Navigating Digital Identities, Relationships, and Sexuality

In this conversation, Vanisha R. Dailey explores the intersections of digital technology, personal identity, and societal norms, particularly in the context of relationships and LGBTQ dynamics. She reflects on her own experiences with social media, the impact of digital sociology, and the evolving definitions of gender and sexuality. The discussion also delves into the historical perspectives on gender roles and the implications of heteronormativity in modern relationships.

Population Statistics on Religion

https://populationeducation.org/world-population-by-religion-a-global-tapestry-of-faith/

General Population Count Statistics 

https://populationmatters.org/lp-the-facts/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4v6-BhDuARIsALprm305hwg_xMWWMDQ55FCN_rZbZ1m1WDa415k6WW5yoWC9Hda_t0OmYS4aAgCsEALw_wcB

The Social Dilemma Trailer

https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0?si=xSxZAXnG8YPrY1Ja

Colonial Impacts Yoruba Gender and Sexuality

https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/context/independent-project/colonial-impacts-yoruba-gender-and-sexuality

Colonialism and Sexual Identity in South Africa

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/2308/subm-colonialism-sexual-orientation-oth-westman.pdf

Toxic masculinity 

https://menscenter.org/toxic-masculinity/

Poly Relationships in Africa

https://ruor.uottawa.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/6c4b0ce2-aa25-489c-b173-b9b28f7e9105/content

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Catchphrase Origins
• 1:50 The Impact of Digital Technology on Society
• 6:52 Personal Journey and Academic Pursuits
• 7:24 Exploring Relationships and Heteronormativity
• 15:00 Understanding Queer Identity and Social Constructs
• 24:59 The Influence of Religion and Colonialism on Gender and Sexuality
• 30:51 Challenging Norms in Relationship Dynamics

Transcript

Hey hey y’all! Welcome back to another episode of Please Say The Dailey. I am your host, Vanisha R. Dailey. I realized that I never told you all where I got that catchphrase from, but I’m sure some of you instantly recognized it. A friend from high school that listens to my podcast was really happy to hear that I brought this name back, because if you’ve known me for a while, youve heard this name before— come to think of it, I even had a blog, entitled Vanisha R. Dailey, Please Say The Dailey but for those of you that don’t know, this is a line that the rapper Lil Wayne uses “Weezy F Baby, please say the baby” back when he was at the height of his career, one of my friends started saying my name like that and it was just something that stuck over the years— so what a perfect moment to bring that back as a podcast name. I should’ve shared that in the first episode, but here we are. First and foremost shout out to Nikkia hey girl, hey! My very first sponsor— thank you thank you SO much—I will see you in Tampa next week! And Thanks to all of the listeners who tapped in and sent messages to me about my previous parenting episode. You know, I really thought that I would be able to reply to your comments, but that was an ultimate fail on my behalf, however, the good news is that when you do send me messages I have the ability to post them on my podcast website so that other listeners can see them when They click on the site link. I only put two of the messages up because some of you shared more personal things and I didn’t want to put it on there without your approval. The messages are anonymous unless you actually disclose your identity. But nonetheless, thank you so much for the insightful engagement. If you’re new here go ahead and subscribe to my podcast, rate it, and leave a comment. Remember, everything that I mention in this episode can be found in the description box below— so if you would like to participate in being a sponsor of my podcast or even just send me a message—scroll down and you will find all of these links. Don’t be shyyy But.. without further ado lets get into it. As you all should know by now, a lot of my conversations are inspired by things that I stumbled upon on social media. Its such an easy way to have conversations on a wide variety of topics— which is also why I am fighting so hard to get into this really cool graduate program for digital sociology—  a fairly new sector of sociology being that digital technology has completely taken off over the past few centuries or so, and this sort of advanced technology is completely shifting, every single aspect of our world, whether we recognize it or not: our interpersonal relationships, how we meet people, how we keep in contact with our friends and family, the dating scene, social scenes in general really —what kinds of trends that gain popularity, the workforce— the examples are absolutely endless! As a millennial, it’s crazy to think that there was once a time when we only interacted with our coworkers when we were at work— I recall being so shocked by how much work etiquette combined with social media had completely shifted the norms around how we interact with our coworkers and employers. I remember being so shocked that multiple coworkers were sending me friend requests at the last job that I had —and I had literally just started— I’m talking directly after my first shift people were trying to connect with me. Like Why do you want to befriend me on social media?! I could not wrap my mind around this. This is also why so many of us take to having an alias or go by a different name when using social media, because we don’t want to be easily accessible to people that  know us from various spaces that we occupy— or we simply don’t want to be found by coworkers and particular family members. The app LinkedIn comes to mind,  if you aren’t familiar with LinkedIn, LinkedIn is the job market in Facebook form. It’s the professional career version of Facebook where you can add coworkers and managers or any person that you’ve cross paths with through networking. By the way, if that’s you and me go ahead and add me on there, but do not judge me for still having that old photo of myself up there. I have not updated that in years for context I still have locks in the photo —not me being a catfish on LinkedIn —I show up as a totally different person But anyway LinkedIn is such a fascinating, modern Day app from a digital sociological Lens. Because who would’ve ever thought that we would be mixing our personal lives (which is social media) with our professional lives? And why am I now being scrutinized, deemed as unprofessional or inadequate for a job position based off of who I am on social media? Who I am at work is who I am at work, and that person is not the same as who I am in my day-to-day life. And in many cases, the same can be said about a person‘s presence on social media versus who they are in real life. So which is more important? And which one carries more weight?Why do I now have to edit my personal life which is what I share on social media for the sake of being Palatable to employers in the professional world? Is modern Day technology limiting the ways in which we are able to show up on digital media? Or does the scrutiny that comes from being perceived a particular way make us filter ourselves to be more acceptable for The general population? And why do you feel entitled to have access to a version of myself that is not work related? Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen multiple people mention that they’ve deleted their LinkedIn accounts because they don’t like the the performative nature of it, and they don’t find it to be helpful in their search for employment. While I fully understand that sentiment, the issue is that just because you are choosing to not be on the app does not necessarily mean that you won’t run into jobs that will still ask for that hyperlink to see what them credentials hittin’ on— so where do we go from there? Because I have definitely been curious to know whether applicants who aren’t on LinkedIn have the same chances of being hired for a job as someone who is on LinkedIn? I get the frustration behind feeling as though you have to adapt to these particular norms for the sake of leverage, it’s pretty ridiculous honestly but at the end of the day we have to do what’s best for us even if that means that we’re opting out of participating on these platforms, because we technically aren’t obligated. Now these are just some of the ideas and questions that I’ve had over the years of watching the development of more advanced, digital technology, so it is going to be a lot of fun to further explore these topics and better understand how our society is evolving with these new implementations and developments… OH! This  reminds me, there is an amazing movie that you will  hear me bring up so many times call the social dilemma, I saw this on Netflix a few years ago and I’m not sure if it’s still on there, but if nothing at all, scroll down to the description box and I will be sure to add a link to the YouTube trailer for it. For all of us that use social media— especially parents, this documentary?! Whew.. I urge you to check out— it talks about how not only social media is impacting us as a society, but also things like how the algorithm works, and just how crazy smart artificial intelligence truly is. Like, I had an idea about this stuff before, but this movie completely blew my mind in so many ways—hence why I continue to mention it even years later. Since I recorded the first part of this episode, I did receive an official letter from Virginia Commonwealth University, stating that I got accepted into their digital sociology masters program that’ll be starting this fall! I am beyond excited and elated to an overwhelming degree—it’s hard to process that this is happening. Never in 1 million years Would I have ever imagined that I would be going to grad school. If you all would like me to share anything about the application process or hear about the papers that I submitted as my writing samples—because the definitely want to see your writing skills, or even my letter of statement--I will gladly share, just leave me a message! Anyway, moment of transparency, I struggled tremendously throughout grade school, and now that I am older and was recently diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, I fully see that SUPPORT is what I was severely lacking. I had areas that I would excel in like cheerleading, band, and I always had A’s in foreign language classes — at one point I was even in a few advanced classes. But when I tell y’all I struggled so much in other areas that really set me back completely killed my self confidence as a student. So this message is for anyone who has felt as though they were incapable of accomplishing major goals, especially in academia. Know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. If I made it from the struggle bus, to being a T.A. in undergrad to the honor society, and now getting into grad school?!— trust me, you can too! AND IT’S NEVER TOO LATE. This is so healing for the younger version of myself.. I am very thankful. I love just how diverse my listeners are on this podcast, and with that in mind as I dive into this next part—using sociological terms, I Will be sure to not just assume that you all know what these words mean. As the description of my podcast states, this is a safe space and I want everyone to be able to listen and hopefully learn something new from these discussions. Okay Let’s talk about relationships: Did you know that most romantic relationships mirror the norms of heteronormativity? this includes LGBTQ relationships as well.  in simple terms, they follow the traditional dynamics of straight relationships as it pertains to traditional gender roles and fascinatingly enough masculine and feminine roles as well. the amount of non-heterosexual people that are completely oblivious to this is so surprising to me— I see this conversation come up on social media A LOT. I saw a comment on Threads—Username: MissNeuroSpicy says, “As a lesbian I can say I DO NOT understand straight people heteronormative relationship dynamics AT ALL.” I responded with: “Which is funny, because the same dynamics are OFTEN in LGBTQ relationships. For example, if I had a dollar for how many masculine women talk about films assuming that they’ll pay for everything… I’d be rich. They don’t even realize that they're perpetuating heteronormativity.” How many times have we heard someone ask this silly question when they see a gay couple “who’s the man?” By asking this question or even asking who’s the woman, we are perpetuating heteronormativity because in heteronormative dynamics there has to be a woman and a man. These sorts of teachings affect how LGBTQ relationships operate, because those same standards that we see in heterosexual relationships trickle over into LGBTQ relationships as well and lead to the same assumed gender roles and expectations in a relationship. Moreover, masculine Women are often pigeon-holed to take a position of being a provider within the relationship or family dynamic if children are involved. Speaking of, I’ve seen so many men question why Black masculine lesbians better known as studs, remember this word is ONLY for black masculine lesbian—but they are not held to the same Financial standards as men when they’re dating or have a partner--they say “women want men who makes six figures, but they never say that about studs.” They really thought they was doin’ something with that question—but the answer is very simple, it’s because studs are not men they will never be viewed as men within a society that has such strict rules of gender binary. So they have the privilege of stepping in where they choose, rather than having patriarchal and toxic masculinity forced upon them; they will never have the same social and societal pressures as men do, because they are women. And let’s be honest, trans men are not accepted as “real men” by cis-gendered men, so please help me understand how or why these rules would apply to studs who are women? I would love to hear it, go ahead and scroll down to the description box and click that hyperlink that says I want to hear from you send me a text. Or if you actually want to have some back-and-forth dialogue about this, shoot me a DM on Instagram. Because I know some of you have something to say about this, but just remember I don’t make the rules baby. But yeah studs have flexibility and the rules don’t apply in the same way. Now that I think about it, I wonder what these dynamics look like in white lesbian relationships, are white masculine lesbians expected to be providers in their romantic relationships as well? Someone tell me about this, because I have a wild feeling that they likely have more flexibility than Black studs do in their relationships— I could easily see there being more of a 50-50 dynamic in their relationships, but I could be wrong! And please remember, all of the stuff that I am talking about is not how each group operates as a whole, this is just how things typically operate in a lot of the relationships. Just as many men are excepted to provide within their relationships and on a larger societal scale— as in most people within our society would say that men are supposed to provide, BUT in the same breath they would NOT say that about studs, however that does not change the fact that studs are often assumed to fulfill that type of role in there romantic relationships. And while many of them have no problem doing it, I have also seen a lot of studs mention that they like to be taken care of as well— they desire it and because they are not men, they would not receive negative feedback by wanting to be treated in that way by their partners because once again they are women. However if a man were to State the same requirements and desires within his romantic partnership—and hey I’m sure there are women who would oblige, however I also know for a fact that many would have something negative to say simply because they are wanting to be treated in a way that is not typically associated with manhood and traditional roles—which is really bizarre, because regardless of gender, why is it absurd for a person to want to be cared for by their partner?  And that can look many different ways—emotionally, physically, financially, buying gifts… it can really be anything but as we know men are not given that same grace. This is exactly why y’all be looking crazy when someone says something about their husband being a stay at home dad— it goes against the societal structure and position of men. And we see this socialization early on with how a lot of little boys are raised in society, don’t cuddle your sons, early on he is expected to be a man, be masculine, don’t cry, be hard and held to specific expectations based upon manhood even though he’s a child. I’ve seen five year-old boys holding open doors for grown women, and granted he’s likely mimicking behavior that he has seen, but all of these things are a form of being socialized within society and it impacts how we move in the world and all of our interpersonal relationships because we aren’t given the space to spread our wings outside the confines of those collective expectations. Now do I think these habits are bad? Not inherently, but do they have the potential to be harmful? Absolutely, and that’s where toxic masculinity exists, because men should be able to exist outside of those structures without their masculinity coming into question. In a recent threads post of mine I said “too many people think that being ‘queer’ solely means gay or lesbian, it doesn’t”  for more clarification of what I mean about this, here’s an example: Someone will post something along the lines of saying: “this post is for queer girlies ONLY” and then the follow up discussion will literally center just woman to woman lesbian relationships.”—and the word queer is so much more expansive than that. But Before I dive into what it means to be queer, I want to Touch on a comment that I saw from three different bisexual people under that post. These people kept using the word practicing and I could not understand why they kept saying that and then I realized that they were using the word practice in reference to them being a PRACTICING QUEER PERSON— as in they are ACTIVELY either dating other queer people or they are in a queer relationship dynamic. If you needed any Proof that some bisexual people feel the need to explain their position within the LGBTQ community—there it is. And in their defense, as someone who is queer and bisexual but in a marriage with a man—I can relate, but I would never use the word practicing, because that pushes heteronormativity and the false notion that you cannot be A queer or a bisexual person in a relationship that does not mirror those interactions—And that just isn’t so. Not only that but it perpetuates biphobia. I can assure you there are no heterosexual people who feel like there sexuality is under attack in any way when they are single, nor do they feel the need to explain whether or not they are practicing with the opposite gender to give justification to their heterosexuality. A person’s sexual identity actually does not always align with the type of relationship that they are in, which is why it’s good to ask questions rather than assuming that you know ones sexuality. so imma need y’all to hang that right on up— stop saying it. Okay—the history of the word queer, now a lot of us probably remember a time when queer was actually used as a derogatory term, toward gay men. Well, we have evolved from that. Just like many other words that have evolved and developed new contextual meanings within our society or words that were commonly used at one point in time, but phased out because of them being inappropriate or outdated. Mulatto, “She’s a ‘B-WORD”, the R word, nigga—sorry the N-word, I recently learned that the word Fat is being reclaimed by many… AND that word that people once used to use to describe a person that was born with a combination of male and female traits—yeah we don’t use that H-word anymore— the appropriate word is intersex. the F-word is another one… the derogatory three letter word that people call gay men, and while we’re here… can someone please tell that group of Black men cause we know it’s not all of you—hold their hands when you tell them too: “dyke” and “dykin” are not appropriate terms for y’all to use it’s derogatory--unless you belong to that group. Please just say “she’s a lesbian” my goodness. Anyway back to queer—that was a very big circle, I know: The definition and sexual orientation of queer means “ denoting or relating to a sexual and/or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.” so as you can imagine, there are many different types of sexualities and gender identities that fall underneath the huge umbrella of being queer. Any non-cis gendered person or non-heterosexual, relationship, behavior, or desire would be queer. The societal norm in the world is heteronormativity And can you guess what heteronormativity is?! YUP IT’S A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT—I mean, this entire discussion about sexuality and gender are as well. But heteronormativity is based on the attitude and belief that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality. It draws upon the ideology that gender is binary as in there’s only two genders that are opposite of one another woman and man, and that marital and sexual relations are only acceptable between one woman and one man as a pair; anything that falls outside of these traditional dynamics will likely be a challenging concept to accept and understand as being a normal part of human nature amongst the dominant group. Let me explain what cis-gender is— I want you to think about your birth certificate— well, let’s use mine for example, my sex on my birth certificate is female, and my gender identity is a woman— I live my life as a woman, I am a woman. Me being female and also being a woman —both of those align with traditional gender norms and assumptions— which means I am a cis gendered woman— I am not a trans individual. Same goes for a man if you are a male, and you identify as a man you are a cis gendered man meaning that you are not a trans person. The term cis gendered makes so many people angry, because they feel as though it’s a threat to their womanhood or manhood—actually now that I think about it, I have never heard of men being bothered by that term before, and maybe it’s because I’m not a man, however I see this conversation come up all the time with women. but let’s be real here, no one is calling you cis-gendered casually… if someone is referring to you in public, they aint sayin  “hey, you over there! cis Woman!”, you don’t see this in fitting rooms or bathrooms, it’s literally just a descriptor for clarification of gender identity. If the word cis is being used, it’s likely relevant to the conversation being had because trans women are women and trans men are men however they have different experiences around gender identity compared to cis gendered people. I really hope you all are following me here, and not getting frustrated with how verbiage has evolved. Remember, Society is forever evolving—and the more that we develop as a society and gain more information overtime, the better that we are able to embrace all of the differences that have been found within humanity since the beginning of time—the only difference is that we now have things like sociology —the social sciences and humanities to better understand various groups of people. Heteronormativity is something that most of the population upholds, it’s the assumed default. But it was not always this way, in an article entitled colonial impacts Yoruba gender and sexuality by Brianna Bellamy, says that Yoruba people—a group located in west Africa—mostly in present day Nigeria and other pre-colonial African societies within South Africa had very complex and differing ways of viewing gender and sexuality, which are now labeled as LGBTQ plus people in the west. This article argues that the present day homophobic rhetoric along with invasive policies, laws and societies being inherently anti-LGBTQ is a direct teaching of from European colonial and imperial Power that continues to influence countless societies today…even here in America. Colonization coupled with the indoctrination of religion is what prompted these shifts within societies—they specifically mentioned Christianity and the practice of Islam in this article. You know what? Ive noticed that a lot of people these days, especially millennials don’t label themselves as being religious despite being believers of Jesus Christ, going to church, or following the Bible. With that being said, let’s go off of the definition of what it means to be religious. The top three examples of what it means to be religious according to Webster: 1. a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 2. the service and worship of God or the supernatural. 3. Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance being a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with faith. In an article by populationeducation.org Pam Wasserman says that since the beginning of humanity, people have sought reasons for the creation of our world, and our intelligent species. This gave rise to structures of beliefs and practices that were related to defined as religion. French sociologist Émile Durkheim known as one of the trailblazers of sociology, specifically modern social science, believed that “religion is the most fundamental social institutions and in one form or another will always be a part of social life.” Let me give you some statistics for context: 85% of people around the world identify with a particular religion—and that’s a large amount of people! Especially considering that our population is Over 8 billion (and counting). The reason why I am mentioning religion here is, because we have to understand that with the majority of people within society being religious to some degree or capacity, easily raises the likelihood of there  being factors of homophobia, transphobia, violence, ostracization, and discrimination within a society. Colonialism, along with the teachings of religion for countless generations for many has a direct influence  on how other people in society are viewed and treated, and when I say other people, I mean those that do not align with the majority. I’m sure a lot of you have heard people say that same sex sexual encounters and/or romantic interactions were not a thing within African societies, but that is not true and it’s been documented. Bellamy states that same-sex relations were just a natural part of human interaction and was not condemned or frowned upon. There were even same sex romantic relationships found in Yoruba myths. The Yoruba people embraced a full spectrum of sexual practices which also included, homosexuality. What’s really interesting is that they viewed sexuality as such a normal thing similarly to how we view heterosexual people in Western Societies. But despite same-sex relations being normalized amongst these groups, they actually did not view it as a part of a person’s identity.. Which is ironic because that is IDENTICAL to how heterosexuality is within mainstream society. Non-heterosexual people within their communities were given the space to exist freely, so much so that it wasn’t necessary to correlate it to a person’s identity— and yet here in Western societies, LGBTQ people absolutely pair their sexuality with their identity, because of how much scrutiny is received about it by the dominant group. People will say that they don’t care about a person not being straight or trans while spewing anti-LGBTQ hate. Something else interesting about these findings was that they also had relationship dynamics that were not solely monogamous. cases of polygamous marriages which means that a person is married to more than one spouse at a time, let me add that it was not just men who had multiple wives, but in Northern Nigeria there were also some cases of women having multiple spouses. Also, cases of polyamorous unions were known to exist meaning one can carry on more than one romantic partnership at the same time—in some regions, those dynamics do still exist in small numbers. Actually, I know of a person from Senegal in West Africa whose father had or maybe still has 5 wives.. she has so many siblings! Now even though polygamy is illegal in every American state, polyamorous relationships—or ethical non-monogamous relationships were everyone in the relationship agrees to the unique dynamic are completely frowned upon in America, despite gaining more popularity for exploration amongst Millennials and Gen Z people. When I tell you, social constructs are so fascinating Because we’ve been taught that relationships have to be monogamous. They have to be heterosexual and the two people in those relationships have to be a woman or a man, and despite not everyone wanting to adhere to heteronormative, standards or beliefs most of us continue to follow these standards to avoid backlash from the dominant group. So do you dare to be different in a society that does not give space to you and the life that you choose to live? Or do you suppress it to blend in with the crowd is the question? Doesn’t all of this really make you wonder what our societies could’ve looked like had we not had these restrictions? It really would’ve been completely different! Okay! I feel really good about this episode, way too often I feel like I could’ve given you all more information in particular areas, but this one feels good, and hopefully you learned something new because I know I definitely learned a few new things while I was doing research for this episode. All of the things that I referenced are in the description box!  I also want to hear your thoughts about this episode— click that hyperlink below or shoot me a DM on Instagram. before you leave you subscribe, share, and rate this podcast if you haven’t done it already. I look forward to our next topic of discussion —until next time