Tag: Sexuality

Heavy Burdens: Book Review

Dear readers, It's been a few months! A number of you have been quietly nagging me to do some more writing, and while I can't make any promises for the future, I do hope I'll be in a position to share more of my writing soon. I have a lot of things I'd like to put into words and many feelings I'd like to share, but the truth is, I can't. Not right now. There are a few reasons for this, but most of all I'm just so emotionally depleted.

Solidarity

On Monday morning I woke up to a message from a friend that read, “I am sorry to hear about your lockdown!” I had literally just woken up moments before picking up my phone (I know, I know, I’m a millennial), so the fact that we were going into lockdown was news to me. When I’d gone to bed 8 hours earlier, I expected to wake up to another normal day. Instead, I found out from an interstate friend that Brisbane was going into a snap lockdown to control the spread of some new covid cases.

Sexual [or] Intimacy

"Do you love him?" "No, we're just friends." "They were 'intimate' with each other." "During lockdown, we were only allowed to visit a person if we had an 'intimate relationship' with them." I’ve been finding that there's a lot of confusion out there about the difference between intimacy and sex. The quotes above show how we often use love/intimacy as a stand-in to describe sexual/romantic relationships as though they are basically the same thing.

Belonging

A few weeks ago I was on a late an evening walk through the park talking to a dear friend on the phone about how lockdown and social distancing have affected us this year. Both of us are people that have always been good at long-distance friendships, and we’ve both managed to stay closely connected to our friends this year through phone calls, video calls, 1-1 catchups and small group gatherings. But something was missing.

The Myth of a Model Minority

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the power of narrative and the way sharing stories reveals our values. Telling stories helps people understand how we experience the world, and they help us imagine what our world could—or should—look like. If you read my blog, it's no surprise to you that I think this. But lately I’ve been thinking particularly about the insidious potential for weaponising narratives: the potential for telling stories in a way that seeks to control or subvert someone else’s experience of the world. Perhaps the most subtle but powerful  form of this is when people take stories that were originally told with innocence, good intent, and truth, and then weaponise those stories to control others.

The Gift of Diversity – and Diversity of Gifts

Most of my readers are probably aware that I'm a passionate bassoon player. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I’ve devoted a significant portion of my lifetime to pursuing a professional career in playing the bassoon. You could even say it’s one of the most distinctive things about me. It’s not unusual for me to run in to someone I haven’t seen for years (you know, the kind of person you met that one time at a conference and have long since erased from your memory) and while we’re standing there trying to recall each other’s names, the other person confidently blurts out: “All I remember about you is you’re the guy who plays the bassoon!”

Book Review: A War of Loves

“To survive, you must tell stories.” - Umberto Eco. I love reading. Books have been a safe haven where I can explore bold stories from the comfort of my bedroom. Long before I felt safe enough to start speaking openly about my sexuality with people, I was devouring books that introduced me to stories of other people like me.