Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.
I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors.
at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.
Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.
Hello, ladies. I'm Zach Stafford, and you're listening to Vibe Check, the water edition. ♪♪
All right. I am so excited. Today, I am solo. No Saeed, no Sam. I'm a lonesome, which is scary, but also exciting. It's really exciting because I am joined by a really, really special person who I love dearly, and that person is the one and the only Jenna Wertham. If
If you're not familiar with Jenna Wertham, Jenna is a culture writer for the New York Times, co-host for the New York Times podcast, Still Processing, which Jenna hosts with Wesley Morris. Jenna is an author of the book Black Futures with Kimberly Drew, my wife, my everything, one of my favorite people in the world.
And Jenna's also at work on a really, really special book about this association and the body. And that book is kind of the reason we're speaking today because earlier this year, Jenna wrote a piece that really just struck me.
It was a piece about Jenna's visit to Zipolite in Mexico, a beach I've been to before. But in the piece, Jenna discloses that they got naked on a beach that I refused to get naked on, and it opened up a new window for them to consider nudity in the body and pleasure. So today, our conversation, without spoiling anything, is about all those things, about how we all can find our own special places where we can feel alive, safe, and most importantly, free.
So without further ado, I'd like to throw to myself and my conversation with the great Jenna Wertham. Enjoy. Well, Jenna, you know, as a listener of the show, you know that we like to begin with a vibe check. So I must know what's your vibe today? How are you feeling? How are you feeling in your body? Oh my gosh, I've dreamt about being asked this question for so long.
The vibes are really high, my friend. I am very firmly located in my body, which is a gift. I am really riding all the highs and some of the lows of cancer season. I feel completely dilated and raw and just cracked open. Like, I'm just...
I saw Spider-Man 2 and just like couldn't stop crying. And I love it. Like I want everything actually right now to be on the surface. But it does mean moving through the world with a lot of intention, care and thoughtfulness because, you know, in Rocket when Beyonce is like, let the river run through me, like that is the rivers are running through me right now. Yeah.
I love that. And it's kind of perfect for our conversation today because today I think requires for both of us to be a bit cracked open because I want to talk about nudity with you, which, you know, isn't because I'm super voyeuristic, but there's a real professional reason. And it's because you wrote an essay earlier this year about it. And, you know, before we jump into it, I have to tell you something I haven't told anyone yet besides my dear boyfriend. But guess what I did to prepare for today just for you? What?
I can't wait. What? I drove to Blacks Beach, south of LA, which is a little beach outside of San Diego that is a nude beach. And I have never in my life...
been naked on a beach and I got naked just for you, Jenna Wertham. What? How was it? This is incredible. Oh my God. Tell me everything. Well, I'm going to tell you everything. But before we go there, I want to begin with you and your trip because it was your trip to Zipolite that really inspired me. So can we start there and then we'll move to me and then we're going to make this a big magical thing for everyone listening. Because I think at the end of this, I want everyone to go to a nude beach. I think that's my ask for everybody after this. So...
for context you released an essay in March I believe of 2023 in New York Times called want to love your body try swimming naked which is a piece I immediately clicked on because it's you but also it's a piece where you went to Zipolite which is a queer Mexican village or enclave in Oaxaca Mexico so talk to us about what took you there what made you want to write this piece for all of us to read
Wow. Yes. Well, you know, I've been researching Reese Beach in Queens, which is, you know, all the gay New Yorkers know that's our little slice of trash heaven. And it is a really magical place that is being...
transformed right now. There's a big demolition that's just happened of two ancient structures that were out there and that beach has meant everything to me. And before I had Zipo late day money and before I had Fire Island money, I only had Reese money, which was 275 and a bus transfer. And so it has meant a lot to me to be able to go there and
explore my queerness, explore my body in different stages of gender expression and nudity. And while I was at Reese a few summers ago, a few people started mentioning
Zipulite to me, this nude queer beach in Mexico that I had complicated feelings about traveling to. I mean, you know, it's hard to be an international traveler these days thinking so much about how our footprints shape and reshape geographies, what Americans can do abroad can look a lot like gentrification here. And I also really wanted to think about if I could answer that question responsibly while visiting this place. And so I pitched this idea
Everybody loved it. And I honestly, Zach, when I got there, I was just like,
I truly thought it was going to be like wild things meet spring breakers too. Like I just, I really was like, I'm about to have the wildest, like, Ooh, I'm going to redo all the beach weeks of my high school when I was like not out and not even aware enough to know that I wasn't out. Like so scared of being in my body. So afraid of other people's thoughts about my body. I just was like, I'm about to go ham, you know? And I just assumed that would be my time there. And,
And I didn't even think about the fact that it was nude beach. If I'm honest, I was just like, yeah, it's a nude beach. Like it just means it'll be very like exuberant and free and liberatory. And when I got there, I was like, oh, wow, I'm really having to think about my body in this new way and what I do with it and don't want to do with it. So as soon as I arrived, it just became this whole other story, this whole other trip. And
It was really fun and exhilarating to work on because I was just writing on anything. I was like writing in the backs of the books I brought with me. I was writing on the backs of receipts. Like it just wasn't a regular assignment. Like I wasn't, I don't know. I wasn't reporting. I was like, I was talking to people and I was talking to a lot of historians of the place, but I was also just like, whatever was coming to my mind while I was near the water, I was writing down and that all of that thinking formed the piece, which was really, really fun and new.
Yeah. I mean, in the piece you write, I want to quote it a bit. You said,
I immediately got that because I was naked and a group of people came next to me and my boyfriend and they wouldn't take off their clothes and they felt really out of place, not myself, which was a really interesting experience. And it made me want to ask you, like, what is it about when you finally allow your naked body to be kind of seen in these spaces that all these norms, these anxieties you have around being naked seem to disappear really quickly? Yeah.
Wow, what a great question. I mean, it was a process for me, like they didn't disappear. And I mean, it's, you know, Zipulite in terms of the overall population is very, I mean, it's so hard to make generalizations by looking at groups of people. But my impressions of the gay communities that were there were mostly cis gay men.
And again, like I don't, you know, not entirely and it's hard to tell by looking. But that was the sense that I had. And so I think there was a feeling of do I belong here?
Are people going to judge my body? I mean, am I fit enough to be here? I mean, there are lots of anxieties that being in a culture of, I mean, you know this so well, I can imagine. But for me, I was very much like, I don't know what kind of male gaze I'm going to be subjected to. And I also just haven't really thought or cared about that in literal decades. So there was a lot of mental Olympics of just trying to figure out what my intentions were for myself.
what my obsessions were, like what my spirals were, my anxieties were, and then figuring out how to release them. And so the fact that it was this particular population kind of freed me from desire hierarchies and economics, right? Like I was just actually not probably going to meet anybody, you know, because I was just very outside. It felt to me I was very outside of the politics of desire and it was actually really freeing. And so once I kind of made peace with that,
I got really excited and I was like, this is an opportunity for me to really have a deeper relationship to myself independent of anybody else. And what a gift. And so once I realized that, I was like, let's do it. But I had to do it in a particular way. So I started going to the beach at sunrise. So that would just be me.
people doing early yoga on the beach, the fishermen and then dog walkers. And it was hilarious because I would be like quickly taking off all my clothes, like hanging them on the rocks that are there and then just like going for it. And like, you know, these fishermen, I mean, they were really kind and I just felt like a lot of kindness and emptiness. And I felt like I just, I also love the beach in the morning, really special time. And my eventual goal was like, I want to walk the length
of that beach completely nude. Like, that was my goal. I was like, if we don't get there, we don't get there. It's fine. No judgment. But like, I want to stroll. I'm trying to stroll down this beach naked. I admire that so much because what listeners should know about my experience yesterday is that I cheated in some ways. I brought my partner who has seen me naked and allegedly, I guess, likes it enough that he stays around. So, you know, that was plus one. And then two, I'm
Allegedly, you know, it's what he tells me. And then two, I didn't stroll the beach. I only sat on my blanket and went into the water and back and forth because my big goal was to swim like Jeanette did. But to walk the beach is a whole other level. So how was it walking the beach for you? Did you ever make it there? I don't think you cheated, by the way. I think that we all need our training wheels to have new experiences. And we are...
born imbued with so much shame about our bodies. I mean, so many assumptions projected onto us even before we're born. I mean, it's truly a miracle that any of us can do anything, you know? And so I don't think you cheated. I also think that with a couple of hours to be naked and go to the water and come back, I mean, that's incredible. I had like 10 days. I had so much time.
to work my way up in various comfort levels. And yeah, I did. I did get to that point, you know, and I think it was really joyful and it was really fun and it felt really exhilarating. And I did it a few times and I loved how normalized it felt. Like I loved the feeling of just enjoying my body and kind of not thinking about it. You know, there's a there's a delicate balance of being
embodied and aware of one's body enough to be able to forget it, you know, and just to be like, yeah, it's all just functional. And that is a gift and a privilege and also just was so wonderful to experience. I'm not sure I've ever experienced my body in that way because I don't really get nude at Reese, by the way. Like I'll take my top off sometimes, but being a little bit of a known quantity in New York
It's something I still haven't wrapped my mind around. Like we're sitting there talking about the weather and I'm just sort of like, oh, but our nipples just touched. I listen, Jenna. I told Craig, I was like, I love that we're doing this. I'm so happy that you're my person doing this with me. But we will not be going to the big queer side of this beach because if someone comes up to me and says, I love Vibe Check while I'm naked, I will never, ever recover. But I am trying to normalize that, though. I'm trying to let that go because I also feel like.
there is something really powerful about, for me, like, I feel like that's my next, that's my next thing to work through because what's, what's so bad about being experienced? I mean, I, I'm at a place in my life where I'm very lucky to really,
I enjoy my physique. I feel like my, I'm really comfortable. My gender. It's like, I, I don't know. There's like, there's nothing to hide and there's no reason for me right now in this moment to feel like ashamed or like, I can't reveal myself. So I'm, I'm really like working through that this summer just to be like, I hope people recognize me and I hope I'm in like a string bikini bottom and like nothing else or nothing at all. Like I'm, I'm kind of into that right now just for me, but I also know what you're saying. Cause it's overwhelming and it's, it's, you're trying to exist in one context, one,
And then another context presents itself. And so that context collapse is really hard to navigate in the real world. It feels like this tension of before I went, I was thinking, I was like, OK, I want to be seen by people I don't know, but I'm really frightened of being seen by people I don't
do know and it's a tension and I felt like I had to give myself grace yesterday to say like this is step one of this like I'm letting my partner see me naked in public I'm letting this random straight couple next to me see me in public but maybe one day I'll get to a place where you know my friend down the that I'm not even that close with the random person from the internet can see me and that will be the next step because this feels like a lifelong journey oh yeah because below all of this for me is is truly you know my particular um
brain diseases, which all have to do with childhood dysfunction, growing up the child of an alcoholic parent. I mean, all of these things are rooted in me and my experience of myself of being a people pleaser, a workaholic. I mean, you didn't know I was going to go this deep, but like all the various pathologies that I'm kind of always
untangling and working out through all the various work that I do in my life and spiritual health, emotional, physical, et cetera, mental health, it's all aimed at the same thing. And there's something about, you know, really engaging with myself nude in public that brings all of those issues to the surface. And I think it's a real testament to how much I've been
Doing that work that this feels fun. This is really the moment for me to work this out. And I love that because, you know, there's there's one of those sayings. It's like, you know, you do the work when you're ready. You find the teachers you need when you're ready for it. And I truly believe that I'm not overextending myself. I feel like this is the work I'm kind of meant to do right now. So I also feel like you're in your journey and you'll be where you are.
I think I'm also getting to the place where I do want to normalize being someone who is free. And I think at least for me right now, that is part of what freedom looks like. Yeah. And it feels like the water itself is the conduit to that freedom. In your piece, you actually say that you can't disassociate in the sea and so much of your work is about disassociation in the body.
which makes me want to know what is it about water beyond you being a water sign? You're a Scorpio, I'm a Pisces, but what is it about water itself that really allows us to be free potentially in it? Yeah. I mean, water is the source of everything. And there are a lot of scholars of oceanic studies and blue spaces who have really informed my thinking and they include Alexis Pauline Gumbs,
the poet edouard le son lucille clifton of course the filmmaker tourmaline the list goes on and on and they talk about the the harmonies and the symmetries between our bodies and the sea the percentages of water in our bodies is very similar to the percentages of water
on earth and you know do with that what you will but i do think there is something incredibly meditative and healing about water even if you don't want to get in the water because i want to acknowledge a lot of people don't like to be in the sea and the sea is also a source of a lot of historical trauma for us as black americans a lot of our legacies are tied up in the pain of what it's meant to traverse bodies of water and be submerged in that water i am someone who
feels a lot of healing when I enter different bodies of water. And I think there's kind of a of a memory to use Toni Morrison's term of like there's a rejoining that happens. Like I feel most connected to my ancestors when I'm in and on the water. And I know there's a crap. I don't I don't need 23 media to tell me that there are Fisher people in my history like like my people are from the water. Like it's just true. There is not just of the water, but like
we worked on the water like i just know it because the way i feel so at home and even i've been taking sailing lessons and i'm just like it's very natural for me to navigate on the water um in a way that i'm just like what like there's so many things i can't do i can't play musical instruments i can't really
I don't know. There's a lot of like very particular technical things I cannot do with my brain and my hands. I'm like, you know what I mean? Like, that's not my strength. But when I'm on a boat, I'm like, I get this. So I'm like, OK, that's ancestral. That's not that's like bigger than me in this lifetime. But to your point, I mean, I do think that looking at blue.
is really calming for so many of us. Like I do think blue frequencies are real. I think there is something that happens. I think we need blue spaces the way we need green spaces. Blue spaces. With that, Jenna, I need to take a quick pause for us because I have a lot of questions about some specific blue places, specifically one named Fire Island that we both love. But listeners, stay right there. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more with Jenna Wertham.
This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.
I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors
at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.
Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.
All right, we are back and I am so excited to continue this really beautiful swimming blue conversation with my dear friend Jenna, who's already inspired me so much. And I want to go even deeper with her into some places that we both love. And I want to talk about like, why are they places we both love? And one place that comes to mind is Fire Island. But before we get there, Jenna, I just want to point out something you wrote in the piece and then I've been thinking a lot of is that queer...
place and queer placemaking happens a lot by water. So, you know, in your piece, you mentioned Moonlight, which famously has some really intimate scenes on the beach with Chiron. You know, there's other pieces beyond that, like Itu Mama Tambien, which is, you know, takes place in the fictional beach, Boca del Cielo, which is Zipolite, which is about, you know, just watch that movie. It's amazing, but it's a similar queer space. Or even movies like A Single Man, where you see, you know, Colin Firth run into the water,
kind of embracing his body and sexuality and then so on and so on. What is it about water and queer placemaking that, why does that keep happening? Yeah. I mean, one of the ideas behind queer placemaking and waterways is that
places that are a bit more remote and hard to get to can really provide a barrier, you know, a protective barrier between us and the rest of the world. You know, Fire Island in particular, there is an incredible oral history project by Esther Newton on the history of Cherry Grove that talks a lot about
You know, it's far enough from New York. It's not so far. It's not as far as a place like Provincetown. That can be like a six to eight hour drive. It's a two hour drive and a ferry. You know, it's like you can get away for even a day and how meaningful that is, even though Fire Island is hard to access, you know, it's still more accessible than other places. And
there's enough of a barrier. It's like you're far enough away from the city that you can experiment and explore and have these revelatory experiences. I mean, it's still a very difficult place to go, but I've been doing a lot of interviews and talking to elders who live out there and something that, um,
was shared with me on this most recent trip was that Cherry Grove and Fire Island was one, which is the sort of more historic village. There's many villages and many towns on Fire Island and Cherry Grove is one of them. The Pines is another. But Cherry Grove was one of the first places that black New Yorkers were allowed to swim. It wasn't segregated water. And there are all these histories and there are all these ways in which these places become respites and they become sanctuaries. And I just think it's really true. And there's also just something really sexy about
rocks and sand and dunes and the lapping of water. I mean, it just all is very sensate. And I do think that invokes and appeals to queer people.
Yeah. And it makes me think about, you know, I texted you this before, but I was rereading Audre Lorde's A Litany for Survival. It's a poem that's just incredible. And, you know, she writes on the top of the poem, for those of us who live at the shoreline, standing upon the constant edges of decision, crucial and alone, for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice, who love in doorways, coming and going, in the hours between dawns, look
looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours and she continues on talking about those of us that live under deep oppression in this country and something about beaches and us sitting on beaches feels like a threshold or like a literal border of what could be and what is I
I would love to hear what you think about that because I've just been thinking about like place and beach and how you're sitting between two places at once and why we as queer people, you know, to quote Gloria Anzaldúa, are such border walkers of identity in space. And it feels like beaches are that. Yeah. Yeah. I love that poem by Audra. And, you know, she was a beach person herself. She spent the last years of her life in St. Croix. You know, I mean, she. Oh, yeah. She wanted to.
write out the rest of her cancer along the water. And I mentioned Alexis Pauline Gumbs before, but, you know, she's a resident Audra scholar and she has all these images that she shared online of her on beaches, on water, on, you know, in a canoe. I mean, you know, she loved,
the sea and she also frequented reese like she writes about it in zami and there is a photo of her on reese beach which is really incredible i need it to be printed out and framed why haven't i done that i need to do it and i think that there is something about water that is so transformative it does feel like a rebirth there is a way in which you lose track of yourself on the water it's hard to keep up with time you know you can't really read screens like you can't really
have a quick trip to the beach always. Like you can, but that's kind of the antithesis of what it means to be at the beach. And I think, you know, the thing I love about that poem is Audrey's really talking about being caught in between two spaces and neither of them really working. And so this kind of constant hovering, this constant
horizon, I guess, you know, which is the way Jose Esteban Munoz talks about queerness is this place where you're either really departing or arriving. And I think
that suits so much of the way I like to think about queerness and queer theory and my own identity, which is always arriving or never arriving. And there's something so freeing and very not straight, right, about being in a little bit of limbo and embracing that uncertainty and that possibility for transformation, which again is like being by the water can suspend everything else.
At least for me, when I'm by the water, I just become very invested in trying to figure out like what the water is doing so that I can exist alongside it. Like it just demands other things of me, a type of respect, a type of presence. Right. The first rule of the ocean is don't turn your back on the ocean. You have to really honor that.
that body of water. And Dionne Brand, who's an incredible Trinidadian Canadian poet, writes a lot about this in A Map to the Door of No Return. And she also talks about forever being suspended in a doorway in this really moving way. And so I think those two things are just always going to be connected.
And what's so beautiful about how you're talking about these places is that they're kind of these, I don't want to say liminal, but you know, these third spaces where we get to go and be released from all these structures around us, you know, of time, of labor, of potentially identity, it kind of lets you go.
And that's all happening in these places and they haven't happened for so long. But it feels lately that these spaces are becoming less and less frequent or available to us. You know, when we think about Zipolite, it is going through its own gentrification process from, you know, white gay men. But after white gay men come straight people who probably aren't engaging the same queer practices.
You look at Provincetown, it's transforming a lot to becoming, you know, straighter or just wealthier, but less queer and accepting and accessible. And Fire Island famously is always in that conversation.
So I'd love to know, what do you think about the future of these places? Where do they sit within the larger politic of, I think, queer equality, but just queer life for all of us? Yeah. So many books and films and thinkers come to mind. I love Sarah Schulman's Gentrification of the Mind, which I think is a really valuable resource. It's a pretty quick read. Some of her books are so big, but that's a pretty great one to pick up. And I refer to it often because I think it does refer to...
kind of poverty of ideas. And it's talking a lot about complacency and it's talking a lot about seating space and, you know, the need for vigilance, the need for secrecy, and also a recognition that
there always is an evolution and I don't want to make light of the very real world impacts of gentrification and how we all participate in it because we just do. And our phones make it even easier because we're constantly sharing and documenting and giving people ideas.
But I mentioned Tourmaline earlier and who's a big influence in my life and someone who I really just rely on as a North Star and a guiding light in my life. And something Tourmaline always says is that, you know, this is always happening and it doesn't make it less tragic and it doesn't mean we don't grieve it. But thinking about the Chelsea Piers and thinking about
You know, there's a new documentary out on HBO called The Stroll about black trans sex workers along the piers. I mean, the piers are like mini golf courses now, you know, and I think there's something to not losing that history or not remembering Alvin Beltroup's work and that documentation and understanding that as part of our career history, too, and also that we exist now.
within a city and by the way new york in some ways is kind of like a metaphor for the rest of the country but you know we exist in a place that pretends or purports or wants to celebrate and say it prizes certain cultures and certain identities and marginalized groups but still continues to take advantage of that cultural capital that we build and then kind of litigate develop erase us out of those places i mean that is just such an ongoing trend of new york
Understanding that helps me really frame the context within which, you know, the existential threat that we're facing, which are true nationally. And so I think I'm sort of trying to put all of these things into context and sort of understand what then preservation and resistance can look like. I also don't know that, I mean, Fire Island has been so...
exclusive for so long anyway, that it's, it's, that's a harder one for me to weigh in. Like I feel grateful when I can fit in and I feel grateful when I can spend time there. It's also a place where I know that the OG residents are really concerned and thinking about preserving that space. And they want young people, especially young people of color to know that history, know that they belong there too. And I know they're working on that actively. So I do think there is a sense of like hooking into the,
people, organizations, entities that are already invested in that kind of preservation. And it brings me a lot of comfort because it's not, these aren't standalone efforts. These are long ongoing concerns, like you mentioned, where people are thinking actively about
what do we want these places to look like? And what are the next places too? I mean, that's something that's always intriguing to me too. Like what are the little upstate lakes now that are becoming more gay? And like, what are the, you know, queer, I'm going back to the queer bath houses because that's a thing right now. Like, you know, these queer spa nights are becoming a thing in New York. And so that is kind of a waterway too. And so it's, I'm just kind of always interested in the ebbs and flows and the tidal changes of where we find refuge.
Yeah. I love that you're bringing up refuge right now because it feels more important than ever with all this legislation. There's been, what, over 500 bills that have passed through different state legislatures over the past year that, to me, focus on erasing queer bodies in public. You know, it's whether they're bathrooms, whether it's schools, it's all about taking the queer public body out of public sight. Yeah.
I'd love to know how you see kind of this future of placemaking as a refuge and what advice for people you have trying to find these places where they feel safe. Because I don't think we could say like, you know, I'd love to say go to a nude beach. It's going to stop Ron DeSantis from taking away your rights. It's just not the case. But I think as we have those bigger fights, there's little, you know, micro interventions we all can make in our own lives to make ourselves feel good, have queer family, have queer space. So I'd love to hear what you're thinking about that and how people can navigate that themselves.
Yeah, I mean, you know, we have a dearly beloved mutual Chase Strangio who is fighting the good fight against all these anti-trans legislations and laws. And Chase is such a great source on Instagram and the Internet of just like what exactly is happening and what you can do. And so I always point people because he's just so generous with his time and his resource. Same with Raquel Willis. They're both, you know, often collaborating on that as well.
and pointing to other people too. So they're just great resources and people to follow who are really invested in trying to do as much as they can to bring that light forward. And Chase always reminds me that as much as he is invested in the legal aspect of all of this, to paraphrase just conversations that Chase and I have had and that Chase has via Instagram Live all the time, the laws...
really are only ever meant to uphold dominant culture, right? They don't make space for us. And so we have to fight back against them. We have to think about them. We have to be aware of them because they do impact our lives. They impact the most vulnerable of our communities. And they're not also really ever going to be concerned. Like we're never going to find
Validation through the legal system. And that's something that also came up when I was working on a story about this incredible black scholar, black studies, Christina Sharp, who also talks a lot about this. If we understand the American legal system as an upholder and enforcer of black death.
and that will never change, then what do you do, right? And how do you live? And I think both Chase and Christina and other people who think along those lines have found really a lot of optimism. And that looks like
I mean, embodiment is a complicated word and a word that I think is actually quite ableist because there's no universal definition. So I want to be really careful using it. But I do think that finding and accessing pleasure, and I don't just mean, you know, eating delicious things and dancing and shopping and all that. I think that can be part of it. But I think really understanding one's right to pleasure, right?
and one's right to happiness and one's right to right those things are liberty as being key elements of this broader resistance in some ways even if it's fleeting and momentarily that being able to really embrace and access and feel aliveness when the dominant culture
and be and to be clear i don't i'm not saying this is i mean the dominant like legal culture right because i don't actually believe this is like the dominant culture of our country i just don't um but the dominant legal culture wants us to feel like we might as well be dead that when you can really access even a fleeting glimpse of aliveness
That is so big and that is so real and that is something that is passed down through lineages. And there are so many examples of that throughout history and throughout time, throughout anybody who is not part of a dominant group.
And people of the global majority, we've always tapped into that and use those moments to get us through the hardest times. And sometimes the joy and the pleasure and the aliveness are really small compared to the incredible, overwhelming, crushing oppression that many of us feel, if not all of us feel on a regular basis. But I do think those glimpses get us through. And that's why I'm such an advocate of, yeah, making time to...
find your beach to quote that really lovely Zadie Smith essay, but whatever that means for you. Right. And I'm really mindful too, because a lot of people don't like the beach and a lot of people don't like the water. And I think that's totally fair and fine. You know, that meme around 4th of July, that was like, if you're enjoying fireworks, like you would meet and grow up the same. And I was like, you know what? Facts. Facts. That's so real. I didn't not see that meme, but yeah, your comfortability with pop, pop, pop says a lot about you and not about you at the same time.
For many people. To close our conversation today, this word aliveness is really, you know, hitting my body really hard in a really wonderful way because I think that's the word I felt yesterday on the beach was aliveness because I am a person that likes beaches, that likes water.
water but when i would go to them whether it was fire island or province or whatever i would feel the the weight of the world on me on the my body may not look like that person or i may not be the color of that person or the gender expression all these things came hitting me in the
clothing and like all the other kuchamana had on me where these shields I thought were protecting me but I found for me and I feel like you have had the similar experience in Zipolite and other beaches is that when I let them go I realized oh my body was enough and in that moment I felt really alive
I think those are the moments. And I really do think that even this poem that you're invoking by Audre Lorde is about that. You know, it's for those of us who live at the shoreline, for those of us who are afraid when the sun rises and afraid when the sun sets, for those of us who don't experience peace, find it anyway. I mean, that's one of the through lines for me of that poem. Find it anyway. Do it anyway. That's the best piece of advice I got.
writing and really for living too, which was my friend Kambui, who's an incredible painter and artist was like, just do it scared. Yeah. That's really it. That's really it for me. Yeah. Because sometimes fear sometimes, and this has a lot of caveats on it, but many times fear, like my fear going to the beach was really my body kind of letting me know some information that was really helpful for me to find out when I got there about my own anxieties that weren't real, my own, you know, issues from the past that, you know, I didn't need to deal with. I didn't,
need to hold on to anymore. I could let go. And I think sometimes fear of something can be a really great learning moment if you have the safety that surrounds you, if you have like a partner or a person to go with. So I love that your friend said that because that's so true. Fear can be sometimes really great for us. Yeah, it's always good to access a fear journey with the help of a spiritual practitioner or a mental health professional. Yes. These are not easy, easy, I guess, yeah, waters to traverse, but really important to do so if you can. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, Jenna, thank you so much for joining me today. This was just so wonderful and everything my soul needed. And I'm so glad we got the space and time and that you're in my life. And now people can hear this conversation because I said, I don't know if I told you this, but when we were talking about guests, everyone was talking about the friend they want to bring on. And I said, I want Jenna Wortham and I want to talk to Jenna about water for an hour. And Sam and Saheed were like, what? Water?
And we did it. We did it. And I think people should enjoy it. I mean, yeah, I love talking about this stuff and I just adore you so truly anytime. Oh my God, I adore you. Well, thank you so much. And I hope you have a beautiful summer and I hope I see you soon. You will. You better. Yeah, I will. I will.
Thank you for tuning in to this special bonus episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend, tell another friend, tell your mama, tell whoever. Special thank you to Jenna Wortham. Huge thank you to our producer Chantel Holder, engineer Sam Kiefer, and Brendan Burns, and Marcus Hom for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brendan Sharp from Agenda Management and Production, and my boyfriend for dragging me to a beach.
As always, we want to hear from you. So don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com and keep in touch with us on Instagram at at Zach Staff, at The Ferocity, and at Sam Sanders. Use the hashtag vibecheckpod wherever you use social media, including threads. Special thank you to Jenna Wertham, who you can follow on Twitter at Jenny Deluxe. And stay tuned for another episode this Wednesday. Very soon. Until then, bye. Stitcher.
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