June 3, 2025 • 26 mins
Sex. Grief. Death. Power. Madness. The body.
These were never the problem. But somewhere along the way, they got labeled as dirty, dangerous, too much. Especially when expressed through women. Especially when embodied without apology.
We’ll talk vibrators and hysteria. Power and fear. What happens when grief has no place to go. And why kink, at its core, might just be one of the few places left where we get to reclaim what was ours all along.
If you’ve ever felt like you were too much, this one’s for you.
Because you were never the problem.
You were the truth they didn’t know how to hold.
If you are interested in joining Doc YuRoc on the mic send her an email to yulindarenee@docyuroc.com with GUEST in the subject line and share what you wish to talk about and she will respond ASAP.
You can also find and follow her at:
Doc Yu Roc Website
Doc Yu Roc Instagram
Doc Yu Roc Youtube
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hey y'all, it's DocuRock and we are back at the
edge of something.
And today that something is thetaboo.
So I was just sitting here and Iwas thinking to myself, what
makes the taboo, taboo?
And y'all already know whathappened.
Your girl went down a goddamnrabbit hole to really
(00:23):
understand, like, how do we getto this point where something is
categorized as taboo?
And you know what we going to dofirst, right?
We're going to define the word.
So what does taboo mean?
What is it?
It's etymology.
Let's get into it.
All right.
So as a noun, taboo is definedas a social or cultural
(00:45):
prohibition, something that isforbidden or disapproved of by
custom, tradition, or morality,often without explicit legal
sanctions.
So this ain't the law.
This is just some shit we donecame up with that we're going to
institute as a no-no all rightcool then we have as an
(01:05):
adjective taboo forbidden to bespoken of touched or engaged
with usually due to social orspiritual beliefs of course they
want to cut the grass while i'mrecording because of course so
if the sound sounds a littleweird it's because i'm moving
around but we still gonna makeit do what it do so let's get
into the etymology now so theword taboo comes from the tongan
(01:29):
t-o-n-g-a I just want y'all tosit with that for a little bit.
We're talking about the originof the word.
(01:49):
Y'all see how things getbastardized?
I'm just saying.
It was introduced to the Englishlanguage in the late 18th
century.
By Captain James Cook during hisvoyages in the South Pacific.
(02:27):
So initially, taboo didn't meansomething was bad or immoral,
quote unquote, but rather thatit held spiritual potence or
cultural significance.
Y'all, I just got chills.
What about you?
So just like the word rogue,what did the fucking colonizers
do?
Okay, they colonize.
Over time, particularly throughWestern colonialism, the term
(02:49):
taboo was reframed through thelens of Christian morality,
Victorian propriety, and socialwhat?
Control.
Right.
It lost much of its spiritualreverence and came to mean
socially unacceptable ordeviant.
We'll talk about that too.
I discussed that on a YouTubechannel.
We ain't gonna get into allthat.
(03:10):
I'll bring it here later on.
But anyway, this shift isimportant because what was once
sacred and powerful becamestigmatized and silenced.
Let's pause.
Now that we've dug into themeaning of the word, because of
course, let's all make sure weknow what we're talking about
when we talking.
Let's shift gears and look atsome of the more common taboos,
(03:34):
if you will, in Western society.
And first up, of course, sex.
I am so fascinated by how theWestern world interact or the
relationship with sex.
It's so odd because it is soused to commodify, to to, as a
(03:58):
hook to sale and profit, but yetand still we can't have just a
normal, regular conversationabout sex is always
sensationalized or typically, Iwon't say always.
And my question is, I wonder ifit wasn't taboo, if it would
still be profitable.
(04:20):
I'm just going to let thatmarinate for a minute, but I
don't know.
That could be a whole differentconversation.
We'll leave it at that.
What I do know is that sex usedto be a part of the spiritual
fabric of life.
You had temple priestesses, youhad sacred sex rites, and
eroticism was communal.
(04:41):
It wasn't a rare thing.
Sex was just a part of thefabric, right?
It wasn't odd.
It wasn't weird.
It just was.
And then sexual energy was seenas a life force, not something
to be suppressed.
You could create from yoursexual energy because sex itself
(05:02):
can beget creation.
It connected the body to thedivine.
But the Western world, throughpuritanical lenses, disconnected
sex from spirit and turnedpleasure into something sinful.
Like, what the hell?
Where'd they do that at?
And obviously all over thewestern world but anyway and
let's keep it a buck it reallyfucked up the women right it hit
(05:26):
the women the hardest because inmany pre-colonial and indigenous
cultures women were seen as thebearers of erotic power and
spiritual insight because of thecapacity to beget life their
bodies were not sexualized butsacralized meaning it was
considered sacred menstruationwas honored and that's a whole
(05:47):
different conversation itselfhow we deal with the menstrual
cycle and just the differentphases that women go through.
Sensuality was celebrated.
Female orgasm was seen as aconnection to God.
But colonization, again, alwaysthe motherfucking villain.
Christianity right there on itstoes.
(06:09):
And patriarchy reframed women'ssexuality as a threat.
Something to be controlled,hidden, or used for someone
else's gain.
Right?
Right?
Yeah.
Because forbid, God forbid thatyou are in control of your own
sexuality, sensuality, and thepower that is inherent within
(06:32):
it.
Yeah, heavy sigh.
And on the other side of sex andthe beginning of life, we have
death and grief.
Two other taboos that we grapplewith in Western society.
And again, I find it so obvioushow something that is
intrinsically a part of the lifecycle that none of us can
(06:56):
escape, as far as I know, death,that we are so afraid as a
culture to talk about it, tolean into it.
And I find that reallyinteresting.
So these two taboos areintimately connected, right?
But in many indigenous andancestral traditions, they were
(07:18):
never meant to be separated.
It makes sense that those twowould go together.
Grief was a ritual response todeath.
And death was not an end.
It was a threshold.
It was a passage to somethingelse.
And in many cultures, there weredesignated periods of mourning.
Grief was held communally.
(07:39):
The bereaved were supported, notavoided.
And in my own personal life, Irecognize after having
experienced multiple deathswithin a three year period that
it is loudest.
A few weeks to a few monthsafter the death.
(07:59):
Because everyone that ralliedaround you for those first
couple of days or couple ofweeks disappear.
And then there's no morecommunity.
There's no more support.
You're on your own.
Because you have a time limit onhow long you're allowed to
grieve and receive support.
(08:20):
See, back then when ourancestors were dealing with
this, Grief was communal.
The bereaved were supported, notavoided, like I said.
And death was honored and it wasspoken by name.
We didn't avoid talking aboutit.
We didn't call it somethingelse.
And ancestors weren't forgotten,right?
Death wasn't the end.
(08:42):
Ancestors were revered.
When someone died, it was acelebration because now they
were ancestors and they get toserve a different, more
honorable, more sacred role.
We can't even say the worddeath.
We say someone passed away orthey were lost.
We lost them.
(09:03):
They're not fucking lost.
We know exactly where they are,right?
So I'm curious as to where thatstarted.
I didn't dig into that.
And then when we think aboutgrief, right?
For me personally, I did noteven begin to grapple with the
grieving process until two,three years ago.
(09:25):
And mind you, I have...
had multiple people die beforethen, but there was never the
space to grieve.
There was never the oxygen.
the breath to do the grievingbecause I was conditioned that I
had to make sure I wasemotionally available for
(09:45):
others, which means there was noroom for my own personal grief,
but I was the holder of others'grief.
And to grieve for a lot ofpeople is almost looked at as
weakness, especially if it goeson too long, quote unquote.
Now, who defines what too longis?
I don't know.
Grief is rushed.
(10:06):
It's usually hidden.
You're by yourself.
You're crying in the bathroom.
You're giving about three daysoff work when somebody dies for
your bereavement time off.
And if you're still crying amonth later, a year later, five
years later, people look at youlike, what the hell is wrong
with you?
Get over it already.
And if we're really, reallyhonest, that shit hurts.
(10:32):
It really hurts when people arelooking at you like something is
wrong with you because you arestill experiencing pain.
So then what happens?
We suffer in silence.
We alone.
We ashamed of ourselves.
We start to beat ourselves up.
Why am I not over this yet?
(10:52):
Grief becomes something toapologize for.
Death becomes something to fearor to avoid mentioning.
Less it creeps up on you becauseif you talk about death, That
means yours must be right aroundthe corner.
Like, Lord have mercy.
But avoiding death doesn't keepus safe.
It just keeps us numb.
(11:14):
And stifling the grief doesn'tmake it go away.
It just gets buried deeper.
It festers and it changes who weare.
It's difficult to maintain yourhumanity when you are not
allowed to be human.
So to reclaim these particulartaboos, It's to say grief is not
a weakness.
(11:35):
It's literally love in motion.
Because if you grieve the lossof someone, that means you love
them enough to do so.
Death is not our enemy.
It is a part of a sacred cycle.
And both deserve to be honored,not to be feared.
(11:56):
And there's not just the deathof the body.
There's so many differentdeaths.
The death of a former self, thedeath of dreams unrealized, the
death of unmet needs, unmetwants.
And grief comes with all ofthose.
(12:17):
We don't talk about the grievingprocess of healing.
We don't talk about the grievingprocess of releasing attachment
to things that no longer serveus.
Even that is taboo.
But only if we allow it to be.
Next up, power.
(12:39):
And when I was thinking aboutpower, I asked myself, is power
really taboo?
Are people just afraid of power?
Like what's really going on?
And then I thought about it.
Power is taboo when it's in thehands of those who are typically
the ones others want to control.
(13:02):
Did that land?
Let's look at it like this.
So back in the day inpre-colonial societies, power
often flowed through communalleadership.
It was more circular, right?
It was about communalleadership, spiritual vision,
and shared responsibility.
Power wasn't about dominance.
It was about alignment.
It was the ability to influencethe world while staying rooted
(13:25):
in integrity.
And back then, women had power.
And we see how people are afraidof that.
Women in power is taboo as hell,but anyway.
But women once held that kind ofpower.
Matrilineal societies was athing.
Spiritual leaders, wisdomkeepers, birth workers, and
(13:46):
community guides, all positionsheld by women.
So power wasn't something womenhad to fight for, claw for, die
for.
It was given.
It was lived.
It was honored.
It was respected.
It was accepted.
It just But here comes theWestern patriarchy fucking stuff
up like it does, where theybuild systems that erase
(14:10):
feminine power.
Women's knowledge was devalued.
Their leadership was dismissed.
Their power was seen as a threatthat needed to be tamed.
And this leads into anothertaboo, but we'll get there.
So when I go back to my questionof power really taboo, yes,
depending on who holds thatpower.
(14:31):
In and of itself, It's notinherently taboo, but who holds
it, how they hold it, and whatthey do with that power.
That's where the taboo begins.
Power becomes taboo when itthreatens the systems that rely
on hierarchy, obedience,control, and status.
(14:53):
Let's take a closer look.
So, a white dude in a suit withpower.
That's expected, right?
That's the blueprint,supposedly.
Now, a black woman using hervoice, commanding space.
Ooh, we don't do that.
That's taboo.
The fuck you're doing.
This able person demandingaccess.
Taboo, because why are youmaking noise?
(15:13):
Why are you making a nuisance ofyourself, right?
A queer person redefiningleadership outside of the
binary.
Oh no, that's against God.
You're fucking up.
That's taboo.
Or let's talk about a submissiveand a kink dynamic who knows
their worth.
Or a dominant who refused to bemanipulated by itself.
(15:35):
Oh, shit.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Taboo.
Why?
Because it dares to buck upagainst systems that have been
put in place to specifically usepower to control.
Because when power is rooted inauthenticity, sovereignty,
(15:56):
wholeness, purpose, guess what?
You can't buy it.
It can't be sold.
You can't manipulate it.
You can't control it.
And if I can't control you, thatmeans I can't rule over you.
And then what does that do?
That threatens my perceivedpower.
(16:18):
And let's flip it a bit.
People are also afraid of theirown power.
Stepping into your power istaboo because it might be scary
for you to be authenticallyyourself.
You might be afraid of your ownpower because what if you become
like them other motherfuckerswho use their power for evil?
(16:38):
Will I be punished or cast out?
What if I can't handle my power?
What if my power disrupts mycurrent circumstances and I'm
left destitute, fucked up,outcast, or something else?
So not only is power taboo basedon who utilizes it, but it
becomes taboo in our own lifebecause we're afraid of what it
(17:01):
can look like.
True power triggers fear becauseit comes with responsibility.
It asks us to be accountable andto be honest.
And sometimes it comes with alot of excuses because people
want to avoid theresponsibility.
But true power...
(17:23):
Comes with all of that.
So is power taboo?
Real power is.
Not that fake-ish.
People use fake power tomanipulate others.
Sometimes we see things on TV,social media, and we think, oh
man, those people have power.
(17:43):
What they actually have in mostcases is a good performance.
Real power cannot be scripted.
It can only be lived And I'mgoing to leave that right there.
Madness.
Madness as a taboo.
(18:05):
So what the Western world oftenlabels as madness, other
cultures have named as spiritualemergence.
And for those who know me, youknow that I dance at the
threshold of science and woo,philosophy, psychology, all of
those things.
And I've even shared like aTikTok or Instagram reel of
(18:27):
talking about how some of us inthe mental health community know
that some folks who have beendiagnosed with the disorder were
actually misdiagnosed and weredealing with or managing
spiritual awakening.
(18:49):
We don't talk about that muchthough.
Anywho, because hearing voicescould be the voice of ancestors.
Visions might be medicinedreams.
The person who's mad, quoteunquote, might be training to
become a healer or a shaman oreven a prophet.
But we medicalize everythingover here in the Western world
and we exile, cast out anythingdifferent.
(19:14):
Anything that challenges ourconsensus of what reality really
is.
And it's so funny because if wethink about how it relates to
women in the histrionics, right?
Women getting hysterical.
Oh, they're mad.
We need to give them a littleopium.
Give them a little something ofthat to calm them down so
they're relaxed.
(19:34):
Oh, speaking of, what were theycalled?
Oh, I cannot remember.
Hold on.
Gotta go look it up real quick.
Okay, y'all.
Y'all gotta take this trip downthis rabbit hole with me because
this just made me think aboutwomen being diagnosed with
hysteria, right?
And using tools, quote unquote,like vibrators to help them with
(20:01):
their disorder so okay let'slet's take this little side trip
so hysteria that word comes fromthe greek word hysteria hysteria
i think i'm saying it rightwhich means uterus and for
centuries hysteria was acatch-all diagnosis for every
damn thing anything a woman wasdealing with that wasn't you
(20:22):
chilling and you doing what thefuck i wanted you to do was
hysteria so whether or not therewas anxiety they were irritable
They had insomnia.
They were getting fat becausethey had fluid retention.
So they're getting puffy,emotional excess, right?
You're being emotional.
All of that was categorized ashysteria.
So the underlying assumption wasthat if a woman was discontent,
(20:42):
she was ill.
It wasn't that she was upset orfrustrated or sad or, you know,
repressed or bored.
It was something wrong with herass.
Okay.
And so the medical treatment,quote unquote, of hysteria.
So by the 18th and 19thcenturies male doctors in
western europe and the u.s beganusing pelvic massage to induce
(21:04):
paroxysm aka an orgasm as atreatment for hysteria but they
didn't call it sexual oh becauseno we don't want to give them
pleasure just for pleasure'ssake it was medical right it was
believed that this would releasebuilt up fluids and restore the
woman's emotional balance thisprocess was time consuming and
(21:24):
physically demanding for doctorsno surprise there right Right.
Because, you know, sometimeswomen, we got to find it.
And this led to the invention ofmechanical vibrators in the late
1800s.
Y'all.
So these vibrators were used inclinical settings and even
marketed for home use, often asrespectable health devices for
(21:44):
women's well-being.
Oh.
All right.
So let's go back onto the yellowbrick road, right?
We took a detour, but the wholeidea of madness being a taboo,
right?
That someone expressingthemselves or experiencing
things that are not inalignment, quote unquote, with
(22:05):
what the powers that be considerto be normal, right?
That if you were not operatingin the role they wanted you to
operate in the way they wantedyou to operate in it, it was an
issue.
So if you were angry, if youwere having flashbacks, maybe
someone with PTSD, there wasmadness.
(22:28):
And what it ultimately means isthat you are not controllable.
They, again, the powers that be,patriarchy or whatever.
If I don't understand it, Ican't control it.
So I won't accept it.
I will marginalize it and I willkick it to the corners.
(22:49):
I will kick it to the margins.
I will kick it to the edge.
And that brings us to kink.
Kink is often treated like theultimate taboo.
But when you understand thelineage of taboo as sacred, kink
becomes something else entirely.
It becomes like a return.
(23:11):
Return to something that ourancestors were already involved
in.
It becomes sacred or it canbecome sacred.
It can become a portal.
It can become a threshold.
It can become a ritual.
Because kink often involvesritual.
(23:31):
It has intention.
It involves sensation, powerexchange, presence, and consent.
And it's not always erotic.
It's not always sexual.
Oftentimes, it's transformative.
And in a lot of ways, kinkmirrors the same principles
found in ancient rites aroundboundaries, offerings,
(23:52):
invocation, surrender, and evensome times suffering.
So to submit, to kneel, toyield, To allow, to feel, is not
weakness.
It is radical trust.
And to dominate, which is toguide, to witness, to caretake,
(24:12):
to hold, is not about cruelty.
It can be profoundresponsibility.
And kink, when practicedconsciously, is ceremony.
It can help us integrate whenwe're doing our shadow work.
It can help us reclaim andrescript our relationships.
to self and others.
(24:33):
In a world that teaches us toabandon ourselves, kink brings
us back to our bodies, to ourneeds, to our voices, to our
wants.
It helps us face our fears, orcan.
It's one of the few places wherewe can rewrite the scripts
handed to us.
It says, you are not broken.
You are complex.
(24:55):
And you get to craft things yourown reality, your own terms.
And sometimes it can bedangerous.
There's a risk involved.
And that, my love, sounds likethe original definition of
taboo.
(25:15):
So with that, this was a littlebit longer than I thought it
would be.
But the edge of taboo doesn'tneed to be something to fear.
You can feel through it becauseon the other side of the shame
that the world might have usfeel because of how we move
through space.
On the other side of that is ourown sovereignty.
(25:35):
And on the other side of silenceis truth.
We speak truth to these taboos.
I love it.
I love the idea of the taboo,the original meaning behind it
and us getting back to ourroots.
Because that's where the truthlies.
That's where the richness is.
(25:55):
That's where the nutrients are.
And guess what?
I think we're on the edge of it.
This is DocuRock.
I'm out.
Hey y'all, it's DocuRock and we are back at the
edge of something.
And today that something is thetaboo.
So I was just sitting here and Iwas thinking to myself, what
makes the taboo, taboo?
And y'all already know whathappened.
Your girl went down a goddamnrabbit hole to really
(00:23):
understand, like, how do we getto this point where something is
categorized as taboo?
And you know what we going to dofirst, right?
We're going to define the word.
So what does taboo mean?
What is it?
It's etymology.
Let's get into it.
All right.
So as a noun, taboo is definedas a social or cultural
(00:45):
prohibition, something that isforbidden or disapproved of by
custom, tradition, or morality,often without explicit legal
sanctions.
So this ain't the law.
This is just some shit we donecame up with that we're going to
institute as a no-no all rightcool then we have as an
(01:05):
adjective taboo forbidden to bespoken of touched or engaged
with usually due to social orspiritual beliefs of course they
want to cut the grass while i'mrecording because of course so
if the sound sounds a littleweird it's because i'm moving
around but we still gonna makeit do what it do so let's get
into the etymology now so theword taboo comes from the tongan
(01:29):
t-o-n-g-a I just want y'all tosit with that for a little bit.
We're talking about the originof the word.
(01:49):
Y'all see how things getbastardized?
I'm just saying.
It was introduced to the Englishlanguage in the late 18th
century.
By Captain James Cook during hisvoyages in the South Pacific.
(02:27):
So initially, taboo didn't meansomething was bad or immoral,
quote unquote, but rather thatit held spiritual potence or
cultural significance.
Y'all, I just got chills.
What about you?
So just like the word rogue,what did the fucking colonizers
do?
Okay, they colonize.
Over time, particularly throughWestern colonialism, the term
(02:49):
taboo was reframed through thelens of Christian morality,
Victorian propriety, and socialwhat?
Control.
Right.
It lost much of its spiritualreverence and came to mean
socially unacceptable ordeviant.
We'll talk about that too.
I discussed that on a YouTubechannel.
We ain't gonna get into allthat.
(03:10):
I'll bring it here later on.
But anyway, this shift isimportant because what was once
sacred and powerful becamestigmatized and silenced.
Let's pause.
Now that we've dug into themeaning of the word, because of
course, let's all make sure weknow what we're talking about
when we talking.
Let's shift gears and look atsome of the more common taboos,
(03:34):
if you will, in Western society.
And first up, of course, sex.
I am so fascinated by how theWestern world interact or the
relationship with sex.
It's so odd because it is soused to commodify, to to, as a
(03:58):
hook to sale and profit, but yetand still we can't have just a
normal, regular conversationabout sex is always
sensationalized or typically, Iwon't say always.
And my question is, I wonder ifit wasn't taboo, if it would
still be profitable.
(04:20):
I'm just going to let thatmarinate for a minute, but I
don't know.
That could be a whole differentconversation.
We'll leave it at that.
What I do know is that sex usedto be a part of the spiritual
fabric of life.
You had temple priestesses, youhad sacred sex rites, and
eroticism was communal.
(04:41):
It wasn't a rare thing.
Sex was just a part of thefabric, right?
It wasn't odd.
It wasn't weird.
It just was.
And then sexual energy was seenas a life force, not something
to be suppressed.
You could create from yoursexual energy because sex itself
(05:02):
can beget creation.
It connected the body to thedivine.
But the Western world, throughpuritanical lenses, disconnected
sex from spirit and turnedpleasure into something sinful.
Like, what the hell?
Where'd they do that at?
And obviously all over thewestern world but anyway and
let's keep it a buck it reallyfucked up the women right it hit
(05:26):
the women the hardest because inmany pre-colonial and indigenous
cultures women were seen as thebearers of erotic power and
spiritual insight because of thecapacity to beget life their
bodies were not sexualized butsacralized meaning it was
considered sacred menstruationwas honored and that's a whole
(05:47):
different conversation itselfhow we deal with the menstrual
cycle and just the differentphases that women go through.
Sensuality was celebrated.
Female orgasm was seen as aconnection to God.
But colonization, again, alwaysthe motherfucking villain.
Christianity right there on itstoes.
(06:09):
And patriarchy reframed women'ssexuality as a threat.
Something to be controlled,hidden, or used for someone
else's gain.
Right?
Right?
Yeah.
Because forbid, God forbid thatyou are in control of your own
sexuality, sensuality, and thepower that is inherent within
(06:32):
it.
Yeah, heavy sigh.
And on the other side of sex andthe beginning of life, we have
death and grief.
Two other taboos that we grapplewith in Western society.
And again, I find it so obvioushow something that is
intrinsically a part of the lifecycle that none of us can
(06:56):
escape, as far as I know, death,that we are so afraid as a
culture to talk about it, tolean into it.
And I find that reallyinteresting.
So these two taboos areintimately connected, right?
But in many indigenous andancestral traditions, they were
(07:18):
never meant to be separated.
It makes sense that those twowould go together.
Grief was a ritual response todeath.
And death was not an end.
It was a threshold.
It was a passage to somethingelse.
And in many cultures, there weredesignated periods of mourning.
Grief was held communally.
(07:39):
The bereaved were supported, notavoided.
And in my own personal life, Irecognize after having
experienced multiple deathswithin a three year period that
it is loudest.
A few weeks to a few monthsafter the death.
(07:59):
Because everyone that ralliedaround you for those first
couple of days or couple ofweeks disappear.
And then there's no morecommunity.
There's no more support.
You're on your own.
Because you have a time limit onhow long you're allowed to
grieve and receive support.
(08:20):
See, back then when ourancestors were dealing with
this, Grief was communal.
The bereaved were supported, notavoided, like I said.
And death was honored and it wasspoken by name.
We didn't avoid talking aboutit.
We didn't call it somethingelse.
And ancestors weren't forgotten,right?
Death wasn't the end.
(08:42):
Ancestors were revered.
When someone died, it was acelebration because now they
were ancestors and they get toserve a different, more
honorable, more sacred role.
We can't even say the worddeath.
We say someone passed away orthey were lost.
We lost them.
(09:03):
They're not fucking lost.
We know exactly where they are,right?
So I'm curious as to where thatstarted.
I didn't dig into that.
And then when we think aboutgrief, right?
For me personally, I did noteven begin to grapple with the
grieving process until two,three years ago.
(09:25):
And mind you, I have...
had multiple people die beforethen, but there was never the
space to grieve.
There was never the oxygen.
the breath to do the grievingbecause I was conditioned that I
had to make sure I wasemotionally available for
(09:45):
others, which means there was noroom for my own personal grief,
but I was the holder of others'grief.
And to grieve for a lot ofpeople is almost looked at as
weakness, especially if it goeson too long, quote unquote.
Now, who defines what too longis?
I don't know.
Grief is rushed.
(10:06):
It's usually hidden.
You're by yourself.
You're crying in the bathroom.
You're giving about three daysoff work when somebody dies for
your bereavement time off.
And if you're still crying amonth later, a year later, five
years later, people look at youlike, what the hell is wrong
with you?
Get over it already.
And if we're really, reallyhonest, that shit hurts.
(10:32):
It really hurts when people arelooking at you like something is
wrong with you because you arestill experiencing pain.
So then what happens?
We suffer in silence.
We alone.
We ashamed of ourselves.
We start to beat ourselves up.
Why am I not over this yet?
(10:52):
Grief becomes something toapologize for.
Death becomes something to fearor to avoid mentioning.
Less it creeps up on you becauseif you talk about death, That
means yours must be right aroundthe corner.
Like, Lord have mercy.
But avoiding death doesn't keepus safe.
It just keeps us numb.
(11:14):
And stifling the grief doesn'tmake it go away.
It just gets buried deeper.
It festers and it changes who weare.
It's difficult to maintain yourhumanity when you are not
allowed to be human.
So to reclaim these particulartaboos, It's to say grief is not
a weakness.
(11:35):
It's literally love in motion.
Because if you grieve the lossof someone, that means you love
them enough to do so.
Death is not our enemy.
It is a part of a sacred cycle.
And both deserve to be honored,not to be feared.
(11:56):
And there's not just the deathof the body.
There's so many differentdeaths.
The death of a former self, thedeath of dreams unrealized, the
death of unmet needs, unmetwants.
And grief comes with all ofthose.
(12:17):
We don't talk about the grievingprocess of healing.
We don't talk about the grievingprocess of releasing attachment
to things that no longer serveus.
Even that is taboo.
But only if we allow it to be.
Next up, power.
(12:39):
And when I was thinking aboutpower, I asked myself, is power
really taboo?
Are people just afraid of power?
Like what's really going on?
And then I thought about it.
Power is taboo when it's in thehands of those who are typically
the ones others want to control.
(13:02):
Did that land?
Let's look at it like this.
So back in the day inpre-colonial societies, power
often flowed through communalleadership.
It was more circular, right?
It was about communalleadership, spiritual vision,
and shared responsibility.
Power wasn't about dominance.
It was about alignment.
It was the ability to influencethe world while staying rooted
(13:25):
in integrity.
And back then, women had power.
And we see how people are afraidof that.
Women in power is taboo as hell,but anyway.
But women once held that kind ofpower.
Matrilineal societies was athing.
Spiritual leaders, wisdomkeepers, birth workers, and
(13:46):
community guides, all positionsheld by women.
So power wasn't something womenhad to fight for, claw for, die
for.
It was given.
It was lived.
It was honored.
It was respected.
It was accepted.
It just But here comes theWestern patriarchy fucking stuff
up like it does, where theybuild systems that erase
(14:10):
feminine power.
Women's knowledge was devalued.
Their leadership was dismissed.
Their power was seen as a threatthat needed to be tamed.
And this leads into anothertaboo, but we'll get there.
So when I go back to my questionof power really taboo, yes,
depending on who holds thatpower.
(14:31):
In and of itself, It's notinherently taboo, but who holds
it, how they hold it, and whatthey do with that power.
That's where the taboo begins.
Power becomes taboo when itthreatens the systems that rely
on hierarchy, obedience,control, and status.
(14:53):
Let's take a closer look.
So, a white dude in a suit withpower.
That's expected, right?
That's the blueprint,supposedly.
Now, a black woman using hervoice, commanding space.
Ooh, we don't do that.
That's taboo.
The fuck you're doing.
This able person demandingaccess.
Taboo, because why are youmaking noise?
(15:13):
Why are you making a nuisance ofyourself, right?
A queer person redefiningleadership outside of the
binary.
Oh no, that's against God.
You're fucking up.
That's taboo.
Or let's talk about a submissiveand a kink dynamic who knows
their worth.
Or a dominant who refused to bemanipulated by itself.
(15:35):
Oh, shit.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Taboo.
Why?
Because it dares to buck upagainst systems that have been
put in place to specifically usepower to control.
Because when power is rooted inauthenticity, sovereignty,
(15:56):
wholeness, purpose, guess what?
You can't buy it.
It can't be sold.
You can't manipulate it.
You can't control it.
And if I can't control you, thatmeans I can't rule over you.
And then what does that do?
That threatens my perceivedpower.
(16:18):
And let's flip it a bit.
People are also afraid of theirown power.
Stepping into your power istaboo because it might be scary
for you to be authenticallyyourself.
You might be afraid of your ownpower because what if you become
like them other motherfuckerswho use their power for evil?
(16:38):
Will I be punished or cast out?
What if I can't handle my power?
What if my power disrupts mycurrent circumstances and I'm
left destitute, fucked up,outcast, or something else?
So not only is power taboo basedon who utilizes it, but it
becomes taboo in our own lifebecause we're afraid of what it
(17:01):
can look like.
True power triggers fear becauseit comes with responsibility.
It asks us to be accountable andto be honest.
And sometimes it comes with alot of excuses because people
want to avoid theresponsibility.
But true power...
(17:23):
Comes with all of that.
So is power taboo?
Real power is.
Not that fake-ish.
People use fake power tomanipulate others.
Sometimes we see things on TV,social media, and we think, oh
man, those people have power.
(17:43):
What they actually have in mostcases is a good performance.
Real power cannot be scripted.
It can only be lived And I'mgoing to leave that right there.
Madness.
Madness as a taboo.
(18:05):
So what the Western world oftenlabels as madness, other
cultures have named as spiritualemergence.
And for those who know me, youknow that I dance at the
threshold of science and woo,philosophy, psychology, all of
those things.
And I've even shared like aTikTok or Instagram reel of
(18:27):
talking about how some of us inthe mental health community know
that some folks who have beendiagnosed with the disorder were
actually misdiagnosed and weredealing with or managing
spiritual awakening.
(18:49):
We don't talk about that muchthough.
Anywho, because hearing voicescould be the voice of ancestors.
Visions might be medicinedreams.
The person who's mad, quoteunquote, might be training to
become a healer or a shaman oreven a prophet.
But we medicalize everythingover here in the Western world
and we exile, cast out anythingdifferent.
(19:14):
Anything that challenges ourconsensus of what reality really
is.
And it's so funny because if wethink about how it relates to
women in the histrionics, right?
Women getting hysterical.
Oh, they're mad.
We need to give them a littleopium.
Give them a little something ofthat to calm them down so
they're relaxed.
(19:34):
Oh, speaking of, what were theycalled?
Oh, I cannot remember.
Hold on.
Gotta go look it up real quick.
Okay, y'all.
Y'all gotta take this trip downthis rabbit hole with me because
this just made me think aboutwomen being diagnosed with
hysteria, right?
And using tools, quote unquote,like vibrators to help them with
(20:01):
their disorder so okay let'slet's take this little side trip
so hysteria that word comes fromthe greek word hysteria hysteria
i think i'm saying it rightwhich means uterus and for
centuries hysteria was acatch-all diagnosis for every
damn thing anything a woman wasdealing with that wasn't you
(20:22):
chilling and you doing what thefuck i wanted you to do was
hysteria so whether or not therewas anxiety they were irritable
They had insomnia.
They were getting fat becausethey had fluid retention.
So they're getting puffy,emotional excess, right?
You're being emotional.
All of that was categorized ashysteria.
So the underlying assumption wasthat if a woman was discontent,
(20:42):
she was ill.
It wasn't that she was upset orfrustrated or sad or, you know,
repressed or bored.
It was something wrong with herass.
Okay.
And so the medical treatment,quote unquote, of hysteria.
So by the 18th and 19thcenturies male doctors in
western europe and the u.s beganusing pelvic massage to induce
(21:04):
paroxysm aka an orgasm as atreatment for hysteria but they
didn't call it sexual oh becauseno we don't want to give them
pleasure just for pleasure'ssake it was medical right it was
believed that this would releasebuilt up fluids and restore the
woman's emotional balance thisprocess was time consuming and
(21:24):
physically demanding for doctorsno surprise there right Right.
Because, you know, sometimeswomen, we got to find it.
And this led to the invention ofmechanical vibrators in the late
1800s.
Y'all.
So these vibrators were used inclinical settings and even
marketed for home use, often asrespectable health devices for
(21:44):
women's well-being.
Oh.
All right.
So let's go back onto the yellowbrick road, right?
We took a detour, but the wholeidea of madness being a taboo,
right?
That someone expressingthemselves or experiencing
things that are not inalignment, quote unquote, with
(22:05):
what the powers that be considerto be normal, right?
That if you were not operatingin the role they wanted you to
operate in the way they wantedyou to operate in it, it was an
issue.
So if you were angry, if youwere having flashbacks, maybe
someone with PTSD, there wasmadness.
(22:28):
And what it ultimately means isthat you are not controllable.
They, again, the powers that be,patriarchy or whatever.
If I don't understand it, Ican't control it.
So I won't accept it.
I will marginalize it and I willkick it to the corners.
(22:49):
I will kick it to the margins.
I will kick it to the edge.
And that brings us to kink.
Kink is often treated like theultimate taboo.
But when you understand thelineage of taboo as sacred, kink
becomes something else entirely.
It becomes like a return.
(23:11):
Return to something that ourancestors were already involved
in.
It becomes sacred or it canbecome sacred.
It can become a portal.
It can become a threshold.
It can become a ritual.
Because kink often involvesritual.
(23:31):
It has intention.
It involves sensation, powerexchange, presence, and consent.
And it's not always erotic.
It's not always sexual.
Oftentimes, it's transformative.
And in a lot of ways, kinkmirrors the same principles
found in ancient rites aroundboundaries, offerings,
(23:52):
invocation, surrender, and evensome times suffering.
So to submit, to kneel, toyield, To allow, to feel, is not
weakness.
It is radical trust.
And to dominate, which is toguide, to witness, to caretake,
(24:12):
to hold, is not about cruelty.
It can be profoundresponsibility.
And kink, when practicedconsciously, is ceremony.
It can help us integrate whenwe're doing our shadow work.
It can help us reclaim andrescript our relationships.
to self and others.
(24:33):
In a world that teaches us toabandon ourselves, kink brings
us back to our bodies, to ourneeds, to our voices, to our
wants.
It helps us face our fears, orcan.
It's one of the few places wherewe can rewrite the scripts
handed to us.
It says, you are not broken.
You are complex.
(24:55):
And you get to craft things yourown reality, your own terms.
And sometimes it can bedangerous.
There's a risk involved.
And that, my love, sounds likethe original definition of
taboo.
(25:15):
So with that, this was a littlebit longer than I thought it
would be.
But the edge of taboo doesn'tneed to be something to fear.
You can feel through it becauseon the other side of the shame
that the world might have usfeel because of how we move
through space.
On the other side of that is ourown sovereignty.
(25:35):
And on the other side of silenceis truth.
We speak truth to these taboos.
I love it.
I love the idea of the taboo,the original meaning behind it
and us getting back to ourroots.
Because that's where the truthlies.
That's where the richness is.
(25:55):
That's where the nutrients are.
And guess what?
I think we're on the edge of it.
This is DocuRock.
I'm out.
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