This is a podcast about our relationship to the world and how that impacts our relationship to each other. New episode every Wednesday!
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In the first episode of Junzi, we briefly introduce the concept of relational ontology, and begin talking about how this podcast came to be and the fraught history of our relationship (love, conflict, rupture, and repair). We move into discussing what we’ve learned about relationships from our history with one another, our relational values, and the qualities that we love about each other (moving through painful conflict, building strategies for communication, practicing boundaries and reassurance, non-escalator relationship structures, radical honesty, playfulness, and openness to taboo or he
In this episode, we talk about relationship anarchy (RA) theory and practice, our history with becoming part of an RA community in Southeast Michigan, non-hierarchical relating, organizing an international RA unconference, how our views on monogamy and coupling have shifted over the years, the concept of “ethical monogamy,” how everyone can center friendship and community in their lives, the breakdown of intentional community during COVID, and how our new community practices are influenced by what we’ve learned from the past. Near the end, we touch on the subject of agreements and cheating, wh
In this episode, we break down the TikTok discourse about “voice memo guy,” and the way it reveals dangerous cultural attitudes about men, sexual communication, dating, consent, coercion, and rape culture. If you aren’t familiar, a voice memo sent to a woman by a man right after their first date was uploaded onto TikTok by the woman’s friend, and it’s become one of the most polarizing pieces of media currently on the internet. We play the full voice memo during the episode, share how we would emotionally react if we received that message, and then provide a critical analysis of the responses w
In this episode, we tackle the massive topic of our relationship to other species, animal justice, and the heavy realities of using and eating animals as food. We also dive into how our differing ethical systems on this issue impact our relationship with one another. What starts as a plan to debate the classic vegan logical argument "Name the Trait" quickly transforms into an unexpected, intimate psychological exploration of both of our worldviews. We open up about the chilling effects of past value disagreements, our personal histories with PETA and fruitarianism, the paralyzed perfectionism
In this episode, we dig into the online controversy surrounding the Queer Collective Podcast and its hosts, Emily and Karbon, who are currently facing accusations of lesbophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. We talk about the claims they’ve made that political lesbianism is the root of biphobia against bisexual women, lesbian insecurity about bisexual women is “male-centered,” sexual identity can be a choice, lesbians can occasionally have sex with men, the “bi-cycle” is representative of bisexual experience, and trans women are “socialized as men.” We also talk about the contradiction between s
In this episode, we talk about our views on agreements within relationships. We start by describing the way our past involvement with relationship anarchy community influenced our thinking, and our shared rejection of promise-like contractual agreements. Throughout the episode, we discuss monogamous agreements, fluid-bonding, cheating, abusive relationships, best practices for communication, the special status we assign to sexual agreements, accepting human fallibility, and planning how we are going to handle inevitable broken agreements. At one point, we focus on a story Benzi brought up abou
This is our first comments and reactions bonus episode (covering the first three episodes of the podcast).The first 40 minutes are free to everyone, but the full 3-hour episode is exclusive to our Ko-fi members. We’re joined by our long-time friend Clara for a sprawling convo in response to comments we received about our political ideologies (specifically anarchism), the value of philosophy, communication skills, our relationship to gender identity and gender roles, non-monogamy, codependency, cheating, voice memo guy, the meaning of coercion, dating litmus tests, considering men’s feelings an
We recorded this the morning after a three-day Relateful Immersion in Tucson. We start by describing what Relateful is (a verbal relational mindfulness practice) and how it compares to a psychedelic trip, and how inspired we are by the playful, self-strusting leadership style of the founder, Jordan Myska Allen. We move into talking about the overwhelming sense of unconditional acceptance in the group, the flow of change, rupture and repair, trauma reactions, learning to connect with and love people regardless of their politics, creating more closeness in relationships, the shame of wanting att
In this episode, we dig into our relationship to making and receiving requests. The topic is inspired by Juno’s frustration with people who happily offer to do things for her unprompted, but grow irritated and hesitant when she asks directly for what she wants. We talk about how an offer can feel like a gift, while a request for the same thing can feel like a demand, the emotional labor of processing people’s requests, and pathological demand avoidance (PDA). We end up tracing our sometimes conflicting ways of communicating needs and desires back to our childhoods. Juno talks about having had
In this episode, we dig into the emotional, philosophical, and practical sides of having children, a topic Juno brings in after a conversation about it came up during a circling immersion in Tucson. Juno opens up about why she's never wanted to give birth, even though she'd love to be a deeply involved co-parent to other people's kids: it comes down to the outsized power a birth parent holds over a child's primary attachment. Benzi pushes back and shares that she does want to give birth, largely because of the singular closeness she has with her own mom and her wish to create that bond in the
