We Hated "Existential Kink"

A Conversation with Rachel Lark & Jessamyn Fitzpatrick

My dear readers!

This week’s Larkstack is a special collaboration with my dear friend, Jessamyn Fitzpatrick. I HIGHLY recommend you listen to this rather than read it if you’re able. If not, we’ve provided the insanely long transcript below. What can I say? We like to talk.

Enjoy!
<3 lark

Rachel Lark: Hello friends, and welcome to The Larkstack. I'm Rachel Lark, and each week I process my thoughts and feelings about arts, sex, and politics in a pretty non-committal, verbose, and hopefully entertaining way. I'm a writer, performer, songwriter, and essayist, and if you want to support the work that I do, you can sign up for a paid subscription on Substack, or you can support me on Patreon, where you will also get fun perks like free tickets, and free merch, and the ability to vote on what I write about.

Announcements, time. If you are in the New York area, make sure and get your tickets to my show at Joe's Pub on February 19th. I know it's like February. That's forever from now. It's not. It's not. It will be an intimate solo show full of new material, probably a few rants and raves. I can't wait. Joe's Pub is a very special venue, and it's going to sound great, and it's going to feel special, and I just really hope you can make it. And if you can't, tell your friends who are in New York so we can sell this baby out.

This week on The Larkstack, I am thrilled to be joined by my best friend, my partner in crime, the one and only, Jessamyn Fitzpatrick, who just launched her own Substack. It's called (Re)scripting Sex, and we are releasing this in partnership this week, so please go check out her Substack and subscribe. And if you're listening on (Re)scripting Sex, then welcome to The Larkstack.

This conversation that Jessamyn and I had, it's really long. Believe it or not, it was even longer, but I made some painful editorial decisions, and I cut this interview down a smidge, and basically we're discussing the book Existential Kink. This book popped up kind of everywhere. It was written in 2020. A lot of people seem to like it. We were excited to read it because we love kink, but we hated this book. And you're about to hear all about why. So, let's head right into my discussion with Jessamyn Fitzpatrick. Here we go.

Rachel: All right. What are you chuckling at?

Jessamyn: I'm just I wanna I mean like I feel like I have to air my good student guilt already, out the gate and say that I didn't fully participate in all of the assigned tasks in this book. So I'm preemptively like, ‘am I allowed to critique this?’ cuz I didn't like/–fully do the assignment.

/Rachel - Cuz we didn't fully do it.

Rachel: I don't think this author fully did the assignment of writing a fucking book. So like

Jessamyn: sick burn (laughter)

Rachel: I mean like seriously, I think this is Uh, I think we are about to give it more scholarly attention than it deserves, frankly. And I don't, I mean, I don't know.

Jessamyn: Yeah.

Rachel: Okay. Let's back up. Jessamyn Fitzpatrick of (Re)scripting sex, uh, substack.

Jessamyn: Oh. First time anyone else has said it to me. Love it.

Rachel: Welcome to the Larkstack.

Jessamyn: Ooh. Stacks on stacks, baby.

Rachel: Stacks on stacks on stacks all the way down, baby. Um, okay, so I am very excited to be having this conversation with you. We have been talking about kink and sex in a sort of like, um, literary and nerdy and political way for like, you know, 18 years now.

Jessamyn: Since before I was having it.

(laughter)

Rachel: Yeah

Jessamyn: just being honest, and it was just a twinkle in my-

Rachel: what a twinkle though-

Jessamyn: in my / desperate eye

/Rachel :blinding twinkle in your eye.

(laughter)

Rachel: Um, yes. We're still a little loud. We are getting loud. Okay. Maybe we should just lean back a little bit. Okay. Sorry listeners. We're going to get too loud and I should-

Jesamyn:You're telling me not to lean in?

Rachel: Fuck you.

Jessamyn: Sheryl Sandberg could never.

(laughter)

Rachel: Fuck you.

Rachel: Wait, let me turn this up or down. Turning it down, right?

Jessamyn: Yes. That's turning it down. Yeah.

Rachel: Okay. Okay. This should be better.

Jessamyn: Okay.

Rachel: All right. We're good. We've calibrated now.

Jessamyn: I'm trying.

Rachel: Okay. We are here to talk today about a book called Existential Kink, subtitle: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power by Carolyn Elliott, comma, PhD. And as with most people that bother to put comma PhD on the cover of the book they've written, I have doubts about Carolyn's expertise in any of the things that she's talking about. But before we get into why we have our doubts, I think we should try to summarize, well, first of all, maybe like why we've read this book, why this book like showed up on both of our radars, and then I want you to try to summarize it for us.

Jessamyn: Okay, I might need help with that, but I will do my best. So, well, mine, I remember hearing about it actually in a WhatsApp group that I was part of when I was doing work with Dr. Zhana, who is like a sex kink relational coach, PhD I think, but a professor at NYU and a researcher, a sex researcher. And it was in like one of the WhatsApp group conversational threads, and I am someone who like is kinky, loves talking about kink, loves thinking about kink i thought this book was gonna be about kink and so

Rachel: spoiler alert-

Jessamyn: yeah sorry

Rachel: –there is no kink in this book

Jessamyn: so i was like existential kink like oh i-it's a it's a compelling title i mean i think it's a very compelling title so that's how i heard of it and and and i think separately then what prompted me to read it was you reading it.

Rachel: yeah

Jessamyn: I had already wanted-like it was on my radar i was like oh maybe i should add that to a reading list and then you were like, i'm reading this book and had thoughts and reactions to it and I was like, well now i really need to fucking read it because I wann talk about it.

Rachel: Yeah, i think i first heard it as a podcast, like on a podcast someone recommended it and then I think I saw it was just sort of like it popped up in multiple places around the same time and, same. I was like, well, I love existentialism and I love kink so I am excited to read this book.

Jessamyn: yes.

Rachel: And I started reading it, and I think, you know that feeling when you want you like assume it's gonna be a good book

Jessamyn: yeah

Rachel: and so you're sort of reading it with this lens of like oh yeah yeah, you're like looking for things to agree with

Jessamyn: yes

Rachel: and like sort of validating your choice to be reading it yeah and so i think i started with this kind of like okay cool yeah yeah yeah all right wow this is juicy kind of you know and then it's like as i would say maybe like five or six pages in i started to be like, what is this bullshit and i started to have concerns and i think that's when i started to like sort of tell you like, dude don't fucking read this book, like this is like, harmful

Jessamyn: well yes, i-so i will say my bias to to put that on the table and be upfront about it, is my bias is quite the opposite because before i ever read it it was like you being like this is harmful actively don't do it don't read it don't like i think you might like, wading into dangerous psychic territory if you actually fucking do these exercises. So, I will say, as much as I may have tried as I was reading it, to like, let's give this a chance. Let's feel–

Rachel: You were poisoned against it.

Jessamyn: Well, and I also was like, you know, I, like you said, we've had these conversations for years. I feel like, I feel like as I was reading it, I was tracking like, oh, I bet Rachel really fucking hated this part, like, you know what I'm saying? I was like, also, I felt like I was reading it psychically alongside, like with you in my brain as well. Or like in my heart, you know. So yes, that's not to say- I don't know why I'm like feeling the need to couch– like it's not to say that there aren't things in the book that I, I was like, okay, I see…I see what you're doing here. I see your point. I don't, I'm not, I'm not fully in the camp of like this, like this person should not have written this book, period. I just…Well, maybe I am in that–I don't know. I don't know.

Rachel: Well, why don't we try to summarize the book now? So, can you sort of yeah, here you go. You can kind of reference, walk us through the project of this book.

Jessamyn: I think what I really should have paid attention to– because obv- I’m like, sexy sexy title: Existential Kink unmask your shadow and embrace your power like Mmm Mmm yum what I should have paid more attention to though is this little fucking bubble up here, that says ‘A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't’, that would have been-

Rachel: That’s a major…yeah, major red flag

Jessamyn: So, okay, so essentially…

Rachel: get off-get it because also like can we just sort of okay maybe I'm getting ahead of us, but “getting off on what you don't like” is not what kink is.

Jessamyn: I well, okay Actually what I-what I want us to answer.

Rachel:Yes

Jessamyn: or like try to answer.

Rachel: Yeah

Jessamyn: Pose to each other is like What is the definition of kink? Or like what is a definition-a working definition of kink?

Rachel: Yeah

Jessamyn: cuz this is a thing. I agree in some sense, I agree with you that like I think that's a wildly reductive and potentially really harmful, simplistic way of framing kink. I do think there's stuff in kink around like things that can be potential sources of like shame or pain or discomfort in some contexts being like

Rachel: sure

Jessamyn: erotically retrofit almost to like to like-to serve an-or made to serve an erotic purpose that does something to them.

Rachel: “Rehearsing the wound”

Jessamyn: Ooooo. I love that

Rachel: That's from the erotic mind.

Jessamyn: Yes, beautiful. Okay. Well, okay, but wait, let me do the assignment that you just gave me

Rachel: Yes, okay

Jessamyn: Existential Kink

Rachel: and also on the way in doing that assignment if we actually find a definition from her about what how she defines kink. I think we should–

Jessamyn: I don't think / she has one.

Rachel: / I don't think she has one

Jessamyn: Or well Okay,

Rachel: So how does the book start? What is the project of this book? Summarize it. Jessamyn, go.

Jessamyn: Okay, the project of the book, as I understand it, is to offer a practical methodology that is essentially a form of thought work, that is essentially a spin, I think, on like sort of law of attraction, positive thinking, that she does some different shit with, that might better someone's life. That might like - I mean, she uses the language of shadow side, right? Like accepting our shadow sides, quote unquote, ‘guilty pleasures’ and integrating them into life in a way that will then potentially transform the actual life that we're living. So essentially, like, as I understand it, Carolyn Elliott makes this argument that…we may have - like the shit that's going wrong in our life: if we're if we're not making enough money if we're failing in to find the kind of partnerships that we want if we're…insert shitty negative circumstance here…that we may find ourselves in a pattern of like I think she's pretty clear about like this wants to be something that is like I'm always like choosing the wrong people or like I just can't find a way to fucking find success at work. Essentially, she's offering that like the reason that sort of traditional law of attraction positive thinking models fail is because they seem bogus corny and unrealistic to like oh just stare at them in yourself in the mirror and be like I am rich like I will have wealth or whatever and so her sort of addition to the field of positive thinking, if that’s a field..

Rachel: yeah, it’s that’s what she’s doing

Jessamyn: is like okay um what you first need to do is- and she gives you like a bunch of sort of starter starter sentences to do this–like kind of lean into…if what you're working on is you know being broke to tap into the part of you that's like “I actually really love there's something I really love about the struggle of being broke” or like “I'm willing to accept that there is a part of me that secretly like doesn't want to actually make money” and that in doing that you're like, the way she she frames this - and this is where I get fucking pissed off–

Rachel: I'm just telling you not to poke the…tap the table / that the microphone is on

/Jessamyn: That the microphone is on? Be less Italian? Gesticulate less

Rachel: That’s not how I said it

(laughing)

Jessamyn: That would be xenophobic (laughing) I can say it cuz I am one. (more laughter) Sorry. Yeah like so where I get pissed off is, she essentially is framing that as like a kink practice Like she is essentially framing it as quote-unquote “kinky” to look at something that is causing you pain and say like “But maybe I do really like that” Which she then argues, you know, if you do it enough transfor-actually does lead to different results.

Rachel: And to be clear you're using that voice of like “I really do like that” because she's being very explicit about this being a sexual desire. So like, I think that there's several leaps several big big ole leaps that are made here in her explanation for people's lives that she does not know and why they are the way they are. Right? So the first leap I mean, I think there's a true premise at the bottom of it, right, as many tenacious interesting ideas often have, right? Some amount of it is like yeah that might you know kind of make sense. And I think the true premise that she's starting with is that sometimes we self-sabotage

Jessamyn: totally

Rachel: sometimes we play out, you know, childhood trauma…dynamics that were present at a formative time in our life that we might know are harmful and we keep playing them out claiming outwardly and thinking rationally that we want our lives to be different yet we keep on doing the same thing. Of course, we have seen this happen with other people this can happen with ourselves

Jessamyn: yeah

Rachel: I do I think the leap then that she makes is for all of your negative circumstances that is what is happening

Jessamyn: right

Rachel: I do not think that is true. I do not think that everything that is going wrong in someone's life is the result of them bringing that into their life.

Jessamyn: totally

Rachel: um I just don't I think there's a lot of reasons why people might struggle with a lot of things that are not of their own creation um you know there's just bad luck there's um there's external things in the world, I mean like you and I work in the arts and I think like the question of like ‘why can't I get a good job in the arts?’ it's not because we're playing out some weird, like desire to not like– it's because they're–those careers have gone away.

Jessamyn: Among other things, yeah

Rachel: because like the economy has changed and like outward situations change your inward experience and ummm, so I think that's crazy leap number one, is that like everything in your life that's negative can be explained through this sort of self-sabotaging model. Crazy-ass leap number two is that this is an erotic desire.

Jessamyn: Does she really think -cuz you said that a moment ago and I actually don't– I did not read it as–and in fact an I had an issue that I had with it, is it like, does she think it's an explicitly sexual thing?

Rachel: Yes.

Jessamyn: Because I don't understand what her conception of sexuality or eroticism or kink is. And this was the issue that I was having is like, my main frustration with the book is that I felt like the use of the word kink and the framing it in the language of kink, sexuality and eroticism is essentially a trumped up marketing ploy to sell this book that actually is not about, sexuality or kink or eroticism because, I mean I think she makes reference to sex at certain moments, but like, I guess I'm trying to—you've you've like reviewed it more recently. Like I guess I'm remembering, you're right, there are certain moments where it's like ‘that is kind of like juicy and naughty’ and but it…I don't know like I…I don't feel like I ever heard her directly linking what she was talking about to like an embodied…like an overtly sexual practice? Or desire. Like which, again, this is why I'm like why I feel like you're just taking the word kink –

Rachel: Yeah,

Jessamyn: And putting it on a title or putting it in a form like because because it's a sexy word because it like it's a sexy kind of naughty word, right and so people are like ooh We're gonna get something about…right? and like horny little sluts like me are like, ‘oh great! another book about kink!’ and then I'm like, ‘Wait, why am I reading about positive thinking?’ Or not positive thinking but like, why am I reading self-help about like shadow self-laws of attraction? And I don't feel like I'm really learning anything about my relationship to kink or desire or eroticism?

Rachel: Yeah, so okay. So um, I guess…to be completely fair to her I think–

Jessamyn: which we're definitely being for sure (laughing)

Rachel: Yeah, you’re right, that’s not the goal, I shouldn’t pretend that that’s the goal. But okay, so in this chapter Lesson Two the seven axioms of essential kink existential. So It starts with first this thing we just talked about which is like explaining everything negative in your life by sort of being like ‘this is you know your own making’ this is the axiom called ‘having is evidence of wanting’ Uhh Here's you know here's how she puts it “This axiom can be a bit of a shocking and uncomfortable idea, especially if you've had hardships in your life in the past or present, it can be very jarring to consider there those as something that you wanted. But again, it's not the conscious part of us that wants difficulties or negative patterns It's the unconscious part of us, the demonic part the part of us we don't usually identify with but that nevertheless strongly impacts our experience” and then I mean she goes on -there's just so much there's so much but then the second axiom is “We have a choice as to whether we experience sensation as pleasure or as pain”

Jessamyn: Right, right

Rachel: So I think this is where you're right. She doesn't exactly say it's erotic desire. That's like motivating it, but she's saying you have kind of this option to eroticize it and make it kinky. This is where she's…I think she's using the concept of kink to sort of say we have these self-sabotaging parts that actually want to hurt us. And if we view that in a kinky way, then we can take masochistic pleasure in it and it can essentially help us be less scared of it and actually like, and then she goes further to be like you should actually like get off on this, like the exercises that she proposes are essentially like you should like literally try to get turned on thinking about how broke you are/

/Jessamyn: You love it, you love how broke you are

Rachel: admitting that you want to be this broke and that you love it as a way of sort of like diminishing its power. I think….this…(laughter)....it's bonkers. I think this concept is so harmful and the reason I think that is because, as someone who has struggled to trust myself in the past and to believe that I am sort of like on my team and that my decisions don't come from a place of destruction or like morbid fascination with impossibility and constant conflict, you know, but actually that my decisions, particularly like the big ones I've made in my life to make big changes, those decisions were brave, protective, reasonable, wise even. And in general, I think that when you introduce the idea to someone that they can't trust themselves, that they are out to get themselves, I think you are really undoing their internal security system. Because if you don't believe, if you don't feel safe with yourself,

Jessamyn: right, right, right.

Rachel: Like, where's your internal compass?

Jessamyn: Well, what do you think of the idea of shadow side?

Rachel: Okay, so this is the thing–

Jessamyn: Not just as she uses it, but in general,

Rachel: So I think first of all, that she is weirdly like…what's the word I'm looking for binary

Jessamyn: oh yeah for sure

Rachel: and and and Christian–

Jessamyn: –the religious element!!!!

Rachel: So I've always found the concept of shadow work to be unnecessarily like good versus evil, in an unhelpful way I…I have been doing parts work for many years with my therapist I mean I think lots of people do parts work, now it's like sort of a-you know like but just sort of as a overview for this conversation- you know it's this idea that you have these different parts some of them you identify with a lot easier than others, and those are kind of the ones that you're like most easiest to access, the least ashamed of, you know the sort of like oh yep that's you know and for me you know I have like a good student part and I have a rebel part and I identify very easily and very strongly with both of those and they are often in conflict with each other and also I'm just like very comfortable in that conflict like it's not always easy or pleasant but it doesn't take work for me to like look at those you know like thoughts having it out and and I am I'm not very ashamed of those parts, I, you know when they show up I'm sort of like yep that's funny you know there you are rebel/good student having your little bickering fight again like

Jessamyn: yeah

Rachel: When I think of-the closest thing I-I think of shadow parts is sort of just the stuff- whatever it is for you-that feels too painful or scary to look at. Parts of yourself that, often the parts that are really accessible, those are actually doing a lot of work to protect you from looking at. Right. I don't think it's helpful to think of them as the ‘out to get you’ part or some kind of like - shadow to me suggests that it's a kind of inverse, that it's a kind of opposite of you, like a worse version of you, a scary you, the evil twin sister you. And in my work with internal family systems, like the part of myself that's the hardest to access is a scared, crying, pre-verbal baby. And I don't think of that as like my shadow. I think of that as like my…very, very, very tender core with a pain that I don't understand and don't know how to fix. And that's been, you know, like that - so and that part doesn't want to do me harm.

Jessamyn: Totally.

Rachel: I actually I don't– I think I think the whole point of parts work is like none of these parts want to do you harm.

Jessamyn: I think of shadow self as a little bit differently. And I think…I do find it helpful in some kind. I mean, look, binary is very limiting. I think duality, which is something that can come out of a sort of binary. The idea of like a shadow and a light and inverse can also be both very seductive. And I think in some contexts helpful for acceptance. In my sort of self journey therapy practice, I also really like parts work. And I have similar things to what you're talking about. But when I think of shadow self, I almost think about like each of the parts that I'm working with has, I don't want to say like a shadow side cuz I think like...But the thing that was really transformative for me in therapy was when a therapist gave me the language of like, there are things that you are identifying consciously as like flaws, things that you're ashamed of, things that you're scared of, things that you don't like within yourself that you might call a shadow. You, me, Jessamyn, can you think of those as like liabilities of the parts that they are also springing from that you really love about yourself? And so connecting them, it was for me the sort of shadow element of it. And I think where it can be helpful. So like having a fear, having a deep like shame around being overly like desperate or like just like wanting love like so much, right? Like that like fear connecting that to like, well, OK, what's the…it also means that like the people that I do love. of are very rarely going to be in doubt about whether or not I love them, right? Which is a beautiful thing to me. Like. I love that. And so if I can hold that as something I value in myself, then maybe I can be gentler to the part of that that then also leads to what I can judge very harshly as, ‘you are so fucking over– like too much. You're too much. You're too much with what you're putting out there.” Anyway, this is not about me.

Rachel: OK, you look like you're about to share a passage–

Jessamyn: Well, I just –

Rachel: Because I also think we should talk about her little fucking spiritual origin in this–

Jessamyn: This is literally where /

Rachel: Oh, is that what you're going to go?

Jessamyn: OK. Well, this is the thing, actually, and this is the thing that you didn't. I didn't expect, based on the critiques that you primed me with. So it was a shock to me. And I remember sending you a voice note about this. In the very beginning, she talks about the way that she comes to build Existential Kink. And the story that she tells is she's in essentially a 12-step program which, God, you want to talk about the fucking fundamentalist religious underpinnings of that shit, already is like, those are - those are Christian, I mean essentially um. They pretend they're not, but they are. And so she's talking about being in 12-step meetings and she's listening to these people share these horrible stories of like being molested as children and violence and she says, this is page seven, “I listen to these people let go and let God and as I listen to these people one distinct thought gradually formed in my mind “God is one kinky-ass motherfucker” God the divine whatever he she it is creates this world and this world is a gonzo horror show of war and rape and abuse and addiction and disaster. If God is running the show God must like it this way.”

Rachel: Bonkers I have so many so many thoughts so many thoughts because okay

Jessamyn: and you're an atheist

Rachel: yeah

Jessamyn: okay I'm not which is what so like I want to, like there’s

Rachel: okay so you tell me your non atheist thoughts about this first

Jessamyn: No, you can go first! I just, cuz like because I'm reading this and I'm like I..I…I wonder it like, I was like, if you if you just don't believe in God at all do you read something like this and think like, well that's bullshit because God is bullshit? I'm curious to hear your thoughts. When if you read something like that and you maybe do have some concept of like the spiritual or the divine or call it God. Which, I think I do, but you fundamentally do not believe, as I do not believe, that there is like an anthropomorphized human like divine entity that has agency or authority over human behavior, what the fuck do you do with that? Like, like I just don't think it leaves…like it’s presuming…well, it’s presuming religion, but it's also presuming it's specific relationship to an omniscient God that I–if you can't get on board with that it's almost like can I even keep reading this book? Which is like I was like well I fundamentally do disagree with the idea that there is a God that is like…there's no God in rape. I'm sorry. Like, in my in my cosmology, whatever, like that's…that's all fully human invention. It's a fully human thing. It's not something that like, there's like a divine God that's gonna come down and like stop or start or like enjoy as like a fucking reality show like I the it was a wild…God is a kinky motherfucker is like a wild sentence to me! (laughing)

Rachel: Well, and I just I think that like it's a real - again distortion- of the term kink as it has been used in the kink community now for like many many many decades.

Jessamyn: yes

Rachel: Now, when we call someone a sadist, someone who identifies as a sadist in the kink sense we are saying that it is someone who gets off on sort of seeing others experience what, actually Midori would call “intense sensation”, not even pain. Because Midori makes - Midori: kink instructor who, you know, essentially brought Shabari to the United States from Japan. Brilliant. But she makes this point where she's like, look, you know, imagine that you're, you know, you're in a dungeon, you're on a St. Andrew's Cross, you're getting flogged, you know, like you're just like the session's going great and you're like screaming. And it's, you know, and then the session's over. And as you're getting off of the St. Andrew's Cross, you stub your toe. She's like, the sensation you felt stubbing your toe and the sensation you were feeling getting flogged a second ago are not actually the same category.

Jessamyn: Right. Right.

Rachel: So what she calls, you know, the getting flogged –

Jessamyn: That’s really good, yeah.

Rachel: What she calls getting flogged a second ago, that's not actually pain. That's what she calls intense sensation.

Jessamyn: Mmmm That's great. I love that.

Rachel: And the stubbed toe, that's pain. That's just, that, no one wants that. Right? So, when we say sadist, when we say someone identifies as a sadist, we're not we're not talking about someone who enjoys seeing people in pain. We're talking about someone who enjoys seeing people experience intense sensation. And it is not ethical or healthy or OK to actually enjoy someone's legitimate suffering.

Jessamyn: Right.

Rachel: That is not–

Jessamyn: that’s not kinky

Rachel: – kinky.

Jessamyn: Right. And it's fucking harmful and destructive to the kink community to frame it that way.

Rachel: Exactly. That is not the same thing. Yeah. Now, do we have potentially shadow parts of ourselves that, you know, might enjoy seeing people suffering and we sort of get to process those through the consensual container of kink

Jessamyn: or might enjoy be able to deliver –I think there’s something

Rachel: yes maybe maybe

Jessamyn: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important conversation to have

Rachel: That's an interesting conversation. But again, that is not – and that maybe is what we thought this book was gonna be about

Jessamyn: Yes! it was, it was like it would be great If like there was a way to get, for example, fucking sadist Doms to actually process and talk openly about like, is there an underlying part of you that like maybe does enjoy certain elements of this that are linked to like certain power structures that like exist out in the world that like and and and I think there should be space to unpack that and I think there probably is an element of that in kink. That's very different than like—

Rachel: Okay, so I just want to make that distinction right there to say that like, you know. So, so now let's talk about this cosmology she's created and her concept of God. she has described God as a “kinky motherfucker” and in fact what she's describing, if this is real, if this is actually like how the universe was created, was for this being to enjoy watching the suffering of humans, you think about what that means like, a fucking genocide in Gaza, you know, like you said like rape and you know and this is now her premise for the universe that we're stepping into and the universe we need to accept, not only am I like, how have you not lost everybody in the room? Because you lost the atheists immediately with sort of just throwing out a spirituality without any warning that like this is a spiritual book. But also like a depiction of a God that like no one should worship or respect.

Jessamyn: It's a very vengeful Judeo-Christian Old Testament kind of Christian God.

Rachel: And I think this is one of the criticisms that people make of that conception of God.

Jessamyn: Totally

Rachel: Because you know I mean and he, anyway so that's…uh…fully insane and again-

Jessamyn: It's also, I'm sorry, I also think there's something about it that is insulting to the notion of spirituality and the notion of God. And then, like there's something about it that I'm like, what are you talking about?

Rachel: So here I want to, so then she ties it to, again so I just think this is so harmful. I just really, if anybody has ever been in a physically abusive relationship, I kind of want to tell you to just like not listen to this part because again I think it feeds a really unhealthy idea that a victim of physical abuse has caused their situation. But this is the story she describes about her own physically abusive relationship. Um, uh, yeah. So again, she has her whole like, “God's a kinky motherfucker. If he's running the show, he must like it this way.” Um, so, and then she says, but I had also stumbled upon this further thought. “Maybe I'm one freaky ass motherfucker too. What if, seriously, what if–” she writes like that. Ok “What if seriously, what if, all the bad stuff had manifested in my life because I like it that way. Here is a profound example:” (Siren sounds) Um, we've got a siren going by. Boop boop eh doop I'm a cop. I'm going to run some red lights (Sirens continue) Oh my God. (Sirens continue)

Jessamyn: New York yeah, It's like really, yeah. Carceral systems. We must like it that way!

Rachel: God likes it that way!

Jessamyn: We must like it that way! fucking gross.

Rachel: Alright, “what if, seriously, what if all the bad stuff had manifested in my life because I like it that way? Here is a profound example: At the time, I was in a physically abusive relationship with a jealous, controlling guy. I had met this guy through a Craigslist personal ad because I was having such a tough time finding someone to date. Yes, I know how this sounds. Yes, it was that bad. And yes, I was that messed up.” Can we pause? What–what's the messed up part that she was on Craigslist?

Jessamyn: She went on and she answered a personal ad?

Rachel: Okay, let's move on.

Jessamyn: Yeah

Rachel: “I knew the relationship was damaging and crazy and dangerous, but I just couldn't seem to let it go. I would break up with the guy, send him packing and then call him with a seductive phone call the next day. Then he'd come back. There'd be some nice kissing and within minutes, we'd be back to yelling and he'd be throwing things at me. Coffee mugs, books, etc. I hated how controlling and violent my partner was and yet after much inquiry and reflection, I realized I actually loved how controlling and violent he was. Loved loved loved it.” Also, I'm–she's italicizing a lot. She italicizes like yeah a lot.

Jessamyn: Yeah, there’s tone.

Rachel: So that's why I'm-

Jessamyn: I mean, there's your tone but there’s also…

Rachel: “I adored the feeling of being important that came from having this guy treat me like I was a supply of heroin that he had to manage in order to have it available at all times. In other words, my existence had meaning just as in the tale of Persephone and Pluto” - We can go back to that - “I could use him to keep me contained so that I didn't have to risk exploring myself or the world without him.” Okay, um, so, uh, yeah. I just really struggled with this.

Jessamyn: Of course. Of course! I mean, look…I don't even know where to fucking start because it's like, look, when you think about –

Rachel: Actually, real quick, this is where she talks about how it's all coming from an erotic desire, because then she goes on, she says, “As I let the realization sink in that the ugliness in my life was there not because it was somehow necessary or true, but just because a shadowy part of me liked it, a giant space opened up in my body. I allowed myself to consciously feel the previously unconscious pleasure I felt in being violently controlled. It was, in fact, a previously unconscious turn on, my aha moment. Turn on is magnetic. Now I was faced with the stark realization that I had been unconsciously. magnetizing abuse and scarcity and rejection to myself all my life.”

Jessamyn: Okay, okay. So here's the thing, like, it is actually the thing that is helpful about the thing that is helpful about using an example from a like sexual romantic relational life, um, and then bringing in the erotic is like I can– I'm trying to give grace to like the premise of what she's trying to unpack here, I want to say — So like, there's a lot of really fucked up unhealthy constructions of like love and attachment that we're given just like in this world. So, can we attach to people that hurt us? Yes, people do it all the fucking time. Is there are there cultural forces and cultural constructions of love and are they gendered in certain ways where like the idea that like someone wants you so much that they just like can't fucking live without you and they're gonna fucking barricade the door to stop you from like, can that also trigger and be constructed as like, I love how much this person wants me, I feel addicted to it, like everything that she's like the experience she is describing internally of someone who is in an abusive dynamic and still also experiences erotic charge from that is / real -

Rachel: / Real. Yeah yeah yeah

Jessamyn: like that is valid and people who experience, I mean, we talk about like the cycle of abuse for a reason.

Rachel: Right, but then the leap to like, and that's why…he's doing it and I brought this in and I'm / calling it in

/ Jessamyn: and I'm calling it in. And like, look, I even think it is helpful, if we're taking just the example of like an abusive relational dynamic, because you fucking lose me when we're talking about like money and career and all this other stuff. Like, I think it is helpful, to a point, to land for someone like…when you are caught. that in a cycle of abuse, no one but yourself can fully try to save you from that. There does need to be some agency taken by the person in that dynamic who is on the receiving end of abusive behavior, not to lay claim or ownership to all of it, not to do I think what she's proposing, but to say, I am in some form or fashion participating in this, or, like, what you allow is what will continue, kind of…there are some glimmers in what she's saying that I'm like, okay, I see that for you personally, Carolyn Elliot, it may have been a really transformational moment to reckon with like, wow, I there's a part of me that is also responding and then reinforcing these abusive behaviors and participating with my abuser in an unhealthy dynamic. Can that be useful? Can that be useful for…for other people to like recognize like where am I co-creating an unhealthy dynamic? Yes. I think so. However, like the extrapolation, to your point yeah, is so fucking dangerous, feels so harmful and it's also, this is the other thing, and I think you brought this up in one of our voice notes I feel like she does this thing that I think a lot of um coaching sort of models do which is, there's no nuanced balance being struck between the structural sociological and the personal agent–agentic stuff, right? because like she's not bringing in at all like messaging around gender messaging which, which I think actually can be really useful I think where it's less useful is when it becomes defeatist, right? Like this is just the dynamic that exists between men and women so I'm gonna throw my hands up and surrender to it, right? I think that's what sometimes coaches are trying to push back against, is like, well if you say that everything is systemic, if you say that everything is just like sure well it's oppressive structures that we didn't build and we can't control so like guess it just stays that way, which I think is also a very reductive flattened version of social analysis, but like, there's just there needs to be some kind of meeting in the middle there needs to be some like cross pollination there can't just be this like…

Rachel: yeah and also just like to name that it's just a major red flag if you're reading a book and it's making promises to you about how it's gonna change your life right but it's not how serious books right work right they're like here's some stuff right you know like I'm not even saying it it needs to be well researched but I think that the best books on you know sexuality, trauma, you know sort of self-work do cite a lot of other research and because there has been research about this stuff. Um. She cites none.

Jessamyn: She cites myths.

Rachel: Which are old. (laughter) So they've probably been cited a lot.

Jessamyn: Apocryphal.

Rachel: But, you know, I mean she like you know existential kink has the power to vastly transform your life for the way better. She wrote that. She wrote the term ‘way better’ in a book. She wrote that. And then she goes on - this whole sentence is ridiculous - “Existential kink has the power to vastly transform your life for the way better, perhaps more than any other information that you will ever encounter”

(Laughter)

Jessamyn: Wild!

Rachel: Like, any book that has that sentence should just be completely taken with it. like the biggest grain of salt ever. I mean, and then she says, many of my clients have doubled or tripled their incomes, found the true loves of their lives, rejuvenated marriages worn out by resentment, healed chronic health conditions – See now, you know what I mean? Like when you start to get – we are really in snake oil territory now.

Jessamyn: Yeah, like that cancer diagnosis? Maybe not.

Rachel: “Maybe I brought that - maybe I'm just because I'm a kinky motherfucker, I brough this cancer into my fucking bones because I fucking get off on that shit.”

(laughter)

Jessamyn: Can I also say, okay, and maybe, I want to put a pin or like put a little circle back to this, please–

Rachel: Cause then also I do want to get into some of these exercises -

Jessamyn: I do, I do, okay, okay, okay. But, to the question I brought up earlier of, like, what do we mean by kink?

Rachel: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it.

Jessamyn: The other thing that I think - and I want to say she's not the only one that's doing this - I feel like as kink has kind of become more and more like - I don't want to say mainstreamed, but just like acceptable to talk about -

Rachel: Yeah, mainstreamed

Jessamyn: Mainstreamed, sure. I think she is doing what a lot of people do, which is equate like, ‘kink equals something that's bad, equals good now’.

Rachel: Right (laughing)

Jessamyn: Or something, like -

Rachel: Totally. “It's bad, so uuhnnn” –

Jessamyn: So it's good. “It's bad, but I like it. So I'm kinky”.

Rachel: Right!! Totally.

(laughter)

Jessamyn: And I'm, look - I think there are versions of kink. There are versions of kink that are that. Like I think about, like you talked about, maybe it was even Midori, but like you talked about some dirty talk or like role-play scene workshop that you attended once-

Rachel: Oh, this was Midori. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Jessamyn: Amazing. Incredible. It was like, if you don't know what the dialogue should be or like how to dirty talk, like —what was it –?

Rachel: Okay, so yeah, so she was, this was a creating 10 minute scenes workshop, which was just- /

/Jessamyn: Yes! God, I wish I could have - Sounds incredible.

Rachel: So brilliant. Um, but she was explaining how like, especially, like creative, intellectual overthinker types, when they're like putting together a role play, they're really trying to be like original and like good, you know, like make good storylines and stuff. And so she was like, she's like, “here's the deal with role play. Anything that” - and I see why you're bringing this up now - she's like, “in the real world, if it's bad, here, it's good!” So she was like, so like, cliche.

Jessamyn: Totally. Yes.

Rachel: If I were writing a story, bad. In role play, good. You know, like morality. Yeah. Right. You know, like, like, you know, being unethical, like out here, like that's bad.

Jessamyn: Totally.

Rachel: In roleplay good

Jessamyn: Yes! and there's low hanging fruit there's within the realm of like kink stuff too, I mean the very simple thing that I like it comes to mind is like, slut like if someone's calling me a slut on the street like, that I don't know, that's fucked up it's misogynist, I feel unsafe, it's bad, it's wrong, right? In a kink or sexy context, all of a sudden it's like, ‘you little slut’ - I like it. It feels good. I like it partly because it's / imbricated -

/Rachel: it's charged

Jessamyn: to use a word that I fucking love / from my graduate study

/ Rachel: Oh oh ok, can you define imbricate for the class?

Jessamyn: I think of it as like, I see a visual of like entwined fingers, so when something is like it's like multiple strands or like things that are sort of bound up with one another - bound very kinky - very like-

Rachel: I looked it up and it said overlap.

Jessamyn: (laughing) Yeah well overlap is so much less sexy, Rachel. Overlap is so much less kinky. No, yeah–

Rachel: So ‘slut’ is imbricated with —?

Jessamyn: it's…when I hear it…when someone that I'm fucking or turned on by, in a kink context calls me a slut and I get an erotic charge and I get viscerally turned on, part of what is happening, I think - this is my like self diagnosis assessment, kinky assessment - is that there is a layer of slut that is still bad in my mind and it's dangerous

Rachel: Right, and that's what gives it the charge

Jessamyn: and it gives it this like: (gasp) and some of that is relational, some of that is like…I'm letting this person call me this thing that's bad but it's critical critical critical like I know that they don't actually think I'm a worthless receptacle for their cock and that's it - maybe I want them to say that to me, out loud, I don't like, do you know what I mean? So, I guess what I'm getting at is like -

Rachel: Yeah

Jessamyn: I think there is a connection between kink and like what's bad is good,

Rachel: Yes.

Jessamyn: But I don't think it is the sum total and I actually don't think, like, I don't think that all kink is predicated on pain either. That's the other thing, it's like, a lot of it is and I feel like the most sensationalized, mainstreamable versions of it are: 50 shades of gray uh-huh like things like that, like they're so conflated with like BDSM specifically like kink equals BDSM. Not true, in my opinion. And, like, not all kink is…not all kink I don't think is actually building from a place of, like, this is something painful or bad. I think the thing that defines something as kinky is, it is a deviation from what is normative.

Rachel: Mm-hmm yeah

Jessamyn: I think this is sort of the broadest umbrella-

Rachel: Right. And this is why some things that - like gay sex used to be considered kinky. Right?

Jessamyn: Right!

Rachel: just, you know, like, wearing a blindfold used to be considered kinky. Anal sex used to be considered kinky. Like…I want to talk about some of these exercises

Jessamyn: Okay let's do it.

Rachel: So, first of all, I have to say I was relieved when I finally got to this section because I was so disturbed by, again, this premise around not trusting yourself, essentially, which is sort of like what the fear was that I had in sort of giving you or anyone else this book. I was like, I'm not going to do the exercises. Because I actually don't want to be saying mantras to myself that are going to be harmful. You know? I was relieved to see that these exercises are not at all exercises. They're just not even like fully thought out things at all. So I was just like, okay, this is just, like, this is a stream of consciousness practically. So this section is - also she starts calling it EK at a certain point short for Existential Kink, which I find so obnoxious. And she keeps talking about like, “so it's just -do EK on it.”

Jessamyn: It's very Scientology. It's very uh…yeah / …do a download

/ Rachel: So the lessons are called - here are the names of the lessons. Number one, how to get your shit together. Number two, deepest fear inventory. Number three, how to beat yourself up - the fun way. Four: how to dwell in the luminous dark. Five: How to stop being broke - That's the one I want to go to - I don't want to read all of these because they're just really - Oh, yeah. How to not suck at love. I just also like, I think she thinks she's being so cute / with the tone.

/Jessamyn: The tone is hard yeah.

Rachel: And I'm like, this is actually just the laziest, shittiest writing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So let's go to how to stop being broke, cuz this one I really the stuff about money in this fucking. In this fucking toxic capitalist society, adding more shame of like, you're the reason you're broke, is just like, so unhelpful. and okay so basically here's how to stop being broke um “Ah scarcity -” this is I'm reading from the book “few things taste more poignant, pungent and savory than the delectable flavor of scarcity and the panicked sensation of impending doom that goes along with it. I know it well.” and then she launches into a story of how she was really really broke because she was 29 and she'd gotten her PhD. And first of all she's explaining being in a line to get food, to get government issued - like like at a food bank and…maybe this really happened? But I'm also just like– she, I mean the drama of what she's describing is - she's like so I got my one can of chicken soup. That's literally what she says–

Jessamyn: Yes yes

Rachel: And I'm just like…okay, bitch…I mean

Jessamyn: You're dubious?

Rachel: I'm a little dubious, of this PhD, okay? “After all the effort of earning a bachelor's, a master's, and a PhD” she reminds us, “I had decided I didn't want to be a professor after all. In fact, I never ever wanted to set foot inside an institution of quote unquote higher learning ever again -” yet she needs to put PhD on the fucking cover.

Jessamyn: Well, listen, she earned it.

Rachel: “Why? Why? Well, simply put, because in the case of my education, I had discovered that more than anything else, I believed in magic, poetry, and the soul. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Except it was. Because these are three things that the modern academy hates and decries.” Okay, blabbity blah -

Jessamyn: Here’s the thing, I also love magic, poetry, and the soul! And I'm annoyed that that's what she's invoking, as if–

Rachel: Well, I know if you hate this book, then you hate magic, Jessamyn. That's what she's saying.

Jesamyn: Jesus.

Rachel; Okay, so then she gets on a big rant about how the English department didn't understand her and kicked her out. Oh…umm…questions, questions. And then, you know, she's standing in line at the food bank, and she's wondering if the law of attraction people are right, and if she's here because she really likes it, and then she goes home, and she starts inquiring about her life. And we've heard her tell the same story multiple times. And then she says, “eventually, about a year later, with much patience, much self-honesty” - Again, this is billed as this is an exercise section, and she's just writing about her life - “and much setting aside of shame and judgmentalness”...She wrote that. She wrote that word. “I discovered that indeed, a previously unconscious part of me truly, truly loved my poverty and all the indignities that came with it. Surprise, surprise.” And so then, she's talking about how she has a coaching career where she's charging $100 an hour, but she only has five weekly clients a month. And then she says, “I know several other coaches who, according to me, were not nearly as good at coaching as I was, who are easily making $1,000 per hour. This baffled me.” So then she does a lot of like, mathy math. And then she goes into, here's where we get into the exercise. So she says, she realizes that she has a judgment. She identifies what she calls a “judgment thought.” And then the judgment thought is, “I need potential clients to be happy to pay me $1,000 an hour.” Now, she's been reading this book called ‘The Work’. And it's by Byron Katie, I guess, and according to “The Work”, you are supposed to do this thing - so again, this is actually someone else's exercise that she's offering in this book. So she says, then she asks herself, is this true? So she's asking herself, is this statement true? I need potential clients to be happy to pay me $1,000 an hour. “I couldn't find any resonant ‘yes’ sensation in my body. So I answered ‘no’. Then the next part is to ask yourself, how do I react when I believe that thought? I noticed I felt tight, panicked, lacking, anxious”. And then she writes “Mmmmmhmmmmm” Okay And then she says, “then - who would I be without that thought? I got quiet and found that without the thought, I would be open, light, more honest and present. Per Byron Katie's instructions, I turned the thought around and looked for the way that my initial judgment was equally true. I first turned it around to self, as in, “I need me to be happy to pay myself $1,000 an hour for coaching.” And I was immediately struck with the truth of that statement.” Okay.

Jessamyn: Yeah, as you’re reading it out loud I’m like…(laughter)

Rachel: I just…I feel like I wonder if the way this works on people is that it makes them so confused that their brains sort of freeze and then they just kind of, like, decide to have a sensation? I mean so much of this is so bizarre cuz you're like I'm saying these things that don't make sense and then I'm waiting for an answer from my body and also I know that I really need there to be an answer from my body and I also know that, you know, if I'm Carolyn Elliott, eventually it's going to be some erotic charge of some kind. And I'm you know it's like you're just creating these, like -

Jessamyn: I think- I don't know why it works but it's the same shit I mean to the thing about like snake oil or whatever like this is where it gets a little…like it makes me think of what the fuck was the -Keith Ranieri? NXIVM the like NXIVM - like a lot of, a lot of those sorts of practices that people that like draw people in are similar to this where what it's doing is it's um it…I don't know enough about the psychology of it, but it's like it's it's activating something in like…our mirror neurons, I think? Or like when we…It does something it's not like she - essentially what I think about this book is that most of it is filler and what her real contribution is, is she's adding a layer - a very slim layer, I think- to Like law of attraction positive thinking-

Rachel: It’s the same shit!

Jessamyn: That's essentially what it is, the only thing that's different is she's saying instead of just going to the positive, or like the explicitly consciously positive, like take the thing that's bad and then like embrace it a lot or like flip it around or like try to do this sort of like inversion of it I mean, she's also like “I need to want myself to pay this money” It's like–

Rachel: Yeah, it's so okay okay, so then we're about to get into like the final part of the exercise that I think is just like the full sort of, like, cherry on top of yes, like nonsensical meets harmful.

Jesamyn: (laughing) What a combo! / ‘nonsensical meets harmful’

/ Rachel: (laughing) That's this book, baby. So, she makes this realization that she's like, wait a second if I want people to pay me a thousand dollars an hour, I need to be willing to invest a thousand dollars an hour in myself. Which, she doesn't go into how she ends up doing that, but she's like this was a big, this is a big realization, but then she does this - she says “next I tried turning the judgment around to its opposite. Which sounded like “I deeply need my potential clients to absolutely never ever want to pay me $1,000 an hour for coaching.” And then something quite strange happened.” - I think we all know what's gonna happen given the rest of the - we've read a hundred and nine pages up until this point, Carolyn. Okay. “And then something quite strange happened. I felt an electric zing and a big throb in my clitoris. It occurred to me.”

Jesamyn: I forgot that she does bring clitoris and genitals into this! I forgot! Oh god, ok

Rachel: It's like, who is sitting around doing this arithmetic, feeling their clit get hard?

Jesamyn: Wow.

Rachel: Okay. “It occurred to me from all my previous life experience that the truth is highly sensational. So I decided to explore this notion. After all, maybe I was feeling the zing of deep truth? I tried more statements along the same lines to see how they resonated. ‘I am totally delighted to have people utterly refuse to highly value me.’ ‘I love being rejected when I propose coaching offers.’ ‘I really need clients to never want to pay me at all.’ For each of these statements, my body strangely responded with throbs of pleasure. The more I thought about other people absolutely refusing to highly value me in my work, the more aroused I got. Gradually, it dawned on me, well, of course I don't make $1,000 an hour, I'm so turned on by being devalued and rejected!” (laughter) Um. Ok. So basically, her advice is to save these, like, naughty statements to yourself in a hot way and try to get off on it. “Transcing spell of the game is broken and you'll find yourself drawn into a new game with new stakes that are more mesmerizing than the last ones.” That's the other thing. It's like her whole cosmology about God being a sadist, a kinky motherfucker, it does sort of make one wonder why do anything? You know, and If she's like, well, all of this is the same and we're all just here for entertainment, it's sort of like, well, then why should I want to improve my life? Why should I want to be a better person? Why should I want to do any of this? And the answer she offers there at the end is like, ‘well, because, I mean, you don't really need to, but it might be more interesting to make a lot of money. And once you sort of get over this kink you have for not making a lot of money, then you'll’ ... Because that's the other thing, right? We get over our kinks, right?

Jessamyn: It's not a kink. It's not a kink. I’m so annoyed! That’s not what kink is.

Rachel: Okay, we've talked for a really long time. So, I wonder if there's some final things that you want to bring up about the book.

Jessamyn; Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Look..

Rachel:I hate it so much.

Jesamyn: I think, here's the thing, I think in some ways, I think you're - and I don't disagree with you on this, but I think you found it more harmful than like - actively harmful / than I did.

/ Rachel: I did.

Jessamyn: I found it sort of…trite and simplistic, and like again my annoyance with it comes from like, I think this is saying something that like is…fine? I guess? Like, if it's helpful to you, maybe it's helpful, but like - and it's drawing on things that like-

Rachel: You think telling people to masturbate about how they enjoy being abused and broke is fine?

Jessamyn: No!-I-ok- do not do not clip that! (laughter) That's not - Jessamyn does not think that. No, I think, look, I think um…

Rachel: (laughing) This is not what kink is

Jessamyn: That is my- look, okay don't get me started- look, I think that humans’ ability to I think that humans ability to try to make meaning and shift their outlook in distressing, catastrophic, harmful, circumstances is incredibly powerful and beautiful and meaningful. I think and I think it is helpful…to a point. That is my- the most gracious version I can give of like, I think she's trying to maybe offer a version of something like that. As in, like, because she does she does caveat, like, if you are in active trauma around something don't EK it, like don't, you know, like–

Rachel: don't EK if you're like actually-

Jessamyn: So, i don't think she is so, like, i don't think she would say, like, if you've you know recently been assaulted. Like, there are things that like i think -and she does make some mention in the beginning of, like, yes there are systems that are - but like we can't do anything about those so like here's what we can do something about. Which, i don't - to your point about, like, where's the larger social obligation? Social consciousness? Social like, wait so is it all just like atomized individuals doing some kind of thought work and that's / that's all we've got?

/ Rachel: yeah

Jessamyn: I don't know. So, no i don't - fine is maybe - i'm not trying to be glib when i say like i think it's fine. I just think that, i think she felt the need - if i may project onto her for a minute - I think she felt the need to sort of dress up, i think, a very kind of simple premise, which is like ‘ maybe positive thinking should also add in some stuff about like the shadow side.’ like that's essentially it

Rachel: Mm. That’s it. That is the book, ladies and gentlemen.

Jessamyn: and she decided to dress it up in a lot of mystic language. Myth. Myth-based, mystic language, which is seductive. And the language of kink, which is what pissed me off, like which and like, trying to like frame it as like-

Rachel: Yeah, it’s a real co-opting, I think.

Jessamyn: that's what i mean is -

Rachel: it's a real it's like-

Jessamyn: Is she kinky?

Rachel: I don't even know / it doesn’t seem like she is.

/ Jessamyn: that's the other question that i have

Rachel: I mean, I really feel like a kinky person would have had more anecdotes, analogies, you know, just there isn't a kink term in there.

Jessamyn: That's what I'm saying.

Rachel: There's not a single, you know, like all I hear is like “fucked up, kinky”

Jessamyn: Exactly!

Rachel: And it's, I don't hear any sort of discussion of like, yeah, you know, it's like a power exchange scene. Or it's like, you know, it's like you’re role playing with a dom that's your, you know, there's no, there's not any terms of someone who has lived a kinky lifestyle or done kinky things. If- I would be surprised.

Jessamyn: And maybe that's also the thing, the underlying thing that like is - also, pissed us off. Maybe. Is like, there's - I'm not trying to fucking gatekeep the word kink necessarily, but, like, there is to me a sense of like, I don't feel, it's like the kind of thing where I'm like, uh…if you're in the kinky community, it's like I'm more open to you making like cute pithy little jokes about like like ‘Oh my god, like I'm so broke, like but it's fine I guess I love it so…kinky!’ But like when I think that you have actually no like, investment in that community, grounding in that community and look maybe she does I don't fucking know -

Rachel: We don’t know.

Jessamyn: I don't want to say-

Rachel: We don't know. She certainly doesn't make it known that she does, from this.

Jessamyn: which again. Yes, so then it feels like co-opting, and it also feels like a…clickbait. Like, it feels like literary clickbait.

Rachel: Well, and she is selling something. I mean, let's get clear. She's selling courses. She's- I mean, this is a self-help-this is a self-help book and it's a self-help coaching business and, um, and courses and, and I think that it's just like such a- you know, most people that are writing books about kink and consent and desire and what sex can teach us about life, etcetera, they're just sharing their perspective and they're not, they're not telling you that taking their course is gonna change your life-

Jessamyn: It's gonna make you earn six figures and

Rachel: could triple your income

Jessamyn: get you off of government food stamps or whatever the fuck she’s saying

Rachel: Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's, it's - they're just people sort of exploring these issues, you know in interesting ways. I mean, I think about like “Healing Sex” by Staci Haines, you know, which doesn't even - you know, that is like a very research-based book and that doesn't even claim that it's gonna heal your trauma, right? It's like, it's like, this is like a tool, you know that - here's some research, here's some gathered stuff about like how to feel - I mean anyone who's been in an abusive relationship and wants to figure out, you know, sort of how to like, love again, should read that fucking book, you know, because, like the goal there is just like, here's a bunch of research on people who have experienced trauma finding ways to feel safe in their body again. You know, knowledge you can use. Anyway, so I think - how should we close this out?

Jessamyn: I have no idea.

Rachel: I just, I think that people…if they've listened to this, I don't know, we must, we're gonna need to cut this up. I can't believe how long we've talked about this, yeah.

Jessamyn: I think people need to be mindful of how they're using the word fucking kink, that's what I want.

Rachel: Yeah,I think you shouldn't call things kinky -

Jessamyn: When they're bad. (laughter)

Rachel: When they're bad. I think you shouldn't be like, ‘oh, that's, like, not good, so it’s kinky.’ I think that the meaning is, well, we defined it. I think, you know, that was an important moment. We defined kink today, once and for all.

Jessamyn: I would actually be really curious to read, like, Midori, like, other, like, sex scholars’ - because I don't know–

Rachel: Definitions on kink.

Jessamyn: Well, because I've had this conversation before, like, because I've noticed a lot of people conflating the word kink with the word BDSM, the word kink with, like, other - and I'm fascinated by the, you know, because I don't always think those are the same, and I, but I don't always know, what do I mean when I'm calling something kinky? Like, it's one of those things to borrow from, you know, it's like, I know it when I see it kind of thing, or you know what I mean, which is tricky.

Rachel: Yeah, but it's certainly more than ‘it's fucked up.’ (laughter) So, I think if you've listened to this, there's no reason for you to read this book.

Jessamyn: Not at all.

Rachel: I think we've summed up everything that you could possibly get from it. And there - and maybe we'll provide an alternative reading list?

Jessamyn: Oh, that's a good idea. Don't read this book if you want to learn anything about kink. Don't make my mistake. That's, I was like, I'm gonna unpack my kinks! And then I'm like -

Rachel: Nope.

Jessamyn: Guess I'll just keep doing that in the field. Like out -

Rachel: I know. I would love for there to be a book about existentialism and kink.

Jessamyn: Maybe we should write it.

Rachel: Maybe we should write it.

Jessamyn: I have to get a PhD first.

Rachel: I mean, I think, look, that whole, like, existentialism, relationship anarchy, anarchy, kink, queer world, I, you know, to me, there's, there's really interesting connections there. That are worth - I tried telling someone when-

Jessamyn: What would Sartre have to say?

Rachel: (laughing) I know! I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm curious. I tried telling someone once when they asked if I was queer, I was like, I'm an existentialist.

Jessamyn: (laughing) You did!

Rachel: Yeah, I did.

(laughter)

Jessamyn: That's so funny.

Rachel: I never said it again, based on their reaction.

Jessamyn: What did they do? What did they

Rachel: They just, like, glared at me. Um yeah, it wasn't the right crowd.

(laughter)

Jessamyn: That's fucking hilarious. I think that's so funny.

Rachel: All right, so that'll be maybe our next discussion.

Jessamyn: Kink and existentialism?

Rachel: Yeah.

Jessamyn: I'm gonna have to revisit what that means.

Rachel: Um, Jessamyn, this has been lovely. I hope we do it again. I'm so happy you have your own substack.

Jessamyn: Oh thank you. I'm happy too! All my musings. My musings on sex, feminism and the intersection between sex and theater, I think is what I said I was saying right about.

Rachel: Oh really good. Really good. Is there anything else you want to say or share about what you're doing and uh what you're - I don't know, personal stuff?

Jessamyn: No, I mean I think no I think right now, just, yeah the substack (Re)scripting Sex is what it's called. I'm gonna try to make it like a somewhat regular practice. I'm going for like once a month. I'm not, I'm not being overly ambitious here, but, um,

Rachel: Smart.

Jessamyn: Yeah. (laughter) Um, yeah. And people can keep an eye out, uh, for, you know, my other things and happenings that'll probably be linked there. At some point

Rachel: All righty. Yay. Thanks, Jessamyn

Jessamyn: I love you.

Rachel: I love you too.

Jessamyn: Thank you for, thank you for initiating me reading this frankly awful book, but it's been so delicious to like, I feel like I don't usually get off on hating on something so hard? But like…(gasping) maybe we–!!

Rachel: Maybe we -!!!

(laughing)

Jessamyn: Carolyn Elliott,

Rachel: Carolyn…Okay. All right. Okay. We gotta stop.

Jessamyn: We gotta stop.

Rachel: We gotta stop.

Jessamyn: Sorry. That’s so funny. Yeah. Don't know how to button a conversation for shit.

Rachel: Okay. Here we go. Bye.

In debaucherous camaraderie,
🪶Rachel Lark

What you can expect from The Larkstack

1. Every Monday, I’ll be sharing a weekly essays! Some will be free and some will be for paid subscribers and patreon supporters only.

2. On Fridays, I’ll be sharing ✨Bonus Content✨ as a separate post. This ✨Bonus Content✨ is only available to paid subscribers and patreon supporters. It might be 📝 more writing, ✅ content recommendations, 🎙️a voice memo, or 🖼️ a piece of art I haven’t released anywhere else yet.

3. These posts are all thoughts in process. Expect my views to change and morph and solidify and stray and evolve.

4. I’ll also share announcements about life as an artist; things like show announcements, music releases and new merch.

Announcements

1. NYC! Come see me perform a special solo show at Joe’s Pub on February 19th! Tickets are on sale now.

2. My dear friend, Jessamyn Fitzpatrick (of 🎶Jessamyn🎶 fame) has started her own Substack! It’s called (Re)Scripting Sex and you should be aware of it by now because this post was a collaboration with her! Subscribe now!

Becoming a paid subscriber of The Larkstack or supporting me on patreon is SO DOPE! It’s what allows me to not only keep writing these essays but also create all of the music, theater, film and experiences that I create. So if you’re not signed up yet, and you get value out of the stuff I put out in the world, just think about it :)

Thank you all for being here!

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