Day 43: Brianna Booth

November 12, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Featured, Inspiration

“I mean, the whole conception of “normal” is what gets us trapped, and that if we erase that conception, then we’re really able to explore something that’s so, so unique and amazing about ourselves.”

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Toni Reece: Before we begin the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Brianna Booth: Sure.  My name is Brianna Booth, and I’m a third year doctoral student in human sexuality education, and I’m living in Philadelphia.

Toni: Okay, great.  Well, Brianna, the first question that is asked in the inspiration project is, when you think about inspiration, who do you think that you might inspire and how do you go about that?

Brianna: I think that in a specific sense I think I inspire strangers.  It could be a classroom of students or close friends, but more generally I think I inspire anyone who is willing to take a few baby steps outside the box.

Toni: Outside of what box?

Brianna: Well, that’s a big question.  Outside the box of cultural scripts that we abide by, sort of the rules that our society has placed on us regarding gender and sexuality.  So there are scripts that we don’t necessarily examine very critically, and they can be very limiting.  And when I introduce another idea, whether it’s coming from another culture or a different time in history or just different people’s experiences, I feel like I challenge people to consider their own situation or their event or a circumstance differently, and that gives them a different way of seeing the potential in their own lives or just for the situation itself.

Toni: How do you go about that, when you say that you talk about cultural scripts and talk about how that relates to gender?  Can you give us an example how that might inspire someone and what you do with that?

Brianna: Sure.  I think that we make a lot of generalizations about the way gender and sex and sexuality and relationships work.  And when I introduce a different way of seeing it, if I reframe it in the same way that a coach might reframe a situation or event or an outlook, I reframe someone’s perception related to gender and sexuality.  So the reason that’s so important and powerful is that we tend to see those things as fixed.  We don’t have a very big imagination for reframing those cultural meanings that we associate with gender and sexuality, so when I offer an alternative view, people sometimes don’t think that it’s … or their default mode is to not think that it’s possible to understand it differently.  But I use metaphors, and that helps people open up their minds; and I also use different examples, cross-culturally or trans-historically, and they realize that they don’t have to be in …  they realize that the cultural script is the limitation itself, it’s not themselves.

Toni: When you are working with other people in this particular arena, or even personally, what do you do that helps them to explore their potential?

Brianna: I think I listen very, very carefully, and I have a lot of curiosity and openness and authenticity towards however they are.  And I think I subtract the anxiety and the embarrassment out of the topic.  Because that’s usually why it never gets talked about or people don’t explore it because there is anxiety and embarrassment and shame; but I introduce the possibility that sexuality is something positive and that itself is a very subtle but enormous shift in the way that people see this topic in their lives.

Toni: How do you think by making that shift and removing — which is just phenomenal — removing the anxiety and the embarrassment and shame around that, to make that shift into positive, how does that then go to exploring their potential?  How have you seen that work?

Brianna: Oh … yeah.  Let me just think for a moment.  I think they just realize that … I think they get in touch with something that’s inside of them that’s deeper that they’ve never explored before, and they realize that for all the other things that they may have potential about, there is something inside themselves that can be expressed and enjoyed and appreciated and that something that’s unique to them.  And instead of thinking that they need to fit into a certain box, that they can really embrace the uniqueness that they are.

Sometimes they think of studying gender and sexuality as something that they are studying the people who deviate from what’s considered normal.  But really, I’m interested in the whole spectrum, and there’s very subtle differences and bigger differences from what’s considered normal, but I think that that’s … I mean, the whole conception of “normal” is what gets us trapped, and that if we erase that conception, then we’re really able to explore something that’s so, so unique and amazing about ourselves.  That in itself unlocks … I think that that part of our imagination, when we can tap into what’s happened to the possibilities there, then we start to see all sorts of things changing in our world.  Our whole ability to see complexity and opportunity changes.

Toni: When you seek inspiration, Brianna, what do you look for?  What do you need to be inspired?

Brianna: I think I’m attracted to people whose brains that are moving, so anywhere that I can get to be with people whose brains are moving, then mine starts to move too.  So anything from ideas and perspectives and listening to NPR and reading books and listening to brilliant lectures.  Those things are amazing for me; and reading about cross-cultural perspectives; and I have a few different sinkers that really, really help open my mind, but also meeting strangers.

I think that sometimes we live in a culture where we sort of see strangers as people not to interact with, or that they’re just another type of person in the world.  Then when we view them as someone that there is a potential to have connection with, those people really inspire me.  I make sure that I get out in the world and not only interact with nature but also strangers, because it’s such an opportunity to find out what another person’s experience of the world is like.

Toni: Are there tools or resources that you might go to when you feel that you are running a little low on the inspiration yourself, that you might reach for as well?

Brianna: Sure, yeah.  I always make sure — I said this before — but I always make sure I listen to NRP every day; and I read the news, and that always gets me thinking.  Also yoga and being out in nature, being able to wander around the city, but also just having really intellectually engaging conversations with people; sometimes friends, sometimes strangers, just to get me … Because I think the key to inspiration is to have new ideas and perspectives, and that’s why, for me, I find that in sexuality and gender and studying it, because to me that challenge is needed the most.

Two summers ago, I studied sexuality culture and society in the Netherlands.  And so even though I had already been studying — this is something I’ve been interested in my whole life — every single day of that education, I was having to rethink how I understood gender and sexuality just because it kept challenging me to rethink the way I thought things were.  It takes everything out of something that’s determined and essentialist and makes me realize the social constructiveness around it.  And so that’s really where my intellectual pleasure comes from is having to continually rethink things and find comfort – or being comfortable with the discomfort of that.

Toni: Can you just give me a little bit of an example of what you mean by that?  Being comfortable in the discomfort of that; just for an example for those that will read and listen to this interview.

Brianna: For example – this is sort of a simple one, but I think that it’s a pretty profound one – the categories that we have about gender and sexuality in our culture that there’s men, there’s women, there’s straight, there’s gay, and there’s feminine and there’s masculine.  And when you look at another culture or at different time periods in history, you see that those things haven’t always been that way.

The things that we see as very, just, “this is the way things have been ,and this is the way they’ve always been, and this is the way it’s been since the beginning of time.”  When you see that it can be different in another culture …  For example, the category of homosexuality didn’t exist until 1873, and before then we didn’t have a category to describe that.  Same sex behaviors or same sexual experiences were happening, of course, and yet they didn’t have a category.  Does that make sense?

Toni: It does.

Brianna: There’s so many different things.  I mean, gender roles have obviously been changing, and when you go look in different cultures, you think that what a woman does in our culture must be what a woman does everywhere; but really it’s dramatically different in what’s considered masculine, what’s considered feminine.

Toni: And so it’s really realizing that it isn’t just the way, the perception that as you had stated in the example, men, women, straight, gay, masculine, feminine, and with homosexuality not having that label prior to 1873, what was it?  It didn’t fit into a nice little box.

Brianna: Well, people just weren’t categorized that way, so something … I’m trying to think of it … A metaphor that I like to use, totally unrelated to gender and sexuality, is the color wheel.  So the way that we divide up a color wheel in our culture, we would all pretty much divide it along the same lines.  Where green begins and where blue ends is something that we can all generally agree upon.  But when you go into different cultures — and most cultures in the world now do use a similar color wheel — but there are cultures that draw radically different lines that they would only divide it up into three spaces, so the category itself is different.  So something that you think is as essential as color is something that’s really culturally constructed as well.

So same sex behavior, it wouldn’t … I can’t actually speak specifically to what it was beforehand — because I’m not quite sure, and I don’t want to be caught by professors if I’m not getting this right — but it’s something to get your brain around that that’s a new category, the way that we think of those behaviors as being something that’s only for certain people.

Toni: I think that you’ve explained it brilliantly with your examples, and it makes perfect sense.  It is really all about perspective and perception.  Having said that, when you are looking to continuously explore your own potential, what are the additional things that you do to manage your potential and to explore the possibilities of your potential?  What do you do?

Brianna: I think the thing that I need right now — and I mean I do have it in various aspects of my life — but I think I need a partner to collaborate with.  Because it’s pretty easy for me to stay up in my head, but working with someone else who is maybe better oriented in the “real world” helps me put feet on my ideas and my enthusiasm; besides just making sure that my mind is always moving, but that’s pretty easy for me.  I just sort of have to make sure I engage with the world, and then my brain is on and I’m inspired.

Toni: And that’s the way that you would explore your potential, is by collaborating with others?

Brianna: Yes, absolutely.  And teaching.  I think that when I get to have conversations with people when — like I said at the beginning — anyone who’s willing to take baby steps outside the box, those conversations inspire me because I get to make contact with the part inside of them that’s abiding by a cultural script, and then I get to challenge it.  And so just that process is very invigorating to me; and to get to see their brains grappling with something that they’ve never grappled with before or something that has been a limitation but now they’re starting to see it as an opportunity.

Toni: Which is really what I’ve heard in this interview is really what you do.  You translate what you need and what you do as far as exploring your own potential to how you inspire others and help them explore their own potential by pushing your own learning to understanding the different perceptions and perspectives and challenging your own beliefs so that you can then help others to challenge their beliefs.

Brianna: Yes.  Yes, exactly, that’s very well put.

Toni: Well, you have been incredibly giving in this interview, and I know that others are going to benefit and learn from what you have spoken about on this topic as well as what inspires you and how — and then how  you use that to inspire others — and for that and taking part in the Get Inspired! Project, Brianna, we thank you so very much.

Brianna: Thank you, Toni.  Thank you for letting me think about this and for getting to talk about it.

Toni: You are quite welcome, and I hope we speak soon.  Take care.

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For more information about Brianna Booth:  briannabooth@gmail.com

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