[SPEAKER_01]: Really, really gay podcast that we called that's a gay podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had the gay out name for a gay out podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris Patterson Raw, so otherwise known as CPR, is what giving us life, Chris?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so happy to talk to you on that's a gay ass podcast, but question one, are you having this bloody week or has it been boring and straight?
[SPEAKER_01]: It has been boring and straight, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I need.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes because we had two weeks of Halloween and one of those I was in P-Town for first boogie there and so I You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god Halloween.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like is a long national nightmare And especially this year it really felt like it was
[SPEAKER_00]: really high and high.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you run P-town, tell me where you're there as a performer, where you actually before I even ask you that, the listeners need to know what a star you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: For anybody who does not know, Chris is not only a model, a Dancer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also are the co-host of Sniffy's Cruising Confessions with a gorgeous past guest of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you were in Spooky Baron P-town, where you there as someone as a civilian or as a professional.
[SPEAKER_01]: as a professional.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing, I do a show called Bro Lesk, which I've been doing for a little bit over a year and they brought us to crown an anchor and so we did a show up there and then we were doing, we were dancing at like fat slut with beef all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a whole weekend of events, but when I was finished working and I got the call for the afters,
[SPEAKER_01]: You went to the ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was also a block away from where I was staying.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, how do I say now?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, love the gay, walkables, slutty town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I get it's bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just get to go home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, that's part of the reason why living in a city is such a gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there are gifts to also living in a suburban moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love to drive to a big box store, but sometimes if you can leave a function and then walk to your literal bed, that is privilege, that is, there's a suggestion to say, go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you were doing bro less, Lanky is the person who leads us, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Director, I've been seeing the full show in person, but all the clips I've seen, it's like, I don't know, I think there's something so amazing about harnessing the sexuality of a gay ass dancer and then giving the rules what they want.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you show a full genital or is it like, what's happening in bro less?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not intentionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oops.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slipped.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're so full.
[SPEAKER_01]: We like to leave the watching mirror.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're telling that line of light.
[SPEAKER_01]: sexy and sensuality.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think there's a lot of places where we can get the full experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no shortage of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you bring a good lineup.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because let me tell you something.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I am on, for example, the application called Sniffies.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you see the full picture, obviously it's great, but sometimes when you can only see a part of the guy, you fill in the blanks and it's almost hotter than having seen full image.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like with Bro Laskus, that's the same idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also we're dancing down.
[SPEAKER_01]: like we are giving you full choreography moments, you know, right now we're in our like holiday seasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's, it's can't be, it's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got an amazing host, full of fun, awesome who was lovely host.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well listen, this is why I want to get into with you because I'm two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a theater queen and a big slut.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love to kind of talk about both of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I will talk about work with down at the afters in P. Town.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will get into what you get
[SPEAKER_00]: up to in your extracurriculars, but before that, why are you such a good dancer?
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you like a Broadway baby growing up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you like, where does the training come from?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the story?
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to a performing arts high school in Portland, Oregon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in the West Coast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was a part of an organization called Jefferson Dancers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a nonprofit, pre-professional dance company.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's run out of the high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to be a ballet dancer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I spent my high school years training to be a ballet dancer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I moved to New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I trained at the ALI school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got my first professional job with the touring company in 2000.
[SPEAKER_01]: for a six weeks after I moved here and I worked with them for about five years were you on that sort of like
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I ask how old you are now?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 40.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, 2004 is a long, I mean, that's 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: 21 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had your first professional gig.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're touring.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, were you, I'm hoping out of the closet or what was your, Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was very gay, very open.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing a lot of things at 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was it was that so I was dancing for our company called Momix.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to school at Ali But I was dancing for a company.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know Momix?
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people have been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I so I love that you have the ballet dreams You moved to New York as a very I mean 1918 very young
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your journey then getting back to New York from tour?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is the life of a ballet dancer like, especially pursuing?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's obviously such an athletic career A, but B. I'm sure it's just as cathartic, not more cathartic than the bitch is trying to get on Broadway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was actually really lucky with this job that I got dancing for a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd be out of the country between three, six, sometimes nine months out of the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just going from city to city across Europe, South America, Asia.
[SPEAKER_00]: What an amazing experience for a young person, especially for, I would say, a young hero.
[SPEAKER_00]: A young hero.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's like, we have such limiting beliefs, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure all around the world as young queer people, but when you get to actually see different ways people live, do you have any highlights from, like, either a country you visited and, like, you got dicked down in the, the ways you never.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could or just like a formative experience of realizing what life is like outside of the U.S. Well, any memories come up?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a few things, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll start with, we were in Madrid in the winter of I want to say 2006, and we were there for six weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had been messaging this person on G'dar for
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's just like I'm gonna be in Madrid and we were like connect hookup and He method just me the day that we're gonna hook up.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've come down with like Siflus or something and I'm unable to hook up
[SPEAKER_01]: send him your way I'm like okay it is it happens to be one of my favorite porn stars ever first was a guy who is a it wasn't you know I'm Henry Louise no but he's he's over
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a resilient model, really big in the release of thousands.
[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of has a concave chest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, he was gorgeous.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, he sends him over and we spent a lovely six hours together with a Brazilian porn star in Madrid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that like I just like, and I was like, thank you so much for sending him like that was such a dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I also got to spin
[SPEAKER_01]: for something interesting in public.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what your first time doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing a scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like I just was like, I'd never been to anything like that before.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd never been to the Eagle here in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like, I, you know, someone took me there and like, we walk in the co-check person second.
[SPEAKER_01]: I dig almost immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just like, and I was like, all right, this is how we're reading the new year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm obsessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's no wonder that you got hired to be one of the co-hosts of Sniffy's cruising confessions because you have been putting in the work the hour decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but honestly what I really am hearing from you that's so cool is that you have been living a life without shame since you were a teenager.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting that you say that because there was a lot of shame, I think I'm very open about my drug use.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sober now, but a lot of my drug use was fueled by this shame that I was experiencing around the sexual things that I was into.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was also young and in my 20s and folks in my 20s weren't engaging in the type of sex that I was
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in a lot of ways, and being black and queer, but it just was a lot of that was compounding.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, well, there's so many layers, I think, especially like, if we go to, when you're growing up in Portland, I imagine that a lot of Portland is giving liberal progressive energy, but I'm sure there's also a lot of like, what whiteness, a lot of like, heteronuitivity in many ways is exactly the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the shame came from.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure, and also just growing up in a black family and having a very rigid single mom, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: for ideas around the way that I should behave and grow up and show up in the world we're very different than how I was showing up in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's totally well said though because I think that a lot of us had parents who put those expectations on their kids, not out of malice, it's not because they want us to like hide ourselves, but it's I probably out of what protect protection.
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly our own safety of like exactly if they're children reflect them that means that they have done a good job Because you know something that I've come up against as an adult I'm 36 and it's really taking me into the last year to realize that my family my siblings my brothers my my parents my Community growing up like all that my family want to was of course to like exist and Take care of each other and love each other
[SPEAKER_00]: But a good intention doesn't always equal a good execution and so correct or good feeling and so while I was told one thing I've talked about I was told growing up because I was being made fun of for being gay and it really you know and I was very closet and it really fucked with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have said to me just because people say that you are gay does not mean that you are and what the message they were trying to say was yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: your good girl, like, you know, it's all gravy, but the actual message underneath that is, we hope you are not gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the whole time I knew that I was and thought like I was, you know, rejecting myself and being rejected again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But
[SPEAKER_00]: the intentions of your mom, I think we're probably to protect you, but that doesn't still heal the wound of I am acting in a way that they are not either proud of or accepting me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though I'm told that I'm loves and accepted, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's sort of this weird It's very confusing for a spending on queer person, but the fact that you were able to like get to New York and then make your dreams come true in so many ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you get sober?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, 2015.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you, so you have now 10 years of sobriety, some models.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You and yours that is incorrect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you say your, um, sex life feels a lot different as a sober person versus when you were using?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the sex I'm having today is intentional.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the sex I'm having today, he is grounded in connection, even in a dark room, and that's just completely different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm having sex that I want to, but people that I want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: explain intentional hookups in a dark room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fully co-sign it, but I want to know like you get into I'm actually new to the dark room experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't really do it at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went to my first circuit party over speaking of Halloween.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to my first party over Halloween.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoyed it, but I was very much a part of the like I was an observational clean.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you get into the dark room, what does a person who's really trying to have intentional hookups and really just like feel good about it is what what's the sort of like process you go through to do that for me I'm never just picking up someone in the dark room in the dark.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are meeting outside of that space.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are going into that space together.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do what we need to and then we either leave together or I like running to someone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always am running into people in the dark room that I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I ought to stay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's always a connection first.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what happens if you run it as somebody in the dark room that you have zero sexual tension with your just sisters?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it just shame come up in that scenario?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it just like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do know I find
[SPEAKER_01]: I find that my I'm a lot more cool about these things and a lot of people in my life I do have some folks that like if they see me in the dark room, they start to freak out on my grow It's your fine like go get your is please go get your is we're all gonna help
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I support you in this process, you know, I get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, it's like it's it's the whole idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of People I talk to when it comes to like let's say going to either a bathhouse or going to a dark room whatever it is There is a lot of a lot of people have this feeling of but what if I see somebody I know
[SPEAKER_00]: and I completely understand that, but I think it's so baked into again the idea of like it is embarrassing for us to express ourselves, express our need or want for pleasure, our, it's, you know, we have this couple of therapists that I keep bringing up because he's it's my first time having a gay therapist who really brings our queerness into the conversation, work, and we were
[SPEAKER_00]: uh navigate our open relationship and there was some way that I phrase something that he was saying that it felt like it was almost like a secret or something that we needed to feel guilty about and I didn't even realize that was doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard not to maintain the feeling of like you said like we are doing something that is deplorable that is wrong but it's like it's really
[SPEAKER_00]: You are so intentional with all the ways that you move through the world sexually and otherwise and it's kind of Interesting to see it mirrored back to you and people that haven't done that work and so it's like yes You see people where they are yeah, but I love that I love because what then ends up happening as I get a text message after the fact or like hey, how do you do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really struggling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the way that you're showing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What substitutes you take, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me be a vessel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's believe it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we, the paywall's about to go up, and so that's what we want to get into the really horny, weirdest questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before my final question before that is, do you have any advice for people, or maybe just can you speak to your personal experience of like, was there like therapy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there just real world application?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there a person?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there something that helped you put down the walls of, I should be embarrassed about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all of those things and I'm really grateful that I have a silver community around me, especially specifically Crystal Method on MS because sex and Crystal Method are usually very tight together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, they were.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so being in those spaces and being able to talk to other people who are able to engage in the types of sex that I like to have as a silver person was really, really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just getting to talk to them about what their experience is.
[SPEAKER_01]: going out and failing.
[SPEAKER_01]: getting overwhelmed saying the wrong thing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just being okay with and understanding that this is all a learning process.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know what I want, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what I want.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just need to keep pushing towards that thing and hopefully, and having faith and trust that I'm going to get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, I mean, it's taken me a long time, but I'm here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And can I do it like by any people?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I have some of my best girlfriends,
[SPEAKER_00]: The beauty of the chat, the beauty of the chat, the text message.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I don't want to stick to the thing you said about allowing ourselves to go out there and fail because I am a, I very much deal with the affliction of perfectionism and people pleasing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when it comes to going out to take a risk and it's truly not only about like a hookup, it can be about something creative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the edge of the cliff of just like emotionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I was on the verge of exploding because In my mind if I failed then that meant that the world would explode and that I would never recover But you and where is my value and where is my worth links?
[SPEAKER_00]: UCPR go out there, let's say you quote unquote fail, but guess what you're worth in your value are still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that we don't, I was not taught that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still have to remind myself that basically every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's a really like great reminder that
[SPEAKER_00]: You can apply to many many different parts of your life, but like if you if you don't take the risk or don't allow yourself to fail You will be in the same emotional state that you are in currently and for me for many years I was doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like really frustrated and feeling contained and small and failing the the potential to fail is deeply scary, but like I'm learning that unfortunately It's worth the uncomfortability Yeah versus feeling safe, but also stock
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that discomfort is so temporary.
[SPEAKER_00]: So temporary, but it's so temporary.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because what happens is you have a discomfort where you also, I'm like, oh, what lessons did I learn here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once I, and I'm a, I love to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I'm like a sponge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love getting new information, new knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm stuck in the same cycle, I'm not learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I have to push myself, hey, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable still, but I have to do it if I want to continue to learn.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I came into that and I encourage everybody listening to and like, if there's, it could be the tiniest thing, but it's like, you know, go, go, go, go, go into a fucking party by yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something you would never do, allow yourself to do it and figure out, okay, what can I do to, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: sort of call my nervous system or giving myself that support, but I do think that it's interesting when we get to the horning questions of it all to see how you have grown in this journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to get into some of the sluttyest questions I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I am a heart-hitting journalist, you were in the town, you finished broadcast, you get off stage, you're invited to the afters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sort of sluttery, did you get down to?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like replaying in the evening, and I'm right there with you, I don't even know what it was, but it's feels delicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I had initially planned on hooking up with this couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the rest of this interview, head to sub-stack linked in the description.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also watch bonus episodes with Mikey Grasseffa from Deathbecomesher, Isaiah Rutledge,
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all hot, the stories are amazing, and you should go check it out at substact.com slash at Eric Will's linked in the description.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you, bye.