So… Sexuality Isn’t Simple—And We Have Something to Share

Sexuality isn’t always so simple. And in this intimate, unfiltered conversation, Foster and Cesar share how their identities, attractions, and labels have shifted over time. From growing up in environments that suppressed queerness to exploring pansexuality, demisexuality, and life beyond the binary, they reflect on love, desire, and self-acceptance. And for the first time on the show, Cesar opens up about a part of his sexuality he’s never shared publicly before, offering an honest and deeply personal look at his journey. If you’ve ever questioned a label, felt in-between, or wanted to understand the fluid spectrum of queer identity, this episode will leave you feeling seen.

In this episode they explore: 

• Cesar’s journey to finding his sexual identity and what that means to him
• How labels can help communication but never fully define you
• Foster’s discovery of being demisexual and how that shapes her relationships
• The difference between bisexuality and pansexuality explained clearly
• The safety found in queer spaces and communities
• Why curiosity matters more than knowing “the label”

If this episode spoke to you, you might love Finding Your Authentic Voice with Mel Collins. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Attend his upcoming speaking engagements
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify
• Receive his monthly newsletter Insights That Matter

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her monthly newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

Transcript

I don't know what I am, and I cannot believe that I'm fully straight.

You know, just you.

I'm just me. And they'll find out inevitably. That's the way it goes.

I don't know why we're all so obsessed with other people's parts.

I met somebody who is a famous drag queen, and we started dating.

You do have the privilege of being straight passing in this world.

Hello, and welcome to Beauty in the Break.

I'm Foster. And I'm Cesar.

This is the podcast where we explore the moments that break us open and how we find beauty on the other side.

So whatever you're carrying today, you don't have to carry it alone.

We are here with you.

Thanks for being here, and enjoy the show.

Welcome, beautiful. Welcome to Beauty in the Break.

Hello, hello. I hope you're doing well.

This is going to be a fun one.

A little explicit as well.

Oh, yeah.

If you aren't necessarily a sex-positive family, maybe kids should listen to this one.

But of course, we're going to do the best we can to keep it mature and adult in our phrases.

It's going to be spicy.

Spicy. We're talking about sexuality.

Here's the thing.

You and I are in a heterosexual relationship, but you are not heterosexual.

That is correct.

You're not straight.

Nope.

And I don't really know what I am.

I don't think I'm straight, but I don't really know.

So all of that is Latin for we're going to try to figure it out on the air.

Oh, God.

I have lots and lots of thoughts and nothing clear.

So this is what we're going to talk about today.

Because I think a lot of people in your life, people in my life, people listening to this show, certainly do not know that you are not straight.

Correct.

And it's not from any place of me not trying to share that with them either.

I don't feel that I have to explain things, especially after all the work I've done finding my own self.

You're just you.

I'm just me.

And they'll find out inevitably.

That's the way it goes.

They find out at some point seeing social media posts.

They find out in conversation when I'm passively saying, like, oh, I did it to this guy and so on and so forth.

Or they'll find out listening to a podcast.

That's just the way it is.

So my first experience with anyone ever coming out to me was in high school.

This was the 90s, folks.

I think I was 15.

And a friend of mine told me, you know, I have something to tell you.

And she told me that she was gay.

I live in North Carolina.

I was kind of a sheltered kid.

I didn't really know any gay people at the time.

And my friend came out to me.

And I was a child.

I reacted very poorly.

I got scared.

I didn't really know what it meant for someone to come out.

I had seen it on TV.

But I didn't really know what does it mean that my friend who I thought was one way is now this other way.

And I actually ran away from the conversation.

I physically ran away from her.

Right in that moment.

I remember so vividly I went into the school auditorium in some hallway somewhere.

Just felt really overwhelmed.

And I think I didn't know how to process it in the moment.

She came after me to console me, basically.

She found me and was like, you know, it's going to be okay.

I'm still me.

I'm still your friend.

Nothing's going to change between us.

And she had to console me, which I'm highly embarrassed to say because that should never be the case.

But I was whatever.

I was young.

I just hadn't had that experience.

I, in hindsight, felt so bad that she had to do that and that I reacted in that way.

I really should have just been really supportive of her.

I have apologized to her so many times over the years.

Every time it comes up in my thoughts, I like reach out to her on Facebook.

Just to say it again.

Sorry.

She's a girl.

It's been, whatever, 25 years.

And I'm still going like, oh, I could do so much better.

But it stuck with me.

And then, of course, I went to school in New York.

I went to theater school.

Everybody's gay.

Like, it's really hard to find a straight person in New York City at that time.

And so I came back.

Was that in your Yelp review of New York, by the way?

I loved it.

My God.

It was great.

It was fantastic.

I came back to North Carolina to visit.

You know, I'm cultured at this point.

I know a lot.

I'm cultured at this point.

I know a lot.

I came back swearing every other word.

I was so New York.

And there was some family event.

A family member of mine pulled me aside and came out to me that they were gay.

Immediately in my head, I was like, I'm going to do this better.

I'm going to do this much better this time.

And I said, congratulations.

This is so exciting.

I'm so happy for you.

They were younger than me, too.

So I knew it was a scary thing to do at the time.

But I had grown up.

I'm 19 at this point.

And I was jumping up and down.

We should throw you a party.

I pretty much overdid it, I think.

I was really ready to redeem myself in terms of, like, I want to be the safe person that people can come out to.

And I want them to feel positive about that.

I had spent many, many years feeling bad about how I spoke to my friends.

I grew up a lot in those four years.

And I'm happy about how I reacted to that.

It's a pretty hefty evolution from hesitation to celebration.

I don't think anyone ever came out to me ever again, though.

That was going to be my next question.

They told everyone, like, stop.

Don't tell her anything.

Just be.

You grow up and you just know people.

People are already out mostly in my circles.

And so there wasn't coming out because you get to a certain age.

And most people, they know that about themselves.

Most people.

That's why you say most.

I don't know.

It doesn't feel like it's most to me.

No.

We live in LA.

So it's easier for that sort of welcome committee to be there and for you to be whoever you

want to be as long as you aren't harming anybody or yourself.

But I think a lot of people still have to figure things out.

My guess is from a psychological standpoint, from the people I know outside of LA, having

no idea about anything except they're either gay or they're straight.

And that's all they know.

But there's a whole spectrum of orientation.

I feel like it's less than most.

For me, it's quite dynamic.

Quite complicated.

Quite complex.

Because I'm black and Spanish and I grew up in the South.

All three of those things often don't look very highly upon people who are in the LGBTQ

community.

But I noticed since I was a young age that my attraction, young, four, five years old, that

I was attracted to women, girls my age and older, women on TV or whatever.

The culture I grew up in was highly sexualized anyway.

I feel like I was over-sexualized as a child.

Because why?

Because I think the environment was like that.

All the kids in my elementary school, we were nasty.

We said dirty things to each other.

It was sexual stuff.

There was a ton of those things from an early point.

I don't know how to explain how it didn't because you didn't have that growing up.

I don't know what made any difference then.

We're of two different generations.

I'm kidding.

Didn't you watch a lot of things with sex on TV at a young age?

I saw it.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Growing up very often because I was by myself.

By the time I was six and seven, I had already memorized Wayne's World, both of them.

I had already memorized all three Beverly Hills Cops.

I watched Forrest Gump.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

All these very adult concepts.

With all of that openness, still, the society looked down upon people who were gay.

The culture that I grew up in still looked down with the slurs and everything.

And the slurs were said passively too, like nothing.

Eddie Murphy had a whole comedy thing on, I think it was Raw or Delirious.

He's just dropping the F-bomb about the gay community to like it's nothing.

So I grew up and seeing my close family also kind of putting those people down.

But I started recognizing boys my age that I felt something about.

So I just like kept it down.

Same age?

No, by the time I was seven or eight, but it wasn't a lot either.

So this still applies today.

If you line up a hundred women, I will be attracted to about 80 or 90 of them.

If you line up a hundred men, I'll probably find an attraction to about two of them.

That applies even then.

So imagine a kid who feels like he has to suppress that.

And then it doesn't show up so often.

It's easy to psychologically push it aside.

Especially when the whole world is saying like, ooh, your little girlfriend, you know.

That's your girlfriend or she's, you know, whatever.

He's going to be a heartbreaker when he gets older.

Who was the first person to ever come out to you?

That was years later.

That was my sister.

Oh, okay.

Everybody else in that culture, you could kind of get a sense that some people were.

There was a guy that hung out in our family.

He was very effeminate.

But he consistently would show up with women.

But everybody, when he wasn't around, would talk about how gay he was.

And so I'm seeing that.

And I think, well, then I got to not tell anybody about anything that I'm attracted to in my life.

What's more is that in the black culture at that time, black men who dated white women also got a bunch of guff.

And I knew I was more attracted to white women more than I was in the other culture, in the other race.

So I just felt completely like I can't do anything.

And then finally, when I was about 13, my sister came out to me and told me she was gay.

We got off the phone and I was really angry about it.

I even punched a door.

I don't know why.

Again, the culture was there.

Maybe I felt like I needed to be in accord with the culture.

Nonetheless, though, I talked to her again maybe 10 minutes later and I was already like, you know, my sister, I love you.

I love you exactly the way you are.

Whatever.

Fine.

Great.

Happy for you.

Do you think any part of you was like, I have these feelings underneath that are attracted to men and women or boys and girls.

And I don't know how to express it, but she did?

No.

By that time, I was really good at suppressing all of that.

I had completely buried it.

Oh, you suppressed it completely.

Okay.

By that time, absolutely.

About a year or two later, I joined that gang.

So it's really hyper-masculine.

And so it made it really easy for me to just be more tough guy and sleeping with all sorts of women and practicing Don Juanism and that whole psychological thing that we do when we suppress stuff that we don't like about ourselves.

So I didn't feel that.

But eventually, fast forward some years later, I wasn't in the gang anymore.

I was more introspective again.

I was looking into what I was feeling in my thoughts in my life.

When I was about 18 or 19 years old is when I gave myself the allowance to start exploring my sexuality.

I still had the thought in my head that I couldn't express myself to my family or to people around me because people were still being made fun of so much for being gay.

And I already felt like an outsider already by being mixed race, playing guitar, by all the things that I don't fit in in any which way.

And I've never fit in in society.

And for the most part, they just left me alone.

But when I heard them talk about people who were gay behind their back, it's different.

Then I thought, I'm not just going to be left alone.

I'm going to be ridiculed.

Because how more different can I be now?

And so I just wanted to start exploring and finding something out.

And I met someone online, this guy.

He was a little older.

I really was unsure and insecure.

But he spent a lot of time being patient and explaining to me what I'm feeling because he had went through it already.

So the first time we met, we slept together.

And then we started spending more time together, sleeping together, talking, having conversation.

And I didn't know what I felt about that.

I didn't understand what any of this meant.

And I couldn't go to anybody.

So he started telling me some of his experiences and kind of guiding me through some of my emotions and feelings and still giving me a bit of space to back away.

Because I don't know what I'm feeling.

Maybe this is a temporary thing.

Who knows?

And then at some point, he started just giving a bit of a nudge, trying to get me to lean more towards going places with him.

He wanted to come to one of my shows because I was a musician at the time.

And I was like, I don't feel comfortable with that.

I don't know what I actually want here and who I actually am.

And my family's there.

My family's really anti-gay.

And then we kind of, he and I got into this disagreement.

And the disagreement went over text message for a little bit.

And it was a little aggressive and not cool.

And then we didn't talk for a week.

And then I got a message from him.

I opened it up and it was his brother saying that he died in a car accident.

And he invited me to go to the funeral.

So I'm sitting there with all those mixture of emotions.

And I feel this loss of a potential yes, a potential no.

Who knows?

It's very confusing.

Very confusing.

It's not a relationship.

But at the same time, it's the first person you ever were intimate with who was a man.

That's very confusing.

Very.

And then after that, who am I going to turn to?

Yeah.

I didn't feel comfortable.

Ironically, I could have talked to my sister, I'm sure.

But I don't know why I did it.

Scared?

Fear?

Who knows?

I don't know.

I didn't know who I was either.

Maybe some of it is like, don't share this stuff with people.

So you got it flushed out first.

Yeah.

Maybe there's that.

Yeah.

And it broke my heart in a lot of ways.

After that, it was just being intimate with a mass amount of people in an unhealthy way.

Men, women, trans people, non-binary, queer, you name it.

And this was all still in Jacksonville, by the way.

Because something in my head was saying, you're not going to find it with one individual person.

Just go all the way out and see what you find.

Go nuts.

Go nuts.

Plun intended.

Was identity important to you?

Did it feel like you needed to declare something at any point?

Sexual identity?

Yeah.

No.

No, not at all.

You're just doing what you're doing.

I'm just doing what I'm doing.

And my main thought was, find out who you want to be.

Be the best version of it.

Find out exactly who you are.

Think less about the other people and explaining it to them because you're already an outsider

anyway to them.

And be mindful because this is something that they'll get in your way about because they're

going to give you crap for it.

So there's a weird gray area.

It's like what they don't know won't hurt them.

And if I tell them, they're going to come give me more problems.

But I got enough of my own stuff going on right now.

So you didn't feel the need to identify, but you also weren't out in any way to your family.

How was it navigating those types of relationships?

Did you hide it?

Was there secrecy involved?

I'd assume by default it is hiding it because I turned everything into hookups.

So I'm at their house anyway.

So I don't have to go anywhere with them.

If they wanted to be anything closer, I'm done with that.

I'm cutting that out.

Were you worried about being seen out and about at a gay bar?

I wasn't at gay bars.

I wasn't there.

The hookups were people you meet online.

You go to the house.

That's that.

Intentionally.

Intentionally.

So there's some subconscious safe place there for me to go.

But also I was removing myself from them emotionally because I wasn't trying to participate in anything

more serious.

And then of course I started drinking and then forget it.

I remember once I went to go do a STD test and they have to ask you how many partners you

had in that time.

And I wrote the number down there and the nurse literally came out and scolded me for how many

people I had been with.

Scolded me.

And I was kind of like, I know, I know, I know like this.

And he's like, no, no, no.

You don't understand what I'm saying.

This is serious.

You need to listen to what I'm saying.

I didn't listen to what he was saying whatsoever.

How many partners was it?

It's so silly.

I don't remember what number I wrote on there.

What's the number?

In that six month time, at least, at least 60.

Wow.

At least.

Because it was.

Six months.

It was.

Yeah.

It was a lot.

There were times where I would, and I'm not proud of any of this sort of stuff, but we're

talking about the breaking parts, right?

There are times where I had drank so much.

I had started like 10 a.m.

Or 10 p.m.

Excuse me.

Drinking.

I'd go to someone's house, sleep with them, go back home, keep drinking, meet somebody else online,

go meet them at like 3 in the morning, drink with them, sleep with them, leave, go back

home, do it again at 4 or 5 in the morning, go drive out to them, sleep with them, whatever.

There was one time, it had to be 4 in the morning.

They gave me their address.

I was drunk.

I drove there.

I pulled up to their house.

They had the door open, and I could see the silhouette of their body there waiting for me

at the door.

And I thought to myself, this feels like a movie where this is the last person to see me alive.

Oh my God.

And I walked in there anyway.

Yeah.

You are lucky to be alive on many levels, sir.

On many levels.

My gosh.

I'm drunk.

I'm driving.

It's 4 in the morning, and I'm going to see a stranger whose name I don't know.

They could walk past me right now.

I'd have no idea who they were.

But let's talk about suppression.

Yeah.

All of that came about because I was suppressing something.

And you were depriving yourself.

Depriving myself of it.

So fast forward to me moving to Los Angeles.

Hello.

It's LA.

This is the city for it.

I mean, the first weekend I was here eating a pizza on Magnolia in North Hollywood, this

trans woman walks by me and goes, you're cute.

And I go, okay, here we go.

Right?

It just got more and more exploratory.

And in a lot of instances, more and more dangerous.

Yeah.

Anonymous hookups.

People's names, I don't know.

People's faces that I don't even remember.

Going to places that I didn't even, I didn't know the neighborhood.

Addresses where people were in there having complete group parties, adult group sex parties.

I go past one room, people are smoking a bunch of meth in there.

And there's sex parties that are safe and hosted and done all the right way, but that's

not a safe one.

This is not one of those places.

Right.

And something about that anonymity really started, I started to like it.

And then I found that there are these places you go to that have just a wall and a hole

in it.

And then you apply yourself through that hole and someone on the other side who you have

no idea who it is, activates you in multiple ways.

One of the funniest moments when we first started dating is we would just drive down, we're going

to the movies or something and you point out the window, oh, that, that hotel has a great

glory hole in it.

Okay.

Okay.

Got it.

I mean, time and time again.

The very first time I said that to you, you see that place there?

I used to go to a glory hole there.

You went, and just lost it.

Because I am the prudest person on the planet.

Can you please explain to me how one finds a glory hole in Los Angeles?

How does that work?

Look, the first one I found was on Craigslist.

Oh God.

That was the very first one.

But then I got to say, like everything in life, you put yourself out there for it.

It just all has fallen on your lap.

If you built it, they will come.

It's a quote, field of dreams.

What is so funny?

Okay.

So I'm sure there are apps for it now.

Sure.

Now it's 2025.

I remember I found one that was on Tinder.

Don't know how.

That was literally the picture of the door with the hole.

Wow.

And I swiped right on.

I got swiped right back, of course.

Uh-huh.

And I started going there.

Did it become addictive to you?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Sorry to cut you off.

No.

Oh my goodness.

It was so great.

It was transactional.

It was anonymous.

Something about the anonymity and the danger was even more intriguing to me.

There was a lot of self-loathing in my life.

And at that time in my 20s, I always would say, I'm just here until I'm not here anymore.

So there's some of that absurdist, nihilist way of thinking of like, and when I'm gone, I'm

gone.

But until then, let's just do whatever the hell we want to do.

There's some Gigi Allen somewhere in there.

There was one place in particular that's in downtown LA.

I would go there maybe once a week.

And then when I would just drive by there without intending to go there, like going to Dodger

Stadium or something, I would become aroused.

Oh my God.

So such a reward system that's there in my brain, but it's safe because it's anonymous.

Right.

But it's fun because it's dangerous.

Wow.

You know?

You were doing all this anonymous sex.

Were you in relationships?

There were relationships that I was in.

They all were pretty open relationships.

I dated women, dated men.

I'd lived with a guy briefly.

He and I had a completely open relationship and it turned sour pretty fast.

I also was testing out, how does this feel for me?

What's more is that when I got here, my attraction to men grew.

And I assume, because I had read this before, there's a thing called latent homosexuality.

It's also known as Don Juanism, where very often men are trying to overcompensate.

They try to sleep with as many women as possible and be very hyper-masculine because they're

suppressing homosexual tendencies.

It reveals itself or rejects itself by trying to be overly masculine.

I thought that's who I had been my entire life in my teenage years because I was sleeping with everybody.

And I got here in LA and people were more free and there was less stigma and less pressure.

I thought that I was just a gay male who had convinced himself he was straight for so long.

So then I went and dated somebody and moved in with him.

He and I broke up and it didn't work.

You keep scratching an itch long enough, you'll draw blood, right?

I met somebody who is a famous drag queen and we started dating.

And they're in the gay scene.

They're like top shelf gay scene.

And so I got the best of the best of that world and I still felt like an outsider.

I still didn't feel like, oh, this is me.

And then right around that time, my attraction to men started to dwindle.

Kind of dipped.

But my attraction to women had always been there.

The entire time.

And if anything, it just grew living in Los Angeles.

I mean, have you seen you?

My gosh.

When you were dating the drag queen, that was a long relationship.

And you were out in the world here, very out.

But did you have an identity at that point?

Yeah.

Did you feel the need to identify as anything, your sexuality?

By that time, I did because there's so much title and labeling in this society.

And so I found the definition of pansexuality.

Once I looked at the definition of pansexuality and I read it, I said, that's me.

Oh, that's who I am.

I understand it now.

I get it.

What is your understanding of that definition?

Pansexuality is the sexual attraction to all humans beyond the binary.

Pan is Greek.

It means all.

And the phrase has been coined since 1914.

So it's not something new that we just started saying to ourselves.

And I recognize that because of my attraction to trans women as well and non-binary people.

And I found myself being more attracted to people for how they held themselves, how genuinely

great they were in their own skin.

They're also beautiful as well.

But I love someone who just was them.

No problem.

They knew that.

I didn't know that.

I might have just been attracted to them because I'm trying to find that out.

So bisexuality, bi means two.

And that is attraction to two genders, typically male and female.

And then beyond the binary, you have all genders, which is inclusive of trans people and non-binary

people.

And however anyone identifies, pan means all.

Correct.

Got it.

Correct.

And the time that I was spending dating the drag queen, it wasn't a long, long time, but it

was a serious time.

We were very like with each other and also an open relationship.

Right.

And then I'm at the bar one day and my bio dad messages me and says, what are you up to?

And I told him the bar I was at.

He says, where is that?

And I told him it was in West Hollywood.

And he goes, that's the gay area, right?

And I said, yeah, it is.

And he said, son, are you gay?

And now this is my biological father who is a Republican, a very conservative man.

And there was a moment that I could finally reveal myself and say, because I wouldn't

ever lie to somebody either.

I'm just not going to waste my time explaining who I am to you, because I'm first of all trying

to figure it out.

And two, I'm responsible for me.

You'll figure it out or you won't.

And I said, no, I'm not gay.

And then I sent him the link to pansexuality.

And he responds with, I love you however you are, son.

Fast forward to him coming to Los Angeles the next time.

He wants to go to West Hollywood with me.

I'm at this bar.

I'm sitting with him.

We're drinking.

He's smoking cigarettes.

We're having a good time.

I go to the actual physical bar to go get more drinks.

And this guy walks up to me.

And he goes, hi, how are you?

I go, I'm good.

I'm chilling.

He's like, what are you up to?

I said, I'm here with my dad.

And the guy goes, oh, your daddy?

I go, no, no, no, my father.

And I point.

And the guy turns.

And when he whips his head back, his face is dropped like this.

And he goes, oh, my God, your dad's here?

I go, yeah, he's hanging out here.

He goes, can I go talk to him?

I go, go talk to him.

He loves talking to people.

I have a great time.

I'm in line getting drinks.

I come back with the drinks from my dad.

And there's like five guys sitting around my dad just talking, shooting the breeze with him.

One of them walks up to me and says, could you have your dad talk to my dad, please?

Oh, my God.

That's great, man.

That's dope.

That's very, very unexpected for someone like that.

Yeah.

What a beautiful story.

It's fantastic.

I mean, he came to visit one other time.

We were at a bar and there was a guy across the way.

My dad goes, that guy's checking you out.

And he hands me a hundred dollar bill and goes, go buy him some drinks.

I was like, come on.

I'm like, what the hell?

You know?

That's a dream.

That was nuts.

So I appreciate that.

I love him so much for doing that, for being that person.

And also good on him for surprising society.

Sure.

Great.

Really?

I have a question about when you were dating the drag queen, you were in that, the top shelf

of the gay community in LA.

Yeah.

In Hollywood.

Top shelf.

Top shelf.

Yeah.

Gay scene, right.

Did people in that circle know that you were pansexual?

And did you feel that there was any hierarchy of queerness or gayness that you also slept

with women?

I didn't pick up on any of that.

It also seemed like nobody cared.

They were more so like, who are you?

What do you got to produce?

What are you up to?

What's your mind like?

What do you think?

What kind of person are you?

It was more personality based.

People didn't really seem to care.

I mean, I was with them.

We went to a party at Adam Lambert's house.

And then Kurt Cobain's daughter was there.

And we're all just playing, what's that game called?

Cards Against Humanity.

Like there's a spectrum of all these different people there from all different walks of life

of different decades.

And nobody cared.

We're just hanging out.

So it never came up in that way.

I didn't find any of that.

What I found in a hierarchical sense was who's more successful?

Who had the best comebacks?

That sort of stuff.

But that's not me.

I don't live like that.

My demeanor is so straight presenting.

Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I enjoy being the sexuality that I am, but

still looking and seeming straight presenting.

Because very often people have a stereotype of what a gay person is supposed to be or a gay

male is supposed to be or bisexual male or whatever.

And the moment I turn to them and say, well, I've done this before.

Their whole construct that they believed shatters.

I have a client whose child is gay.

And when the client was talking to me, saying like, I think that my child is just kind of

going through a stage.

It doesn't seem real to me.

And I said, they could just be finding out exactly who they are.

And they said, what do you mean?

I said, well, I've been with men before.

I live with men, actually.

I've dated trans women as well.

That client just looked at me in a whole new light.

And then I could be a vessel to help people break stereotypes, break biases, which is one

of my favorite things in life.

Like, let's remove the expectations of people.

Yeah.

You do have the privilege of being straight passing in this world.

And also now you're in a heterosexual relationship.

So people assume that you're straight.

It has been a tool, I think, for you to use to break down barriers.

Exactly.

As you said.

I agree.

So in addition to just understanding that culture as a whole, I also, as usual in my life, ended

up finding myself in the darker side of the culture too.

I'd met somebody who's a famous person in the entertainment business.

And he invited me over to his house to pay me to do drugs with him, invite people over

for group sex.

And because I was very muscular at the time, very masculine again, he didn't have the guts

to tell them when it was time to leave.

So we would do all these drugs, have all this sex.

He would pay me to do all this stuff.

And then he would give me a look and I'd have to say, all right, you, you all get out of here.

Go.

So they all would leave.

And then he would go, okay, cool.

Open up your phone.

Open your grinder.

Invite five more people.

And we would do this all night.

It would start at 9 p.m.

It'd go until 5 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., whatever.

And it happened like once a month for a while.

It just added for me the joy of anonymity by also being able to make money from it.

I'm pro-sex work.

This is a me thing, so not everyone else.

It was serving the most unhealthy part in me, keeping me separate and now sustainable

in my separate life because I was making so much money from it.

It was benefiting you.

It was helpful to you.

And it was feeding the addiction of anonymous sex is somehow going to fill me up.

Just like the dopamine hit of insert the drug or alcohol or other thing here.

Right.

And it was such a rewarding thing too.

It's like you want this separation and anonymity?

Great.

I'll pay you for it.

Cool.

And you were good at it.

And you were good at getting all that done.

He wasn't the only person to pay you, right?

He was not the only person to pay me.

And I was good at it because I have a very high sex drive.

My brain is almost always on it still.

I think about it so constantly.

Most men do as well, but I acted on it.

So now I have this history of knowledge of the reality of what it's like to activate those impulses.

And he wasn't the only one.

Some people would just come over to my place and they'd pay that I'd go to their place.

And again, still dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

Around that time, around that time, the famous person that I was seeing, the drag queen, we broke up.

And then I got into a serious relationship with a cis female.

And I was able to compare those two long-term relationships back-to-back to each other.

And I could feel how much more in accord I felt with a woman.

So then I started questioning, well, what the hell is going on here?

Maybe because you thought you were just going to be more and more attracted to men and your attraction to women was going to fall away.

You were going to find yourself a gay man.

Yeah.

And I didn't.

And you didn't.

I didn't.

And the attraction was even less and less and less.

Oh, it turned over at some point.

Yeah.

The attraction to the man I was seeing, the drag queen, if I see him now on TV or online, I don't have an attraction to him anymore.

Or anybody who resembles him either.

I don't have attraction to men that much anymore.

It's just gone this strange way and I've morphed into something else.

But that reminds me about it being a spectrum.

Yeah.

Like everything in life, everything changes.

You don't have to be this one particular way.

I read this study about sexuality.

Essentially, it's like a bell curve where seldom are people completely straight or completely gay.

But majority of people are on their respective sides of the bell curve, looking towards one way or the other.

It's why men can say, oh, that's a good looking guy without feeling the hormones and the pupils dilating and the heart rate increasing, but still can recognize it.

Right.

Or the same thing for the reverse.

Once we know that spectrum, then we can find out where we are on it.

We haven't gotten there yet because society is still so pushy.

Yeah.

We want a label.

That's the black and whiteness of our world.

That we add new terms all the time because we all know who we are and what we are attracted to or not, but we somehow have to feel like there's a label that needs to identify us.

When none of those labels in the LGBTQIA plus two spirit, like all of the spectrum of labels, when none of those quite fit us, we got to add something else.

And that's, that's beautiful.

We got to add something else to explain to you, someone who doesn't know me, the best way I can tell you as to who I am sexually.

But it's never going to be complete.

It's never going to be complete.

Life changes constantly.

Human society changes effortlessly for people to be upset about like, oh, now they got another letter.

Yes.

That's what evolution, that's what happens in life.

We change over time.

We learn new things about society.

And when we learn new things, we act in new ways.

And when we act in new ways, we get new results.

And when we get new results, we have new observations and we have to label those observations.

Yeah.

Please tell me what the word is for someone who started out being 80% attracted to women and 20% attracted to men who grew into mostly dating and sleeping with men.

And then it faded out and now they're 80 women, 20 men.

And what's that title?

It's called, it's a Caesarism.

Caesarism.

Caesarism.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

If me and five other people sit together, it's the Caesarean section.

No, he did not just bring birth work into our sexuality.

I'm just flirting with you, girl.

Don't you worry.

I mean, how did anyone get in that position of being pregnant anyway?

Sexuality had a little bit to do with it.

But in the end, you're you.

That's it.

I am me.

And I am me.

And everybody is who they are individually.

You don't have to fit into a box.

You're right.

There are people right now listening to this podcast who are in my family who are completely

shocked and didn't know any of this.

I mean this in the best way possible.

I'm not worried about that.

I know who I am.

I'm comfortable in my skin.

They would find out sooner or later.

And if they have an issue with that, then you can have a conversation with me.

Understand instead of judge.

Because you're still you.

I'm still me.

And it's not my job to go out and tell every single person who I am.

This is from my perspective.

Some people feel that they need to do that.

That's totally fine.

I don't need to do that.

I'm just going to continuously be me.

And that's that.

If you ask me a straight up question, I'm going to tell you a straight up answer.

Otherwise, if you're paying attention, you'll know everything.

But I'm so comfortable in my own skin.

I don't have to spend my time trying to prove or explain who I am to somebody.

I've gotten to this stage now where I recognize that.

I mean that's the thing.

You are who you are.

And that's it.

And the pansexuality is just like a box to try to fit yourself into for other people.

It's just so they can have an understanding and put a shape around it.

And that's the end of it.

I'm indifferent on that sort of stuff.

It helps to communicate.

But for me to me, I don't walk around like saying like, what's this pansexual going to do this morning?

And it's funny because it's like for years, for 10 years maybe or more, you were just trying to figure out who you were in the world and who you are as a human being.

And in particular regarding your sexuality, I find myself always very magnetically, gravitationally pulled to the queer community all the time.

Ever since I was, you know, 16, 17 in theater school, I was always most comfortable around queer folks.

And I don't know why.

I just always was.

It was very, very comfortable for me.

And when I meet someone and I find out that they're queer, I always have a little bit of like, oh, like a relief because I feel like that person oftentimes is going to be a little safer for me.

I think that is because anybody who is queer has done some amount of self-awareness work.

And what it actually is, is that I like people who've done the work.

Why?

Because of the social pressure that they've been given.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Please continue.

They weren't born into a world that's like, just be free, be whoever you are.

So they had to figure out there's, oh, there's boxes here in the world.

Oh, and this is the box most people are in.

Oh, okay.

I don't really fit that box.

Okay.

So what, how, what box do I put myself into?

You know, and there's a introspection that a lot of people have done if they've had to come to terms with whatever their sexuality is that doesn't fit the heteronormative society that we live in.

So to me, those people are safer for me.

I feel more safe to be myself, whatever the hell that is.

Yeah.

And in that, you being yourself, after I've given you just a little sliver of who I am sexually, how do you see yourself?

Well, so I have only ever been in relationships with men.

I have only ever slept with men, cis men.

I have dated non-binary folks as well.

I was in a heterosexual relationship that became my marriage for a very long time.

So I didn't have any opportunity of exploring my sexuality until I got divorced and then went out on my own in the dating world.

And then there becomes a question of like, well, I've never explored this.

I've never really even considered it.

I know that I've never had any attraction to women, but I also don't have arousal by walking around in the world.

I don't have sexual attraction to anyone unless I'm in an emotional relationship.

Jesus Christ.

If I had that tool, I would get so much more done.

Jesus, Louise.

Well, I didn't really know that about myself until I, I mean, I guess a lot of it is in seeing how you are when you walk around in the world,

that you have attraction to people walking down the street.

I'm glad my car can drive itself because I would have rear-ended somebody already at the red line, pun intended.

But that's not it for me.

Like, I don't have that.

I don't just have attraction.

So it's hard to look at it.

I can look at a picture of a beautiful man or a beautiful one and be like, aesthetically, those people are beautiful, both of them.

But I'm not turned on in any way.

I have to have an emotional connection.

This is called demisexual.

There is a word for it.

I didn't know that until, like, yesterday.

But that's just how I explain it.

I didn't know I was anything but me.

I need an emotional connection to somebody to be able to be aroused enough to sleep with them.

And have you ever felt that with a woman?

The closest I ever got to that, because I'm very curious.

I, like, wanted to explore that side of me.

But I didn't.

When I was dating, I didn't feel like it was fair to open my dating apps up to women because I was really, had never experienced attraction to a woman.

And I was afraid of putting somebody else in a weird position.

Sure.

Okay.

That's very generous of you.

The closest I ever got was a friend of mine who, after my divorce, she and I became very close friends.

We are, like, soul sisters.

I mean, we get along on every level.

We are very bonded.

Like sisters would be.

We are just such close friends.

And both of us would say often, I mean, she's a beautiful woman.

And both of us would say often, like, we were single at the time.

Like, should we just be together?

Like, I don't know.

I'm not sexually attracted to you.

But could we make this work somehow?

Because, God damn, we're, like, so compatible as human beings.

It just never manifested that way.

We both were, like, we wish.

It could be.

But it's not for us.

Why did it not manifest for you?

What wasn't there romantically?

I think that I do need a yin and a yang in relationship.

I need a masculine energy to allow me to be in my feminine.

And she's in her feminine very much.

It felt like we were too similar to be able to be compatible for what I need in me.

That makes sense.

It does make sense.

I love that you say that.

And I get what you're saying.

in our relationship.

And also, you have another extra scoop of masculinity in your living.

And I have an extra scoop of femininity in my living as well.

That's right.

Yeah.

Which is kind of cool.

I think we really work out in a great way that way.

What if she was masculine presenting?

Would it change for you?

It might.

I don't know.

It might.

Okay.

Because this is just a hypothetical about this particular person.

But I think if in relation...

She's listening, by the way.

Yeah.

I know she is.

Because she's my soul sister.

I think there's a masculine and a feminine yin and a yang in lots of relationships, regardless of gender or orientation or sexuality at all.

You can have masculine and feminine in one dynamic of your relationship, in your sexuality.

And you can have a masculine and feminine dynamic in how you run a household.

And you can have a masculine and feminine in how you handle your money.

Like, you know, those things can shift in partners.

For me, I don't know what I am.

And I cannot believe that I'm fully straight.

Sure.

I can't believe that because I am attracted to human beings.

I haven't met all the human beings in the world yet.

Mm-hmm.

So how do I know that there's not somebody in this world who's not a cis male who I would be attracted to?

I can't...

How could anyone say that?

It's true.

So I'm definitely not on the fully straight end of that spectrum.

I don't know what the word is for it, but I'm not...

I don't care to define it, actually.

Good.

Great.

Even better.

Is there anybody you can think of that fits that mold that I'm trying to explain to you,

that their personality connects to you, but then they have more of a masculine way of living?

I do have a weird obsession with Abby Wambach, who is the world-famous soccer player.

And she is more masculine presenting.

I think she gets misgendered a lot, actually, in the world.

But the reason that I think I feel something towards her...

And again, it's not sexual arousal because I don't have that.

But through her podcast, which is We Can Do Hard Things, I've listened to that show for years.

And I've learned intimate details about everybody on that show and about how she is as a human and in relationship,

what she cares about and what she believes in.

And so I know the whole picture of her.

And so there's a bit of a perceived...

It's not real, but like an emotional connection to an understanding of somebody.

And that makes me kind of intrigued by that.

Okay.

That's a very unique thing to grasp on.

It's a really self-aware thing for you to grasp on to.

That's very nice.

I don't know if I have anybody like that for me.

I'm still very sexually aroused about all sorts of weird things.

All sorts of people.

A bunch of stuff.

Just forget it.

It's just always in like gear seven.

To go further and find that connection is even harder now because of who I am in my life.

And I've gotten more rooted in who I am, even though I'm always subject to change.

And then it makes it even harder as well because our connection is fantastic.

So I don't care what that other person's gender is.

The time it would take for me to even see if we have a connection like you and I have, that's not worth it.

It's just not worth it.

It's improbable and not worth it.

You have evolved so much over the course of your life in terms of your sexuality and has morphed to a place where now,

qualifying it doesn't really matter, but you are far more attracted to women at this stage in your life than you are to men.

Do you think that it will morph again in such a way that you would be more attracted to men and in any way that would affect our relationship?

I don't.

I don't really.

I really, really don't.

Anything's possible, of course, as usual.

But the one through line for me has constantly been my attraction to women.

It has always been there and it's only grown more and more.

But more importantly, I have never been more rooted in who I am as a person.

A lot of that stuff was me going around to try to find out who I am, right?

Somebody might have the question, weren't you just experimenting?

Well, if they're asking it in that way that they're trying to just, you know, brush off or write off my, then they're going to be sorely disappointed because the answer is yes.

In order for me to find who I am and who I am as a pansexual male.

Like everything in life, we experiment.

We test everything out.

What are we doing?

Thinking that like, oh, it's just a fad.

Okay.

And then we learn something from it.

We learn so much more from it.

It's not just something that is not true.

It's a piece that I took with me.

Now here I am.

In all of that, I've gotten more rooted in the person that I am by becoming a Buddhist, by becoming sober, by watching my mind, by being kind to myself, by validating who I am as a person and saying, you know what?

You are good where you are and also spend time just getting better.

And when that person came together and then you came into my life, that is the biggest cosmic thumbs up that I could ever feel.

So why on earth would I think that that surfacy stuff is subject to change is going to mess with how I am?

It doesn't do that anymore for me.

So I'm not worried about that.

Are you worried about the fact that my sexuality has morphed might eventually affect our relationship?

No.

No, because, you know, it could morph.

You could morph in who you're attracted to, but you could be, you could drive down the street and be attracted to 10 of the women on the street, but it doesn't mean that you're going to go up to them and ask for their numbers and sleep with them.

Absolutely.

Right?

So I know your intentions and your actions.

If anything, your freeness and your openness to be exactly who you are makes me feel more safe in our relationship.

It makes me feel like if in 10 years I wanted to transition or you wanted to transition, that both of us would be like, great, whatever you want.

Because our bond is on the soul level.

Our bond is on a human to human level.

Express yourself however you want.

It makes me feel really safe, actually.

That's beautifully said.

I love that.

So this was a lot.

It was loads of information.

I don't know why we're all so obsessed with other people's parts.

But I do think it's fun to share the stories of how we all got to where we are.

I want to keep telling these stories and keep asking these questions.

I'm still asking the question of myself every day.

Who am I?

How do I identify?

What does this make me in the world?

Does it even matter?

I don't think we should stop doing that.

But trying to control other people through that, not being curious anymore, that's where it hurts.

Agreed.

When I first moved here, I went to this barber shop and the guy was cutting my hair.

And the friend who drove me there was gay, very flamboyant.

The barber whispered to me, is your friend gay?

And I looked at him.

He goes, I don't care.

I don't care.

I just want to know.

Is he gay?

And I looked at him.

I said, then why does it matter?

He goes, I don't care.

I don't care.

But I just want to know.

Is he gay?

And I never answered him.

I go, you probably should ask him yourself.

And he wouldn't.

He's like, I don't care.

I don't care.

I don't care.

But I just want to know.

And I feel like that's the whole society we live in.

Yeah.

Constantly.

We're so worried about other people's hearts and parts.

But how much have you asked yourself this question?

Well said.

In all respects.

In all respects.

Thank you for listening to our weird and wonderful exploration of all of our intimate details,

sexuality, identity, the needs for any of those labels.

I feel really relieved and hoping that you listening feel some sort of comfort.

And help you feel safe to share whatever your journey is.

Right.

This messy exploration of sexuality is ever-changing.

Thank you so much for listening.

And as always, be kind to yourself.

If this episode spoke to you, take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it.

That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most.

And if you want to keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty in the Break wherever

you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time.

Beauty in the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.

Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.

Original music by Cesar & The Clew.