We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Radikal Creasy-rose. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Radikal below.
Radikal, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
When I first started this work, I continually felt as though I was an impostor, specifically in the vein of “I’m just some kid.” In most of the formal jobs I’ve worked in the past, I genuinely felt like a newbie to a point where I downplayed my own skills. Working for myself has allowed me to really show how I can pull a lot together by myself and I continue to prove myself (to myself and to others) on the daily as I navigate this complicated world of entrepreneurship.
A couple of folks asked me early on how I was qualified, and they made a point to ask about non-traditional forms of education, which stuck with me. I realized that my lived experiences combined perfectly with my degree in Sociology to provide me a sense of readiness that others don’t possess, who haven’t lived similar experiences. My traumas have shaped my ability to approach my sex and relationships education work with patience, sensitivity, and an ongoing learning mindset.
One of my favourite parts of my work is explaining and analyzing the intersectionality of identities – particularly the intersections of queer, trans, nonmonogamous, kink and gender identities – and when I teach or write about these topics, I experience a deep felt sense of alignment with my purpose and confidence in my knowledge that keeps me going.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
While there’s no quick and easy way to describe my work due to its intensely intersectional and anti-mainstream nature, I will try anyway. Queering Sex is a place to find holistic sex education for adults that didn’t get the sex ed they needed as teens and/or young adults. The work I do is for the queer, trans, kinky, polyamorous, or otherwise nontraditional adult who grew up thinking they were deviant, weird, not enough, or too much. I use they/he pronouns and identify as genderqueer, nonbinary, transmasc, genderfluid, anti-gender, genderf*ck. My gender is nebulous and I don’t care to limit myself to a single label. I am also queer, nonmonogamous of the polyamorous variety, and kinky, which informs many of the frameworks from which I work. I’m a sex and relationships educator, but I’m also a human connection nerd, a Sociology graduate, a scholar and a multiply disabled person. This means I live with multiple energy-limiting diseases, including ME (aka chronic fatigue syndrome) and POTS, as well as hypermobile spectrum disorder and migraine. I also live with a number of mental illnesses and quite a few forms of neurodivergence.
I attempt to connect societal structures to personal experiences, looking at how the ideas with which we’re raised provide the frameworks from which we function as individuals and in relationships. Growing up, I consistently internalized the narrative that I am too much, and my interest in and passion for all things sex was (inadvertently, but still) shamed. I received messages that sexuality wasn’t an appropriate fascination for an 8-year-old, and yet it’s all I’ve ever wanted to learn about. Thus, I support folks in unlearning these oppressive systems, internalized beliefs and harmful self-conceptions, and help them relearn how to tune into themselves.
I am currently facilitating a nonmonogamy support group, as well as a book club for nonmonogamy newbies, details for both of which can be found on my Instagram page @queeringsex. My newest launch is boudoir photography in the Seattle, WA area, with a focus on kink, nonmonogamy and gender-affirmative sensual photos. I also offer a myriad of other things, including solidarity and resources for survivors of DV, SA and systemic oppression, advice I wish I had at 19 (gleaned from lived experience in my twenties), support groups, book clubs, kink safety tips, workshops, silly videos, and more that will be revealed as I navigate the sexuality space and find my footing as an educator, scholar and sexually liberated human!
I deeply believe that everyone deserves accessible education, good information is hard to find, and so much of the kink, nonmonogamy and sex ed out there is not comprehensive at best, and toxic in the way of normalizing abuse at worst. I am a survivor of a fake Dom – someone who acts dominant in a power exchange dynamic without the proper safety measures and negotiation – and there is so much I wish I had known as I was first dipping my toes into relating with other humans. Thus, I work for the 19-year-old version of myself who needed more guidance than they had, and for people like my parents who are limited by their preconceptions of sexuality and gender despite their willingness to grow.
Living among multiple systems of oppression due to being trans, queer, disabled, neurodivergent, fat, kinky and open about sex, my goals in all my work are to deconstruct the structures that hold us back, uplift marginalized voices, and help people tap into their authenticity to liberate them from their bondage of self and allow vulnerable connections with other humans. I also do this work because I hold so much trauma in my pelvic floor, in my womb space, due to abuses rooted in patriarchal control and the failings of the system to care for folks in the ways they need it.
I have a vast array of professional experience, including more than two years of disability care work and autism support work, as well as over six years of experience in social media management, content creation and writing. Back when Garbo was still around as a background checking platform, I was their in-house blogger and wrote about safer online dating, the importance of background checking, and signs of toxic relationships and domestic violence. My work also spanned the harm reduction and overdose prevention fields, working closely with houseless populations to create safer sex and drug use experiences with love and solidarity instead of shame.
I’ve also been in 1-on-1 therapy with a variety of wonderful professionals for over 16 years, and I’ve spent over three years in relational recovery spaces, working to heal my attachment wounding and learn to participate in the creation of safer relationships. As a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, it has become my mission to help other queer folks recognize the signs of toxic relationships, violence and abuse, and to learn to prioritize their own health, safety and wellbeing to not only survive our complex queer existence, but to thrive within and beyond it!
Back in November of 2023, I was sitting in the bath with my makeshift desk and forcing myself to write. I hadn’t written for months, but it’s one of the only ways I know how to process the pain swirling around in my gut, so I forced myself to write. It occurred to me, like a lightswitch that had been taped in the “off” position in a dusty basement for years, that I needed to heal my own trauma and that I could share my journey with the world and build community from the ruins. Click. The light still works.
A week later, Queering Sex was set up on Instagram, and I’ve spent the last year building out my skill sets, feeling through my intuitive impulses, and fleshing out what I’ve created here, what you’re witnessing now. I’ve worked with small businesses doing product trades for reviews, fun giveaways, and a paid partnership with Lovers reviewing the Sportsheets Pivot line. I continue to grow every single day that I do this work, and each and every one of you means so much to me, to my work, to my heart that so deeply needs this healing (thank you).
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
My studies during university in the realm of sociology and psychology were incredibly formative, as they allowed me to understand the human experience from an intersectional lens and thus hold more experiences with gratitude and reverence than I would be able to otherwise. Intersectional educators are few and far between, which is why I continue doing this work despite the hate I get, the kickback Meta serves me at least monthly, and the emotional labour it takes to create the things I do. If my Sociology education taught me one thing, it is that everything – and I mean everything – is interrelated, and we will forever be struggling to grasp solutions until we can face the entirety of the problems we face. I function from an intersectional lens before anything, focusing on both my own marginalized experiences and those of others to create an inclusive environment for learning and unlearning.
My lived experience as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence deeply informs my approach to my work, as I have learned not only to present heavier content with sensitivity, as well as to “live in the in-between” – meaning accepting the ever-changing nature of our existences, recognizing that we never know for sure, and things are rarely answered in yes and no or black and white – there’s a lot of grey, and my survivorhood allows me to live within that.
I also learned early on that I am bold, and continually experience folks in my life telling me that I have a confidence they haven’t been able to find. However, I genuinely decided early on that I would not let my anxiety disorders stop me, so I throw myself into the realities in which I wish to live, and it often works out! This isn’t me by any means saying that mental health conditions are treated by “pushing through,” but rather that I don’t wait for the anxiety or impostor syndrome to subside to do the thing.
For newbies, I would deeply encourage looking into literature on intersectionality. Start with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work defining intersectionality, and go from there. Pay attention to what you’ve lived, what resonates deep inside you, and use that fire in your gut to guide you towards what you’re meant to do. When you find a thing that’s meant for you, or that you were built for, it might not feel “good,” but it will feel “right.” Don’t wait for the anxieties to subside before doing what you so deeply crave or need to do. Anxiety likes to stick around, and you’ll always find reasons to convince yourself against doing the thing. Just do the thing; do it scared, do it grumpy, do it however you feel – as long as you’re doing it and not neglecting the fire in your tummy. Let it burn and follow the light glowing in your gut!
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
The biggest challenge I’m currently facing is the ongoing cycle of energy fluctuations that chronic fatigue patients call the “boom and bust” cycle; essentially, this refers to experiencing highs and lows in my energy levels that can cause me to use all my energy and thus compromise my ability to manage the demands of life in the following days or weeks. this is one of the biggest reasons I love working for myself, because making my own schedule and choosing priorities based on the state of my health and my desires both allow me to practice radical rest – that is, rest without guilt, rest without feeling the need to earn it. I’m also facing autistic burnout which makes it hard to do my soul’s work, because I don’t experience the dopamine rush that I usually get with projects by which I’m enthralled. My recovery from burnout is the same: radical rest. it’s not only a comforting sentiment, but a principal of disability justice that reminds us that our health and well-being should come first, always, and that work and so-called “progress” or “productivity” can always be adjusted to help us as humans first.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://beacons.ai/queeringsex?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZPx8z1yr3YzVG5-AkdAYTSVWuQDii5XRVhZNaqoOWoR8-8IR32JoQS5gk_aem_yHG07Hg-Zptxt6XxsI_AQA
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queeringsex/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radicalcreasy/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkYYxB6D_SoOB-XaCqnIDQQ
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@queerings3x
Image Credits
Rose Megan Tessier
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