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In this episode of The Turn On, Erica and Kenrya talk to Dr. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke about the fluidity of gender, decolonizing sexuality and the importance of discovering what brings you pleasure. Resources:
The Turn On participates in affiliate programs, which provide a small commission when you purchase products via links on this site. This costs you nothing, but helps support the show. Click here for more information. TRANSCRIPT Kenrya: Come here. Get off. Kenrya: Today we're talking to Dr. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke, who uses gender-neutral pronouns. Dr. Hepworth Clarke is the first Jamaican American to receive three degrees in human sexuality from accredited universities in the United States. They are the co-founder of an anti-racist sexuality program and got her college and co-creator of the Decolonial Sexual Attitude Reassessment/Restructuring, which is a sexuality training program that assists participants in understanding the impact of settler colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, insists hetero patriarchy on one's relationship to sex, gender, sexuality, eroticism and relationships. Dr. Hepworth Clarke provides decolonial guidance, services, love education, consulting and counseling services through Pluriversity LLC, which is committed to increasing sexual multiepistemic literacy, erotic sovereignty and sensual justice. Hi Doctor. Thanks for joining us today. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Thank you so much. Peace and blessings. Erica: Thank you again for being here. I think we should start with some definitions because my best bet is that a lot of folks want to know more about the terms that we mentioned in your bio. So can you tell us what sexual multiepistemic literacy and erotic sovereignty mean? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Thank you. So epistemology is basically the study of knowledge and wisdom. And so understanding that there are multiple ways of knowing and understanding sexuality. And that's where I specialize. In terms of my education, is expanding our minds and understanding that there are multiple worlds that exist simultaneously without hierarchy, which out of the Zapatista movement it's called the pluriverse. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: It's basically just acknowledging that there are multiple ways of understanding sexuality and I love to explore different cultural influences and as well as precolonial conceptualizations of gender, and sexuality, and ancient sexual wisdom out of the continent of Africa. So sexual multiepistemic literacy speaks to my work around expanding our minds that there are multiple ways of understanding eroticism, sex, gender, sexuality, relationships, beyond what western, white, hetero, patriarchal, dominated philosophies has us believe. Erica: That's good. Thank you. Kenrya: Which makes you a perfect guest for our show! I'm wondering when you were little, what kind of work did you want to do? Did you always think that this was what you would end up doing? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Well, I was given the freedom to follow my intellectual curiosity as a child. And my mom really supported wherever that took me. So I really did enjoy humans and taboo subjects. And I did also have a curiosity, like how do we get here and who are we? And so when I would study different subjects, it would always be the sexuality aspect of those subjects that were my favorite. So my favorite history course was a history of sexuality. My favorite anthropology was the anthropology of gender and sexuality. My favorite sociology class, my favorite psychology classes around psychosexual behaviors. I kept exploring different fields, but it all took me back to sexuality studies. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And even as a child, friends would come up to me. I remember being on the playground in the second grade and someone saying, "Oh, you know how you make a baby it's when you get married." And I was like, "My parents were never married. It's been the penis goes in the vagina" and that tore the playground up. And so, I mean, people would just come to me for information. And two, I would always stand up for multiply oppressed peers of mine. And so yeah, it just always was a sounding board for justice, and pleasure, and enjoyment, and living your best life. Erica: So can you tell us a little bit more about how you ended up where you are today? A little bit more about like your education, and why you chose your particular programs, and things like that? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Okay. Yeah. So I always remember that my journey was because I had the privilege of doing what I want. My mom's like, "You go to any college you want." I was like, "Really?" I ended up at NYU and they had a sexuality studies program and I individualize in sexuality culture and oppression. Well, I went to East Africa and wanted to do rape recovery and work with child soldiers integrating back into post-conflict society. And I found out very quickly that I was not qualified to do the work that I wanted to do. So they were like, "What's your credentials?" And they were like, "No, you're going to need more." So I was like, "Okay." Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And so I just kept building my credentials. I was like, "I don't want to be told again that I don't have the credentials to be able to assist in the way that I want to." So I studied in East Africa, in Kenya, in Uganda, and in Europe, and in Barcelona. I was in Decolonizing Knowledge and Power Summer School. I've been in sexuality schools in Amsterdam, and I have my masters in social work, and my masters in education of human sexuality, as well as my PhD in human sexuality. I'm also a graduate of African Centered Social Work Academy out of the National Association of Black Social Workers. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And I also went to the Transnational Black Decolonial Feminism Summer School, where I studied with Angela Davis and other amazing decolonizing scholars. And I continued to align myself with my purpose and passions and figured out how I would be able to make a contribution to the field. And commit myself to Black liberation, which to me includes erotic emancipation and authentic ways of knowing yourself outside of the lies, the narratives that weren't ours, so I was in about self-determination. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And I had to do a lot of extra digging and engage in multiple programs to gather what was really feeding my soul and intellectual curiosity which, "Can this information help me contribute to Black liberation?" And a lot of the information didn't, it was supposed to be some universal information that I wasn't actually able to apply to fighting oppression in multiple dimensions. So I just cherry picked and created theories to promote self love and undermine negative effects of colonialism, and dismantle White supremacy, and things like that. Kenrya: So a phrase that you just used and one that we see a lot connect to your work is decolonizing pleasure. What does that mean for Black people? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: We have a right to know ourself outside of what others project onto us, and even what is the self and what is the body is understood differently in different cultures. But the way knowledge production is set up, and the way domination, and power we haven't necessarily been exposed or have easy access or conditioned to know our power, specifically our erotic power that Audre Lorde discusses in her work. And when I started to dive into what sexuality looks like on pre-colonial African awareness and knowledge systems, I found Osunality that speaks to affirming eroticism, and pleasure, and diversity. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And it's derived from Yoruba, which is a genderless language that respects elders, and has a completely different cosmology or spiritual system, and psychology in terms of even what is the head or the OD, but there's different aspects. Oh, it's the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know. The more I know, the more I realize how much I don't know. I use neuro decolonization or mindfulness to explore different aspects of myself. And I'm a multifaceted, I can be ratchet, and spiritual, and sexual, and prude, and ... I don't know. It wasn't as binary as they made it seem like it is. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And we have the right to know our bodies and what brings us pleasure beyond what they taught us. So even orgasm, for example, is very much defined in literature very specifically. I mean, I'm studying orgasmology, and it gets really biological, physiological responses, but there's actually so much more that our embodied wisdom teaches me about what pleasure is for me. For example, music can be such an amazing experience shout out eargasm or your mind. And I love expanding minds. I love learning and mindgasms. Pleasure does not have to only from the genitals, there's a lot of emphasis on genitalia being a sex organ, but your skin is the sex organ, your ears are sex organs, your eyes can be sex organs. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And there's no limit to where we can derive pleasure from, but each person is different. And also there's different circumstances and factors that allow us to tap into and be aware of what is pleasurable for us. I think about self-determined embodied wisdom, activating your awareness around what brings you towards your euphoric threshold and what is the feeling. I started shifting to instead of saying orgasm, I say fulfillment. And it really boils down to me articulating a new theory that I have created, which I called the Z-spot, which is really in the pleasure zone where you get to define pleasure for yourself and what that looks like, what stimulation allows you to reach your euphoric threshold, that brings joy, that turns you on, and is moving from pleasure to fulfillment. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: That may look like many different things for different people, whether that's engaging in water, and a sunset, and really beautiful sense, and a nipple stimulation. And it's just different for everyone. People have to be able to know what that is. Yeah. Erica: And I would imagine that that changes, what tickles your Z-spots one day, isn't the same thing that did it a week ago, right? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Absolutely, absolutely. It can shift. Different partners can bring out different pleasurable desires, being in different locations, different settings. Just being in a different time of your cycle or the moon. I don't know. Retro grades. I have no idea, but there are definitely ... and it's good to have an open mind in terms of what is your tuning into your innerverse. And there's injuries, there's traumas, there's just different things that can impact where we're at in the moment and really being in the moment and tuning into liberatory practices and giving yourself space to feel and liberate. Kenrya: What role does self-love play in that process of decolonizing your pleasure and your sexuality? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Oh, yes, this is key. This is what I found. So in my research question for my dissertation, my doctoral studies was how can I emancipate myself from White capitalistic says, had our patriarchal mentalities. That's a big, fancy way of saying I was also like really took Bob Marley, which stems from Marcus Garvey speech around emancipate yourself from mental slavery. And I started taking responsibility for my emancipation mentally, but also my erotic emancipation. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And so when I started to think about what do I need emancipating from, it was limited definitions, it was internalize misogynoir, or just negative conditioning around limited hypersexualization projections onto my body. What I found was love being very powerful force in transformation, in healing, in decolonization. And then I also was studying Oshun and Osunality and I saw these images of her looking in the mirror. And I started contemplating myself looking in the mirror and there's so much wisdom in just that image alone, and flowing of sweetwaters. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: There's so many lessons that I continue to learn every day. But what I realized is self-love piece is revolutionary. And even I had to break down what love is too like in ancient Greek or Roman, I don't know, they have different kind of love. And then there's that. I started digging into decolonial love or talking to my friends in Kenya, they were like, "How we do love," or even looking at love in different languages, they may say like, "Oh, my heart is in you." Or something like just even not allowing the English language to limit how I can conceptualize the abundance of a powerful force that unites us and brings clarity around attraction, around love, around sustainability, and fulfillment. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: All that to say is self-love was a really pivotal piece in my transformation, in my healing, and overcoming atrocities, and unlearning negative effects of colonialism. And I summarize it in a model in really setting an intention of emancipating myself and decreasing the distance towards liberation. Osunality was very pivotal and served as a catalyst for me to be able to ignite that embodied wisdom inside me and tune into ancestral wisdom. That also pointed me to love whether it was a love that my ancestors had for each other that allowed me to come about. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And also the love that I have, I have to start being really aware of not only not judging others and loving others, but also caring for myself, loving myself and being really conscious of how I was speaking to myself. Take myself on as a lover, take myself on as mothering myself, or caring for myself. Just really being aware around how I was spending my energy and the type of intentions that I was setting for myself, and centering my pleasure, and aligning myself with my purpose and my passions, and to make my ancestors proud and to find joy. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I don't even think it's about the pursuit of happiness, but these moments of joy, Black joy is so beautiful and liberation is so beautiful. And so many of my ancestors fought so hard and I had the privilege to gain, to have the opportunity to better myself. And so I take that as a very serious mission to continually grow and expand my mind and be the best version of myself that I could be. And I know that love is the key that guides me and propels me into becoming and transforming into the best version of myself, for myself also for my family and for my community. And how I can contribute to improving the world, I had to start with myself and love was a piece of how I progressed towards liberation. Erica: That was beautiful. So as you know, on the show we read erotica and then sent to our discussions around that particular piece of erotica. What role do you think erotica can play in decolonizing pleasure? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: That's up to the individual to decide. I think that you can use whatever tools that you have, and I think activating the mind and engaging in a collective imagination towards erotic temporality, creating moments of that center eroticism, and pleasure, and fantasy. And creating whether it's in your mind or sharing through words and engaging in other people's fantasies is a really important work. It's important work to be able to imagine something that is like a utopia, or idealistic, or just pleasure giving center, like just a great ... What is the most amazing situation? What is your fantasy? And then what's your fantasy? Maybe your fantasy can teach me a little bit about what my fantasy should include or shouldn't include. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: So I think that it's activating our imagination and making more moments to center our desires and what we want for ourselves, not what other people told us we should want, or we got a lot to unlearn too there because there can be a lot of shame and what we really just be imagining. But to activate our imagination is very powerful. I like it when our imagination can activate in positive ways that can facilitate or decrease stress or allow us to escape from the atrocities of the world and all the violence that's going on. We need rest, we need pleasure. We need fulfillment and freedom. And so to let allow our mind to be free, we need more moments of that. Thank you, erotica. Erica: So you touched on the fact that we've got some learning to do. What's been the most difficult part of decolonizing your own perspective on human sexuality? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I think the pain in the morning and my resistance to truth because the lies piss me off. I don't like being deceived, it's kind of a pet peeve. So when I start seeing how I've been deceived in the information or what I've been told about myself, that hits me pretty hard. I'm more powerful than what you led me to believe. And my rage is beyond validated. Now I'm thinking about rage as an elixir, an ancestral medicine that ignites a passion and gives me clarity around what I love. What's difficult is the mourning process and feeling all of it, what's difficult is the unknown. It's moving into unknown territory. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And I had a hard time even learning about the devouring vagina that speaks to it’s non-phallocentric, it engulfs, it's around. It makes a penis disappear. It pulls in and pulling out a scene as an act of resistance. I have to read that over and over again. It was such a different narrative, I couldn't even barely comprehend it. Because when I receive information, I usually contextualize it around what I already know, or all my experience, or everything that I've ever learned. And when it's new information that doesn't make sense, it can be very disorientating and that can be uncomfortable. Well, I learned to be okay, not being okay. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Learning more about my healing, which different wounds require different healings, and really having to get creative because there's new collective ... not new collective trauma, but there's all different types of trauma, even ancestral trauma that I didn't necessarily feel like it was my fault, but it was still my responsibility to take care of the healing. And so it's challenging to be challenged. It's difficult, the pain, as I had to re understand even how I was with my emotions, especially negative emotions, like have my emotions as my teachers and pain as a type of knowledge that is here to teach me. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And the whole process can be violent. Decolonization can be violent and extremely uncomfortable. It's so much easier to be ignorant sometimes. There's a responsibility that comes with knowing. And there's a physiological response that can happen when you're so aware of how messed up things are. I think even depression is a form of disappointment and your body tells you, "You need to rest." And in a capitalistic society, that's inconvenient because I've got a produce. But shout out the Napping Ministries for really helping me in unlearning my relationship to sleep and taking sleep as ancestral medicine and wisdom. And I sleep for the revolution. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: We need to be well rested, and it's not easy. Change isn't necessarily easy. So I'm just learning to be with myself and recommit myself and align myself with my purpose and continue to seek Black liberation. And it's all interconnected. It's connected to ecological justice. It's connected to erotic justice, and reproductive justice, and disability justice, and the list goes on and on. We are interconnected and there's not a lot of support for a different consciousness that it's really different. You got people looking at you like crazy to really tune into our interconnectedness. I started getting nature, so like the sun, the air, the water, warmth. I mean, this is a part of my ecosystem. So it's challenging, but we're stronger than our pain. Erica: I feel like the answer to that just speaks to what's going on in the world right now. It's painful, it's difficult. This upheaval and change takes a lot out of us. So thank you. Kenrya: What's your very favorite thing about the work that you do? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I do love expanding minds, and causing epiphanies, and decreasing the distance towards liberation. I love inspiring people to center their healing, and reminding people of their power for the collective wellbeing. And I think part of the collective wellbeing is sexual wellness and erotic wellness. And I'm even including asexuals here, it's about cultivating joyous fulfilling relationships that can be with your lovers, your friends. It doesn't have to be a hierarchy, but just the people that you love getting clarity around love. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I love being a loveologist. I love studying love. I love celebrating love. And a part of sexuality education is love education, and to continue to grow and be guided by love. So I love love. So I love that my work incorporates love, and I love you guys. I love you all. Oh, let me decolonize my language. I use it gender-neutral, but it's not. That's a New Yorker in me, it can be a problematic. And I continue to just try to do differently, try to integrate my philosophy into my practice. I want to lead by example. And I can give pretty good advice, but I need to learn how to take my own advice. And when the plane is going down, I better make sure I put on my own oxygen mask before I put on some others. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And so I really, and especially now, it's like, I definitely have to make sure that I come and can be really present for the people that are ready to seek my services, who are ready to decolonize, who are ready to heal, who are ready to tune into the abundance of pleasure and love. There's work that I have to do because too I'm affected by the genocide and the pandemic. And I have to engage in my own rituals and tuning into my own powers to be able to show up in and get aligned, where my place is in the revolution, in the uprising, which is to help apart sustain and use my skills to serve. Erica: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So I was introduced to you through a class that you taught about new ideas in gender and orientation. Taking that course, I realized, "Wow, there is a whole lot that I don't know." You said, "The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know." That's what I took from the class. So what's one thing that you wish more Black people understood about gender? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Ooh, ooh. Erica: I know. It was like, we can take three days. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I mean, I think that basically I would hope that we are open to knowing that there are things that we don't know. And even I can say I'm one of the leading experts in X, Y, and Z. I've been studying gender academically seriously for over 15 years. And I learned a new gender every day. I learned a bunch of genders just to prepare that class. I learned so much from the youth and their language and I just learned a whole umbrella term, like last week after the class. And I'm like, I would say that it's more than the binary. Even sex and genders, there are different things. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And what we've been conditioned and made to believe about our gender is very limited. And I hope that we're open to believing people who know themselves and it stopped projecting your own experience of gender onto others because people have different experiences and you are not the expert of other people. You're just not. And even I literally study this. And what you see isn't necessarily what is their essence. You may not be able to see someone's essence, can you see their auras? Some people can't. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And there's so many different components of gender that may not make sense to you. It's beauty is beyond that, which can be seen by the eye. And it may not even just be aesthetic. I was listening to Nikki Giovanni and Angela Davis talk the other day, and Angela said something to the effect of like beauty is liberation. And anyway, bringing it back to gender it's limitless, there's so much. And gender is actually colonial imposition. And by talking English, English is sexist, is a patriarchalization that occurs when you translate non genderless languages. And how we've gendered God to be male, it's affected the way we understand gender, I believe. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And I just tell people, you just make sure you'll be okay if you find out at the end of the day that God was a Black woman. And actually you just make sure you'll be okay at the end of the day if you find out that God is actually a trans man or nonbinary gender expansive. Oh yeah, maybe it's beyond gender. Oops, maybe we've been projecting gender onto it. I just would hope that you are caring enough to your fellow humans, that you didn't sabotage your karma because you weren't open enough to see their authenticity and who they are. And maybe you can understand why they express themselves the way they do, or if it was you, you wouldn't be doing, you got to let all that go and to stand in love. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And also acknowledge your bias and limitations. Try really to do no harm. And a lot of people doing a lot of harm out there, but if you really for Black liberation or any type of liberation, you're going to have to also accept that there are different people out there. There all a lot of different ways of being a human. And that should be celebrated. It's rich when we can be different and there's a lot to learn. I continue to learn. And I guess my key takeaway would definitely be the more I know the more I realize, I don't know, and to be open. And even this thing about being inclusive, that's almost a joke. How can I be inclusive to a population I didn't even know existed? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: But now you have literally people that are telling you they exist, they have flags, they have communities, and you're trying to deny their existence, that sounds like a femicide, that sounds like a type of genocide. I hope you don't add to people's oppression and we will naturally do it. If we do not unlearn, we are conditioned to be sexist or to assume that the genitalia that you have at birth is supposed to align with all these things and it's just not necessarily the case. Kudos to you if that's how you align, and you happen everything's lined up for you, and you don't have to question anything, and you just go with this status quo. There's no need to pathologize others. And I think it is really important to be self-aware and respect other people. Kenrya: For our listeners who wants to learn more, who want to expand their minds around the concepts of sexuality and gender, what books would you recommend that they read? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Sources. Wow. So there's unlimited amount of resources right now. I start googling Tumblr. I didn't even realize how much is on Tumblr, there's Wiki pages for different communities that I continue to learn. I mean, there are hundreds and thousands of terms that are sometimes beyond my ability to understand. But I think it depends on where people are interested. There's decolonizing gender, there's African gender epistemologies, there's my favorite that really helped me get into this is the Western invention of women by Oy?wùmí. Oh boy, I'm going to butcher Yoruba feminist scholar. I love “African Sexualities: A Reader,” by Tamale. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I guess it just depends on where you're most curious about and don't be scared to dig and search on. These were not sources that were given to me, I had to find them. And I have my dissertation, I have this course you can check out. And yeah, I mean, I think just engaging in communities, nonbinary folks have been like really help expand my awareness, trans folks, but there's so many perspectives within the trans experiences, very diverse community, but of course, they have to ignite considering the amount of oppression and homicide that is happening. Erica: So what are you reading right now? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I'm writing right now. I'm creating right now. Let me try to look at my nearest book. I think I've been really loving de-colonial community psychology. I mean, I'm geeking out. I'm reading things that inform my writing because I'm working on three books right now. And I'm writing the books that I want to read and that is about erotic emancipation. And yeah, there's some good ones. I have a few on the way. Actually, the one that I'm most excited to read right now is a book that Lizzie Jeff wrote and it's about purpose and passion. There's a lot of peace in the title. And it's an ebook and I just been really feeling their vibe, and energy, and positivity during this time. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: So I haven't read it yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. It all talks about flowing and I got books on book. You don't even see like... I'm a little bibliophiliac, I love reading some books. I love the smell of books. I love books. So yeah, there's so many. I mean, I liked returning to classics. Right now, I'm on some revolutionary stuff. I love Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X. I'm just reviewing classics. I have no shame in reviewing classics. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: It's taken a lot to write these days to focus. And so really am trying to align, I'm getting really into Yoruba literature, and different ways of understanding the body, and how I can make develop my theories and models and articulate for sexual healers who people go to for sexual healing. So yeah, I'm writing a piece on Osunality for sex therapists right now. Erica: All right. Well, I cannot wait to ... I'm excited about reading some of your new works, so I keep at it. Okay. So we'd like to get a little silly around here and ask a silly question. So I thought about it this morning as Kenrya and I had a conversation about how we've been dressing like toddlers all since the pandemic. We just wear anything, smocks, onesies, whatever. So would you rather have to wear a bra every day or high heels every day? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: I'm going to go with stilettos. Actually, I haven't worn any bras in a very long time, but I have thrown on my stilettos for some photo shoots. And I do gain a lot of power. I mean, I have my own self determined interpretation of stilettos and why I use it. It has nothing to do with a male gaze, it has to do with igniting my power. And I often actually teach in high heels. Sometimes it's a part of my teaching persona where I feel power and there's also a little privilege that comes. More people likely to open the door for me, I get to take my time and walk mindfully, and then I feel the pain. I'm really present to my feet and elevating myself, but also connected to the earth. So- Erica: I like that. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: ... I'm going to have to go with the stilettos. Erica: Yeah, me too. My heels ... they're like my superhero costume. I joke with a coworker. I'm like, "I don't feel like I'm dressed if I don't have on my heels. So, yeah. And bras, fuck bras. So one of the things that we've been at UCM currently, but I got diagnosed with breast cancer going through treatment. But one of the perks of all of this is that I have some really great titties right now, and I don't have to wear bras anymore. It has been absolutely great. So yeah, fuck a bra, stilettos all day. Kenrya: And where can people find you online? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Oh well, I have a website www.zelaika.com. That's Z as in zoosexual, E as in erotic, L as in love, A as in awesome, I- Erica: An introvert, which is what you are not? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Mm-hmm (affirmative). K as in kink, and A as in asexual.com. So on my website, which is also subject to change, I have my LinkedIn, my Instagram, my Facebook and other social media stuff. Kenrya: And on Twitter, you're @ZelaikaC and on IG, you're @dr.zelaika? Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Yes. Thank you. Yeah. And even my Cash App and PayPal's @Zelaika. Erica: Yes. Show your appreciation. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: And Venmo. I mean, this collective economics and honoring fem labor is real. I've been supporting Black-owned businesses for two weeks, I'm kind of got to go to the gas station soon. But yeah, I mean, I just love uplifting people doing the work and acknowledging the value that we have to contribute. And yeah. Kenrya: Well, that's it for this week's episode of the The Turn On. And just thank you so much for coming on the show. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke: Thank you so much for creating the space, and the work that you do, and for being who you are and showing up, and getting out of bed, and drinking water, and experiencing pleasure. Thank you for this. Kenrya: Oh, and thank all of you for listening. We'll see you next week. Erica: This episode was produced by us, Erica and Kenrya and edited by B'Lystic. This theme song is from Brazy. We want to hear from y'all. Send your book recommendations and all the burning sex and related questions you want us to answer to the [email protected]. And please subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app. Follow us on Twitter @TheTurnOnPod, and Instagram @TheTurnOnPodcast, and find links to our books, transcripts, guest info and other fun stuff at theturnonpodcast.com. |
The Turn On
The Turn On is a podcast for Black people who want to get off. To open their minds. To learn. To be part of a community. To show that we love and fuck too, and it doesn't have to be political or scandalous or dirty. Unless we want it to be. Archives
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