent is a problem (and how our consent is violated every day)
  • the urgent and political task of pleasure
  • why masculinity is a desire and the Brett Kavanaugh meltdown, where white male rage comes from
  • the way white people (particularly white women) pathologize Muslims (particularly Muslim women) without confronting their own issues
  • what we can learn about consent from porn performers
  • why sex isn’t and is special and why a sexual revolution is so important
  • the “trifecta of patriarchy and misogyny”
  • why we need to reject monogamy as a default relationship structure
  • why we don’t have to say “everything is political” to fight bullshit
  • how patriarchy hurts men too

I am so excited and proud to share this episode with you.

Click here for SHOW NOTES, which are free and available to everyone.

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How did love change time and space? My conversation with historian and literary theorist Stephen Kern on the latest Against Everyone with Conner Habib!

25 Sep

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Friends,

If you don’t yet know historian, literary theorist, and interdisciplinary intellectual, Stephen Kern, I’m so excited to introduce you to him.

Stephen teaches at Ohio State University, and his books, including The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 ,  A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought  and The Culture of Love: Victorians to Moderns, are wide-ranging explorations of history, especially in how it relates to concepts of time and space.

In this episode, we talk about psychology and phenomenology of time, how love has become more authentic and changed the experience of time, the vulgarity and beauty of Joyce and Ulysses, what Christianity has made available and closed off when it comes to intimacy, the struggles of the Victorian era, just how real the concepts of “modernist” and “romantic” and “Victorian” periods are, how pain and time are interconnected, why a reevaluation of time and space needs to be part of labor activism, and more!

I was alarmed to find that there weren’t many podcasts or interviews with Stephen available online (although he is known and respected in literary and historian and other academic communities) so I was determined to bring his work to a broader audience.

For show notes (this time there are LOTS of links to books!), click here.

XO
CH

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“…sex for money usually costs a lot less.” Maggie McNeill & I talk about sex workers’ rights on the latest AEWCH!

1 May
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My guest for AEWCH 28 is author, whore, and activist Maggie McNeill. On top of those qualifications, Maggie is an uncompromising and fierce thinker who gives me strength every day. Often, if I feel like I’m exhausted, faltering, or tired of the state sex workers’ rights, or cultural attitudes towards sex, I turn to Maggie’s twitter (which you really should follow), and am re-infused with my own sense of integrity.
We talk about how legalization vs decriminalization, sex work vs the state, the problem with enthusiastic consent, Stormy Daniels, SESTA/FOSTA, and more!

Me + Moshe Kasher talk about a lot of terrible things in a very funny way. It’s AEWCH 27!

24 Apr
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Friends, one of the reasons why I love this episode of Against Everyone with Conner Habib is pretty simple: I love talking with comedian and author Moshe Kasher. He’s one of those rare wide-ranging thinkers who is also warm, and very funny.
Moshe and I talk about doing drugs, what it’s like to belong nowhere, why comedians are not philosophers, growing up poor, how I defiled waffles as a teenager, why Call Me By Your Name is a horrible movie, Moshe getting off with gay dudes on the phone, how MeToo is partially a reflexive backlash to trans rights, and gurus.
You can get the show notes for the and every ep with links to further reading, films, images, and quotes by signing up for as little as a dollar per month.

Conner and Mish Barber-Way from White Lung talk about screaming, abuse, and danger.

10 Nov

In AEWCH 13, I hang out with one of my favorite punks, Mish Barber-Way, singer/screamer of White Lung. White Lung is intense, loud, metal-meets-punk, and they’re truly awesome. (Rolling Stone named White Lung’s album, Deep Fantasy, one of the 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time.) So I made sure to ask Mish to play a couple songs, too, even though she’s used to playing MUCH much louder. There are acoustic versions of “Paradise” at  57:55 and “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette: 1:17:40

IN THIS EPISODE

  • Mish’s sordid, awesome past and present in the adult industry: 2:45
  • Who gets screwed up by being in porn and who does well and why?: 5:10
  • Strategies for public performances. Of all kinds.: 7:15
  • Radiating sexuality: 10:20
  • Our apocalypse survival strategies and the Amish at the end of the world: 13:15
  • How screaming gets you ignored in music, especially if you’re a woman, and why to do it anyway, and what Wilhelm Reich has to do with it: 23:00
  • Arousal and desire are not the same thing: 36:05
  • The missing language of gray area sexual encounters, and why we’re drawn to simple language, even though it doesn’t help us: 46:35
  • The complicated relationships that can frame assault: 51:05
  • Mish talks about White Lung’s song, “Paradise”: 54:40
  • Mish plays an acoustic version of “Paradise”: 57:55
  • Once you get what you want you can’t want it: 1:00:50
  • Why danger matters: 1:03:15
  • Mish plays “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette: 1:16:45

If you like the show, please support it on Patreon, where you can also find the show notes!

New Online Class Sunday 12/18! Good Sex, Better World: 8 Ways Your View on Sex Can Improve the World+ Q&A!

11 Dec

SexI’ve got a pop-up live online course Sunday 12/18!

My last pop up course was on writing, this one’s on sex and culture.

While my longer online lectures/courses are very in-depth, these pop up lectures are aimed at accessibility for everyone. Accessibility in content: giving you talking points and things to think about after the lecture is over. Financial accessibility: each pop up always has a donation option so people can buy a standard ticket, pay whatever they can afford, or donate even more if they like what I’m doing. Also accessibility for me as the creator of the course – I think of the material and the course is set for just a week out, rather than all the planning/promotion that goes into my other courses.

This time, it’s Good Sex, Better World: 8 Ways Your View on Sex Can Improve the World, followed by a Q&A! Sign up here and/or read the description below.

If you ever want to know how somebody feels about freedom, start talking about sex.

Talking about sex and sexuality pushes people to the limits of their moral, ethical, and political frameworks because it’s all so highly individualized. What one person enjoys sexually – an act, a type of person, a set of features – is unintelligible to another.

For instance, have you ever been attracted to someone and pointed him or her out to a friend, only to have your friend make a repulsed sound?

Him? your friend says, incredulously. The one with the belly and big ears?

Meanwhile, you can’t take your eyes off of him as he walks by, talking on his phone.

Or maybe you like a sexual act or type that you fear is “abnormal.” You like fat men in their fifties, you like almost non-existent breasts, you like anal sex, you like sex with people dressed as stuffed animals, you like being urinated on, you like wearing a leather mask shaped like a pony’s head, you like dressing like a baby, you like…

The list goes on and on. It starts with what features you’re attracted to and ends with how you live your life…and how you think others should live theirs.

At some point or another, everyone comes across a sexual act or attraction that makes them cringe. How we think about and deal with that offense will tell us how deeply our principles about freedom go.

That’s why sex – so individualized, so active and reactive – is the perfect sphere for political and cultural progress! It’s also why sex is so over-legislated and controlled by people and institutions in power.

In other words: If you want a better world, get your perspective on sex – the sex that you and others have – worked out.

In this live, one-session-only online course, Conner Habib will tell you 8 ways to improve your views of sex and how those new viewpoints extend into a better world.

Together, we’ll investigate:

  • How sex and culture intertwine in the realm of individual freedoms and political rights
  • The current sexual landscape and not find what’s “natural” or what’s “normal,” or “real,” but what would would be ideal, what would allow the most cultural space for everyone to understand what they’d like, without restricting that access for others.
  • Why not talking about sex is so damaging
  • The benefits — and problems — of consent and boundaries
  • Why immersive and connected sex isn’t “better” than a casual, anxious hookup
  • What sex workers have to teach us about sexuality and politics
  • Some messy sexual gropes of history, the unwelcome and forcible restricting grip of power, and the pleasurable moments where we seemed to get it right
  • and more!

The course is followed by a 45 minutes sex advice Q&A with Conner, where you can get in on the conversation and uncover your own sexual ideas.

You’ll leave the course with a deeper understanding of sex’s role in our cultural psyche, a whole host of sexual stuff to think about (aside from the usual sexual stuff you think about!), and strategies for a new approach to sex and politics.

And you’ll get exclusive access to a recording of the course for 30 days after the course ends!

SIGN UP HERE!