CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT


[Cheerful theme music begins]

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land.

What role does dominant culture play in how we experience the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and deeper existential mysteries of our bodies? Dr. Roger Kuhn, a Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigequeer activist, artist, sex therapist, and somacultural theorist, believes that Two-Spirit people hold a unique and valuable perspective. Straddling colonial imposition and tribal significance, Two-Spirit identity offers a powerful decolonizing framework to achieve freedom and navigate the toxic systems of domination that impose upon the precious truth of who we are. 

In this episode, Dr. Kuhn is joined by queer nonbinary therapist and mediator Jay Tzvia Helfand for a conversation illuminating the ways our bodies offer portals to our own liberation and how viewing our bodies through a somacultural lens can help us better understand how dominant culture informs and, all too often, misinforms our relationship to our bodies.  

Dr. Kuhn discusses his latest book, Somacultural Liberation, based on his revolutionary mode of inquiry, Somacultural Liberation, an embodied practice that helps people connect with the intersections of their identity. Dr. Kuhn’s approach illuminates the full impact of our cultural reality in shaping both our individual and shared sense of self.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on JUne 20th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

[Theme music concludes]

Dr. Roger Kuhn: [greeting in Mvskoke] Greetings and welcome. My name is Dr. Roger Kuhn. Some folks just call me Rog, so y'all should just feel free to call me Rog tonight. So I'm very excited to get to chat with you all. But before I do, I would like to share some music with you if you're open to that. So as the world would have it, you know, when you sometimes just schedule things and you just schedule them because they work well in your life and your calendar, etc. I just happened to schedule tonight coincidentally, because tomorrow I have a brand new album coming out. [clapping] So just the great timing of all this worked out tonight. That I could be here and share some of this music with you. There's a part in my book, I'm sure we'll get to this in a moment where I really talk about how music was one of the ways in which I feel the most embodied in my life, in particular, when I'm sharing music with others as a way that I feel liberated. 

I'm going to start tonight with a song called “Kaleidoscope”. That really is about when we make it through the dark times in our life, how beautiful and triumphant life can be. And if you've ever looked through a kaleidoscope, you'll notice that it has so many different beautiful colors that you can look at, your eye can maybe see in multiple directions. And I've always found that life was like a kaleidoscope, that we just pick a direction and we go with it. And as long as we're moving toward the light of some kind, life has a way to working out. This song is also available as a video. I made a video on YouTube shot in Toronto, Canada. And when I got some press for this, they called it a two spirit anthem. And I thought, well, that's what y'all called it. I've never called it an anthem of any kind. But thank you for whoever may have said that. This song is actually currently number two on the Alt Q radio charts. So I'm very thrilled about that. And this is an acoustic version. The recorded version is a dance version. This is called “Kaleidoscope”. 

I believe there’s beauty all around.

I believe there's magic in the air.

I believe in a bigger and brighter future. 

I believe that love can guide us there. 

Oh, I fly through the sky,

Never been so high,

Can't believe I'm not falling. 

A miracle is only a mile away. 

Rainbows are possible if we make it through the rain.

A kaleidoscope to navigate our way.

I believe nothing changes if nothing changes.

I believe there's more than we can see.

I believe there's still so much we don’t understand.

I believe, I believe in you and me.

Oh, I fly through the sky,

Never been so high,

Can't believe I'm not falling. 

A miracle is only a mile away. 

Rainbows are possible if we make it through the rain.

A kaleidoscope to navigate our way.

What do you believe? What does it mean to find peace?

If even one of us feels shame, neglected, [inaudible].

What do you believe? What does it mean to be free?

If even one of us feels rejected, removed, or released.

Oh, I fly through the sky,

Never been so high,

Can't believe I'm not falling. 

A miracle is only a mile away. 

Rainbows are possible if we make it through the rain.

A kaleidoscope to navigate our way.

Rainbows are possible if we make it through the rain.

A kaleidoscope to navigate our way.

Thank you. [clapping] Thank you all. My album is called Running with this Dream. It will be available on all streaming platforms tonight at midnight wherever you live. And eventually I will get that pressed on vinyl probably sometime in the fall. So, y’all ready for a conversation? [clapping] I’d like to invite Jay up on the stage to join me. Thank you, thank you all, thank you. 

Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah. How about another round of applause for Roger. [applause] Congratulations. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Thank you. I appreciate that. Good to see you. Good to be with you tonight.


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: It's such a gift to be here with you. I was a student of Roger’s here. And it's been so meaningful to get to learn from you. I think the legacy of pleasure heals that's really like featured a lot in the book has really stayed with me and, you know, to begin really wanting to hear a little bit more about this connection between your music and Somacultural Liberation. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Well, I think that as a child, I was relatively lucky that I grew up in a farm country in North Dakota, which meant that I had a lot of space around me as a kid. And I would spend hours of my time frolicking through the fields and the forest really singing as loud as I wanted to because no one ever said, don't do that. So I learned that making sound with my body felt really good. It gave me pleasure to do that. And eventually, other people started to say it gives me pleasure when you do that as well. So it became this thing almost for a while in my life where it fed me. Almost like that performance would feed me this kind of feeling that I thought was love. I was confusing it for love, because you can get very used to people applauding for you and saying, You were so great. That was awesome. You moved me, and I started to kind of chase that feeling. When the reality was, you know, you would go off and you'd– I lived in New York City for quite some time and you’d go and you do a great set and have a wonderful audience and then I would go home alone. And I thought, Well, that can't be the same feeling. How could that be love? But I'm going home alone. And I wasn't all that interested in like hooking up or one night stands. I was never that kind of rock and roller personally. And then I realized, Oh, what my body was chasing was a high. It wasn't necessarily this idea of love that I realized until many, many years later, I would eventually meet my husband who's here tonight. And I was like, Oh, that's love. That's what that is. 


And I think for too long of a time I believed I had to compartmentalize those parts of myself. That Roger the rocker and Roger the therapist and Roger the writer or the husband or the– they were separate. And I began to feel how my body would respond to that separateness. And only when I really fully embraced that I am all of these things, at the root of that is music. That I began to notice my nervous system settling in a new way. So now I, I very much prioritize letting people know that, that I am also a musician because for years in my therapeutic world and in my academic world, it was something I never mentioned because I kind of thought maybe people don't take you very seriously if you're a rock and roller and you're also, you know, a PhD student. Like that somehow those two things can't go together, and so I'm trying to figure out how to make that happen for myself and really for others too, right? If you're a musician, an artist, a dancer whatever your other may be, whatever makes us feel alive in our bodies. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yes, yeah, I mean to me I'm like, what an embodiment practice. And if it's not too bold to quote you in your book here, you have a quote that says “Nothing gives me the feeling of liberation in my body that singing does.” 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yeah. Yeah, there's something about– it almost makes me forget anyone's there because I'm so connected to the source of my own self that it feels transcendent to be able to do that and it's not just the high notes that do that for me but also when I allow my voice to get really low when I'm singing and that really deep register to me there's something about that that makes my spine tingle because it's a way that I'm playing around with my singing voice, which is different than my speaking voice which is different from the voice I talk to my dog with, you know, or my therapist voice, you know, there's all of these different voices that I have that are the same. And the more that I allow myself to feel into all those parts, this is such an instrument when you're a vocalist it's such an instrument to be able to say, I have all of these multiple ways of feeling liberation, just by using an instrument that is a part of my body. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, thank you. There's something so powerful about that resonance, that more immediate kind of vibration in the body, and I mean I don't know about you all but for me just like witnessing and hearing in this very room in particular, I don't know if people who are physically here have a particular relationship to this space, but it really– We can talk about it later yeah there's something powerful for me personally about you bringing this part of yourself here. What it invites, and I wonder if there's more you want to say about like what this room holds for you. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Well, my friend Christine is here. Hi, Christine. And Christine and I actually graduated together, and we went to this school, actually, and when you graduate from our program - we were in the Somatic Psychology program - you do something called an integrative paper, and then it's also a presentation that you do to your fellow cohort members and Christine and I were the only two in our cohort to graduate early. And so we did our integratives in this room. Whenever that was, a decade ago. 10 years ago, and so this space holds a lot for me as a student. And then I was also a former professor at this university at one point in time. And I did my job talk in this room. So, the idea behind my book which is called Somacultural Liberation was based on a job talk that I gave in this room, about seven years ago. So to be able to come back, seven years later, in this very room, and now the book is out in the world, it's available, people can read it and quote it as I learned tonight, people are quoting it. 


So it feels, it feels right, is what I will say, it feels right because I've been working very hard at, not just, you know, my academic world you know getting getting that PhD, I've been working hard on myself, and I think music comes very easy for me to be able to bust out a guitar and sing for you all. What is challenging for me is to admit how badly I want to do that. So, it's really easy to hide behind like a PhD because it's somewhat measurable. Folks can look at you go like oh yeah the PhD you, you have accomplished something. When you say I'm releasing an album tomorrow people are like, sure you are, you know, it's sort of like this idea of like what does it mean to be a successful musician. And so to say like I'm just wanting to share music at this point in my life because it gives me joy and liberation. Not always an easy thing to say. 


So, being able to come here tonight, when I was offered this opportunity to share about my book and all the things going on in my life I said I also want to sing. And I've said that now to other bookstores that wanted to book me, it's like well you're getting a two for one I will also be sharing music. And it's like, and if you read my book that shouldn't surprise you because I talked about the importance of sharing music for me in that book so this this moment this night, seven years later, 10 years later, it feels quite special, and it looks very different than when– 


Oh, and I also sprained my ankle in this room once because I used to teach this dance class here. And I got really into it. And I accidentally– I'm– rolled it sprained it– I'm not quite sure it was I was out of commission for several months. I'm fine now but this room also, I also learned how to hula hoop. I just donated my hula hoop, Christine, because we used to do things you know what like the, the Somies we used to do things like hula hoop and all the things so I learned how to hula hoop, also in this room. And I'm sure I did other things too. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, I'm like if this carpet could talk [both laughing]


Dr. Roger Kuhn: If this carpet– hopefully they've changed this carpet, but maybe not. I'm sure this carpet could– yes, yeah, yes. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Stories, yes. Well, thank you for sharing more and, you know, I wonder if there is anything more you want to name about the album coming out tomorrow and what that means to you. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Sure. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: I’m aware it's the solstice too, it’s like the longest day in the northern hemisphere and to me there’s something powerful there.


Dr. Roger Kuhn: That's also, you know, kind of not my choice. Yes, my choice, I'm the artist I can say yes or no, and it's also the first time in my life I've signed with a label. I was, you know, I'm in my 40s and I got my first, you know, deal in my 40s. So that's just to say like, never give up folks like keep doing the things you're doing and sometimes they have a weird way of working out. I called the album Running With This Dream because there is a lyric in one of the songs called “Come Alive” where I say I come alive when I'm with you, and I'm running with this dream. And it also feels a great title for an album Running With This Dream because I feel like that's what I've been doing most of my entire life. 


You know, I'm a farm kid from North Dakota, I've been dreaming of getting out of there since I could remember. I dreamed of going to New York, I dreamed of finding love, I dreamed of being a therapist, I dreamed of being a musician, and all of those things are happening, they're actively happening, because I run with my dreams. I find that whenever I've held my held back from something I've wanted in my life, it literally requires me to hold my body in a particular way it requires to hold my body with an ongoing tension. And the more I realized, oh when I actually go after what I'm what I want in my life that tension begins to let go. And that's a cultural thing. 


Primarily because in certain cultural circles. People say, you know, from an individualistic perspective like most of us are raised in the United States, you know when you when you have success you should go for it go for it go for it. I also come from culture and a community that's very humble. And so, I don't like to brag very much about myself, even though I have a very public facing kind of life. It's always bizarre to me to even do something like this, even though I'm also enjoying it. It's also like not something that I when I was a student in this room ten years ago, I’d never envisioned that I'll be back one day with my own book, like I said it does feel right. And then sometimes it feels really right. So there's that too. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, I mean, there's a way to me it feels like a book like this, just in the way it's written, and also the intentionality with which you're sharing it. It feels so collective, it feels like such an offer to community and it's so explicit. And I just hope you get to feel all of that kind of beaming back your way too as you make yourself more visible in these ways and kind of like stretch that edge around humbleness and being in the spotlight, especially with this being your first book. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yes, thank you. You know reading reviews are, it's a trip when when you see people that have have left a review and to know that your words moved them in some particular way, or your story moved them in some particular way or that they may feel now that they have access to a part of themselves. Sometimes, during the editing phase of the book, when I was going through a passage, I would say to myself, Oh, I forgot about that part, like I forgot that I wrote that. And I go through it and go like that was pretty well written Rog good job. Because I genuinely oftentimes don't think of myself as an author like that. I think of myself as a songwriter first, and you write songs usually in five or 10 minutes. This book took me about a year and a half to sit and write it and, as I said, seven years in concepts and when I started thinking about it. And I think that that's a part of me that I'm still somewhat getting used to because there's also a very interesting cultural thing that happens when you've written a book, and you also have a PhD in your name, which is that we've been socialized to believe somehow that what I have to say is of worth to you, because a publisher made the decision to print my words, and a school gave me a title after my name that we have somehow collectively agreed means something. As the holder of the book and the holder of the PhD title, I just go like well that's not really true. I'm pretty much the same person I always was. And I always say to folks you know having a PhD does not necessarily mean that I'm smarter than anyone. It just means that I've sat through the process, I sat in the chair, as long as they told me to sit in the chair. I turned in the papers, pretty much on time when they told me to turn them in. 


And that means that I was passionate specifically in my case about two-spirit people and wanting to write and research from that perspective with an Indigenous perspective was very very important to me. And then when you can see that work then go out and inspire a night like tonight, and maybe I'm the first person to introduce someone to the concept of two-spirit. That to me is knowing that I've done the work. That my work is, yes to share the story, though to also see how my work then transforms someone else. And I was talking to my friend, Sherry. You know Dr. Sherry as well, I was talking to my friend Dr. Sherry the other day and Sherry was talking about taking this concept that I that I read about in my book, and adding to it and I said that's, that's exactly it. My theory was built on other theories and Sherry then now takes my theory and builds upon it and that makes me know that Somacultural Liberation worked. 


If just even one person builds theory off of that, Hey, it worked, it worked for someone. I've done I've done my role as an academic, and as an author by inspiring someone else to build on to that as well. And I think that's what all of us have done from everything that we've ever done was made up. Someone else made that up before and we've all just built on it. Some of us take the time to acknowledge where the information comes from which I think is really important, and some just just take, right. 


So, I've tried to learn how to balance both, because I come from a take culture, as someone that sort of has that US privilege in the world to sort of understand what it means to take, but then also come from a culture, an Indigenous culture, that has been taken from. So to live in that duality of the body, my own body as a biracial bicultural person, the duality of of taking and giving that resides within me and I feel like I try to do that in my writing. I try to give as much as I can, though I'm also taking because I'm receiving something by you all showing up tonight or people purchasing my book or listening to the audio book. So it's a very egalitarian perspective. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, I mean for me in there I hear a piece that's about reciprocity and relationship, rather than, you know, moving from a more transactional place or giving from a more transactional place. Like really connecting with people with each other with the land. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yeah. So, I think there's a way like when you read a novel, you sort of consume that novel and that novel now that story, even if it's not about you, it somewhat becomes about you, you can create and envision all these things that you would like. With this kind of story, even though some of those narratives are my personal stories, what– when you create a like sort of like a self help book or a psychology book in some particular ways, it becomes others’ in a different way. My hope with this book is that yes it will help individuals, though my hope is that psychology students read this book, folks that are studying to become a healer of some kind, a clinician, a therapist, a doctor will read this book and understand that when I see my clients in front of me, I am seeing the totality of their experience from their culture to their body and all the things that inform who they are. So that's what I hope people are taking from this particular book, and then applying it to their lives so it's, it's a different kind of thing that I've been that I'm also given, knowing that Wow, my work is changing people's lives. That's, that's pretty badass you know to think that you think that like that happens with songs. And that's great. Though I think when, when people, when you get changed by words in a book. I think it lasts longer than a song because songs to just you know, you might remember it and you might go back to a 10 or 15 years later, but you probably already changed so much from doing the work in the book that now the song feels different than it did 10 years before. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, that really resonates with me I feel like in different chapters of my life when I return to the same thing there's like new medicine there and I feel like that's true, also for books that different people are going to resonate with different parts, different parts are going to speak to them and you really have offered so much here, like there's so much that's so generous in your own personal story, and also in the collective stories you carry, and, you know, I think for people that haven't read the book yet who are here or who are listening in the future, like hello from the future, or online, I wonder if you could ground us a little bit in some terminology, maybe just starting with Somacultural Liberation.


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Sure. So for those that do not know Soma means body, it's the Greek word for body. And Soma is also kind of a buzzword at the moment, you can do like somatic yoga, which I always feel like. Isn’t that the same thing? You know, body yoga. Anywho, we come from, Jay and I, and my friend Christine that's here as well– Any other Somies in the room? Or online, there may be some Somies online. We call each other Somies, like somatic people. And so it felt like a natural extension of the work that I had been doing for years in the somatic, as a somatic psychotherapist, and then I was also a somatic psychology professor so a reminder that I wanted to come in and give that job talk. I wanted to sell myself to the students so I thought, Well, let me use the word Soma because they all know what that means. And I've always believed that the work that I was doing as a therapist was to help people feel free in their experiences which included the body and another word for free is liberation. And I come from an anthropology background. I have always been very interested in culture. So I thought body culture. When you understand your body culture you feel free. Soma. Cultural. Liberation. And that's where that idea came from for me, Somacultural Liberation. 


And then there, there's other terms that I use in the book as well like the, the term decolonize sexuality, which is really what I believe is a multi-tiered process of dismantling these systems around how we think, feel, understand, and process sexuality. My PhD is in human sexuality with a concentration in clinical practice and I got that degree from this school. And I even remember when I was in my doctoral studies, very, very, very little, basically no information about indigenous sexuality unless I myself brought it into the room. And I thought, Isn't this interesting at a doctoral level, there still isn't information about indigenous sexuality. And so I started to say ‘decolonize sexuality’ in my classroom and I brought it out into the larger world. And here at the San Francisco pride parade which will be happening in just a few weeks here in San Francisco, I actually made a sign that said decolonize sexuality, and I carried that sign above my head as I was walking down Market Street. And by the time I got to the end of the parade route, I knew that something had shifted in the way that I thought about myself and about my work and had a lot of people you know as I was walking down the street you know say like what would that even mean. I would just shout back and you know you yell back at them like figure it out like I can't stop in the middle of the parade right, I'm walking here. 


And then a few years later I got a phone call from the Levi's jeans company who had seen my poster. And so they asked me to be their spokesperson for the- it was the 2022 Levi's jeans pride campaign which did. I was plastered all over Target stores in the US and on social media internationally. And it was my sign ‘decolonize sexuality’ that that did that, that sort of got me that attention. 


Other other words in the book I talk about erotic survivance and survivance comes from Vizenor’s work, and Vizenor talks about the way in which we resist, and we survive, specifically talking about it from an Indigenous perspective and I liked the idea of erotic survivance because if we talk about pleasure, and if we talk about the root of what is erotic, then it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, although it can include sex. And I liked the idea again of shedding particular light on Indigenous sexuality, so I talked about erotic survivance. 


And then there's some big fancy words in the book like epistemology, which I really love that word. Positionality is in the book as well and these are just fancy words of saying like how you know what you know and who you are. But I think it's really important to talk about who I– how who I am has impacted what I have learned. And that can do, be anything from, you know, I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and for many years of my life you know really celebrated Catholicism but once I left Catholicism the first religion I turned to was Buddhism. And I was started to seek answers answers in other ways and it eventually led me to CIIS because CIIS if you follow the lineage of CIIS has a lot of Eastern religious ideology into the into their curriculum but also into the community that the school is centered around, so to land at CIIS felt this like a natural progression of my own positionality, and then what I now know my epistemology was deeply impacted by the friends that I made, here the professors that I had. And the same for all of you in particular ways. That impacts all of us in different ways around our privilege. 


And so I talk a lot in my book also around privilege and how the privilege that I have as a PhD, as someone with a published book, as your former professor. There are all of these ways that I have a little privilege in the world. And so I could just ignore, completely ignore them, or I could name them and say these are the things that I use to navigate through the world, because what I have found out in my work as a clinician and my work as a researcher is that we're all just trying to survive, and most of us do things to keep ourselves safe. And if I can get one step closer to safety maybe I can feel one step closer to my liberation. And the way that I've realized that it's important to do that is to invite those varying aspects of your cultural experiences, including, where did you go to school, when did you go to school, at what time did you go to school, I didn't go to college right after high school. I went and did rock and roll. So I was a later in life college student that meant by the time I showed up in my undergraduate degree I was very excited. I wanted to learn as opposed to being around some 18, 19 year olds who went fresh after high school and were barely turning their homework in and I was like, Come on Pablo we have a group assignment to do together. And I was so excited about it, you know, and I ended up doing it anyway because Pablo didn't show up for the work. We did get an A anyway. So I think that's also part of it, is like recognizing my own privilege my own positionality and ultimately my power, and how these these terms that show up in the book are utilized in the reality of the day to day experience that I have. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, I mean, thank you. I think your book honestly offers so many frameworks and concepts, and then grounds readers in directly what you just named around, how does this apply to you, to your people, to your own path. I really appreciated that part of the book, all of the different exercises. It feels like a real invitation into practice, into the how, and I wonder if you want to say anything more about other modalities in the books that inspire you, that you draw from. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: One of the modalities in the book is called the ADDRESSING model, it's by a woman named Pamela Hays, who is a white clinical psychologist who did her work, and she's still based in Alaska. And she was working with Alaska native populations and realized that she didn't really know enough about Indigenous communities. And so she humbled herself and created this acronym that she used called the ADDRESSING model, which were different ways you could look at someone from their age, to any disabilities they may have had, their religion, socioeconomic status, sexuality, nation of origin, gender, etc. fills out that that acronym ADDRESSING. 


And I loved it, and I thought it was great. And I used to teach a class here at CIIS called Multicultural Counseling and the Family, which is, if you're a therapist, is like your buffet cultural buffet class. You'll get the one article on how to do therapy with a Native American, one article and how to do therapy with a black family. And that's pretty much what all they give you for 15 weeks, the one article the one article the one article. Everything else you got to figure it out for yourself. And so I, when I was teaching that class I was like gosh I need to find something that feels a little bit better. And I came across Pamela Hays, and I thought what a great place to start. And so I taught that class for that semester. 


And then afterwards I was actually in a Pilates class one day, I take a lot of Pilates, and I was in a, I remember being in a forward lunge and my quadriceps was, if you do Pilates you know you get a little shake in the muscle. And I went, my body. Oh my gosh Pamela Hayes says nothing about the body. And from there, it just like how things pop up at weird timing, weird times. I wasn’t thinking about the ADDRESSING model but my quad was shaking and there it was. And I thought, Oh my gosh body body buh buhbuh buh buh. And then I started thinking about what else was missing from that acronym. And in the I N G piece of the ADDRESSING model, the I stands for indigeneity. And what Pamela meant by that was, are you Indigenous or not. And I thought, well that's a really easy question for non Indigenous people just to bypass. Are you Indigenous? No, bypass it, go on. So I wanted them to sit with occupy. And so that O stood for occupy for folks to really be in relationship to the land that they're occupying, because then they have to be in relationship to the Indigenous people on whose land they now reside upon. And so for me as an Indigenous person, it was important that I brought that forward in that particular way. The L stood for lifestyle, the D stood for desire, and I thought, BOLD ADDRESSING there we go. There we go, Pamela, BOLD ADDRESSING. 


So I started to do the BOLD ADDRESSING model. I did talk to Pamela Hays, she's actually has a quote on the cover of my book, so Pamela and I are good. And I think that's that's again like when you take theory, and you build on it, right. I think Pamela, you know, said to me in, you know that now she does the BOLD ADDRESSING model because that's, I helped build her theory into something else, and if you are like yo Rog, it's not quite enough, I agree, you might decide to do BOLDER ADDRESSING or BOLDLY ADDRESSING or, you know, REBOLD or UNBOLD make it up, you know, that's that's the thing that I really believe in is that someone else made this up so I can make something else up too, and I can make it up in a way that helps people. Because the truth is you know you’re going to, you’re going to meet clients or going to meet students or folks who want something from you. 


There aren’t a lot of two-spirit sex therapists in the world doing this work. So I have a lot of people come up to me and want things and it's like, oh well that book hasn't been written and folks will say to me, you need to write it. I also want to live. I want to make an album, I want to go on vacation, I want to have an experience. You need to write it. You know, you need to write this book, or you need to find someone else to write this book, I can't be the primary source of these types of things. Because then you start to own a theory, and then it's like, well, what good is owning a theory? Like, I want to inspire ideology. I want to inspire- that my book inspired you to feel free in your body that you can then go and build onto something else. 


So there's the BOLD ADDRESSING model. I also talk a lot in the book about Betty Martin's work with the Wheel of Consent. If you are a clinician or a coach that works with couples or individuals, the Wheel of Consent is my favorite modality to work with with couples because it's all based on consent. And how can we really feel liberated in our body if we don't start with consent? I think that's a really great, I would love to write a whole book on consent around Somacultural Liberation. Maybe that's the book I'll write, maybe someday. 


And also I talk about the 5Rhythms, just a little bit in the book because the 5Rhythms, if you do not know, Gabrielle Roth, the 5Rhythms are the foundation for kind of the reason why I'm here today, because I was a dancer for many, many years and had the pleasure, the absolute pleasure, of dancing alongside Gabrielle Roth for many years when I was living in New York. And I danced with her son and Johnny and so many of the amazing community of the 5Rhythms. And that's, 5Rhythms is kind of what got me into this school because I kept meeting people who introduced me to different things about the body and the term somatics and it all came from that 5Rhythms community. So I talk about that as, these are my modalities that I use in my life. You likely will have other ones that you use. And it doesn't mean that my way is better. It just means that that's what my body likes to do. I like to flail around and sometimes lay on the ground and convulse my body. It just feels really good if there's a really good beat above it, right? And some people like to sit still and breathe. And that is, to me, is it regulating your nervous system? Because dancing in that chaos that Gabrielle Roth calls chaos is where I find my regulation. So the book is really like, hey, here's what helped me, find what helps you. It might be the 5Rhythms. It might be walking. It might be sex. And it might be all of those if you have a really good night. [both laugh] 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: I feel like we need to put that in the book too, what you just said. That's an amazing quote. I mean, I have to say the way you incorporated sex and sexuality into the book, including your, parts of your own story, felt really powerful to me. And to me feel like, again, this sort of shaping back of more white normative culture, especially in academia. And it's so necessary, including in sexuality studies. And I'm thinking about that pressure or even entitlement of someone coming up to, being like, you need to write that book. And I notice in myself, I feel like we need to also continue to shape back cultures where you're the only one or this book is the only one or there's like a story that that's the case. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yeah, the reality is is that the more you give of yourself in the world, whether it's through a book or through music or through being a spokesperson for a particular kind of ideology, the more you realize how somewhat irrelevant you are. Meaning that you as the audience or you as the listeners are going to take from my book what you will. And if it's good, it lives on. And so my job is kind of done. If I wrote the book in a way that you all understand it enough, my work is done. If I wrote the song and I sing the song in a way that moves you, my work is done. I somewhat become irrelevant from that point on, unless you specifically want more from me. And that might be in another book or another song. But because I've shared so much with so many people, I now sort of go like, oh, yeah. And tonight at probably another university in San Francisco, there could be something very similar to what we're doing happening somewhere down the road, which is to say that constantly people are sharing ideas and people are sharing stories. And some of us, for whatever reasons, sort of break through the noise of 7 billion people and are given sometimes small platforms, sometimes large platforms to be able to share their vision and their truth. And that's all I've ever tried to do with this book is just to say this is my story. This is how I've seen the world. And you might not be Two-Spirit. You may not be Native. You may not be biracial, bicultural, but you breathe and you live in a culture of some kind. And most of us live in a culture that we didn't create. But we learned the rules in order to survive. 


And I think that once we learn to navigate that, we can fight those systems at the same time as we're navigating through them, which is one of the things that I did by getting a PhD was because I knew that it would give me access to certain spaces where I could go and make more noise because that, there's a certain privilege that comes with that PhD. It gets me into rooms in an easier way. And I always say, well, I was raised with a Western education. So I know a lot of random European history stuff or European stories like most of us. And one of my favorite ones that I learned about was the Trojan horse. And the Trojan horse is such a great story because, you know, It's this big, beautiful horse that they got from their enemy. They wheel it inside their safe little village and they shut the door and they all go to sleep and surprise, there's a trap door and all the soldiers come out and kick ass. I'm like a Trojan horse. I might look all good on the outside and make you all feel safe and warm. And now you can go to sleep, but boom, don't forget, you know, ha ha ha! And I think that's part of it too is that folks forget that, oh, just because you've written a book or that you're a PhD, you don't stop being an activist. You're more of an activist now. I'm more of an activist because you can quote me and I have to be able to stand up for what I said and/or say, yeah, I was wrong about that. That hasn't happened yet, but the book's only been out a few months. I'm sure that I will. I'm sure that I will. I'm also conscious and aware enough of my own experience in the world to say I probably got things wrong. And that may be partially because of how I was cultured. And so if I went into this thinking like this is the end, that's done, it might be my end. I might say like, I don't want to write anymore. But Christine may come up to me and say, you completely missed anything to do with parenting or mothering outside of your own experience relating to your parents. Great, Christine, that sounds like you just put together Somacultural Liberation and labor or something like that, right? It becomes, you know, now Christine's. And I think that's just the evolution, I hope, of my work and what I'm experiencing as a human being in the world. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, that like aliveness and transformation and the ways that we allow ourselves to be changed and impacted. And I mean, I just want to say you've really been a part of that for me. You're definitely one of the professors. I'm pausing to say this. [laughs] I just, yeah, it was so meaningful for me to have learned from you. And it makes it all the more like, just like full of sweetness to get to be here in this moment together. Like for all of these like less visible moments of disruption that are so needed and really make each other possible. So just- I want to say thank you. And I also, this feels like sort of a dovetail into talking about sunglasses. Now I wonder you're up for sharing more about that. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yes. sunglasses is my favorite part of the book. This is a little shout out that I gave to a teacher of mine, who, when I was in seventh grade, I was in school in Alabama, and I had this teacher, who whenever one of the students would sass at this teacher, she would just say, not me, but you. And I would go like, what? What does that even mean? Not me, but you, Mrs. Mosby, my God. And every time she did it, I thought that woman is the smartest creature to ever live. Not me, but you. And I thought about that ever since my seventh grade year. 


And as I've gotten a little bit older, what that not me, but you is sort of turned into is what I now call sunglasses. And what I mean by that is, like tonight, for example, before I came out here, I made the decision just to step into my light and to say, I'm here and I've made myself available to these people tonight in this particular way. And I could come out here and I could try to pretend I'm something that I'm not. I could dim my shine for you. Instead, I come out into a room like this, and I just imagine I'm handing each and every one of you a pair of sunglasses, because I'm going to shine regardless. And you might need to wear these because I'm going to be a little bright. Because if you have a problem with what I'm talking about, not me, but you. Sunglasses. 


So yeah, I just, I invite you to really think about that for your own life. Like when you go into a space, just think about like, I'm going to shine. I'm going to be incredibly bright right now. You might need these sunglasses and I'm looking out for you, but I'm also looking out for myself by saying, I'm not going to turn it down. I'm going to turn it up even more. Sunglasses. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yay. And again, it's like, solstice. I'm just like, wow, the brightness is here. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yes. Yeah. That is very true. Yeah. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah. And there's a piece too, where, you know, there's this event that's, you know, in linear time here today. And then there's the people who will get to experience it in the future. And I just hope for all of you all, for future listeners too, that you get to also feel your own radical permission to be in that brightness, that we get to do that for each other. And I wanted to also be sure we talked a little bit more about the one gesture moments, and can I name a quote here too? It's a short one. Yeah. You say in the book, “the night of the worst beating I received in my life was also the night I began to recognize that liberation was possible.” 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Yeah. So in the book, I do use some stories from my past that were challenging to have survived. It's also something that I think is important to talk about, to say that I lived through these experiences. And on this particular night, a couple things happened. I was very young. I may have been 11, maybe 12. And I remember I had been, my father was very challenged with alcohol and took that out on us in all kinds of ways. And I was used to kind of being hit up, hit around, slapped around and stuff like that. 


But on this particular day, something really bad happened. And I remember looking in the mirror and seeing myself and just thinking at that young age, this might be it for me. Meaning that if this doesn't change, that I'm not going to get much older. And a gesture that I made that night was I decided to not wash my face so that my mom could see what had happened to me. That what my father had done to me. And so I did. And I remember when I went into the room that my mother was in, I remember her eyes opening up really wide. And I knew that moment her life had changed as well. Because sometimes what I call these one gesture moments, we do something. Hanging up a sign that said decolonize sexuality, letting my bloodied face be seen. 


We do these things not because we're trying to create a movement or a moment. We're doing this thing to be seen to ourself. And I know when I did what I did and I went up there and I showed my mom, my parents split up. The next day my life was forever changed. And I don't know if that would have happened had I not had that one moment, that one gesture. And there have been several one gestures since. And you, and you have countless one gestures of your own. And sometimes when we think back on these one little moments, we made this little change in our lives, how powerful that can be. And we never know. I mean, that's the beauty of these one gesture moments is that we never know when just one thing that we do or say or a call that we're going to make or an email that I could send. 


I mean, there's a great story with this particular book, how it was a kind of a one gesture moment for me, was I had been published in another book by North Atlantic, an anthology. And there was an opportunity possible, an opportunity for there to be another book that could come out, a volume two. And I was put on an email and asked to maybe take over as the editor of the anthology, which as a PhD student, that's supposed to be a really big deal in academia that I would be the editor of this book. And the publisher wrote back and said, actually, we're not interested in part two of this book. Thank you very much. However, if Roger Kuhn’s interested in writing a book, we’d want to talk. And so I just did not have any gesture at that moment and sat on that email for literally two years. 


And then one morning, I decided to make that one gesture. And I got up, I sat down, I responded to the email from two years ago. And I was still at my computer and about seven minutes went by. And the publisher of my book wrote me back and said, let's get a meeting on the calendar. One gesture. And now I've got a book, and an opportunity to talk to all of you tonight. So if there’s a gesture that you’re holding to, literally like holding on to, find a way to let that go. And if you need help, find someone to talk to about that, because these one gesture moments are transformative, and they will change your life. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Yeah, I mean, again, I'm just really struck by the generosity of your sharing your story, both in this written form and here and just invite people who are listening to notice how it touches you. And also, you know, if there's, you know, any of the rumblings of your own history or the history of your people in there, just to really, you know, as you say a lot in the book, just, you know, to take a breath as feels supportive for you. I think there's a powerful naming around harm and violence, both like personal and systemic you really offer. And I really just feel, I think it's Cherríe Moraga, and I welcome someone to correct me here if it's not, who's like a third wave feminist who said the more specific the story, the more universal and there's something in there that I really sat with in your writing. I really feel that, feel the offer of it. And you know, we're starting to shift this portion of the talk towards close, and you know, I'm wondering if there's anything more you want to offer we haven't gotten to. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: [inhales and sighs] Well, I think I think the only thing that I would really say is, is to stress culture. It- your own personal culture is so fascinating. Because you came from a culture, and then you created a culture. When you make friends, you now co-create a kind of culture and that friend is going to bring a different kind of culture into your experience as well. And truly, the more that we can know those things. And especially in my relation to something else. I think that is where we find our path toward, toward liberation, right? So that if I know that I respond in this particular way to this stimuli, I can look back and reflect and go, aha, there may be a story as to why that happened. And what I'm reacting to is likely not the story, though. I'm reacting to the feeling that story produces in me. That's the work that's what you know, as a clinician, I work with the feeling. Can't change your stories, but we can work with how we react and respond to those. And that's where I think Somacultural Liberation is really beneficial, because it helps you understand the nuance of the role that culture has in shaping and informing your bodily experiences. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Thank you. And round of applause here for Roger. 


Dr. Roger Kuhn: In the Mvskoke language, we say mvto and that means thank you. So mvto, mvto, mvto. 


Jay Tfiza-Helfand: Thank you everyone.


Dr. Roger Kuhn: Y'all have a wonderful night. Love is liberation. Peace. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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