210. Harm Reduction, Non-Monogamy, and Embodied Liberation with Justice Riveria

[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host nicole.

On today's episode, we have justice join us for our conversation about the collective liberation of our bodily autonomy. How compassion is better than punishment, deconstructing systems of oppression within our subconscious. And the need for both harm reduction and pleasure enhancement.

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 Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist with training in psychedelic integration therapy, and I am also the founder of the Pleasure Practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships.

Dear listener. Hello, welcome back. Hi. Hi. This episode is so needed. It is a consciousness raising conversation. I learned so much from justice and their personal story. We specifically talked about the power of sharing our personal stories, right? I've talked a lot about my journey with sexuality and drug use and non monogamy and purity culture and all of that.

And so each time that I have a guest who trust me to really hold this space for them to share their story. Oh, these are some of the most powerful episodes on the show, and so this is another episode where I hope, dear listener, you can expand your consciousness around drug use, around the propaganda, all the societal messages that are swimming within our culture so that we can all be more educated on this topic and such.

An important part of this discussion is the full need for harm reduction. If you are new to that word, there is so much to learn there. I have a great episode with Irene Alexander. It's a bit further back in the catalog now, dear listener, but if you look up modern anarchy, Irene Alexander, I have an episode all about what's the cage that we all live in around drug use, and I'd highly recommend that to go back and learn more.

And we need harm reduction and, and, and, and big. All caps and underlined, highlighted pleasure enhancement. Okay? Because we don't just need harm reduction in sexuality, right? We don't just need a discussion on STIs and fearmongering and how to stay safe with that, right? We also need pleasure enhancement.

Where's the clitoris? Right? Where is it for all the folks who don't know? Please, please look it up and find out where that is. You know, oh, they've, I've seen videos of people on the streets trying to like identify it. It hurts my soul, dear listener. It's fine. It's fine. We're doing work in this space and so yeah, we need harm reduction with sexuality, with drugs, and we need a pleasure enhancement.

People take drugs because it feels good. One of the main drugs that people take in America is coffee. 'cause they love the way it feels good and it helps them work under capitalism, right? And so we really need education on both topics about. Harm reduction to pleasure enhancement. 'cause it's about our bodily autonomy.

It's about our ability to use our bodies to experience pleasure, and to be in connection with community. So you're gonna love this episode. There is so much to learn and again, this conversation will be one that continues through the lifetime of this podcast and my research and my clinical work. And so, yeah, I'm excited to have you here, dear listener.

Alright, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and resources@modernanarchypodcast.com. Also linked in the show notes below. And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all of 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. If you wanna join the Patreon community, get exclusive access into my research and personal exploration, and you can head on over to patreon.com/modern Anarchy podcast, also linked in the show notes below. And with that, dear listener, please know that I am sending you all my love and let's tune into today's episode.

So the first question I ask each guest is. How would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:05:09] Justice: Thank you for inviting me to do so. I love that question. I'm called Justice Rivera. I use she, they theya aa pronouns and I'm a queer Jew Regan, who recently repatriated to my motherland Meison in Puerto Rico. I currently live in San Juan and that.

Um, has informed a lot of my life in the last year since I've moved, but also the reasons for which I moved, one of which was safety, and the second was to, um, undergo the physical and emotional and spiritual journey that is part of being someone from a diaspora that chooses to not only try to reclaim that experience for themselves, but also to try to make that.

Easier for future generations to be able to try to decolonize and bring resources and, um, education and knowledge around all of that. Mm-hmm. So, um, the experience of Puerto Rico is something that I, that I talk about often. Now, I also am a harm reductionist and I'm a harm reduction consultant. And that is informed by my own personal experiences of being a former injection drug user and a former survival sex worker, and someone who cycled in and out of the county jail system and spent many years on felony supervision.

And then also spent seven years in a, uh, what I consider to be a very fear-based form of recovery. And, um, being able to redefine my recovery through reconnection to psychedelics. Mm-hmm. And reconnection in terms of my own path and my own life, but reconnection also in terms of my lineage and my, the ways that my ancestors practiced healing and liberation.

Yeah. And, um, I worked many years in direct services starting as a peer leader and did that for a number of years, and also did national capacity building assistance and advocacy. And in 2000 and. 18. I co-founded Reframe Health I Justice Consulting, which is a consulting collective that's led by queer and trans consultants of color who work with organizations with heart to deepen their practices of care and collaboration and compassion through healing centered harm reduction.

And we are really the only national organization that is providing capacity, building assistance and technical assistance related to sex worker centered harm reduction. Hmm. Um, and so I really love the work that I do there, and I think that, uh, a lot of my storytelling is a continuation of my passion about harm reduction.

And, um, I wrote a memoir that maybe by the time this is published will actually be, uh, published. And so that's called Candy Coated. And I also am the Trics and co-author of a anthology called Body Autonomy Decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use. Mm-hmm. Um, which. Folks can get anywhere where they get books near them or online.

And, um, a lot of what that discusses is, uh, well, it really moves from something very tactile and tangible. Talking about the mechanics, the basic mechanics of the sex trade and what harm reduction looks like in the sex trade and the parallels between the wars on trafficking and the war on drugs. And it moves to being a liberatory blueprint and talking about the ways that sex work and drug use have always been sacred, and we can reclaim that and trying to disrupt the, uh, kind of hierarchy of drugs or hierarchy.

Um, and sure the ways that we can all come together and reclaim, uh, some of the ancestral practices in our movements and our own lives. And so it's really a, a beautiful work that has about 20 of us in it. Um, that I'm excited to talk about some of that today with you.

[00:09:21] Nicole: Yeah. Such a joy to have you on the podcast.

Thank you for coming today. Yeah. Can we start there? Yeah. Where is the blueprint for the liberation of our bodily autonomy with sex and drugs?

[00:09:34] Justice: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think the, the first thing that is really important to recognize is that all of America's ideological wars, right? We're talking about the wars on drug use and the wars on reproductive rights, and the wars on G-L-B-T-Q, identity and activity.

The wars on sex work, right? All of this really comes from the same racist group. It has a lot of the same purpose of subjugation, control of racialized bodies and lives, but also for the expansion of federal powers. And, uh, when we can really look back over time, we see that this is also about, you know, war between states, autonomy and the federal government having powers and that I, anytime there's war, the federal government gets to expand its powers, including ideological war.

Um, and so really recognizing that this is all about the same thing. And I think that's important because, you know, just as I see colorism right, happening among my own communities and in communities, we always wanna say, well, look, they're not us. And I think that united movements are, uh, are the way that we need to move forward, right?

And I think a lot of times to be able to get gains we have to forget or isolate or, uh, you know, disconnect ourselves from some other movement. And that's, uh, that's something that I think really needs to change because we all basically are, are fighting the same fight, right? Uh, and so that's a lot of, uh, what I talk about is that these.

Use the same functions and in fact, using the war on drugs as an example. The places where we see that folks are starting to understand that the drug war doesn't have a lot of utility and are starting to make reforms and pull back, those same drug war mechanisms are being used to say, oh, you know, a lot of the same hysteria that we're seeing in the, in the war on drugs being used to say.

Oh, well, trafficking is happening here and we're gonna look at communities of color to quote unquote save, you know, young white women and just a lot of the same propaganda. That really just means that those same world war mechanisms are being con, continue to use in, um, communities of color. And it's not just happening in politically harsh climates, it's happening in neoliberal climates.

It's happening in Seattle and Oakland and San Francisco and LA and Boston and, and like in ways that are really, really scary. And so those are the places where we're like, oh, congratulations. You know, marijuana is legal. We're starting to see psychedelics legalized. We're we're making gains, but we're actually not.

Right. It's all just a smoke and mirrors. And so, um, I think that's the first thing to know is just to have the knowledge and to really be able to focus on all of our unity and to understand the ways in which all of our, um, oppression has been connected and therefore a liberation is too.

[00:12:37] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think what scares me the most about it all is how deep within the unconscious these thoughts are for people, these automatic biases because of the classical conditioning and the culture that we've lived in, and how deep that is within our mind.

[00:12:57] Justice: Yep. Absolutely. I mean, I'm 38 years old and I've only ever known the war on drugs. I've only ever grown up under all of this propaganda. And, um, I think that harm reduction is really intuitive, but we have to get there, right? Because we've learned something different. And so it's not the first thing we'll think of, but when we actually can drop down into thinking like, oh yes, we do need to offer limited immunity right now to spaces so we can have safe sex work spaces and overdose prevention centers so that we can address violence, we can address overdose right now, that just is intuitive.

It just makes sense. Right? But, um, if people aren't able to drop down under a lot of the fear narrative, if people still think that police and prosecutors actually make us safe, right? Like those are the things that we need to be able to complicate for people.

[00:13:55] Nicole: Mm-hmm. And even the minimum of sex education, right?

People who don't want more of that in school for children out of fear, that it's gonna make them more sexual, you know, drugs, similar sort of thing, right? We don't wanna teach them about drugs, it's gonna make them do, right? Like all of these problematic ways of, of really education systems when we're thinking about children starting there first, right?

Is that we start there with such problematic views. I mean, dare the whole, the whole collection. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I'm seeing so many of the parallels between sex work and drug use and bodily autonomy, but could you flesh even more of that out of these similarities that you're seeing for maybe someone who's never even thought about those two things being connected?

[00:14:41] Justice: Absolutely. So. For people who are doing drugs, right? That's about their own, uh, right, to put what they want in their body. And in fact, if we're talking about what people actually have rights to, it should be the right to a safe supply, right? It should be the right to know that. What it is that they're putting in their body is not going to kill 'em and that they know what it's, um, right now the only way to do that is through the medical industrial complex, which is riddled with years of racism and sexism and doesn't provide access because it's based on a very classist model.

And the care that's provided is often just not sensitive. And I know that there's a lot of movement. In fact, we work with a lot of medical providers at Reframe to try to support people in advancing that system because I truly think that we need to devest from carceral based systems and reinvest in healthcare systems and social service systems.

They're not great, but there's a lot of possibility for them to be better. Right. Um, now with sex work, it is really similar in that. Two consenting adults who are engaging in this transaction are, uh, doing so through their own bodily autonomy, right? And now that's not to say that other people in these people's lives are not impacted by their drug use or their either sex work or they're being on the buyer side being a client of sex workers.

However, we all have those family dynamics and anything we do to be able to navigate. And I think Gabo Gabo mate, Dr. Gabo mate is very good at talking about that when he talks about how his workaholism is something that's uplifted by capitalistic society, but has had a really negative impact on his family.

Hmm. So, um, this is something, same with, with sex work, where what people actually need to have the right to is labor, safe labor conditions, and being able to navigate hazardous work environments. Because just like sex work is similar to many forms of work, it also is uniquely different. And to be able to address violence, address exploitation, which all of these, uh, you know, really harmful.

Trafficking policies are passed that are saying, oh, we're trying to stop trafficking. For example, Cesta Fossa, which I'm sure other people have talked about on this show, but that stands for Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, which essentially took the middle class out of the sex trade and forced people to the streets where they were ripe to be approached by a third party who could have potentially been exploited and were violent, right?

It dropped street prices. People were having to do really risky acts in order just to survive and make what they had made the day before by working twice as hard and now having condomless sex. Now not using screening practices, which are the things that better guaranteed their safety. And so what we want is rights for people to have the safest experience they can and the things that they do with their own body.

Yeah. And these things are really similar, and the ways that they're criminalized are really similar. So for example, if we look at how paraphernalia. Within drug use is criminalized, right? Mm-hmm. Um, in many places, just possession of a syringe can trigger 10 to 90 days in jail. Just one syringe. Think about if you have a box, right?

Right. And then compare that to the fact that only one state, new New York state after like eight years of advocacy has actually been able to outlaw the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution. Hmm. So many places police will say, you have three condoms on you. You look like a prostitute. We're hitting you with a prostitution charge that you don't have money to fight.

Right. And so condoms are public safety mechanisms, syringes, which are shown to be the best. HIV prevention, um, strategy that we have actually to this date are all criminalized. And so we're taking the ways in which people can be safe away. Um, also federal funding bans has been a really big one. Um, and so we see that still in the war on trafficking with the anti prostitution pledge, which even though, um, it has been found unconstitutional, guidance has not been written to actually change it.

So just years ago, 2014, it was found unconstitutional 10 years ago. And this still happens in practice because federal guidance, the little p policy hasn't been written to change yet. Um, and we see this with the, uh, I believe it's called Thehy Amendment, right, that's blocking all federal funding for abortion.

And we see this, um, with the. And on, um, syringes using federal funding for syringes to syringe exchange programs. And so the ways in which these programs have to resource themselves versus treatment programs and exit based programs that are getting tons and tons of federal funding and therefore have just so much more of an ability to continue to lobby for themselves.

Mm-hmm. And to be able to put forward a certain type of narrative about. Quote, unquote, you know, harmful drug use or quote unquote trafficking. And I don't, I actually shouldn't put quotes around those. Absolutely. I mean, as someone who navigated what I will call an addiction, really chaotic meth use in my life that mm-hmm.

Led to, you know, really horrible things in my life, it can be destructive, right? As someone who is a survivor of trafficking, right. Like trafficking, trafficking can happen and is really destructive. But I actually feel like using my own life as an example, the things that were most destructive to me were all these systems that are built around it that just were never helping.

Right. And in fact, then I received, um, you know, felonies for things that I still, that are still detrimental to my life because even after vacate, people can just google my name and not give me housing, and, which happens all the time. Wow. So I think, I think these are, are the repercussions of a lot of that.

Um, and actually body autonomy anthology contains several articles that really look at the ways in which these all work in tandem and have, and have been constructed to do so. Right. Um, and so those are just some examples. Also, propaganda is a really big one, and propaganda is so racialized, right? Yeah.

Because if we look at propaganda coming out of the, the, you know, quote unquote crack epidemic. In the eighties, which we, uh, know was entirely constructed to flood crack into black communities that weren't using it. Um, there was very much a save your white kid from these inner city black people using drugs Narrative that we see today.

I mean, if you just Google images of sex trafficking, it is always little white girls with racially ambiguous hands over their mouths. And as someone who has worked for over a decade with survivors of trafficking, trafficking occurs because people don't have options and don't have resources. If poverty ceased to be exploitation and trafficking would be rare.

Right. That is the push factor, not the sex trade, not any of that. And the people who are experiencing trafficking are historically marginalized and under-resourced people. It's black and brown people, it's immigrants. It's a, a lot of labor trafficking that's not sexual at all. Or it's combined sexual labor trafficking, where even though someone is experiencing a lot of sexual abuse, the number one, the thing they want is actually just to be here with their family and not be deported.

Right. But that's not what the system looks at. And so, um, it's really kind of recognizing how propaganda plays into all that.

[00:22:37] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks. I can feel your fire and I'm learning from you, and I'm so glad to have this space where I can learn from you and the listeners can learn from you and really feel your passion about this.

It's so needed. And. I wanna hold some space. If it feels meaningful for you to dive into your personal story with this and your lived experience and wherever that journey starts for you, I'd love to hear more about your journey.

[00:23:08] Justice: Absolutely. Yeah. I, you know, I'm, I'm kind of a raver kid from way back, right?

And I think, um, if I actually think about like, what, what substance use gave me when I was younger, I think it really plays into being, uh, someone who exists in the liminal space between a lot of things, right? Like, I am mixed race, um, often white perceived, I am a queer fem. So, you know, often, uh, don't have to deal with some, some things that like, you know, trans counterparts, even though I consider myself two-spirit, right?

Like other folks, I have a different experience of racism. I have a different experience of sexism and homophobia that di that people do, right? That could be called a privilege and um, could be called a responsibility. And when I was younger, I, you know, didn't have words for a lot of that. I knew I had to code switch in different situations.

I knew that people never really seemed to see me, who I was. People wanted to tell me who I was, right? Mm-hmm. It just seems to be for who I told them I was. I was also navigating, um, sexual violence and some different things that was happening and the, you know, the, the raver scene accepted me how I was.

Right. It was a lot of like queer kids and there was a lot of glitter and rainbows and uh, you know, like I, I just really loved a lot of that. And, um, that was some of the beginning days of my psychedelic use. And, um, I ended up diving more into meth for a variety of reasons, some of which is body image, which I think is really important to name, because I think there are studies that suggest that the number one reason that femmes and women use drugs is, is, and especially stimulants, is to be able to work and exist in capitalism and also for body image reasons, right?

Yeah. And so, um. I ended up really just kind of getting to a place where that was my number one survival need, and through that I started to do survival sex work, and though I. The farther away that I've gotten from poverty in my own life, the more empowering experiences in the sex trade have been. And so back then it was not all that empowering.

It was really empowering to start to be able to see how I could use my sexuality to survive. Um, sure. And being a queer fem, doing that oftentimes with my lovers and partners and starting to, to, you know, figure that out and kind of judo role, something that's gonna be happening all the time, right? Mm-hmm.

And to being able to be something that worked for me. And I experienced several bouts of, uh, you know, six months at a time in jail and, uh, was given a opportunity through a program that, uh, you know, now I look back on, I think used a lot of harm reduction. And, um, at, at the time I was living in Denver, Colorado that has more, this is not the case everywhere, but had more robust homeless youth services.

And it was kind of this, this thing I realized as I was approaching 24, which was the cutoff for youth services, that I was just going to basically fall into the abyss, both in terms of, um. Being the homeless adult service system, being oversaturated. And the people who were getting care were the older people, the ill people, the mentally ill people and the veterans.

And I, I wasn't gonna be able to be, uh, helped by that system for years. And the other system that I was undoubtedly going to be cycling through was the prison system. And that I was lucky that I wasn't in it already, that I had stayed, you know, even though I was on felony and probation, I was always kind of kicked down.

Um, you know. Probably because of privilege and a lot of things to the, the county jail system. But that was only gonna go so far. And because I know enough of my, uh, you know, the ways in which I survive, I would, I would very much conform to a certain mentality and I just kind of knew this was this. And so, even though I'd been through different treatment programs about four times before I really took this, this opportunity that also came with housing and I fell into really kind of grasp 12 steps at the time.

And then 12 steps are really. Uh, amazing. And I think that they work for, for some people, and I'm really glad about that. And they really worked for me in the beginning, and a lot of the reason they worked for me is I was told that I needed to suspend my judge judgment and a lot of the spidey senses that were happening, especially around some of the power and sexual dynamics that were happening in 12 step programs.

Um, and so I, you know, I did that and I really appreciated that system for a long time. But there were things about it that didn't feel right to me. Right, sure. But even though I did drink the Kool-Aid and I got very afraid, right? Like, I was like, what is gonna happen if I put a different drug in my system?

All of my friends, you know, were involved in, in 12 steps and I started working in harm reduction. And I, that started really again, that like I, I was. Unlearning a lot of things and reconnecting to things that were just so right and intuitive at this time. After the course of, you know, kind of navigating that tension for many years, I decided to redefine my recovery because I really wanted to sit with Grandmother Ayahuasca.

Mm-hmm. Um, that's, that has has been something that now has been about eight years after I've, I've redefined my recovery and that's felt really, I guess six, six. So seven in abstinence based recovery and six now that has been redefined recovery and has been really right for me. But it also involved having to shed a lot of my friends, like there were people in 12 step programs who.

Just said, well, I, you know, I'm only friends with people in recovery. And you know, there were people who also saw what I did and tried it and it didn't work for them. Um, and I think that it's really brave that people tried that. Right? And it's not that it hasn't been sometimes complicated for me, but it's also been something that's really right.

And I continue to feel that I've made, made the right choices. And part of what really pushed me also towards that is that I had a sponsee who was law enforcement, who stalked me in, in 12 step programs. And I continually went to the 12 step program to say, this is something that's happening to me. And the response was, well, we can't get outside, help outside 12 steps.

Everything has to be insular. And I found out after telling enough people about it that. That she had done this to several people. And, um, that this, this was actually something that was just really harmful that the system refused to address. And I was just like, this isn't, this isn't right for me. And that also was a catalyst to redefining my recovery.

Um, yeah. And that has been something that's really powerful for me. I've also, uh, kind of reengaged in the ways in which sex work has, uh, been a part of my life, um, for, you know, different periods. And that's been something that's been really empowering and finding parts of it that work for me at different times of my life.

Um, and so I think that's something that's really a prominent part of my story. And again, it's not part of everyone's story, but I think that being able to have several different pathways to recovery is really important. And there's more now than there was when, when I was younger and seeking recovery.

[00:30:33] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story, for trusting me and opening up about all of the details of this process for you. Yeah. Even just there, I'm already thinking of the unique relationships we all have with drugs, different types, the whole narratives around them and sex work. Right. Like just the unique experiences that each person has, rather than these blanket assumptions that it's all one way or one, or should be one way, or like, right.

Just getting into the nuance of each individual person's experience with these things, the narratives and the meaning making. Right. And I'm curious, you know, after sharing all of these pieces as you're with me now, and the here and the now for this recording, how does it feel to go back and talk about your story?

[00:31:20] Justice: Hmm. Um, you know, it actually, so I've had a lot of opportunity. I wrote a memoir. Yeah, that's true. To think about my past. And I actually think that it's something that has informed a lot of my advocacy. Um, 'cause I think that we have this advocacy binary where there are people on the far right who use, um, kind of historical narratives that try to get you, like, grasped in, in this like fear and the scarcity and all of that.

And the way that the, uh, left often counters that is with data and trying to appeal to the head. But I actually think it's a lot easier to appeal to people's hearts than heads. I remembered when I was doing federal advocacy and I went into a Republican's office that said, leave your data at the door. We believe in God here.

On in Washington DC in Congress. And I can, what year is it? What year? I know, I know what I just, it's, but also very sci-fi. It's just Right. It's just, it's just wild. And um, I realized that the, it's really important actually to bring a, as much of ourselves forward as we can, but that also takes a toll on us, right?

So we have to be able to. Optimize our self-care practices. And before I write, I have an opening writing prayer and a closing writing prayer before I go do advocacy. I do the same. Um, I also often project forward, like instead somatically being in it myself. And so there's a lot of things I really learned, but the most powerful part of being able to tell my story and especially writing a memoir, which at times was, was wild.

I mean, especially talking about somatically, there were times, there was a time I was talking about an ex-girlfriend of mine who just really betrayed me and I literally felt like I was stabbed in the back. Like there were two days in a row I couldn't get out bed. And I went to the chiropractor and I was like, what is even happening?

And you know, I ended up kind of doing my own ceremony to like forgive and release and it, it was probably about four or five days and I came to realize like, wow, this is, this is somatically me playing out the experience of being stabbed in the back essentially and being able to, to, you know, get to this place.

And so there were just. Wild things that were happening as I was writing my story, and I had an opportunity to think about if I had one message of my entire life, or at least this five year period, what would it be? And what's that thread that I weave through everything. And for me it's that, um, compassion is better than punishment.

[00:33:57] Nicole: Mm. Powerful. Yeah. And so then the vision of what that looks like in all of these different facets, right? I imagine that's a whole different world than particularly what we're seeing in America, but a whole different world.

[00:34:14] Justice: Absolutely. And that's the world building we get to do. I mean, that's the world building.

And I've, you know, listened to several of your guests as I anticipated coming onto this podcast. And, um, and I think that's what we're, we're doing together. That's what we're breathing into being. That's what we are creating. And, um, you know, as I. As I talk about this, the world's really scary, right? We're seeing, um, folks on college campuses who are protesting the genocide and Palestine who are getting expelled, who are getting violently arrested and hurt, including teachers.

And um, that's one thing I actually, you know, there's, it's been such a beautiful and painful experience to, to be here in Puerto Rico. But one of the things that I appreciate is I was, um, volunteering actually at a, a festival that is, is for the local newspaper, clai da. And it's to be able to, uh, recognize freedom of speech just to begin with.

But there are people from all walks of life, from all over the island there, and there was, uh, Madres. Contra Las Juarez, who is, you know, mothers against the war who stood up and were just talking about Puerto Rican solidarity with Palestine. And I thought in the US this person would be hurt. This would be shut down.

But we understand La Brega the struggle. We understand it, right? And there is not, not anyone here who is, um, at least trying to, to violently, um, resist someone's free speech.

[00:35:51] Nicole: Yeah. And the land of the free, right.

[00:35:53] Justice: Yeah. And I actually think that's interesting because there's the difference, right? In looking between the US Constitution, which is the only, you know, constitution that hasn't been modernized to start to talk about that, but also port the ethos constitution, even though we have federal US oversight and we're a colonial project of the United States.

Um, but like ours is based on Latin American and UN human rights principles, whereas the US is, is based on freedom. And if we really look at what the, the impact of trying to live through freedom versus rights has gotten us, I mean, you just look at what the US is today.

[00:36:33] Nicole: Yeah. And the history of all the ways that it's been highly problematic for different people.

Right. And yeah, even thinking about it's, it's still, the sex piece is so mind-boggling to me that the same person who would say I'm against sex work is also the same person that could pay money for a massage to be butt naked and have this person completely touch and give them pleasure in their body all over, but accept.

A handful of small spaces. God forbid you go into that part of the, oh no, I'm against, it's, it is really hard for me to understand the level of cognitive dissonance. Yeah, you can touch all of my body and make me feel pleasurable here, but God forbid it has any erotic energy and, and where do we draw that line?

Right? Like, God forbid it has any of that sort of idea to it, we freak out. Right? And the amount of drugs that we do, you, you know, the amount of prescribers that will just candy drugs to people with mental health issues and other stuff. Here you go, here you go, here you go. And then, oh, but I'm against drugs.

And it's just this, the math doesn't mat add up here for so much of this. But so many people have no idea. They, I, I think just living in the dark, not aware. Harm reduction, they see as, you know, something that could cause even more chaotic drug use. I'm putting that in air quotes, listeners can't hear me.

You know, like there's research that has demonstrated how effective harm reduction is for saving lives and educating people. Right? But there's just still so many narratives. There's so deep and so, yeah. In a country that's based on freedom, which should be in air quotes too, because of its fucking beginning and where it all started with all of that, but it's just the hypocrisy is so deep.

[00:38:10] Justice: It really is. It's wild. Yeah. And I think that a lot of it is because it comes down to liability. And I think, and I mean this is why all human resources departments exist, right? Is that people are afraid of their own liability. And um, you know, it's wild to see so many times when people are just caught, you know, people are just caught and they can say, oh, that's why I'm not doing that.

I'm just like, if you own it right, it's gonna go so much better for you. Right? I mean, maybe not though, because people are caught and then people, you know, I, it's actually wild to me sometimes the people who continue to support people who have been caught. But that, you know, that's something that I think our society has a, a long way to go on.

But, you know, during my time as a sex worker, one of the things I always found to be both startling because it was a snapshot of where our society is at, and also fortifying as to why sex work is so important, is that I would ask people, what do you enjoy sexually? And I can't tell you how many people.

Freaked out at that. How many people said, oh my God, I've never been asked that before. And like, just didn't have the words for it. Which is fine. I can hold space for that. Right? And that's, you know, that's part of what I'm here to help you do. And like, just, it made people so uncomfortable. Like, this is what you're here for, this is what you're here for, and, and you have a hard time talking about it.

And I think it comes down to, you know, and when I do, um, trainings on sex worker centric harm reduction, I tell service providers who are HIV service providers who are homeless, service for service providers, like our. Society. Our organizations in particular tell us we can't talk about sex because we don't know how to differentiate Our systems, don't know how to differentiate between sex and sexual harassment, which is wild, right?

And this is why so much sexual harassment occurs because we literally don't, I'm just gonna like leave that there for a second. We don't know how to differentiate sex and sexual harassment. We don't know what consent looks like and how to talk about it. And so our organizations are often like, well, you just can't talk about sex even when you're doing screenings for HIV.

And you know, even when we're talking about people who are doing sex work. And so if you're planning to work with sex workers, sit in front of the mirror at night and look at yourself and say, pussy ass book blowjob. Yeah. Plug in you, you know, but you gotta say like all of the things and look in the mirror and be okay because your comfort determines someone else's comfort.

And we can talk about sex without sexually harassing someone. Right? Sure. And I know that there's a lot of complicated workplace dynamics that overlay this and like, we need to be able to give care and have conversations and be able to. Put liability in a right sized place and not let the fear liability take over everything.

Because in the US we create both big P and little P policies off of the potential worst thing that could happen versus the amount of people could benefit from a certain thing that's actually way farther in the middle.

[00:41:31] Nicole: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. And I, yeah, the amount of therapists who don't feel comfortable talking about sex.

The amount of therapists who assume all sex work is harmful. And I mean, again, all drug use being harmful, right? People who make those assumptions too, right? The parallels right there. Um, the amount of couples, therapists who don't bring up sex in the room, which is so mind boggling to me. I'm like, what? Um, and yeah, when you ask someone how do you like to be touched?

And I've definitely been there where I've been asked that in the past, and I froze. I had a freeze response. You're right. I had never been asked that. You know what we call that? We call that a trauma. I went into freeze mode and we've all been traumatized by deep levels of shame, patriarchal religion, purity, culture, that when someone asks you what is pleasurable, we literally have a trauma response and freeze and don't know what to say.

[00:42:32] Justice: Right. And as women and fems, we are programmed to actually not think about our own pleasure. Right? And so that question is even more complicated because you know, other, other people, right? We're, we're programmed to think about other people's pleasure. And so when it's, what do we find pleasurable than. We freeze or we don't know what to say, or it's uncomfortable to talk about it, um, you know, out loud.

And I think, you know, therapy is really helpful for that. I think sex work is really helpful for that. I think that even just, you know, I'm a part of a, like B Rican, um, women and femmes group that we can just talk about these things and so I really think it's important to find a place that. We can, you know, reprogram and I know that talking about it with others isn't everyone's thing.

Right. Um, and that's fine, but just being able to think about the way, the ways in which we've been programmed and how it might be beneficial to reprogram ourselves and how we can reclaim pleasure for ourselves.

[00:43:31] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:43:31] Justice: Um, and I actually, that's a lot of what the, the last part in particular of, of body autonomy, decolonizing sex work and drug use is about because our narrative so much and trying to be able to advance body autonomy and trying to be able to create more, uh, access to decriminalized drugs or a safe supply, being able to create more access to, um, safer sex work is usually to take a medical argument, right?

And to say, well, you know, people are addicted because we've over-prescribed pills and they're in pain and, um, you know, or they have PTSD and I think all those things are absolutely legitimate, however. We're not able to bring our own pleasure into the room. People also use drugs because it feels fucking good.

Right. People have sex. 'cause it feels really good, um, because those things are even healing for them. Yeah. Because that's a way to be able to relax or tap out or any of that. Right. And so, um, you know, and I, and I think it's important to bring forward, I had, I had a conversation recently, right? Where I think with sex work, you know, the argument often is, well, there might be a partner who hasn't consented to to this.

And I think that's absolutely legitimate, right? And I think that that, that, that is not on the sex worker at all. Right? And I think that tho being able to have those conversations about sex and pleasure are actually to the tools that people need so that they're able to have consensual conversations about non-marital sex.

Or being able to get their sexual needs met inside or outside of a relationship. Um, and so it's still the same things we come back to.

[00:45:21] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a deep lineage of purity culture within all of our unconscious minds, the collective unconscious. Right. It's so deep that, yeah. The idea of, I think I've even heard that the idea of doing sex work as a laborer being more feasible for some people than, oh, I'm a sex worker and I actually have fun with it.

That being much harder for people who are dating sex workers to comprehend. And that's something we've talked about on the podcast, that the idea of pleasurable rather than labor, it adds a whole different level to the processing for a partner, right? Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I think that it's all connected to, to the idea that yeah, you're supposed to have sex with one person, one person only.

And, and again, in our, you know, historically that's not what it's been prior to America, right? But in our colonized land, right? We've had that sort of, um, you know, power over privilege dynamics, particularly with fem and women bodies as property, right? And you're only supposed to have sex with a man. And the man always had this sort of freedom to go and about and live his life, you know?

And now we're in, and then it was the space where you were supposed to only have sex with one person for your whole life. And now we're in the space where it's like serial monogamy, and then you still get any sort of judgment outside of that. I hope we collectively get to a more expanded state.

[00:46:44] Justice: Yeah.

[00:46:45] Nicole: Yeah, just where we can allow people to have sex with multiple people, whether it's something you get paid for or not. And particularly I think that's how you end rape culture, to imagine that two people have all of the same interest and desires and sex is not possible no matter what. If you are in a dyad where there's sexual fidelity, you're gonna have to make compromises.

And what I see the worst situation of is people pressuring each other in their dynamics because it's the only person. And so then they say, well, you're the only person, so I need this with you. Right? It's just the fact that we're all different humans. We're all gonna have different profiles. Like I, I really do believe in a world where you should have that freedom to be able to explore that with other people.

And so that way you don't put so much pressure on one person. But the same reason that someone freaks out about that is this idea of purity. That you're supposed to be with one person and one person only, and anything outside of that is. So deeply wrong.

[00:47:39] Justice: Right. And I think, you know, when I, when I talk to people and, and bring up, you know, I'm, I'm in a, a non-monogamous relationship and when I bring that up as options to people, I think the thing often people, people say, well, I can't, it's because of jealousy.

And I just think that's really interesting because I'm like, right. Like it's just our emotions are here for us to work with, not to not to run from, right. And so we don't have to just be jealous people. Like our jealousy tells us things that we get to talk through. And most importantly, it's not supposed to be, well just don't do this.

Absolutely. We can have boundaries and needs, but we get to work through what, what that means. Right. And I think the hardest part for me is when I was a sex worker and I had clients who were absolutely cheating. On people in their lives. And I would say, you know, I practice a open relationship and is this something that you could have a conversation around because you clearly feel really complicated and guilty about it.

You also just come and unload your guilt on me, right? And so, you know, let's talk about a solution to this. And then it's like, well, I'm too jealous. I'm, excuse you. Excuse me. You are too jealous, but you are here doing this. Right? And so I actually think that, you know, it's an opportunity to be able to like question people about that.

But that's always just really wild to me because I think, um, you know, I, I think that we have opportunities to be able to work with emotions. And our emotions are here to tell us things and to just say, I just don't wanna deal with jealousy. Makes us someone who potentially is embarrassed about what we do when we're jealous.

Right, because we have a relationship with one emotion where we feel like it controls us versus being able to actually have an emotion with it, or relationship, excuse me with it. Which brings me back to your point of like, this is directly correlated to rape culture, right?

[00:49:37] Nicole: Yeah, I know. I know. And the rates of infidelity, Jessica Fern had quoted them at 40%.

I've heard Esther Perel and Dan Savage talk around 70%. So if we're thinking anywhere, somewhere around half of relationships are cheating. Wow, y'all, let's wake up and start talking. Let's just start talking. I find it so interesting though. For me personally, I grew up in purity culture and so I had a purity ring.

Gotta marry one person. Yeah. Deep, deep, deep, deep. So of course, in that paradigm, when my boyfriend at the time talked about getting coffee with a female friend, I lost my shit. Just the idea of coffee and I wanted to explode. So for me to now be a non-monogamous person, do you know what kind of journey I've gone through?

Yeah, it's possible. My friends, it's fucking possible. Okay. It doesn't happen overnight and you're gonna maybe cry sometimes, but it's a stretch. It's a practice, like anything, and it's a really big cultural shift. I think that's the big thing is that people don't really understand is, is how deep that when I was in purity culture, this was all reinforced.

And now when I look at my community, it's all non-monogamous folks looking at me. We're talking about how we're playing in our different dynamics, the different things that we're exploring because not every relationship is the same and particularly. Not every type of person wants to play with us in the same way.

And so we don't put that pressure on people. And so we go to other relationships and then we talk about how, what that brought up in us, the things we're exploring in our lives, the joys we're exploring. Right? And so my community is now so different in such a way that I feel radically normal and then have to remember that's not true.

But I just think that people forget how much of your cultural context will shape, because particularly in Western culture, we have such an idea of the individual, no, this is who I am actually, this is me. I'm, I'm here. And it's true, there is an individual that exists, but if you don't think you're impacted by culture, you need a wake the fuck up because it is deep.

It is deep within your unconscious in ways that I've realized I didn't always have free will. You know? Whew.

[00:51:48] Justice: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask you a part of, I mean, it sounds like you've been quite through the, the, through quite the journey and the awakening, so thank you for sharing that. I wonder we're psychedelics part of your journey?

[00:52:00] Nicole: Oh, absolutely.

[00:52:02] Justice: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's just one of the things where I think about, and it's, you know, I've redefined my recovery. I drink. And even though it's probably my least favorite like drug, it's probably what I do the most because it's really like what happens socially. Mm-hmm. But it's something that kind of numbs me, right.

To my, my circumstances and that was really necessary when I was experiencing a lot of violence. Right? Yeah. Like I really, really, really appreciated getting to have like a DHD meds that weren't prescribed to me. 'cause doctors won't prescribe a DH ADHD meds to people with st. Even though we clearly have really intense A DHD that we need.

But like, you know, I, that, that and, and alcohol got me through and microdosing honestly. Yeah. I was not in a place where I could do larger doses of drugs and really came to find that microdosing was like the divine feminine aspect and that there were little ways that I could tap into myself in ways that felt safe.

But, um, you know, I think when people might be listening to this and, and hear, you know, these people who've come on this journey, that was really able to reprogram ourselves and to be able to have an analysis and to be able to have relationship with all these big scary emotions. Like we had help. Yeah. We had psychedelic aids, um, and community and a lot of things Yeah.

That we've been talking about.

[00:53:23] Nicole: Right. Absolutely. And I think both you and I know and would name that it's, yeah, the Drug Plus community. 'cause you put the drug in a capitalistic, you know, banker Bureau community and you're talking about how do we make more money off of this? Not how do we deconstruct the systems and poverty.

Right. So then the ways that that Community Plus drug as a tool are so powerful. I think. Yeah, definitely. For me, coming from purity culture and the grooming of that, I had no communication of boundaries. And so going through, you know, sexual traumas, there has been so much benefit in the somatic experience of psychedelics to reconnect me with my body in ways that, sure, maybe I could have done through pure meditation, but it really.

Sped up the process to be able to have that drug that reconnected me and to re you know, really feel again and then to be able to take that into my day to day. And so absolutely, psychedelics have been a huge part of what's reconnected me to my body. And yeah, it's a more expansive thinking about these things, you know, new neural pathways and it makes sense, right?

And so to pair that with community is a really sweet recipe for success.

[00:54:29] Justice: Yeah. Yeah. And then come back, we were talking about also, you know, ethical non-monogamy previously. And I'll say that one of the things that's been used to be. I talked about how I lost my 12 step community, right? Mm-hmm. It used to be that I moved somewhere new.

Oh, and I just plugged in right away. And a lot of times that felt really superficial, but I did also have just some really amazing friends in that. And I think actually some of the really amazing friends were, are, were friends with me beyond changing my recovery too. Um, but it hasn't really been quite as easy to plug into communities.

And I recently, you know, never, um. I never really like led with being poly, you know, in terms of who I am. Um, I also think sometimes there's like, you know, I also am pretty close to vegan. I'm a pescatarian, very, very free. But I feel like sometimes there's a certain type of, of personality, especially having lived in Seattle before this, who are like, sure, proudly vegan or so proudly poly, but I just don't like, relate to, you know?

And so I was just like, oh, I haven't really ever kinda like plugged into to a community for that part of myself. But recently here in Puerto Rico, I started engaging in an ethical non-monogamy community. And it's been, I. So lovely. And so, you know, for, for example there, I've been looking for a mixed martial art gym for my stepson and I haven't really been able to find that.

And then someone on the thread was like, oh, I run this mixed martial arts, it's, you know, academy for teens and adults and just like, you know, I drop my book on it and everyone wants to do a book talk now. And it's just so supportive and amazing and it's a community. People really care about other people and it's, you know, I think there's some ways in which, you know, I feel like all of Latin America is like 20 years behind the states in terms of like some, some types of social progress.

However, you know, Puerto Rico is very queer and trans and I love that about us. And you know, you don't see a lot of ethical non-monogamy here 'cause there's still very much a like Latino machismo that, that I think kind of. Lays across everything and it's really bad. I mean, we, we experienced the femicide, uh, a week here.

There's still, mm-hmm. Bodies from, um, missing women from 2020 and 2022 that we haven't found. And I think the machismo is just very, very scary. The ways in which it operates. And I think that the ways that people are finding safe space is really beautiful and makes it so that people are really just finding like robust communities with a, and so it's been really beautiful to plug into this and also kind of, you know, overcome one of my obviously preconceived notions about what it meant to be part of one of these communities, right?

[00:57:04] Nicole: Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So beautiful. I'm so glad to hear all the ways that you're connected to a strong community. And I can only imagine how much, you know, everything that I've studied from psychology would say that our relationships create our quality of life and our mental health. And so I can only imagine in these deep connections what sort of, you know, zest and energy you felt for life and, and for your experience by being so deeply connected and.

I'm curious if you know the research about Rat Park.

[00:57:35] Justice: Um, like the, remind me 'cause I think I do the, the heroine water where they like drink.

[00:57:42] Nicole: Yeah. And then they switched it to the park and they ran free. Yeah. And like, don't touch the drugs, man. I was reading Untrue by Wednesday, Martin, and she was talking about this research with monkeys, um, which again, rats, you know, we're making comparisons, monkey we're making comparisons.

And it was talking about how when the, it's all gendered, right? So this female male monkey in a cage, and in the cage, the male monkey is often topping the female and the female's sort of passively taking it. And then they thought, you know, similar to Rat Park, what if we expanded this to more and like built social network?

Yeah. Yeah. Right. See, I think you see where I'm going here. And so they built a bigger cage and then, um, once there was more communities, the women would actually initiate sex and, and engage in more stalkerish activity and really demand sex. Right? I know, I know. And then, but guess what happened? After the many years of the same groom, they got bored.

So then the researchers thought, what if we added new monkeys into the cage? You know, what happened to the female sexuality? Mm-hmm. Fucking took off. I don't know. I'm really interested as a researcher in the same way that like Rat Park redefined our understanding of drug use. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. I'm real curious.

I love that for the feminist revolution, what's tied up in there. And I think it's a lot.

[00:58:59] Justice: Yeah. No, and I really, I really do think we need to look at animal behavior, right. To uh, to be able to be able to understand more of ours. And one of actually my favorite icebreakers and is, what is your favorite animal mating technique?

[00:59:16] Nicole: Wait, what's yours? What's your,

[00:59:17] Justice: oh, Eagles. Eagles. Well, eagles are squid. It's between and quid. So eagles fly as high as they. And basically it's like a dare drop to the bottom where they, they like can't separate until they're done. Right. And so it's just flies wise again, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck under pressure.

Which probably says a lot about me. And, um, I also love that squids basically have a mass orgy, like regionally in the middle of the sea, like once a quarter where it's just like, oh, it's time to have sex. Today. We're all traveling like to the Middle Sea, to, you know, undergo, undergo this ritual. And as someone who loves festivals and all of that, I think that that's just a really amazing one.

[00:59:59] Nicole: And, um mm-hmm. Also, you know, so I.

[01:00:02] Justice: Uh, there's street cats all around me. There's a joke that the Pokemon starter kit in Puerto Rico is, uh, iguanas and street cats and chickens. Funny because they're just everywhere. Yeah. And so I've been rescuing kittens that have been hurt and, you know, adopting them out.

And, um, I, you know, therefore have been around cats and heat a lot lately. Mm-hmm. And I feel like I've never really been so close to my own power animal.

[01:00:27] Nicole: Sure. Meow.

[01:00:29] Justice: And I just, you know, and it's like funny because I, I have two, you know, neutered male cats in my, uh, in my house who are just being sexually harassed right now.

Yeah. And it's, it's really funny to watch and just be like, you know, it's, it's so amazing to see like. Core female animalistic desire. Right. And what that looks like. So it just kind Absolutely. Uh, research with the monkeys really made me think about that and how that's just been lately.

[01:00:59] Nicole: Yes, yes, yes. And then the ways that we're not monkeys is, you know, we will fight with people about the color of a towel and how it fits into the design.

You know, things that when I look back on my journey and the first poly person that I met, uh, that I met and they had introduced themselves, um, I looked at them and I said, if you loved me, it would only be me and me forever. Right, right, right. So I think that's part of the thing too, where we can look at the research and see that, but if we don't take the larger context to the culture that has impacted us, and again, given where I'm at now, I'm so fucking happy with my life and the pleasure that I get to explore with multiple sexual partners in like specifically, I know polyamory is not all about sex, but I do wanna hit home the joys that I feel sexually.

Right? So it's really weird when you look back on past versions of yourself and you say, whoa, I was in a very different space. And so you have to ask why, given how happy I am, now you have to ask why. And so I think that as a researcher, I'm constantly thinking about the cultural conditioning, whether it's drugs, sex, work, all this, and how deep that goes into our unconscious in ways that I do think makes me ask deeper questions about our free will.

Mm-hmm.

[01:02:14] Justice: Yeah.

[01:02:16] Nicole: Yeah. Which is why I appreciate conversations like the one we're having, right? Where we're able to get into our own lived experience and some of the research and kind of, you know, the reality is the person, depending on where they're at, might first hear this conversation and be pissed off.

Right. Drug use, they wanna normalize, they wanna give more needles. What? Right. But oh, what a fun journey for that person. That's right there. Yeah. You have a long ways to go. It's the beginning of your, your yoga practice, right? Where you can't touch your toes and you have all that stretch to go over a long point, right?

[01:02:48] Justice: Yeah. And what I hope for is the patience and the resilience to like healthy part of those people's journeys, right? So I think, I think sometimes that's where I, I need to remember right? What, what that was like. Um, and you know, ESP for anyone, for anyone, you know, what that journey is like. And there actually is something, you know, I wanted, I think for listeners that I, I think I need to hear.

Because we were talking about, you know, this time in life where we were like, oh, if you really love me, it would just be me. And I think one of the things I really learned is how to be able to still say, I really need to feel love right now. Like, okay, I know, you know, whether you're going off with another partner, a lover or not.

Like, just to say, I, I, you know, I know you love me, but will you please show me that right now? Will you please go outta your way? Because I'm just needing that. And, uh, that's one thing my, my partner now is the love of my life. And um, you know, that's something she's really shown me is that she can really just meet her needs.

And I think, you know, it's also overcoming a lot of preconceived notions around like being needy or not being able to just directly ask for what I need or thinking that my partner needs to guess that or whatever, right? And so those needs can change daily and I just get to express those as she gets to express those.

But I think for listeners who might say, oh, but I really feel that, like you're still allowed to feel that, right? Um, you're allowed to say. Hey, I really need to feel loved. 'cause that's what that statement was about, right? Not, oh, I need to be the only one for you. We think that's how that manifests. But underneath that is a need to feel really loved and feel important enough.

And I think that there's ways, you know, matter how people practice poly, to let someone know that they're uniquely loved, right?

[01:04:38] Nicole: Yep. Absolutely. That makes me think about the same ways when we ask someone, how do you like to be touched in their silence, right? How do you want to know that I love you. And for most people, the only way they can think is exclusivity of your actions like that, right?

And so we have no other world of understanding where we could be shown how we are loved. And it takes communication. God, when I watch. Like as a therapist, when I watch a lot of stuff on couples and dynamics and the teachings and we're, most of them are starting at basic square. One of just, you know, you're a pers this person's not a mind reader.

We need to be able to communicate, let alone getting to poly and, and practicing. I actually need this right now to feel secure because you're doing this with someone else. Right? Like the actual communication skills it takes. And I think this is where I try to think about it, kind of like, uh, psychedelics where, you know, you can take psychedelics and think you're more enlightened, but being more problematic, there's people in the poly community that are highly problematic, right?

But. In worlds with these practices, there's a lot you can learn from psychedelics that really expand and grow you. And there's a lot that you can learn in non-monogamy when you take out the exclusivity of actions of what it means to ground in your own self-worth, your communication skills. So many things.

So I try not to think about it as being more enlightened, but fuck have I learned so much about. Relationships. Yeah. You know, so much about relationships and myself.

[01:06:08] Justice: Yeah. It also makes me think, so I, um, one of, one of my best friends who lives here last night, I was, we had gotten into a fight and I really appreciate that he's someone who, uh, will go through conflict with me.

I have to say that most of my best friends and I happen to get in a fight sometimes, which I think just, you know, shows that we're passionate people who have a lot of big feelings. I'm fine with that. And, um, I had brought forward the gottman's like 10. Sure. Right. Some of these things about being able to directly communicate or hard for him.

And so we got to have a conversation around what. Would be easier, right? What way of directly communicating his needs would be easier. And so I think that there's ways that these things, I just wanted to bring that forward, right? That there's these things, they're absolutely able to be adapted to someone's unique personal, um, needs.

And uh, I think that's a lot of what different communities do with tools that are passed down.

[01:07:07] Nicole: Yeah. The future of relationships getting outside of the one model way of being, the ways that the field of psychology has been so white and able bodied and privileged. Right? So, and, and heterosexual and monogamous, right?

So getting to a future that's way more expansive and I'm, I'm so thankful that you were able to join me on the podcast today and really, you know, paint that world and help to both educate listeners from, you know, a, a factual research standpoint, but also your lived experience. I really appreciate you trusting me to open up about that.

[01:07:38] Justice: Of course. Yeah. I appreciate the space too, and I feel like we went on a really awesome ride today. You know, kind of talking, starting to talk about, um, you know, what repatriation looks like and then what some of the ways in which the war on, uh, sex trafficking parallels the war on drugs and what harm reduction looks like in both these contexts and how, uh, intuitive it is really to be able to connect to harm reduction and how that's connected.

Two non-monogamy and being able to have healthy communication and being able to understand our cultural conditioning and some of the ways that we can still claim, uh, the things that we've always felt into, uh, you know, kind of a more integrated version of ourselves.

[01:08:21] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. It's always really validating to come into the podcast space and feel like I'm with someone who understands the same vision of liberation and how deeply connected all of these things are.

It's one wound up ball, and so when someone else sees that, I feel, I feel very seen in the space. Yeah. So thank you.

[01:08:41] Justice: Yeah, I love that. And that's really one of the things I feel, right? Like I want, um, I want us all to be able to understand how our liberation is tied because I think that that again is, uh, the ways in which we are forced to separate from each other to try to advance singular issues, singular policies.

The ways in which we're kind of forced to be like singularly focused movements, I think is really harmful for us, not just in terms of our own progress, but how disconnected we feel as people. And I think, you know, it sounds like someone who's been involved in movements knows how toxic even that process can be.

And I think that there's, you know. Um, Adrian Marie Brown came out with emergent strategy and, um, you know, the whole healing justice movement is really looking at the ways that we can start to address some of the toxic behavior that starts to replicate itself and our movements. And as someone who worked in nonprofits for, you know, 10 years and actually, you know, even after being a sex worker, found that to be the most exploitative, uh, industry I ever worked in.

Yeah. Right. Sure found that I either, in my own life worked for small organizations with five staff that I fucking loved, and I got to be myself, but I made shit money, you know? Or I went to work for a larger nonprofit and made at least a living wage, but also saw these issues of racism and classism, um, replicating themselves and I mean, and also sex sexism.

I worked for a large HIV organization that was run by white gay men. And the sexism in that organization was wild, right? And so we start to see the things that we think that we are addressing just replicated in these systems. And I remember when we had just at that point started to address it, there were people were saying, we're public health.

We're not social justice. It's not that we don't wanna go there, but we just need to know how these things are connected. Whereas coming from my. My orientation, they're uniquely connected. And in fact, some people say harm reduction is the intersection of public health and social justice. Right? And so to really like, understand right, how these things are connected, um, is really, really important.

So, um, I'm really glad that we could have that conversation today.

[01:11:03] Nicole: Yeah. Hell yeah. The full connection from harm reduction to pleasure enhancement.

[01:11:09] Justice: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:11:10] Nicole: Hell yeah. Well, I'm gonna take a deep breath with you as we come towards the end of our time. So,

and so, at the end of every episode, I always ask the guest one question. And that question is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal? Hmm.

[01:11:35] Justice: Um, I think that the intersection between sex work and drug use, I wish people knew that was more normal and that it's not always harmful. I think people think, oh, you know, they think of, uh, someone who is chaotically using heroin or meth or crack and doing street-based sex work.

I co-founded with another one of your, uh, your guest, Brita Love. We just recently Oh yeah. Founded the Sex Worker Psychedelic Alliance.

[01:12:02] Nicole: Cool.

[01:12:03] Justice: Um, and so I think just really normalizing that people, you know, I also think a lot of, a lot of times at kink events, substances aren't allowed, right? And so there's this idea, um, that substances don't equal consent and that absolutely can be true.

But again, it's kind of back to that, like you can talk about sex without talking about sexual harassment. Like we can hold a sexual space or space for pleasure that allows substance use and we can start to understand what moderation looks like in these spaces, or, you know, put liability over here. And so I, I really wish that it was more normalized that these things coexist in a way that enhances pleasure and Right.

Yep. And I really wish that that was more normalized and that we were able to actually address where those two things might not be present. Right.

[01:12:54] Nicole: Right.

[01:12:54] Justice: Um, and differentiate the two.

[01:12:56] Nicole: Right. Bodily autonomy, consent, power dynamics. Yeah. I mean, for the opener of the Brita Love episode, I had joked about the fact that I was on an SSRI for a couple of years.

Uh, a true mind-altering drug. Yeah. Huh. I had lots of sex on that drug and you know, like, did I consent? Right. I mean, and I think we, like, like you're saying, there is a space where consent is not met. Right. You know, and various drugs, high levels inebriation. Right. Alcohol blacking out. Not, you know, there's obviously a level here.

I think it's just the fact that we haven't had the nuanced conversation because of the war on drugs and sexual purity. Right. We haven't had the nuanced conversation to actually get into the reality. You know, how many people are, people are having sex on coffee. Yeah. Did we forget that was a, did we forget?

Like just, you know, like these various stim, you know, it's just, we, we need more expansive, let alone the one drink of alcohol, let alone the weeds. Psychedelic experiences, again, you heard me talk earlier about psychedelics being healing. That is absolutely part of the journey, let alone like pelvic floor therapists, um, who will come in and do in-body work for people who, who are tight and need to relax.

And so that's okay, but the pleasure part's not right. I mean, we woo so much to wake up, so much to change. And so I'm just, I'm really thankful to have you in the space and I'm so thankful that you're doing the work that you are doing to change the world and, and really bring us to a more expanded space of liberation.

[01:14:29] Justice: Thank you and thank you for airing it all. It's been awesome listening to some of your other guests. I look forward to listening to the ones in the future, and I'm just really honored to, uh, have gotten a little slice of time with you on the air, so thank you. Hell yeah.

[01:14:42] Nicole: Hell yeah. Such a joy. I wanna hold some space too, for all the listeners that are connecting with you and wanna learn about all the expansive stuff that you're doing, where can they find your content?

[01:14:53] Justice: Yes. All right. So I have a writer's website. It's www justice rivera w writes.com. And then my Instagram is pretty similar. It's at Justice Rivera underscore rights. And, um, I don't really use Twitter or X that much anymore because of the Elon Musk takeover and it's kind of all just shit. But if you wanna find me there, um, I'm at Justice Rights, um, and my books again, uh, body Autonomy, decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use is Out and that we also have a reader's guide posted on my website.

Um, so there's a couple different ways that you can interact with that and be on the lookout for my memoir called Candy Coated. Ah.

[01:15:36] Nicole: Well, thank you for joining us and being a part of the movement.

[01:15:40] Justice: Yeah, thank you so much.

[01:15:44] Nicole: If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modernanarchypodcast.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.