Episode 1: Intimacy and Connection during a Pandemic

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Rick Ezekiel:

All right. It looks like we have most of our attendees on the call. Welcome and thank you for joining our panel discussion today called love in the time of corona, talking about intimacy and connection during a pandemic. We're excited for the conversation and we have some really awesome and brilliant panelists whose stories are going to bring lots of fantastic learning and reflection, and excited to hear from our audience as well. As we begin our meeting and as we're talking about connection, intimacy, relationships and human responsibility, it's really important that we do this in the context of colonization, and our obligations to community, to each other, to the land and space that we're occupying right now.

We might be engaging virtually right now, but still want to begin by acknowledging the land and space that Centennial physically occupies, coupled with the role that education institutions and all of us within them have played in systems and structures of colonization. Centennial is on the treaty land and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Today the traditional meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the communities that have grown in the treaty lands of the Mississaugas. We acknowledge that we are all treaty people and accept our responsibility to honor all our relations.

And I think of one of the topics that we'll talk about today, consent, how fundamentally unconsensual the process of colonization has been and how we need to continue to remember the impacts that has on our relationships and our connections with the humans who are on our panel today and in our lives outside of that. We're going to begin with some introductions and given the topics we'll be discussing today, it's important that you all get a chance to hear what perspectives, based on our own identities and lived experiences, we bring to this topic. We'll start by sharing some of our own social locations, identities that have informed our perspectives and world views, but before we go into sharing some of the content. It's nice to see you all virtually.

I'm Rick Ezekiel and I'm the director of Equitable Learning, Health and Wellness at the college. I come from settler ancestry and I grew up in Cambridge, Ontario which is on the traditional territory of the Six Nations of the Grand River. I use he/him pronouns and I identify as a queer cisgender male. My own sort of identity development with a concept of intimacy and connection is really connected to that identity as a queer male. And for me, I grew up in a small C conservative family community and school environment where it didn't feel safe to come out and be my authentic self in relationships with others until much later in life. That really had an impact for me in the way I felt comfortable connecting with others and really began to engage in that process of intimate connections later on. So that was sort of a big consideration impacting my own connection with this topic.

In terms of relationship practices, I've engaged in both monogamous and open monogamous relationships in the past. For the last little while and heading into the pandemic situation, I've been engaging in more solo polyamorous relationship styles which involves multiple partners without having a sort of single primary relationship. Sadly, during the pandemic, multiple has gone to few or zero, so that's been a bit of a shift, but it's certainly something that again, we'll have lots of chance to talk about through our panelists, ways to creatively maintain intimate connections through this. I also find that connection comes through multiple forms of energizing relationships, which includes self-compassion and care, deep friendships, good colleague relationships. With that, I'll hand it over to Seán.

Seán Kinsella:

Hi everyone. Tansi. So I'm Seán. I'm going to introduce myself in a couple of the languages that I speak and then give a little bit of an overview around some of my identities and the thoughts that I had around when we're talking about intimacy to help bring a social location. I noticed that my mute button ... You can hear me which is great because I have a horrible habit of forgetting to hit that, so we're good to start. As I said, Tansi, wâsaskote kihiw nit'sîyihkâson. Waazakone mashkiki n'dizhinikaaz, [Indigenous language 00:05:05] otipemisiwak n'daaw. Nakawé niya êkwa aayahkwew, êkâ ê-akimiht n’daaw, [Indigenous language 00:05:11] What I just told you is a little bit about the nations I come from. I told you some of my spirit names. The one I'll translate for you this morning is, [Indigenous language 00:05:22] is the medicine that light brings, or waazakone mashkiki.

I am Plains Woods, James Bay Cree as well as Saulteaux, or Nakawé as well as what is now called Métis, but the way that I describe it is as the people who own themselves, as it's defined in Cree. I also told you that I identify as aayahkwew which basically translates to neither men or women, or what we might say in English, non-binary. I also identify as trans in sort of English understanding but recognizing that those understandings English words are imposed following colonization and that we had many different ways of understanding our genders and sexualities prior to settler contact here. In addition, I told you that I am non-status, or in the way it is said in the language an uncounted one.

My people were signatories of treaties four, six and eight, my family. I told you ê-akimiht [Indigenous language 00:06:25] which translates to I am removed from my traditional territories which is around the Battlefords in what is now called Saskatchewan as well as Lesser Slave Lake and Lac La Biche in Alberta. I grew up in what, in the language is Silver Lake but is now called Lake Simcoe and is the territory from which the name Tkaronto or Toronto comes from. I identify as Crip, Two-Spirit and queer. I practice critical non-monogamy and the way that I define that is using the definition and ideas of Dr. Kim TallBear which is a rejection of normative notions of relationships that are just existing within humans and that relationships are based in a hierarchy.

So I recognize that all relationships are functionally different and that intimacy has to and can look much more expansive to both land and plants and animals and all of the sort of relationships we have with all beings around here in relation to creation and the importance of the connection of the mind, the body and the spirit in understanding intimacy. I also want to talk about how there are so many different ways to connect with people and beings and so these limited notions, even of this idea of monogamy and non-monogamy are very much based in settler colonialism and western ideas of thought. For me, taking on these kind of relationships structures and ways is a way to, not only decolonize, but to push back on the kinds of systems that were imposed.

I need to acknowledge that consent is built into the way that we understand our world view as Indigenous people as a [Indigenous language 00:08:09] and a Nakawé person, that the idea that we use tobacco as a way to gift and to talk about things with one another indicates that there is a reciprocal connection that is required as part of any kind of relationships that we're engaging in, and that we make those offerings to specific beings and to one another to acknowledge the different gifts that each of us bring and the different ways that we can structure those relationships. I also want to talk about the way that love is generative, that it is unlimited and the scarcity model is another thing that was imposed upon us with colonization.

We have always lived in abundance and we continue to live in abundance under the government that is now called Canada, but that we recognize that that living of abundance has existed here since time immemorial and that there is, and needs to be, this idea of eroticism in the everyday and that it's not specifically centred around just human relationships only. The things that I want to grapple with through this talk a little bit is how do we maintain community practices during a time of pandemic? How do we engage in harm reduction? And how do we understand that when we say harm reduction, we're not just talking about our relationships to one another, but we're also talking about our relationships to the Earth? How do we really center this notion that all life is sacred and that we have responsibilities to one another?

When we talk about an introduction to land, as I was taught, that is what I have given as part of introducing myself. So I'm introducing myself to the land and all of you, I tell you who I speak for. I'm also Migizi, an adopted Migizi clan member, of the Potawatomi, Anishnaabe [inaudible 00:09:49] people and that also tells a little bit about the responsibilities and accountability that I have in the words that I say. We have strict laws about how we treat one another and the Earth and those laws have been disrupted by the settler government that was imposed upon our people. And the way that I will frame this is talking about some of those pieces as we go forward. I'm going to hand it over to Silvia and say êkosi [Indigenous language 00:10:17] and hiy hiy, for letting me intro.

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

Thank you. Hi Everyone. I'm Dr. Silvia D’Addario. I use she/her pronouns. I am the manager here at Centennial College. Well, not here, but at Centennial College, I'm the manager of Equity and Inclusion programs at the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Inclusion. That's the Centre for GCEI. I identify as a questioning cisgender woman. I am in a monogamous relationship and I'm a mom of two human kids and one fur kid. Myself, and my family are settlers on the traditional land of the Anishinaabe. I also grew up in an immigrant household, speaking and practicing in linguistic and cultural customs that were very different than everyone around me. I had a heightened sense of dislocation, not really feeling a sense of belonging here, or in an imagined homeland.

I developed as a person within strict confines of sexism and patriarchy as a normalized part of my culture. I am a survivor of gender-based violence and so I value and practice a trauma informed lens and care in all that I do. I approach the work that I do and the life that I lead with an acute sense that our bodies have been socialized to support massive systems of oppression. And so I am passionate about the work that is takes to acknowledge and to heal those deep pieces of us that are programmed layers within all of us, that may contribute to the everyday and institutionalized forms of oppression for all folks. As an intersectional feminist, I know that my equity work includes working towards liberating all bodies, all forms of oppression, and recognizing and respecting the intersecting ways that our experiences play out. Thanks for having me, and I will turn it over to Aaron.

Aaron Brown:

Thank you. My name's Aaron Brown. I'm the coordinator for Sexual Violence Prevention Education at Humber College. My pronouns are he/him/his and I'm a queer cisgender male. I'm also a white settler and I grew up in very white towns. I grew up in Midland, and Barry and then I spent a lot of the formative years of adulthood in North Bay. That, for me, I think has really informed a lot of my experience. I'm also a child of divorce and both my parents remarried people who had also been divorced and all of my friends when I was growing up had parents who had gone through divorce. And I think that that has really sort of shaped some of my views around relationships, particularly marriage as an institution. We're having this conversation today about intimacy, spirituality and community and I want to talk a bit about my relationship to those things and how I perceive them.

For me, when I think about intimacy, I laugh, because I think a lot of people when they think of intimacy, they go to a sexual place immediately or at least from conversations that I've had with other folks throughout university and that sort of thing. But for me, I really go to this idea of vulnerability, comfort and trust, openness first and foremost. But physicality is a component of that and I think about proximity in particular and to be in a space with another person, like there's just something in the air between folks that I think really infuses that space. There's an energy to it, an aura to it. And then there's that component of actual touch and so that, for me, is particularly important. I don't know if folks are familiar with love languages, but mine is physical affirmation.

For me, being touched is how I feel affirmed and loved and cared for. There is a sexual component to that, but then there's also just that, someone putting a hand on my arm or a hug or that sort of thing. That, for me, just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So it's really challenging these days because there's not really a lot of that happening. When I think about myself in romantic relationships, I've always considered myself monogamous, but I've also only had one relationship that lasted two months, so who really knows. I think that that is going to be kind of a continued evolution over time.

When I think about spirituality, I never feel like I'm quite able to articulate it. I'm not religious, I'm not really convinced of higher a power, or even necessarily like this undercurrent of interconnectedness between everyone. I'm very agnostic about everything, I feel. But when I think about spirituality, often I do think about a connection to nature. I think about... one of the benefits of growing up in Midland was we literally backed onto a forest and so I spent a lot of time out on the trails. And we had a boat so always going out on Georgian Bay and being out on the water. And for me, that connection has always been really helpful being out with the air, with the trees, and I think in particular being connected to water, for me, is really restorative. When I need to recenter, to rejuvenate, for me, that's always where I try and go.

And then when I think about community, I tend to be very independent and very introverted. And since moving to Toronto, I find in particular, I don't really feel that sense of community. In many ways, I feel very isolated in the city. So for me it's interesting because work has really been my place of community. So for me, right now, Humber College is really my community and I don't really see people from Humber very often now except on video chat which is very different and so that, for me, I would say I'm feeling fairly disconnected in that sense.

On the other hand, a lot of the most important people of my life are spread across the country, literally coast to coast, and so in some ways I do feel a bit equipped for our current situation within the pandemic. I'm not great at long distance communication with those folks and that needs to be an ongoing area of practice for me, but that's a bit about community for me. Then I'd also just note that, for me, I'm actually not in Toronto right now. I'm staying with my mom and my stepdad in Barry which is an adventure in its own right, and I think has really changed how I'm engaging with other folks during this pandemic as well. I'll pass it over to Amita.

Hi everyone. Apologies for the technical difficulties earlier. My name is Amita. I'm a counselor with the [inaudible 00:17:57] team as well as the sexual violence coordinator at Centennial College. I kind of live as an uninvited guest on the lands of the [inaudible 00:18:08] and [inaudible 00:18:08] and I can't speak. I identify as a cisgender heterosexual woman of color. And during this lockdown, I have been partnering monogamously with my husband and trying to rediscover the relationships around me in this weird technical situation we have going on. That's my introduction. Before we get started in earnest, I'm going to throw it to Rick to explain why we came up with this forum.

Rick Ezekiel:

Thank you, Amita. Interestingly, I think we all have been impacted by our current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, with physical distancing measures, with lockdown rules. A big thing that the pandemic has continued to impact is our connections and our relationships, on all fronts. Amita and I were chatting a few months back and somewhat inspired by New York Public Health who actually released a guiding document from their public health area on sex during COVID. They had a number of different harm reduction measures and I know we're hearing lots of content from different jurisdictions.

There were some Scandinavian countries who are recommending bubbling, finding a sex buddy, finding a friend or another partner who one could connect with during COVID to sort of maintain connection and social support and intimacy. And we were sort of thinking, "Hey, that's an important conversation. Relationships and connections matter and have been impacted by this and are certainly impacting all of our well-being." And with that, we thought what better way to approach the discussion than to bring folks who are experiencing different impacts as a result of identity, lived experiences, community connections. And that's where we invited our panelists who have joined us today.

Thinking of a consent conversation, want to first by saying thank you for saying yes. You're all brilliant and we're excited to have you on the panel here, and really wanted to bridge the dialog from understanding intimacy, connection, relationship, in all of its different forms, whether that be physical connection, whether that be kind of deep emotional connections, whether that be connection to community, to land, to space. So really excited that we've been able to connect with you all on this topic. In terms of the flow of this session, what we'll be looking to do today, now that we've shared with you our introductions and perspectives that we bring to this discussion, is we'll start with some overview of resources, safety considerations that Amita will walk us through.

Then each of our panelists have prepared comments and stories and expertise to share with the folks on the webinar, so we'll go through each of those in turn. You'll see in your Zoom platform here, that there is a Q&A section available to you. Throughout the session, if there's anything that comes up for you in terms of a question, a curiosity, something you'd like to hear more about, please feel free to populate those in the Q&A. What we'll be doing is, after all the panelists share with the group, Amita and I will review through those questions and answers and share them back verbally with the panel.

And know that, the Q&A is only visible to the panelists and Amita and I right now, so you won't need to be identified to ask a question. Only answered questions will become visible to the broader attendees and the approach we'll be taking in content related questions, outside of logistical items, is doing that, Amita and I sharing verbally with the panelists so you can know that there'll be an element of confidentiality there. With that, I'll hand it back to you, Amita.

Amita Singh:

Like Rick said, we are approaching this forum with a safe and brave space, so our main concern is the safety of not just our panelists, but also our attendees, as our panelists are going to be engaging in vulnerable storytelling. So we ask that this be treated as confidentially as possible, where you take and share the learning, but not the identification and personal stories of our panelists. We'd also like to ask, if at any time you feel overwhelmed or you just need to take a breather, we really do encourage you to do so and come back to the conversation when you are ready. Now we can jump right into our first panelist who is Aaron.

Aaron Brown:

Thank you all. I'm really excited for this. This is going to fun I think. For me when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about, with respect to intimacy and connection during COVID, I wanted to think about what am I finding that's been challenging. We're going to talk about me today. For me, when I think about my spirituality and community needs, I haven't been finding those as challenging to meet, given that I'm still fairly connected with my work community and I see some folks who are the webinar today. I'm used to the rest of my community being scattered. I feel like I'm managing that decently well, maybe not spectacularly. And, similarly, while I'm not always out and about in nature as much I typically would be, and there's not a body of water as close to where I live right now, like within walking distance, I'm still making those efforts every day to get out, recenter and that sort of stuff. That's been really helpful for me.

I think for me, really, the most challenging piece really has been this intimacy component because obviously COVID has really limited our ability to be around others and to physically connect with one another. I really miss being held. I miss holding other people. I really miss people being in my personal bubble. Like, please be within two meters of me, that would be great if we could do that again. Also, really miss sex, really regret not locking down a COVID boyfriend. Really jealous of all the people who did that. I do think that it's important to acknowledge that abstinence is being advertised as this way to be safe during COVID. It is a way to reduce the risk of getting COVID-19, but I also think it's important that we know that people still can meet and touch and connect during this time. I think it's important for us to think about how that plays into our overall wellbeing.

I go back to Matthew Rodriguez's article, We Need a Plan for How to Have Casual Sex Again and thinking about intimacy and connection as an essential component to our wellness, including sex and then really thinking about, what are the levels of risk involved in different behaviors? And we need that more clearly communicated. For me, though, I am currently living with my mother who is sick right now. We find out tomorrow whether she is terminally ill or not and then whether her treatment has worked. So for me, I'm super weary of any risk. I don't even hug my mom, let alone going out and hanging out with friends or gentlemen suitors because for me, there really is this heightened fear of her getting sick, not me getting sick.

For me, I think that there are ways for us to engage in sexual relations with folks and for that to be safe. But going back to this idea, Rick was talking about consent and I think about how consent is not a widely understood concept for folks still. I think most folks agree consent is essential but they don't actually understand all the components of consent. I think about during this time in particular, an important piece to consenting to sexual activity with another person or other people is disclosing our risk taking behaviors and whether we're sleeping with multiple partners or engaging with multiple partners and being really honest about our social circles and that sort of thing because that could really impact another person's health.

I think that that's a really important piece and for me, I was simply cautious because I don't know that everyone understands that. And I'm just a bit skeptical and I don't feel safe meeting up with people right now based on my family situation. And so for me, it's actually been since March 16th, since I touched another human being. I remember because I was flying back from my friend's poll dancing show in Halifax, so I remember the exact date. I'm very fortunate and very ... My parents do have a dog and he's like just super needy which has been great. He's been begging to be cuddled and so that's been fantastic for me right now but obviously not everybody can go out and get a dog.

For me, I want to talk about ways that we can still meet our intimacy needs particularly our sexual needs remotely and what that means to engage with folks digitally. I think that we are really fortunate that we live in a world with many apps to chat with folks. I'm also really grateful Barry's not like a complete void for queer people. So I am able to connect with folks on Grindr and also Instagram, which seems to more and more be a dating and hookup app these days, people sliding into the DMs, as the youths are saying these days, I think. For me, I think about sexting being this really great way for me to meet some of those intimacy needs during this time. I think that folks, when they think of sexting, they just think like sending photos and I think that that's a component of it, sending videos or photos.

But I also think just like discussing a fantasy with another person and getting to know another person of like, "What do you enjoy? What have you ever wanted to try? What are your kinks and that sort of thing?" I think that that's a really cool opportunity to co-construct a fantasy with another person or an experience with another person. For me, what I really enjoy about that is, and I think going back to this idea of consent, is foregrounding mutual pleasure in that, I think is a really cool opportunity right now for folks to practice a bit more. I am not a person who tends to explore phone sex or video calls, because for me, I appreciate the ease with which I can just like drop out of sexting, whereas a call just feels like a bit more pressure to sustain and engage.

But I think that those are also other options for folks, especially, you know, folks like to have that conversational aspect to it. And, you know, when we are engaging in sexual activity, usually we're communicating with another person, so I think that's an awesome opportunity to bring in that verbal component as well. I think that for folks who are not comfortable meeting up with others or who have reasons preventing them from doing so, such as folks who are immunocompromised right now, I really think that exploring your intimacy needs through the virtual space is really helpful. And it's really something to consider and you figure out where you fall with your comfort zone for that.

I do think it would be remiss of me as someone who works in sexual violence prevention education to not acknowledge that when engaging in these sexual acts we do have consent and we need to have consent for that, and so asking if someone wants to swap pictures instead of assuming, particularly for the folks on Grindr, please. Checking in with your partner or partners to see how they're enjoying the experiences and so on, I think that that can be particularly challenging digitally because we don't get to read someone's body language in the same way. We don't get to read tone in the same way. And so I think that's really challenging and we need to make sure that we're really being really attentive to our partners during these experiences. And I really come back to this idea of co-constructing these sexual experiences with folks, which again, I don't think always plays out in person.

I think that we also need to be mindful of our own safety when we're sending photos or videos or participating in video calls. Some things that I do to protect myself with that, is ensure that there aren't any clear identifiers. Like, my face is not in it. It's a headless torso. My tattoos, of which I have plenty, I make sure are covered up or cropped out or blurred or whatever. I want to get more tattoos and so that's going to be more for me to cover up soon, but I think that that's really an important piece as well and recognizing that when we're sharing photos or videos with someone or we're engaging in a video call with them, we are engaging in a degree of trust, that those folks will respect that this is an experience for the two of us, or however many of us are involved, to enjoy, and that those are not to be distributed or shared with other folks.

But we also know that not everyone respects those boundaries and so for me that's a way of maintaining my safety and reducing potential risk involved in that. So I think those are some things for us to be considering. For me, I suppose the thing that I really want to emphasize today is that I think that virtual sexual acts can be really excellent way to engage in intimacy during this pandemic, and I think also when we're not experiencing a global crisis. I think it's such a rich playground to get to know ourselves and our wants and our desires, and to start to build that relationship with another person. But it is important to be protecting ourselves from potential harms, and also to really make sure that we're in tune with our partner, or partners needs and pleasures during this time. So I will pass it off now to Silvia. Thank you.

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

Thank you so much, Aaron. It was so interesting. All right. So COVID, intimacy and connection. Experiencing connection during COVID has proven to be challenging for many people and for many different reasons. Physical distancing, negotiating digital technology, isolation for some, exhaustion for others, loss of livelihood for some people, new and challenging caregiving roles for others. There really is no across the board experience when it comes to navigating relationships. But what we are seeing is that COVID has exposed incredible inequities for a variety of groups, and continues to expose the fissures in our systems and structures.

There are many facets to my identity and my personality. When I was approached to talk about connection during COVID, I decided to do so from a lens of being a survivor of gender based violence. Because I think many people have experienced trauma, and it may not necessarily be sexual assaults or gender based violence. However, I think it's important to talk about the ways that we or the people around us can shut down or become disengaged when events send us into a state of shock, disbelief, or retraumatization. So I want to start by acknowledging the disproportionate impacts that this pandemic has had globally for women, girls, to us LGBTQQIA folks, people with disabilities, black and Indigenous people.

We're seeing that in times of uncertainty, inequality is amplified. Now, there's a lot going on right now. And there's a lot of grieving that's happening. Margaret Burnham, black American scholar recently stated that the inequities exposed by COVID, alongside the recent murders in the US have been this unique catalyst in the global uprising against white supremacy and systemic racism. I'm not sure that we can talk about what's happening right now with COVID without acknowledging the intensity of emotions and protests. It's this unique blend of rage and revolution. So it's hard to feel connected when it seems like the world is cracking at the seams. Canadians stats right now are recording that COVID has exacerbated safety for many people. Gender based violence has increased during the pandemic for women, girls, trans and non binary people who generally are at a higher risk of this kind of victimization.

Enforcing quarantine protocols and social isolation means that those who are in precarious relationships are now locked in even more dangerous situations. And pandemic related stressors like job loss, reduced income, food insecurity, and exacerbated mental health issues have led to increased violence. So how in any of this, are we supposed to navigate intimacy and connection? It's a big question, and I think about it a lot. Exploring intimacy during COVID has become an exercise in reclaiming power over my body during a time when there is seemingly little control and autonomy over my body. From the moment we went into isolation, our mobility was impacted. Our mortality has become in question, our choices and options for care all curtailed.

Now, this has been my experience, but I'm also aware that many populations have experienced intense surveillance for decades, centuries. For many COVID has triggered or retriggered trauma, it has magnified the very limitations that our bodies as survivors have experienced. This includes the trigger of fear of not having autonomy or choice or power over our bodies. So trauma can be associated with something overtly violence, or it can be a timeline, it violates familiar expectations about life, which might result in feelings of confusion, or uncertainty.

In the case of this pandemic, prolonged uncertainty has put a spotlight and highlighted all the ways that women, gender non binary folks and abuse survivors have felt limited in how we experience bodily control. So having grown up in a strict religious patriarchal family and having survived sexual violence, I have an acute awareness that I often connect the idea of intimacy with a lack of safety. So how do you practice connection and intimacy during a time that this really feels unsafe? When instead of connection, trauma can prompt one to shut down, retreat and avoid relationship altogether.

For many COVID has prompted barriers to intimacy that far exceed physical distancing protocols. So if this is you feeling withdrawn, or you have people in your life who have disconnected, consider a trauma informed lens. The shock induced by COVID can have multiplying effects, or it can as it has, for me, prompted an inward journey of reclaiming my body as a sacred instrument of change, of resisting the narrative that our bodies are not ours, of resisting, reproducing the power structures that rely on me to relent control, like white supremacy and patriarchy.

We are seeing mass movements to resisting what has been scripted on our bodies for so long. So recently, my mantra has been, I am not the things that I was socialized to be. And my body is not a site of violence. So exploring intimacy has been an inward journey of finding those edges of what feels joyful, of what feels safe, and of what feels great. Audrey Lorde famously wrote that self preservation is an act of political work. So the collision of COVID with global protests, resisting racial and gender violence requires big, bold steps in seeing ourselves as part of those big oppressive systems that continue to weaken and divide us. We are called to unlearn and heal all the ways that we may unconsciously be reproducing what very well might be harming us.

So this is the big question for me. Where does self care meet community action? How do we heal what is happening inside and actively heal what is happening in our world today? For me, the answer in real time lies in nurturing myself in being kind, in nurturing an inward relationship with myself. So I'm actively exploring. In what ways Am I nurturing myself rather than merely coping? And in what ways am I listening to the wisdom of my body right now? I am reminded that mistrusting one's ability to nurture themselves is an outcome of colonialism. Mistrusting my body's wisdom has been taught to me, Seán mentioned in their intro about the scarcity model as a key component to colonialism. We have been taught that. So I'm taking five minutes a day to connect and ask myself, "What do I need right now?" Sometimes it's a permissionless nap. And sometimes it's tacos. But I'm breaking up the habit of reacting to what I need, and seeing what comes up in real time. Not making those assumptions, but seeing what comes up in real time.

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

Grounding has been an important practice to build on. Because we often disembody when we are triggered with trauma, we leave we check outs, or as most of us we numb out, whether it's with food or substance zoning out with social media. So staying with myself during periods of intense emotional outburst, or just intense emotionality. And I ask myself during those times, to just stay present with it, that has been a kind of practice for myself. so brilliantly enough, this pandemic has pushed me to rethink my coping strategies. It's called me to go beyond survival. And I anticipate that most people are being pushed beyond their comfort level as well. And so I encourage us all to use this as a possible opportunity to see where we can rewire old circuits. I think it's in this collective rewiring, that we're being called in to a newer form of liberation, both individually and collectively. Thanks. With that, I will pass it on to Seán.

Seán Kinsella:

So in terms of when I started to think about what my response to this would be, and broadly, I think to the pandemic, but also specifically to the circumstance that we find ourselves in. I want to talk a little bit about first of all the limitations of COVID, around the way that public health has been dealing with it and the information that we're receiving about it. So much of the public health information has been focused around monogamous nuclear families that live in single homes. And I want to acknowledge that that is reality for very few Indigenous people that I know, including myself, I currently live with, with a nîcimos, or what we translate into Cree as sweetie, as well, as a roommate, we have three cats.

So this is not sort of the structure with which the idea of what public health is putting out is designed for. And so there are certainly other... the New York, sort of public health stuff, there are stuff that's coming out, but how do we understand that bubble when you have to think about three different people with three different sets of family community, folks who may have to go to work because of precarity of employment, like those pieces? That's the way that the public health policy, and the conversations that I'm seeing a lot of are focused around folks who have the privilege to stay home, who have the privilege to access regular internet, like those sorts of things that are not necessarily designed for many folks in the in the population.

And I think we also have to think about the risk balance relationship because for us, a lot of our older people are elders, they really are the caretakers and keeper of knowledge in our communities. So when there's a risk of one of them catching something like COVID, we risk losing an entire dictionary worth of knowledge, an entire encyclopedia of knowledge. And we're still undergoing a lot of cultural revitalization and regeneration from the impacts of the Indian act and colonization and white supremacy. So for us, it's tricky, because those aren't necessarily the risks that we're seeing talked about broadly.

And even this notion of like, I know a lot of... I've seen where folks are like, "No, your grandparents can visit, nothing great," but should they like those pieces? It's very much around heteronormativity. It's very much around compulsory monogamy and all of those types of ideas that a lot of us are trying to push back on. And it brings up questions to me around what relationships do you prioritize? So capitalism is based on a model of scarcity. There's only so much stuff, we need to generate more stuff and be productive. And the idea of having a way that you have to figure out which relationships you prioritize. So for example, for myself, it's, do I go and visit friend or sweetie outside of the house? How does that conversation look with my nîcimos and my roommate?

How do I then figure out okay, where do I go and see other folks and do ceremony on a particular weekend? Do I go see my family? My sister generally lives in Cambodia, and is here because of the pandemic. So it's and again, and in what ways are we resisting or violating, in some ways public health policy? And the other real big issue with Indigenous folks is, we have a real issue with laws that are imposed upon us. So we're still living in a reality where there is a particular law, one of the most racist laws that has ever existed that is currently on the books [the Indian Act], that still defines who we are, and still makes lines that we didn't create, that reinforces our communities being split apart, reinforces the normative ideas of identity, it creates a discrepancy between our nations.

And so we know what it's like to live under imposed law, we know what it's like to have our movements limited. There is a pass system where people had to go to an Indian agent and get written permission to leave the reserve. Those are the legacies that we still deal with in our families and our communities, that the old people remember. And then there's also the reality for us around, the reality of the fact that we have a memory of pandemics. So we remember smallpox, we remember tuberculosis. For some people, this significant event that they have never seen before. And we're like, we've been here before, we have protocols around this, we used to go back in the bush.

We have protocols around I've heard about where people would put markers outside their homes to indicate whether they were sick or not to provide an axis of consent. Like we had markers around before we enter territory's, putting tobacco to be taken to give permission like these are all frameworks that we had in place prior to settler colonialism. And on the other side of that, I feel a real sense of urgency, because whereas the world I think broadly without the economic engine restarting and the conversations tend to be very about the economy and re kicking things and sort of the bio piece, but I have a real sense of urgency around the knowledge that we gain.

So I honestly can't afford to lose a year with elders and with the knowledge keepers that I work with, because that's a year of knowledge that I don't have. And as a person who carries knowledge in our communities, I feel that every single day, I feel that responsibility. And I feel that loss around having to choose between following public health policies and following what is being told and legally enforced. Because as an example, there was a fire ban, which meant that we couldn't do ceremonies. We technically couldn't, by law do ceremonies, which is very familiar for us, because they have also been made illegal under the Indian Act.

And we remember that too, like, when a lot of the folks that I do ceremony with, their teachers remember that because they were hiding these ceremonies for many, many years, for decades. And I think about how do we overcome this idea of fear, this toxicity of fear, because fear makes us sick. And we know in our teachings, that the only way to be well, is to be balanced between mind body and spirit. And fear is about your ego. Fear is about... it sort of takes any ability that you have to look in the outside world and be caring about other people or other things, and centres that on yourself. So how do we push back on that notion of fear to ensure that we are helping our elders and helping our people and helping our communities stay safe and survive?

And we think about that when it comes to again, folks who may be...like solo poly folks who may not have partners they live with and all of those sorts of pieces, and how do we make sure everyone in our community is being cared for? Because traditionally, we have a responsibility to make sure that everyone is. And so how do we also navigate different levels of risk? So as I've said, I live with... there's three of us in the house. All of us have different risk profiles, all of us have different reasons in ways that we navigate those things. It's a lot of communication. It's an exhausting amount of communication and conversation that we have to have. This is an addition to being someone who practices critical non-monogamy of which there is also a lot of conversation that has to happen around risk and consent and all the different partners involved.

And as the difficulty for myself of feeling really frustrated and angry that I'm being imposed upon, because there is that legacy and tradition of laws being used to stop us from doing the very things that we needed to do for our survival. And then I get really, really upset and frustrated when we are criminalized. And when we are cast as you know, making the pandemic worse when we're literally taking to the streets to protest the death of Black and Afro Indigenous and Black Native and Native people. And people are going to Cherry Beach, having big parties and going to Trinity Bellwoods Park.

And it's those pieces around what gets like... we're worried about getting a ticket for having a sacred fire so we can carry our traditions on. And we're listening to accounts of people not even being issued tickets for very flagrantly violating best practices or not even best practices, general healthy practices around not social distancing and congregating. So I think it's about how do we keep many fires? That's the metaphor that keeps popping in my head is how do I keep so many fires going? And recognizing personally, I haven't done it well.

So I can fully admit that there are sweeties that I'm trying to use chats with, and all of those things that Aaron was talking about to try and keep relationships going. But I haven't done that well myself. And so I'm also struggling with how do we balance all of these different things? How do I balance the responsibilities of the elders and medicine people I work with, with my family, and the desires there. With the roommates that I live with, and the cats even? I mean, they're suddenly have three people here that they're not used to being here all the time imposing on their space too.

So how do we understand that? And how do we really continue to have good relationships with sweetness and with tenderness in the... and this is sort of the quote I thought about is, in the virtual streets and sheets. So it's this idea of like, we're going to the streets and protesting these horrible and horrific things that have always been happening to us. So these things also aren't new to our communities, or to our situation, although many folks are waking up to it for the first time. And so it's also exhausting, because we also have a lot of people who all of a sudden having these allyship conversations. All of this is connected, because we're also literally trying to revitalize and resolve colonial trauma, and have relationships with one another. And that's really hard.

And so I think about this idea that when people are starting to feel unsafe for the first time with COVID, and without any sort of like... and with judgment there, I'm like, "Well, welcome to feeling unsafe all the time." I feel unsafe walking down the street, as a Two-Spirit, Indigenous person, I constantly fear that I'm going to be someone who ends up on the list of missing and murdered Two-Spirit Indigenous women and girls. This is a real reality for us. And the pandemic has exasperated that, but it hasn't changed it.

And the police violence that people are suddenly really upset about, we have been saying, and we have been literally having to put our lives on hold to go and fight it in supreme courts and other places for our very lives in humanity to be protected and even to be acknowledged. So I think about the importance of us using those trauma informed care pieces to engage in ceremony and going back to the land because to me, that's where it starts. if I'm fearful, it's because I'm forgetting that all of the things that are happening now have happened many times before. This is just another cycle. The earth heating up even like the global warming, and let's not kid around that’s a significant crisis. This is something the earth has done before, and the folks who are really at risk is us as humans.

And the damage that we're doing to the earth, and to the plants and the animals, they're all going to be fine without us as well. So we have a real issue to make sure that we're focusing on our very survival, even in the midst of this sort of peace around a pandemic. And I also think a lot about when we talk about this notion of like, casual sex and intimacy, I think about as a Crip person, as a disabled person. How casual is sex to begin with? So I always think about how, as a native person, as an Indian person, as Anishnaabe/nêhiyaw person, sex isn't casual. Sex is political.

So our relationships with one another, the things that we share, our bodies, these are politicized and these are things where... there is a lot of racist things that happen on dating apps. There's a lot of ableism that happens on apps. There's a lot of pieces that disproportionately impact us as people and is significantly worse because of colourism. So my experience as someone who often gets coded as white, as an lighter skinned Indigenous person is very different from someone who is much more brown and is much different than a Black or Afro Indigenous person. So I can extrapolate how much worse the situation is because of the inherent racism that's built into our system and into our lives.

And so, when you add being trans or ENBY on to that, it's how do we maintain these relationships of tenderness, of decolonial love? And for myself, one of the practices that I engage in is I'm a poet. So I write decolonial love poetry. And I do that as a way to both talk back to the trauma that I'm overcoming through the histories of my family. But also, I do that to again, keep that tenderness and sweetness, because it's really hard under settler colonialism to not harden. It's really hard, when you're so frustrated at watching everyone else, take advantage of the lands that your family was removed from, and your peoples were removed from, to have a party and to put other people at risk. It's very frustrating.

So there's a balance of like, I'm both feeling frustrated all the time and hopeful about these kinds of conversations that are coming to the forefront. And sometimes it's just not sexy, that's the other thing of like... there's a self-care piece about colonialism isn't sexy, right? It's not great. It's in spite of those things, that we build this relationship. And it's in spite of the efforts to exterminate and kill us that we build those relationships, and the networks of solidarity with Black folks, and with those other folks who have come here, because all of us have a responsibility under treaty to engage in what we call wahkohtowin or this notion of kinship, under Cree law.

And so remembering as well, what are the laws of the land that we all now sit on? What are the laws of the Anishinaabe people and the Haudenosaunee people and my people? And how do we understand our responsibilities of treating each other kindly and well, and engaging in consent? And so these are new discussions, in some ways, for the kinds we're having now. But remember that these discussions are ones that we've had since time immemorial. So I say êkosi, Thank you for listening to that piece.

Rick Ezekiel:

Wow. So thinking of words to share after those incredible sharings. And the only thing coming to mind is just a big thank you talk about a brave space, and how grateful we should all be to our panelists for being so willing to share your own experiences and strategies to support the learning of folks on the panel. So I just want to start maybe some spirit fingers or something like that to say a big thank you to Aaron, to Silvia, to Seán for being so open to share. So with that, we will move into our question and answer section of the panel and Amita and I will be rotating back and forth, identifying questions to share with our panelists.

If folks haven't yet done so, we already have some questions in our Q&A section, but please do feel free if there's anything you're thinking of, anything that was prompted for you, from what our panelists have shared, to put those in the Q&A and we'll navigate them with the amount of time that we have remaining. Let me kick us off and this one has a little bit of context. It's a bit of a sharing piece and it was originally directed at Aaron while he was speaking, but I think lots of perspectives from our whole panel that definitely touch on this. It was an individual who identified as a heterosexual female, with she pronouns and was talking about relating to the love language of physical touch. She's in her early 20s and in her first relationship.

There are some differences, or she's indicated that she isn't ready to take the relationship to the next level through sex, which her partner is seeking out and has indicated that she's confident about him and the relationship and that they're close but not wanting to move toward sex yet. She trusts him and respects boundaries, but if not, that they might end up breaking up in the context. She was wondering if there are any thoughts or perspectives that folks would share. That intersects lots of what we talked about around boundaries, communication, et cetera, et cetera. With that, I'm not sure if we have any panelists who would like to kick us off.

Aaron Brown:

I can chat a bit about it. Thank you for sharing this question because I think this is a really vulnerable question to ask. I think, for me, when I was reading this question, and listening to it, I think going back to actually what Rick just said about communication and boundaries, and I really think about having a conversation with this partner, recognizing that comfort levels with that might really vary depending on your relationship, but getting to a point where you can start to open up that dialog of, you know, "It's clear to me that you have these sexual needs that you were hoping to have met. But this is a boundary that I also have and it's a boundary that I am not willing to move on right now," because it sounds like it's really central to your identity and really important to you.

So having that conversation of, "Okay, what are alternative ways that we can meet those intimacy needs?" One of the things I was thinking about when I was listening to this was sex toys, truthfully, where I was like, "Could your partner be using sex toys to help meet some of those needs?" Then, is that a part of that solution and is that something that would be comfortable. That's one of the pieces I think about. I think about this piece of, "That we might end up breaking up, and if you don't engage and if you don't essentially traverse this boundary of yours," and for me, that's a really important piece to reflect on.

If it gets to that point where you feel like this person is saying, "Well, you need to traverse this boundary or it's over," is that the relationship that you want to be in? That is not an easy question to answer. That is a very difficult question to answer because this is someone that you care deeply about, but I guess, for me, that would be a question that I would ask myself is, is this a relationship that I want to be on if I am being asked to cross this boundary that is so central to me? The answer probably would not be yes, for me and I would really struggle with communicating that with someone. But I think that that's something that would be really important that I would reflect on and that I would encourage you to reflect on as well. Those are some of my thoughts on that, but I'll let Seán and Silvia add some thought.

Seán Kinsella:

Wow, so that's a big question I think and I think for me, where I approach it from is remembering that one of the key tenants as I've been taught with our people and our understanding of the way the world works, actually is that all people, all life is sacred and because all life is sacred, as humans we have free will, and that one of the most significant harms that you can do against another human is to violate their free will. I think that communicating boundaries is very difficult, I think it's difficult because it's not ... Like, we live under a coercive system.

I've done panels and talks around, can we even have consent under the settler colonial system and state? Because we live in such an environment of constant coercion and constant violation that we don't even, I think, know what healthy communication looks like, culturally or broadly. So for us as regenerating our nations and communities, part of it is regenerating our initial understandings of how we have conversations around consent which is literally to the point of like, you don't have a right to expect or demand anything of anyone ever. And that's where we talked about the notion of tobacco. When we pick medicines or are talking to one another, we use that tobacco as a way to ask questions of someone but to know that that person has a right to say, no.

Use the example of the Cree people. Before folks would enter our territory, what they used to do is they used to put a post in the ground and they would tie a pouch of tobacco to it and they would wait. And someone from our community would go and either take that pouch, or they would leave it. If they left the pouch, what it meant was that they did not consent to those people coming onto our territory and therefore they were doing so in violence and violating our autonomy. If we took the tobacco it meant that they were free to pass. I think about that is, if all of us have sort of this idea of a sacred circle, our own territories, that tobacco has to be given, which I think in the way that we think about it is, communication has to be given before anyone enters that circle. And to do otherwise is a violation.

I think it's about thinking about, not all relationships are healthy and people are pressured to do things because of the way that we're socialized. Again, sometimes folks don't realize because we're enculturated in this idea of coercion, that they're even being coercive, because it's not necessarily intentional. But it means it's important to learn what that healthy communication looks like and how we actually relate to one another in ways that don't violate our autonomy. From my perspective, if you don't want to have sex, don't have sex, or find different ways that you're comfortable having sex, but it has to be a communication piece, both with yourself and first and foremost with yourself and then with that partner.

And if they can't respect that, then I think that they probably have a lot of learning that they need to do about how to carry on healthy relationships and they actually shouldn't be in a relationship with another person because we have a lot of relationship teachings that talk about this notion of, like you have to be in a good place and developed a lot of your own skills and pieces yourself. We would say you have to be able to build your own lodge and hunt and do those things before you are taking on partners, for that reason. It's about what you can figure out for yourself before you're engaging with others, which is like a very distilled version of that.

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

There's been a lot shared. I'm sure you've gleaned a lot from that, so I will just say and reiterate that this is about healthy and confident boundaries about yourself and your own body and that's really it. But it's easier said than done because remember we live in a society that girls tend to be socialized in a certain way around relenting that control and that's what I'm really, really passionate about unlearning is how do we get to a point where we are much more confident to say that, "That shouldn't even be a thing in 2020 anymore," where we feel threatened that we have to relent control over our bodies because somebody else ...

This is about toxic masculinity too. Often, boys are socialized that they have that power over our bodies, that it can even be an issue. I would just encourage you to think about the way in which ... What you're asking is a very normal outcome of the issues with the way in which boys and girls are socialized and the only way to change that in a bigger picture, is to actually make healthy choices and healthy boundaries for yourself. I'll just leave it at that.

Amita Singh:

Thank you all for those really eloquent answers. I'm going to read the next question. The question is directed to the panelists who identify as queer. Do you ever feel guilty about your sexuality or the sexual choices that you make?

Aaron Brown:

I can start. I mean, so it's actually really funny that this question came up because I was chatting with folks earlier. I'm watching, How to Get Away With Murder again with my mom and step-dad. My step-dad refers to the show as how to have lots of sex and get away with murder, because there's just like copious amounts of sex scenes in it. There are some fairly explicit queer sex scenes in it and I feel super weird watching it with my parents and for there to be very explicit references to anal sex while I'm sitting right beside my parents. There are times when, I wouldn't say that I feel guilty, but I do feel a discomfort and I do feel weird at times as a queer person. And owning this identity is sometimes like an up and down journey. I wouldn't say that I feel guilty though and I also think about this piece about sexual choices that I make.

For me, I think about like, I'm a person who does engage in hookups and that is also something that it's really interesting because on the one hand, I am like, "Look at me, I'm owning my sexuality. This is something that I enjoy in life. I take pride in that." But there's still that internalized shame from society where I worry that I'm going to meet a partner who stigmatizes that behavior and what does that mean for our relationship and that sort of thing. I would say it's kind of like a constant negotiation, but more often than not, I'm like, "I just fucking love being queer," and I feel great about it, so I just try and lean into that as much as possible and just acknowledge the times when that is hard for myself.

Seán Kinsella:

I'm sort of thinking of that butterfly meme, the like, What is queer? sort of thing, for myself. I think for me, there's an additional tension point because these are not our words, right? Traditionally, how I've been told and how I understand it, the policing of our relationship structures and sexualities was brought in by settler colonialism. So the idea of someone ... The choices that someone made about who they were in relationship with, was individual to the people involved in that relationship. That could've specifically meant multiple partners, that could've meant sexuality with different genders or the same gender or however we define that. Gender is a very complex thing that could be its own workshop.

And in point of fact, there is a Two-Spirit... I'm going to do a quick promo, there is a Two-Spirit workshop on Tuesday defining Two-Spirited identity with a Cree thinker, Roman Young, that we have at Centennial next week, so little shout out there. What I would say is, it is an ongoing process. And for myself, I constantly wonder what point is the breaking point of too much? So how Indigenous, or how Cree, or how Saulteaux, Anishinaabe can I be in a relationship before it's too much? How Crip can I be in a relationship before it's too much? How queer can I be? How nonmonogamous can I be and at what point do I make myself undatable and unfuckable for people? Right? Because there's a lot of really internalized shit that people carry around with them around those pieces.

I think that it would be easy for me to be like, "Yes, I'm super proud and loud and out there as a queer all the time." I'm not. Because there's certain spaces where in ceremony, it's not safe, necessarily and I'm making a decision through my free will to compromise maybe how out I'm comfortable being so that I can pick up teachings because of the imposition of transphobia, homophobia and hetero-patriarchy in our communities. It's not an easy question. And for me, I largely, for the most part, tend to date queer people so that helps because there's an understanding there that exists, but I think it's also about how do we learn about ourselves?

When I think back for myself, I recognize the ways that I've always been queer, so like there isn't a time that I can remember that that isn't my experience, but I also grew up in a small town and I was Crip or disabled and I was Indigenous. So it was still that point of like, how much am I willing to truly be myself to compromise of my own safety? As a trans/ENBY person, I have to admit that that is also a factor in it. I think it is about balancing those pieces and I would say there isn't a wrong or a right way to be queer, it's however you define it and what it means to you. êkosi.

Rick Ezekiel:

Brilliant. Thank you Aaron and Seán. We now have a question directed at Sylvia. The question is, you mentioned that you have really focused on connecting inward during this time through COVID and taking control from within. Do you have any recommendations on movies or books that help you work through connecting with yourself more?

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

Oh man, there's so, so many. Yeah, and I would caution because I think it depends on how you identify. I don't want to just outpour the pieces that I love. I've been recently reading some pieces from Glennon Doyle, Glennon Melton Doyle. She has written a book called Untamed, recently and also, previous to that Love Warrior. She's the first person that comes to mind because I'm reading her more recently because she really talks about the undoing of the ways in which we've been socialized as women, to be socialized to be heteronormative, to be socialized to fit in boxes. She really sort of breaks apart those pieces. On the other front there are lots of movies. I'm trying to think ... Gaia TV is an app that I have and they have some great stuff. Wayne Dyer talks about the shift, sort of being at that point in your life where you're ready to see yourself as part of a broader ... sort of to take broader collective accountability for what you see outside of you, as it is enscripted within you. I recommend that app and some of the movies on there. Thanks for asking.

Aaron Brown:

I've been reading a lot of poetry. I've been reading pretty much a book of poetry a day right now. It was funny because I was actually thinking of one that I read last night and reflecting on what you shared during what our practice run yesterday and then today about connecting inward and that sort of piece. It's a book of poetry called How to Cure a Ghost by Fariha Róisín. There's actually just like a piece of a poem that I'll read that I just loved so much. "And so I'm not tired of being alone and under the guise of solecism, I move closer to the person who exists inside cleaning the extremities. I am moving beyond the borders finding unchartered terrain and unresolved wounds yet to heal. But I welcome the mistakes, the turmoiled sores, for as they say, ultimately, real recognize fucking real."

It just felt so relevant to what you were sharing earlier. For me, poetry has been really helpful and for me, in particular, I tend to read poetry by queer people of color, generally is where I tend to lean because for me, that's also a space where I learn and can build my empathy in that sort of piece there. That was just a piece that I really enjoyed, so ...

Seán Kinsella:

I think for me, I'm constantly reading like four books, so to narrow it down actually is very, very challenging. I would say that I have been thinking a lot about and rereading some Leanne Simpson books, particularly ... What We've Always Done, is one of them. I've also been rereading some pieces around Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) who does a really interesting book on Cree laws which is I think really great, so some books there, I think. Also, trying to do some fiction reading and I will say that I finally caved and got a Kobo that's coming so I can actually use the amazing services of the Toronto Public Library online because I moved to Toronto in February right before the pandemic happened and so did not get to use in-person any of the cool stuff that the Toronto Public Library's have to offer, so also a plug for those I guess.

Dr. Silvia D’Addario:

I also ... Actually, just because I thought of it and I have it behind me, Caroline Myss writes a book called The Anatomy of The Spirit. I highly, highly recommend it and it's really about recognizing the emotional layers that end up showing up physiologically and the way that we can address those from sort of like a multi-faith perspective. Excellent. Dr. Caroline Myss.

Amita Singh:

I think this might be our final question. It was directed at Seán, but open to anyone. What are some Indigenous teachings you've learned from elders or others regarding intimate relationships?

Seán Kinsella:

Okay, so I'll keep it short. There is a whole year of teachings on healthy relationships that we're generally given as part of our rites of passage. We would have rites of passage and they would differ a little bit depending on the things that your body did, so not necessarily by gender, but more about as a person who has moon time or as a person who doesn't, what then are your responsibilities? Part of that were specific pieces around sex, healthy relationships, how to maintain those, how to balance family and all of that kind of stuff. So there's extensive, extensive teachings on it, and so it's very hard to capture in a short period or a snapshot.

I think what I often want to rely on people hearing and knowing is, remember that for our nations, we had since time immemorial to adapt these teachings. Our teachings are thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of years old and we've maintained them through oral history. They're very complex and they think that there's a lot about, again, how do we maintain ethical and healthy relationships and about, how do we create safety for one another.

The tobacco teaching is a good example of that because like if I'm going to have a conflict with someone, sometimes what'll happen with traditional people is someone will walk over and give you tobacco, or if I'm asking for knowledge from someone, if I'm asking for their time, or a gift that they have specifically, I'm going to them with tobacco, so they recognize that I'm valuing their time and giving them an option to say, no or yes, right? I try and bring that ethic into all of my relationships as much as I can, while still being a person who is recovering from nations impacted by settler colonialism and the imposition of coercive ways of being.

Amita Singh:

Thanks Seán. Anyone else want to contribute any lessons about intimacy? All right, well on behalf of Rick and I, thank you all so, so much for your bravery in sharing such intimate pieces of yourselves. Your eloquence and courageous vulnerability is incredibly inspiring and I don't think I speak just for myself when I say that. So we thank you again for being part of this discussion and to our audience, thank you for joining in this talk and for your thoughtful questions and comments. Your participation is absolutely wonderful and it encourages us to continue having these important intimate, vulnerable conversations.

With that, I'm going to ... I think some people have been having some trouble accessing the resources that I put in the chat, so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to email them out to everyone who registered and I will ... I'm wondering if I can ask the panelists to send me some of the books that they have recommended because I think there was a lot of interest there, so I can add that to the email as well. Rick, any final thoughts?

Rick Ezekiel:

Just echo your thanks to the panelists and the attendees. It was a brilliant discussion and I feel personally really grateful to have been part of it and involved with it and really appreciate the thoughtful questions from our attendees. So glad that we were able to have this conversation and jointly as a Humber/Centennial community plus additional attendees from other places.

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• Place for Reconciliation for All Our Relations, Centennial College
  416-289-5000 ext. 2370 
• Humber College Resources
  A list of off-campus resources
• Tkaronto Indigenous Peoples portal
  A centralized location for access to services, events, programs, businesses, and more.
• Toronto Innuit Association
  Provide support in language learning, cultural awareness, family services, employment and health services to Inuit and their families.
• Native Child and Family Services of Toronto
  Supporting Indigenous youth in healthy and positive transitions into adulthood
• Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto
  Providing community and supports for Indigenous women and girls
• Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Centres that are connected to 7 hospitals:
  • Women's College Hospital
  • Mount Sinai
  • Toronto General Hospital
  • Toronto Western Hospital
  • Michael Garron Hospital
  • St. Michael’s Hospital
  • St. Joseph’s Hospital
  • Sunnybrook Hospital

Articles

• We Need a Plan for How to Have Casual Sex Again
• Unlimited Intimacy, Raw
• How To Cure a Ghost
• Nationhood Interrupted by Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum
• This Accident of Being Lost
• As We Have Always Done